Flashing Lights and Sounds
By Jedi-and
Disclaimer: I do not own TT, nor do I own Mr.Noel Collins or Robert Candide, but I DO own some of my own characters.
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Chapter 11: Murphy's Law
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"The events of the day. Today, I am going to die..."
A strange language was being written down in a tough leather-backed book with a lock on it. One clawed hand wrote in this demonic language, which translated, on this current sentence anyway, was... "It started when..."
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"DELETED!"
After finally fixing the time-skipping problem, life with the Titans had pretty much returned to normal. Or as normal as you can get with a group of costume clad teenage super heroes and a pregnant alien girl, who was, at this moment, trying to eat the fridge. She said it would save time from trying to remove everything and putting it onto a plate. Nigel made a bet with Gauntlet on what would happen first: Robin exploding at the sight of her eating the entire fridge, or her shirt giving way from all she was eating. It was a draw at the moment, as those maternity shirts sure had some give to them...
Raven and Noel however were not having so much fun, as they were, unfortunately, tied to the sofa and being forced to watch Powerpuff Girls. The whole incident started when Cyborg challenged Raven and Noel to their own little bet on who's poetry was better. Noel hastily accepted, because he knew Cyborg's poetic skills lacked in every department, while Noel had at least some writing ability.
Cyborg, being a lot smarter than he looks, didn't say that HE would be their opponent, and chose for them to go up against Beast Boy who, actually being in love as well, completely decimated Noel with a poem he wrote to Charm.
So now Raven was becoming seriously disillusioned, and has started to sing to herself to try and distract her senses from the screen, as Savior comments on how she sounded like the black haired Powerpuff girl. Cyborg loved their torment as just a few weeks before, Raven had 'eaten' one of his games and completely destroyed the Gamestation.
"Dear Robin, how do you type with boxing gloves on?" Robin read out loud. He paused for a moment. "Kids, THAT is why you shouldn't do drugs." And he made it as far as another strange email before he shouted "DELETED!"
Beast Boy was doing his thing and sweet talking Charm on the phone. Unlike the others, he tried not to publicise his little romance with her. After all, she did try and disable the Titans by very forceful means, and we all know someone else who tried the same thing and has to deal with not being trusted. However, this meant when the phone bill arrived, it was quite, how shall we say, expensive?
And so, life in the Titan world seemed as normal as it can be. Until the shouts of "Deleted!" stopped coming and Tim Drake, their ever-fearless leader, walked into the room with a printout.
"Hey guys? For once I got an email worth reading." He said as he sat down, only to see what was going on around him. This was home? It looked like he was in a mad house. "Titans!" He shouted, and within three seconds every Titan was on the sofas and their full attention was on their leader, not wanting to upset him in case they had a repeat of the whole Chronotron Destabiliser incident and he wanted to destroy them all. Plus, there hadn't been any villains for the past few weeks and they where bored out of their minds.
"What's the news boss? Any new villains?" Cyborg asked impatiently. Robin looked around the room to see some of the Titans had actually armed their weapons in excitement of something to do.
"'Fraid not." He said. He would have sweat dropped, but it was against this character. "We just got word that we have to take a diversity check to make sure we are evenly balanced out with the other groups around the world so as not to give the wrong image."
"Oh SCREW this affirmative action stuff. We should be on this team because we're QUALIFIED. Not because of our sex or skin colour! Goddamn fucking PC age, it's going to destroy us all." Noel growled. He wasn't in a good mood, and when he was in a good mood he ranted about humanity's failures, lazinesses, and flaws, and in that topic, he had an endless amount of things to rant about.
"Sorry Noel. It's the rules."
Noel just muttered a curse.
Robin paused as the others disappointedly put away their weapons. "Ok, so if you could state your skin colour and class we will get on with this." Robin wrote down 'White – many classes' for himself.
"Black, upper class." Cyborg spoke, leaning back on the sofa.
"White – without class!" Gauntlet called, standing up and posing. No one told him to get down or to stop the mad little dance he had started to do, though Noel muttered a few more things, as he had long ago learned he was in the minority on his opinion about Robert. It was entertainment to the others, and it was always good to see what would happen when he got to this state of pure boredom, an education experience indeed. Once he had stopped, they continued on.
"Light Grey – lower middle class." Nigel said, getting a few strange looks. "What? I'm not the only one who is grey here!" He pointed to Raven, who was actually a darker shade than he was.
"Orange – Aristocracy." Starfire said calmly with a yawn. Robin wasn't surprised, but everyone else in the room was, ranging from a little to extremely.
"White and upper class, and that doesn't define me in any way." Savior made his statement and leaned on the now rationalised Raven, trying to help out Starfire, because if they didn't continue on there would be a whole host of questions.
"Grey with no class." Raven said softly, trying to recover her mind from the torture of Cyborg. She had silently promised him death.
"Green and upper class! Oh yeah!" Beast Boy shouted, making himself heard.
"The next question is about age." Again he quickly filled in the blank besides his name and each went around giving their own details. After a few minuets of Noel stressing and Rob sleeping, they came across a question that didn't sit quite right.
"Is that everybody?" Robin asked. There was a nod. "Okay, what percentage of your group can swim?"
"...WHAT KIND OF BRAINLESS BURAEUCRAT IS WRITING THESE THINGS NOW! WHAT DOES IT MATTER WHO CAN SWIM! Isn't that why we recruited Aqualad? ARGH!" Noel yelled, and sank back into a simmering, sniping mood.
Everyone else's eyes shot straight to Nigel, who arched the back of his head and sweatdropped.
"I cannot swim." He stated plainly, hoping that no one would mind that fact.
"That reminds me." He heard a woman's voice next to him. His eyes widened a little.
"I forgot that I was meaning to teach you how to swim."
Nigel turned around slowly to see the slightly evil grin on Starfire's face. Or at least that's how he saw it, but to the others it was a perfectly innocent smile.
"Star, are you sure you..."
"I will be fine Robin, but do allow me the satisfaction of trying to teach Nigel. I feel I can help, greatly. But Gauntlet and Savior will be helping me." The pair stared at her in the same shock that Nigel had been wearing just a few moments before.
"Excuse me, since when did I become an aid in learning how to keep one's head above water?" Noel asked, not really wanting to spend time teaching a race that was designed NOT to go into the water IN THE FIRST PLACE go against eons of biological evolution and go into the water.
Kory just turned slowly around and did her best 'I'm going to cry now' face.
Cut to the present where the person, who is obviously now Nigel, finished up writing in his journal.
"And so today, Koriand'r of Tamaran, along side Robert Candide and Noel Collins of Earth, are about to help me die in what they call 'swimming lessons'."
A knock came on the door of the young alien.
"It's time; we have your 'death suit' here." Gauntlet said outside the closed door, holding a pair of black swim shorts. A loud growl came from inside the room.
"Not humorous Human!!" Nigel bellowed back, deathly scared out of his wits of what was just about to happen. He cracked open the door and snatched the swimwear and slammed it shut again. A moment later he came back out in the swim shorts, a T-shirt and his hat, along with three small boxes. As he walked past, Beast Boy started to play the funeral march on a kazzo, and Cyborg saluted the soon-to-be wet Blacktrinian, a very unnerving joke by the pair of them.
And so he arrived at the indoor pool. He was starting to get more and more scared, but tried to hide it as much as possible. The problem was that in situations of stress and when extreme emotions are concerned, a Blacktrinian's eyes glow. Luckily his weren't glowing yet...until he saw the water. Then they were.
"Please try and calm down." Starfire said, slipping into the pool. "This part of the indoor ocean is shallow, so you can stand up in it."
Before Nigel did so though, he passed the three boxes to the people who were teaching him. They opened them: they had little gem shards in them.
"A gift to my killers?" He joked out of desperation, before removing his hat, his spiky hair springing up. He then removed his shirt, revealing his build and some rather nasty looking scars. His build was quite developed, but not overly large. It was more toned and thin. One of the scars on his body was a wide line going down from his chest to his toned stomach: this was the stab wound that Savior gave him when fighting Myth, and which still looked as if it hadn't healed. And considering that was over five months ago, that's considerable. Noel also had his own scar from when he stabbed himself during the whole Trigon thing, but if you read Black and White you would have known that.
Nigel knelt down and felt the temperature of the water. It was cold, and he backed away a little. Noel knew this was going to take some time. The whole idea to him that he could go into water on his own and come out alive must have seemed impossible, so Noel gave his patience a quick polish and waited.
Rob, unfortunately, wasn't as enduring and after a moment or two he put his foot on Nigel's back and pushed him in. The Blacktrinian landed in the water, only to reappear a moment or two later, clutching for dear life onto the set of steps people use to get out of the pool, gasping for air. Unfortunately the Titans now needed new swimming pool steps as he did crush them a little.
"I HATE YOU ALL HUMANS!" He roared, trying to regain his composure.
"ROBERT! THIS ISN'T LIKE SHOVING SOMEONE WHO WON'T GO IN BECAUSE HE FINDS THE WATER TOO COLD! HIS SPECIES IS BIOLOGICALLY ADVERSE TO WATER! YOU COULD HAVE DROWNED HIM! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, USE THAT BLOODY IOTA OF COMMON SENSE YOU STILL POSSESS!" Noel roared. Nigel felt better.
Across the way, at the edge of the pool, Raven stood with her cloak hood down as she scanned the actions of the group. If it wasn't so cruel, she might have laughed at Nigel's floundering, and Noel trying to help him with the Shimmer, and Nigel accidentally cutting the Shimmer a bit with his claws, causing Noel to jerk and then fall into the water, much to Robert's amusement.
Oh what the heck, she stifled a laugh all the same. The green changeling known as Beast Boy walked next to her, beaming at the whole event.
"Ahh, the wonders of being able to swim." Beast Boy chuckled. Not only could he swim in human form, but he had all those aquatic forms to choose from as well, ranging from sea snakes and pikes, to whales and clown fish.
Raven turned away from him and looked in a random direction, an ever so slight blush on her face. The fact she was blushing and her silence meant only one thing. Beast Boy pointed at her with an amused expression on his features.
"You can't swim!" He shouted. Raven's eyes widened. She was a half demon, she didn't NEED to swim! Well she could float and tread water, but not properly swim. Besides, swimming demons had little or no respectability and she would be laughed at rather than feared.
Gar, never being one for subtlety, breathed in, ready to shout out the news. Raven, not wanting to join in the swim lesson, took a bottle from her cloak that she had borrowed from Nigel's office and soaked a cloth with it before replacing the lid on the bottle and reaching up with it to Beast Boy's mouth.
Five minutes later she was dressed in her swimsuit, clinging onto the edge of the pool, looking a little annoyed.
"That is what you get for Chloroforming Beast Boy." Nigel commented, glad he wasn't the only person in the tower with a label, and that label was a large red L plate in regards to swimming ability
"So much for that plan." She replied. "Any ideas how to get out of this?"
"Indeed. One of us pretends to drown while the other runs away."
"Well let us not be sad, for now we have two people to teach the joys of swimming." Starfire tried to reassure them, walking across the bottom of the pool. Noel was now looking far more interested now as well. The two grey skinned teens looked a little worried, to say the least.
Let the lessons begin!
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"Are we all here? Good! I have heard a few rumours! Some about new Titans, some about older ones!" A middle-aged man with a lot of his hair missing shouted, like the news editor he was, to his staff about a recent article. "I want this rumour substantiated." He called, the disfigured cigar handing from his lips.
"Right away!" They called.
"Now I want you to find as much information as you can, and look into this Starfire pregnancy rumour. I personally think its a load of baloney, but check it out all the same!" He pointed to his young journalists.
"Yes boss!" They responded.
"Remember, we need the information for a two page spread, so get everything you can!" They all stood and made their way to the door. Ah, the mass media: prying into your life and secrets and telling them for the world to judge and mock, all in the name of the...well, it's one of the Amendments, don't get mad at me for not knowing, I'm English and I don't know American laws. I know one and that states you can shoot anyone on your property... anyway, on with the story.
Outside the room, the elevator doors opened slowly with a chime as a pair of talon-like feet stepped out. They were light metallic silver with two clawed toes that clicked on the hard marble finish floor.
The figure stood there for a moment or two, everyone in the office too busy to notice her, which was fine, I suppose. With the entire bustle, there was an element of calmness floating through the air, everyone wandering with a purpose and working in harmony. Several conversations at once while doing three things that you were not even aware you where doing seemed to be normal. It was like watching a beehive, but then again this person didn't watch beehives, she didn't even know or care what a bee was. The men and women came from the room that the editor had been yelling in and stopped dead as the figure's dark eyes stared them down, a pair of dark sclera with yellow irises.
"Who the hell are you?!" A young woman in a suit asked briefly, before taking in the outfit of the newcomer. She was dressed in mainly pure white.
And before any more of it could be described something happened.
The woman stopped breathing.
And the figure held up a pair of blood soaked talons.
Nothing happened for a moment or two, until a scream came from behind the woman as her throat exploded in a fine spray, coating the figure in white and everything behind her in a fine mist of crimson. Not even a flinch occurred from the attacker, from this vicious murder: she just moved forward. Someone probably would have heard something downstairs and called the police, if they weren't already dead, their blood soaking their suits and ties like cheap dye.
Screams and yells erupted from the room, loud enough to be heard from the building across the street, or at least it would have been if there had not been an convenient accident outside, in which police sirens were wailing and car alarms were going off left and right with people honking their horns. It just seemed to be her lucky day didn't it?
But it mattered not anyway, because soon there was just silence in the building. And the figure knew silence: her large ears could have heard a bug on the window. There were no more voices. Nothing for a moment or two...until the rustle of a piece of dried paper being crushed went under her sharp toes caught her ears.
Kneeling down, she lifted up a picture taken awhile ago, when there was plenty for the Titans to do. But she wasn't interested in the rest of them, just one of them...
A slight clank of something or other caught her attention. There was still one person alive. Taking the picture, she made her way slowly to where the sound was, and indeed there was a young man left, cowering under the desk for fear of his life with a deep slash across his chest. She hadn't missed him the first time, but she had presumed she had cut deep enough and that he was dead. Apparently not.
"Where do I find these people?" She said, showing him the photo. Her accent was thick and very strange sounding. It had an almost German twinge to it, but she was obviously not German.
"T-They are the Titans! They are the p-protectors of this city!" He whimpered, fear gripping his throat.
"That is not answering my question." She said, as she grabbed him and lifted him from under the desk with one clawed hand, holding him up above her. She may have only been around five foot six, but she acted as if she was seven feet tall.
"In the tower! The one shaped like a 'T'!" He gasped..
"Good."
Her wrist shook slightly, and a loud, dull crack rang through the air as he fell to the floor, limp and lifeless. The figure walked to the window and saw, on the horizon, the Titan Tower.
"This will be easier than I thought." She said, an ever-familiar lisp coming across her lips as she grinned, a large double fanged tooth shining out amongst the rest of her teeth. She reared back a little and jumped out the window, landing on top of a building across the four-lane street as if it was jumping a small gap around a foot wide.
Time to make herself heard...
"Hold it right there."
A voice, cool and calm, came from behind her. She didn't turn, she had no need to, however she did halt just so she could hear whatever worthless words he wanted to say before she acted.
"There seems to be a lot of blood on you, and a lot of blood on the floor where you just came from. Mind explaining?" He said, his voice tense with barely controlled anger, she noted, as she pushed the now fully visible hat up a little with the clawed thumb she had. It was a large, Crocodile Dundee style hat, but the top was longer, more elongated and almost like that of a wizard, however it curled forward rather than back with a large band at its base. The woman in the hat stood high and mighty, an air of arrogance around her.
"Your point being?" She asked, her head turning slightly so her long pointed ears aimed more in the man's direction.
"I think you did something that wasn't...quite...right."
Now she turned, finally in full view, and it was painfully obvious that she was a fighter: armour glinted in the sun as blood trickled down the shells on her shoulders, black hair fluttering in the wind as her mouth cracked open to form a sadistic smile, a smile full of sharp dangerous teeth, red fluids seeping down her nose slightly.
"I think it's time we had a little talk, young man."
"The name is Robin." Robin replied. He looked a bit like he was smiling too, until you realized in was just his teeth clenched in great rage at the murders this woman had just committed. "I hope you remember it, as you'll be telling it to the cops as the one that caught you."
"Foolish human." She shook her head slightly, not looking at all ready for a fight.
This arrogance would cost her, as she didn't expect Robin to attack head on, swinging with his staff. He struck her across the face, forcing her back a few steps. As she was trying to regain her balance, Robin followed up by slashing out his staff in an upward arc, catching her under the chin and knocking her flat on her back.
"You aren't as good as you think you are." The leader of the Titans said, as he stood over her triumphantly. It had been a good idea to take a stroll around the city during the swimming lessons: he'd caught a murderer in the act.
A low growl escaped her lips as she spun back up to her feet and stared him down again. There was a pause. Robin didn't know whether to be unimpressed or bored. He had seen many of his foes stand back up after a few blows.
"We have only just begun human." She snarled, as she lashed out and batted him away with the back of her clawed hand, sending the Titan flying back quite a way, but he eventually managed to right himself before he hit the edge of the building and flew off onto empty air. His eyes narrowed on the figure...and then in very little time at all they widened again as she produced some form of gun, a short stubby, white thing with a long tub going along the top edge of it while the guard protected the whole hand, not just the index finger like Earth guns. She pulled the trigger and a shot of what looked like a capsule came forth.
Robin just managed to dodge, barely, but it caught his staff and broke on contact. There was a pause before the staff started to melt away, forcing him to drop it before it melted part of his arm with it. Another smirk came upon the attacker's face before she lunged forward and sliced with her claws, catching Robin across the chest before she spun around and kicked him away so he spun in a corkscrew style through the air and landed awkwardly on the floor. She laughed to herself as he regained his composure and his footing.
It was his turn to launch the attack, sending in a left after a right jab. However, the talons of the opposition caught both, and she quickly kneed him in the gut before pushing his face away while still holding his clenched fists, bending him back and causing pain to go screaming through his spine as it protested this contortion. After a few moments of this, she threw him away to slide across the rooftop. He quickly stood up again. Surprised? This was Robin we were talking about, he wouldn't go down even if you shot him...
"You will not get rid of me so easily." He snapped, as he repositioned himself in one of the many martial arts' style stances he knew.
"Cocky little Altrack! You will regret toying with the Empire." She said, as she lunged forward again, before suddenly jumping up and doing a very familiar kick. Namely Nigel's Falkla kick, but unlike when Nigel tried it, this one actually connected and sent the teen flying again across the roof.
If you haven't guessed it by now, I may as well tell you she is a Blacktrinian, but I thought I'd let you try and work it out for yourself. Come on, it really wasn't that obscure.
Robin, now a little dazed, wondered why the claw like toes of his opponent hadn't made two large holes in his head. The answer was the way she stood. She stood on her toes with her heels off the floor. And actually, compared to Nigel's claws, hers were different: his were segmented with little spikes that overlapped onto the back of the hands and feet, while hers where just two un-segmented digits on each limb with no excess overlapping. The point I'm trying to make is that when she kicked him, her toes were parallel to his face, as it was the comfortable position for her.
"You really pack a punch, but I think you have underestimated..." Robin said. But that was too much talking, as he was cut off by a quick kick to his gut that lifted him off the floor. She then grabbed his cape and swung him into the floor again, making sure he felt it this time in spite of his body armour, as she made sure he went face first. She made sure he stayed down by pressing one foot down onto his head. The Blacktrinian then pulled the photo out of her pocket that she had before and showed it to him.
"Tell me, where do I find Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock?" She said, as showed the picture of the Titans with Nigel on the end and Robin nearest the camera. She had moved down slightly, so she was holding his head down with her spare hand, forcing him to look at the photo.
And despite his overwhelming urge to hand Nigel over to this psycho, he didn't want to endanger the other Titans. Besides, even if Nigel has done him wrong, he didn't deserve the fate in store from this unknown attacker. For once he did him a favour. Fancy that.
"I don't know any Nickelback Havezionfarwalk!" He shouted back, though muddling the name quite extensively. What do you expect from a human tongue? "And even if I did, why would I tell you?"
She lifted his head a little and slammed it down onto the hard rooftop.
"Do not play the fool and martyr with me young human, I have eaten things that have put up more fight than you did. It would be in your best interests to tell me." She pauses as the sun started to get in her eyes a little and she growled again. She held up her hand to block scorching orb. "Ugh, even this setting sun is too bright for me, how do you creatures live with such illumination...." Just so you know, the home world where she came from was a very dark place indeed, one out of every 50 days was sun, the rest where dark rain clouds or overcast shadows. But back to the action.
"Alright... Alright..." He paused, trying to fool her as his hand slowly made it down to his tool belt, hoping that she wouldn't notice. She didn't, she was too busy trying to block out the sun with her talons, and he pressed a button on his belt calling the others for help silently. But it wasn't as silent as he wished, for the foe's ears twitched and her head snapped towards what he had done. A growl came from her as she threw him across the roof again, pocketing the photo.
"I warned you not to play games human; I decided to go easy and spare your life if you helped me. You turned it down. Bad choice human, bad choice."
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Back at the tower, all the bells and whistles were going off as the alarm hollered throughout the building. The three wet male Titans ran up the stairs to the alarm, which Cyborg had just started to work the machine. They were all fully dressed when they got there (the lesson was just finishing anyway).
"We have a big problem. Fearless is getting his head kicked in. I'm pinpointing his position now." The map on the screen shot to his position on the rooftop with another red marker depicting the enemy.
"Who is it?" Gauntlet asked.
"The question should be who could it be? Not many people can knock Robin around like a rag doll." Noel commented. "Is it anyone we know?" There was a pause and a few blips.
"Nope, someone new. Let me punch up a vid-link." Cyborg said, getting a picture of the attacker. Nigel gasped and stepped back, a look of utter fear on his face. The attacker moved closer to Robin, but her ears twitched and she turned around, looking straight at the floating camera. She pulled that strange gun from her back again and aimed it, firing quickly and destroying the camera. There was a pause as they turned to the deathly afraid Blacktrinian.
"It can't be..." He muttered in his native tongue, his eyes as wide as saucers. Cyborg pulled up the image of the attacker before she shot the camera.
"Yo Nige, what's up? Why does she work you up so much?" Cyborg questioned, turning from the monitor to the newest Titan.
"Unless we think of something, within twenty four hours we will all be dead." He said. He shook his head slightly, unable to think, unable to do anything. The others gave a slightly confused expression and tried to calm him down. He was now muttering pure gibberish, things they had no clue about.
"Slow down Nigel, whoa. Calm down." Noel put his hand on his shoulder to try and reassure him. It took the Titans around five minutes to just get him to speak English. Once he was a little more himself, they started to ask him questions.
"Who is this person?" Raven asked. She had arrived and tried to help calm down the stressed out Scalpel as well, though she was still a little wet and annoyed.
"She is a member of the Blacktrinian armed forces. She is a part of an elite squad known as the White Holes. They are, put very simple, military police. This one is Rebecalnatrac Styilnifanalan. I suppose Rebecca Styles would be the closest you can get to it in English."
"So they are MPs, no big problem." Gauntlet called, turning around and walking away. "Give me five minutes and I'll have her down."
"Foolish human!" The Blacktrinian snapped. "What do you expect to do?!"
"Well seeing as you are average for your race and seeing as we defeated you..."
"What on the five moons of Gidium gave you that idea?" He demanded. This took the others a little by surprise.
"Back up a little, what exactly is wrong?" Cyborg asked, starting to get a little more concerned about their situation. Nigel sat there for a moment or two, thinking what he could, should and must do. There is indeed a difference between these; could do is where you think of all possibilities, should do is the things that would seem right in your mind, and must do is what feels natural due to your instincts. Unfortunately all three pointed to a way that he didn't much enjoy.
Leaping to his feet and walking over to the consol. A few strange looks came across him at this newfound determination as he pressed a few buttons. "I said before you would be dead within five minutes if you ever met a proper soldier. That's not just a proper soldier, she's one of the best of the best. Robin has been going for around ten and that's about 8 minutes of borrowed time. Stay here. This is something I have to deal with."
And with that he slammed his fist down onto the consol and the security systems activated, metal shutters coming down across the windows and the outer doors locking tightly. Nigel turned around and spirited towards a window as this happened and jumped, smashing the glass. Savior tried to follow but the shutters were coming down and he was pulled out the way by Gauntlet. Nigel had actually sealed them inside their own home. The question was, is this to stop them, or protect them?
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"You humans are such wonderful punching bags." The Blacktrinian, now known as Rebecca, said as she slammed another kick into the Teen Wonder, sending him back a little more so he now balanced precariously on the edge, too dazed to even counter or to grab ahold of something if he fell. "But alas, your company grows tiresome and I have a lot of work to do." She added. She pulled back for a large final kick, this one aimed to pierce a lung or two.
"Styilnifanalan!" A shout came from behind her, as well as the sound of something snapping into place. She gave a smirk and turned to see Nigel, armed and ready with his glaive.
"Looks like my job won't take as long as I thought." She replied in her natural tone. "Why on the home-world they want ME, the leader of the White Holes, to deal with you I have no idea." She rasped in the growling Blacktrinian language. Her arrogance was even more evident in her own language, as she flicked her hair out slightly and laughed.
"Shut the hell up!" Nigel replied in his tongue, as her smirk faded. "I'm surprised you would even waste your time coming here to find me. What, the empire didn't want to get their claws dirty again?"
"Probably. If it makes you feel any better I don't really want to be here, but hell, I was told to come here and seeing as I'm here now I may as well do my job." She said, as she fiddled with her earring lightly before turning her attention back to him. "So you gonna come quietly?"
"No damn chance." He spat. By this time Robin looked very confused about what they were conversing about. "Earth is my home now."
"Pity." She said in English, and leapt forward and slashed at him with her claws. Luckily, he managed to get the glaive up in time, but it wasn't enough as she quickly slammed a foot into his side, knocking him away. Nigel quickly countered and slashed at the ankles of Rebecca, but she jumped and grabbed the glaive, throwing him over her head and down onto the hard concrete. Robin got up and tried to attack her, but she performed a backhanded swipe that almost broke his jaw and cut his lip off before she followed up with a kick to the neck. She would have followed up with another, more fatal, blow, however two familiar clawed hands wrapped around her middle and lifted her up and back, doing an all too familiar German suplex with her on the receiving end. Chris Benoit, eat your heart out
Nigel quickly flipped back up and retrieved his glaive.
"A battle move I learned while on earth." He commented, a stern look across his features. Far more quickly then he would have liked, the White Hole stood up, and extended what looked like some form of old style mace, with the expression of someone who is very much unimpressed.
"You are weaker than advertised. Living among humans has softened your abilities. And now I am bored and hungry so I think I'll finish this quickly." Rebecca said. In her other clawed hand she produced another gun. Unlike the first one, which was relatively straight, this was more pointed and looked like it was made up of some form of cone strapped to a couple of cylinders and an orb.
She threw her hand up and shot, catching Robin off guard and in the shoulder, knocking him back, and then she quickly re-aimed and shot Nigel in the other shoulder. Unlike the first gun, this had small thin bullets in it rather than gel capsules. She ran forward, grabbed Robin's foot, pulled it out from under him, and taking hold of it, she lifted it into the air and kicked the knee joint of the foot that was still on the floor outwards in a way that it shouldn't bend. The mercenary then grabbed his ankle and tried to throw him into Scalpel, but he managed to dodge the, er, Robindoken, and swung his glaive. He missed, and in the process overextended himself so much that he stuck it in the floor, and she countered by grabbing it with her feet and flicking it up to her hands, taking hold of it. Nigel, with nothing left to support his still forward motion, fell on the floor.
And she brought the glaive down and through him, causing him to yell in pain.
She just laughed. She twisted the blade a little, causing him to squirm and holler even more, trying to escape something he could not, as the blade had passed through him and into the rooftop. Nigel clawed long swaths onto the stone as he furiously tried to get away. His race may be immune to serious harms from blades inside and out, but they were not immune to pain, and this woman knew exactly how to use that immunity to hurt him, as she twisted the strange glaive, wrapping his organs around like when you turn a fork in spaghetti. And no matter where you are from or what innate biological gifts or protection you have, that has got to hurt.
There was a sadistic smile on her face as she turned the blade...a smile that soon faded as her ears once again twitched and she sidestepped a blue blast that shot across her shoulder. She turned, her yellow eyes focusing on who fired it.
"Yo, big shot! Let's see you fight all of us!"
=======================
Looks like the Titans are screwed in the most royal of ways.
Nigel: See you in the next chapter... I hope. Ow...what sick Clive Barker fantasy did you get THIS move from, my author...
By Jedi-and
Disclaimer: I do not own TT, nor do I own Mr.Noel Collins or Robert Candide, but I DO own some of my own characters.
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Chapter 11: Murphy's Law
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"The events of the day. Today, I am going to die..."
A strange language was being written down in a tough leather-backed book with a lock on it. One clawed hand wrote in this demonic language, which translated, on this current sentence anyway, was... "It started when..."
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"DELETED!"
After finally fixing the time-skipping problem, life with the Titans had pretty much returned to normal. Or as normal as you can get with a group of costume clad teenage super heroes and a pregnant alien girl, who was, at this moment, trying to eat the fridge. She said it would save time from trying to remove everything and putting it onto a plate. Nigel made a bet with Gauntlet on what would happen first: Robin exploding at the sight of her eating the entire fridge, or her shirt giving way from all she was eating. It was a draw at the moment, as those maternity shirts sure had some give to them...
Raven and Noel however were not having so much fun, as they were, unfortunately, tied to the sofa and being forced to watch Powerpuff Girls. The whole incident started when Cyborg challenged Raven and Noel to their own little bet on who's poetry was better. Noel hastily accepted, because he knew Cyborg's poetic skills lacked in every department, while Noel had at least some writing ability.
Cyborg, being a lot smarter than he looks, didn't say that HE would be their opponent, and chose for them to go up against Beast Boy who, actually being in love as well, completely decimated Noel with a poem he wrote to Charm.
So now Raven was becoming seriously disillusioned, and has started to sing to herself to try and distract her senses from the screen, as Savior comments on how she sounded like the black haired Powerpuff girl. Cyborg loved their torment as just a few weeks before, Raven had 'eaten' one of his games and completely destroyed the Gamestation.
"Dear Robin, how do you type with boxing gloves on?" Robin read out loud. He paused for a moment. "Kids, THAT is why you shouldn't do drugs." And he made it as far as another strange email before he shouted "DELETED!"
Beast Boy was doing his thing and sweet talking Charm on the phone. Unlike the others, he tried not to publicise his little romance with her. After all, she did try and disable the Titans by very forceful means, and we all know someone else who tried the same thing and has to deal with not being trusted. However, this meant when the phone bill arrived, it was quite, how shall we say, expensive?
And so, life in the Titan world seemed as normal as it can be. Until the shouts of "Deleted!" stopped coming and Tim Drake, their ever-fearless leader, walked into the room with a printout.
"Hey guys? For once I got an email worth reading." He said as he sat down, only to see what was going on around him. This was home? It looked like he was in a mad house. "Titans!" He shouted, and within three seconds every Titan was on the sofas and their full attention was on their leader, not wanting to upset him in case they had a repeat of the whole Chronotron Destabiliser incident and he wanted to destroy them all. Plus, there hadn't been any villains for the past few weeks and they where bored out of their minds.
"What's the news boss? Any new villains?" Cyborg asked impatiently. Robin looked around the room to see some of the Titans had actually armed their weapons in excitement of something to do.
"'Fraid not." He said. He would have sweat dropped, but it was against this character. "We just got word that we have to take a diversity check to make sure we are evenly balanced out with the other groups around the world so as not to give the wrong image."
"Oh SCREW this affirmative action stuff. We should be on this team because we're QUALIFIED. Not because of our sex or skin colour! Goddamn fucking PC age, it's going to destroy us all." Noel growled. He wasn't in a good mood, and when he was in a good mood he ranted about humanity's failures, lazinesses, and flaws, and in that topic, he had an endless amount of things to rant about.
"Sorry Noel. It's the rules."
Noel just muttered a curse.
Robin paused as the others disappointedly put away their weapons. "Ok, so if you could state your skin colour and class we will get on with this." Robin wrote down 'White – many classes' for himself.
"Black, upper class." Cyborg spoke, leaning back on the sofa.
"White – without class!" Gauntlet called, standing up and posing. No one told him to get down or to stop the mad little dance he had started to do, though Noel muttered a few more things, as he had long ago learned he was in the minority on his opinion about Robert. It was entertainment to the others, and it was always good to see what would happen when he got to this state of pure boredom, an education experience indeed. Once he had stopped, they continued on.
"Light Grey – lower middle class." Nigel said, getting a few strange looks. "What? I'm not the only one who is grey here!" He pointed to Raven, who was actually a darker shade than he was.
"Orange – Aristocracy." Starfire said calmly with a yawn. Robin wasn't surprised, but everyone else in the room was, ranging from a little to extremely.
"White and upper class, and that doesn't define me in any way." Savior made his statement and leaned on the now rationalised Raven, trying to help out Starfire, because if they didn't continue on there would be a whole host of questions.
"Grey with no class." Raven said softly, trying to recover her mind from the torture of Cyborg. She had silently promised him death.
"Green and upper class! Oh yeah!" Beast Boy shouted, making himself heard.
"The next question is about age." Again he quickly filled in the blank besides his name and each went around giving their own details. After a few minuets of Noel stressing and Rob sleeping, they came across a question that didn't sit quite right.
"Is that everybody?" Robin asked. There was a nod. "Okay, what percentage of your group can swim?"
"...WHAT KIND OF BRAINLESS BURAEUCRAT IS WRITING THESE THINGS NOW! WHAT DOES IT MATTER WHO CAN SWIM! Isn't that why we recruited Aqualad? ARGH!" Noel yelled, and sank back into a simmering, sniping mood.
Everyone else's eyes shot straight to Nigel, who arched the back of his head and sweatdropped.
"I cannot swim." He stated plainly, hoping that no one would mind that fact.
"That reminds me." He heard a woman's voice next to him. His eyes widened a little.
"I forgot that I was meaning to teach you how to swim."
Nigel turned around slowly to see the slightly evil grin on Starfire's face. Or at least that's how he saw it, but to the others it was a perfectly innocent smile.
"Star, are you sure you..."
"I will be fine Robin, but do allow me the satisfaction of trying to teach Nigel. I feel I can help, greatly. But Gauntlet and Savior will be helping me." The pair stared at her in the same shock that Nigel had been wearing just a few moments before.
"Excuse me, since when did I become an aid in learning how to keep one's head above water?" Noel asked, not really wanting to spend time teaching a race that was designed NOT to go into the water IN THE FIRST PLACE go against eons of biological evolution and go into the water.
Kory just turned slowly around and did her best 'I'm going to cry now' face.
Cut to the present where the person, who is obviously now Nigel, finished up writing in his journal.
"And so today, Koriand'r of Tamaran, along side Robert Candide and Noel Collins of Earth, are about to help me die in what they call 'swimming lessons'."
A knock came on the door of the young alien.
"It's time; we have your 'death suit' here." Gauntlet said outside the closed door, holding a pair of black swim shorts. A loud growl came from inside the room.
"Not humorous Human!!" Nigel bellowed back, deathly scared out of his wits of what was just about to happen. He cracked open the door and snatched the swimwear and slammed it shut again. A moment later he came back out in the swim shorts, a T-shirt and his hat, along with three small boxes. As he walked past, Beast Boy started to play the funeral march on a kazzo, and Cyborg saluted the soon-to-be wet Blacktrinian, a very unnerving joke by the pair of them.
And so he arrived at the indoor pool. He was starting to get more and more scared, but tried to hide it as much as possible. The problem was that in situations of stress and when extreme emotions are concerned, a Blacktrinian's eyes glow. Luckily his weren't glowing yet...until he saw the water. Then they were.
"Please try and calm down." Starfire said, slipping into the pool. "This part of the indoor ocean is shallow, so you can stand up in it."
Before Nigel did so though, he passed the three boxes to the people who were teaching him. They opened them: they had little gem shards in them.
"A gift to my killers?" He joked out of desperation, before removing his hat, his spiky hair springing up. He then removed his shirt, revealing his build and some rather nasty looking scars. His build was quite developed, but not overly large. It was more toned and thin. One of the scars on his body was a wide line going down from his chest to his toned stomach: this was the stab wound that Savior gave him when fighting Myth, and which still looked as if it hadn't healed. And considering that was over five months ago, that's considerable. Noel also had his own scar from when he stabbed himself during the whole Trigon thing, but if you read Black and White you would have known that.
Nigel knelt down and felt the temperature of the water. It was cold, and he backed away a little. Noel knew this was going to take some time. The whole idea to him that he could go into water on his own and come out alive must have seemed impossible, so Noel gave his patience a quick polish and waited.
Rob, unfortunately, wasn't as enduring and after a moment or two he put his foot on Nigel's back and pushed him in. The Blacktrinian landed in the water, only to reappear a moment or two later, clutching for dear life onto the set of steps people use to get out of the pool, gasping for air. Unfortunately the Titans now needed new swimming pool steps as he did crush them a little.
"I HATE YOU ALL HUMANS!" He roared, trying to regain his composure.
"ROBERT! THIS ISN'T LIKE SHOVING SOMEONE WHO WON'T GO IN BECAUSE HE FINDS THE WATER TOO COLD! HIS SPECIES IS BIOLOGICALLY ADVERSE TO WATER! YOU COULD HAVE DROWNED HIM! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, USE THAT BLOODY IOTA OF COMMON SENSE YOU STILL POSSESS!" Noel roared. Nigel felt better.
Across the way, at the edge of the pool, Raven stood with her cloak hood down as she scanned the actions of the group. If it wasn't so cruel, she might have laughed at Nigel's floundering, and Noel trying to help him with the Shimmer, and Nigel accidentally cutting the Shimmer a bit with his claws, causing Noel to jerk and then fall into the water, much to Robert's amusement.
Oh what the heck, she stifled a laugh all the same. The green changeling known as Beast Boy walked next to her, beaming at the whole event.
"Ahh, the wonders of being able to swim." Beast Boy chuckled. Not only could he swim in human form, but he had all those aquatic forms to choose from as well, ranging from sea snakes and pikes, to whales and clown fish.
Raven turned away from him and looked in a random direction, an ever so slight blush on her face. The fact she was blushing and her silence meant only one thing. Beast Boy pointed at her with an amused expression on his features.
"You can't swim!" He shouted. Raven's eyes widened. She was a half demon, she didn't NEED to swim! Well she could float and tread water, but not properly swim. Besides, swimming demons had little or no respectability and she would be laughed at rather than feared.
Gar, never being one for subtlety, breathed in, ready to shout out the news. Raven, not wanting to join in the swim lesson, took a bottle from her cloak that she had borrowed from Nigel's office and soaked a cloth with it before replacing the lid on the bottle and reaching up with it to Beast Boy's mouth.
Five minutes later she was dressed in her swimsuit, clinging onto the edge of the pool, looking a little annoyed.
"That is what you get for Chloroforming Beast Boy." Nigel commented, glad he wasn't the only person in the tower with a label, and that label was a large red L plate in regards to swimming ability
"So much for that plan." She replied. "Any ideas how to get out of this?"
"Indeed. One of us pretends to drown while the other runs away."
"Well let us not be sad, for now we have two people to teach the joys of swimming." Starfire tried to reassure them, walking across the bottom of the pool. Noel was now looking far more interested now as well. The two grey skinned teens looked a little worried, to say the least.
Let the lessons begin!
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"Are we all here? Good! I have heard a few rumours! Some about new Titans, some about older ones!" A middle-aged man with a lot of his hair missing shouted, like the news editor he was, to his staff about a recent article. "I want this rumour substantiated." He called, the disfigured cigar handing from his lips.
"Right away!" They called.
"Now I want you to find as much information as you can, and look into this Starfire pregnancy rumour. I personally think its a load of baloney, but check it out all the same!" He pointed to his young journalists.
"Yes boss!" They responded.
"Remember, we need the information for a two page spread, so get everything you can!" They all stood and made their way to the door. Ah, the mass media: prying into your life and secrets and telling them for the world to judge and mock, all in the name of the...well, it's one of the Amendments, don't get mad at me for not knowing, I'm English and I don't know American laws. I know one and that states you can shoot anyone on your property... anyway, on with the story.
Outside the room, the elevator doors opened slowly with a chime as a pair of talon-like feet stepped out. They were light metallic silver with two clawed toes that clicked on the hard marble finish floor.
The figure stood there for a moment or two, everyone in the office too busy to notice her, which was fine, I suppose. With the entire bustle, there was an element of calmness floating through the air, everyone wandering with a purpose and working in harmony. Several conversations at once while doing three things that you were not even aware you where doing seemed to be normal. It was like watching a beehive, but then again this person didn't watch beehives, she didn't even know or care what a bee was. The men and women came from the room that the editor had been yelling in and stopped dead as the figure's dark eyes stared them down, a pair of dark sclera with yellow irises.
"Who the hell are you?!" A young woman in a suit asked briefly, before taking in the outfit of the newcomer. She was dressed in mainly pure white.
And before any more of it could be described something happened.
The woman stopped breathing.
And the figure held up a pair of blood soaked talons.
Nothing happened for a moment or two, until a scream came from behind the woman as her throat exploded in a fine spray, coating the figure in white and everything behind her in a fine mist of crimson. Not even a flinch occurred from the attacker, from this vicious murder: she just moved forward. Someone probably would have heard something downstairs and called the police, if they weren't already dead, their blood soaking their suits and ties like cheap dye.
Screams and yells erupted from the room, loud enough to be heard from the building across the street, or at least it would have been if there had not been an convenient accident outside, in which police sirens were wailing and car alarms were going off left and right with people honking their horns. It just seemed to be her lucky day didn't it?
But it mattered not anyway, because soon there was just silence in the building. And the figure knew silence: her large ears could have heard a bug on the window. There were no more voices. Nothing for a moment or two...until the rustle of a piece of dried paper being crushed went under her sharp toes caught her ears.
Kneeling down, she lifted up a picture taken awhile ago, when there was plenty for the Titans to do. But she wasn't interested in the rest of them, just one of them...
A slight clank of something or other caught her attention. There was still one person alive. Taking the picture, she made her way slowly to where the sound was, and indeed there was a young man left, cowering under the desk for fear of his life with a deep slash across his chest. She hadn't missed him the first time, but she had presumed she had cut deep enough and that he was dead. Apparently not.
"Where do I find these people?" She said, showing him the photo. Her accent was thick and very strange sounding. It had an almost German twinge to it, but she was obviously not German.
"T-They are the Titans! They are the p-protectors of this city!" He whimpered, fear gripping his throat.
"That is not answering my question." She said, as she grabbed him and lifted him from under the desk with one clawed hand, holding him up above her. She may have only been around five foot six, but she acted as if she was seven feet tall.
"In the tower! The one shaped like a 'T'!" He gasped..
"Good."
Her wrist shook slightly, and a loud, dull crack rang through the air as he fell to the floor, limp and lifeless. The figure walked to the window and saw, on the horizon, the Titan Tower.
"This will be easier than I thought." She said, an ever-familiar lisp coming across her lips as she grinned, a large double fanged tooth shining out amongst the rest of her teeth. She reared back a little and jumped out the window, landing on top of a building across the four-lane street as if it was jumping a small gap around a foot wide.
Time to make herself heard...
"Hold it right there."
A voice, cool and calm, came from behind her. She didn't turn, she had no need to, however she did halt just so she could hear whatever worthless words he wanted to say before she acted.
"There seems to be a lot of blood on you, and a lot of blood on the floor where you just came from. Mind explaining?" He said, his voice tense with barely controlled anger, she noted, as she pushed the now fully visible hat up a little with the clawed thumb she had. It was a large, Crocodile Dundee style hat, but the top was longer, more elongated and almost like that of a wizard, however it curled forward rather than back with a large band at its base. The woman in the hat stood high and mighty, an air of arrogance around her.
"Your point being?" She asked, her head turning slightly so her long pointed ears aimed more in the man's direction.
"I think you did something that wasn't...quite...right."
Now she turned, finally in full view, and it was painfully obvious that she was a fighter: armour glinted in the sun as blood trickled down the shells on her shoulders, black hair fluttering in the wind as her mouth cracked open to form a sadistic smile, a smile full of sharp dangerous teeth, red fluids seeping down her nose slightly.
"I think it's time we had a little talk, young man."
"The name is Robin." Robin replied. He looked a bit like he was smiling too, until you realized in was just his teeth clenched in great rage at the murders this woman had just committed. "I hope you remember it, as you'll be telling it to the cops as the one that caught you."
"Foolish human." She shook her head slightly, not looking at all ready for a fight.
This arrogance would cost her, as she didn't expect Robin to attack head on, swinging with his staff. He struck her across the face, forcing her back a few steps. As she was trying to regain her balance, Robin followed up by slashing out his staff in an upward arc, catching her under the chin and knocking her flat on her back.
"You aren't as good as you think you are." The leader of the Titans said, as he stood over her triumphantly. It had been a good idea to take a stroll around the city during the swimming lessons: he'd caught a murderer in the act.
A low growl escaped her lips as she spun back up to her feet and stared him down again. There was a pause. Robin didn't know whether to be unimpressed or bored. He had seen many of his foes stand back up after a few blows.
"We have only just begun human." She snarled, as she lashed out and batted him away with the back of her clawed hand, sending the Titan flying back quite a way, but he eventually managed to right himself before he hit the edge of the building and flew off onto empty air. His eyes narrowed on the figure...and then in very little time at all they widened again as she produced some form of gun, a short stubby, white thing with a long tub going along the top edge of it while the guard protected the whole hand, not just the index finger like Earth guns. She pulled the trigger and a shot of what looked like a capsule came forth.
Robin just managed to dodge, barely, but it caught his staff and broke on contact. There was a pause before the staff started to melt away, forcing him to drop it before it melted part of his arm with it. Another smirk came upon the attacker's face before she lunged forward and sliced with her claws, catching Robin across the chest before she spun around and kicked him away so he spun in a corkscrew style through the air and landed awkwardly on the floor. She laughed to herself as he regained his composure and his footing.
It was his turn to launch the attack, sending in a left after a right jab. However, the talons of the opposition caught both, and she quickly kneed him in the gut before pushing his face away while still holding his clenched fists, bending him back and causing pain to go screaming through his spine as it protested this contortion. After a few moments of this, she threw him away to slide across the rooftop. He quickly stood up again. Surprised? This was Robin we were talking about, he wouldn't go down even if you shot him...
"You will not get rid of me so easily." He snapped, as he repositioned himself in one of the many martial arts' style stances he knew.
"Cocky little Altrack! You will regret toying with the Empire." She said, as she lunged forward again, before suddenly jumping up and doing a very familiar kick. Namely Nigel's Falkla kick, but unlike when Nigel tried it, this one actually connected and sent the teen flying again across the roof.
If you haven't guessed it by now, I may as well tell you she is a Blacktrinian, but I thought I'd let you try and work it out for yourself. Come on, it really wasn't that obscure.
Robin, now a little dazed, wondered why the claw like toes of his opponent hadn't made two large holes in his head. The answer was the way she stood. She stood on her toes with her heels off the floor. And actually, compared to Nigel's claws, hers were different: his were segmented with little spikes that overlapped onto the back of the hands and feet, while hers where just two un-segmented digits on each limb with no excess overlapping. The point I'm trying to make is that when she kicked him, her toes were parallel to his face, as it was the comfortable position for her.
"You really pack a punch, but I think you have underestimated..." Robin said. But that was too much talking, as he was cut off by a quick kick to his gut that lifted him off the floor. She then grabbed his cape and swung him into the floor again, making sure he felt it this time in spite of his body armour, as she made sure he went face first. She made sure he stayed down by pressing one foot down onto his head. The Blacktrinian then pulled the photo out of her pocket that she had before and showed it to him.
"Tell me, where do I find Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock?" She said, as showed the picture of the Titans with Nigel on the end and Robin nearest the camera. She had moved down slightly, so she was holding his head down with her spare hand, forcing him to look at the photo.
And despite his overwhelming urge to hand Nigel over to this psycho, he didn't want to endanger the other Titans. Besides, even if Nigel has done him wrong, he didn't deserve the fate in store from this unknown attacker. For once he did him a favour. Fancy that.
"I don't know any Nickelback Havezionfarwalk!" He shouted back, though muddling the name quite extensively. What do you expect from a human tongue? "And even if I did, why would I tell you?"
She lifted his head a little and slammed it down onto the hard rooftop.
"Do not play the fool and martyr with me young human, I have eaten things that have put up more fight than you did. It would be in your best interests to tell me." She pauses as the sun started to get in her eyes a little and she growled again. She held up her hand to block scorching orb. "Ugh, even this setting sun is too bright for me, how do you creatures live with such illumination...." Just so you know, the home world where she came from was a very dark place indeed, one out of every 50 days was sun, the rest where dark rain clouds or overcast shadows. But back to the action.
"Alright... Alright..." He paused, trying to fool her as his hand slowly made it down to his tool belt, hoping that she wouldn't notice. She didn't, she was too busy trying to block out the sun with her talons, and he pressed a button on his belt calling the others for help silently. But it wasn't as silent as he wished, for the foe's ears twitched and her head snapped towards what he had done. A growl came from her as she threw him across the roof again, pocketing the photo.
"I warned you not to play games human; I decided to go easy and spare your life if you helped me. You turned it down. Bad choice human, bad choice."
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Back at the tower, all the bells and whistles were going off as the alarm hollered throughout the building. The three wet male Titans ran up the stairs to the alarm, which Cyborg had just started to work the machine. They were all fully dressed when they got there (the lesson was just finishing anyway).
"We have a big problem. Fearless is getting his head kicked in. I'm pinpointing his position now." The map on the screen shot to his position on the rooftop with another red marker depicting the enemy.
"Who is it?" Gauntlet asked.
"The question should be who could it be? Not many people can knock Robin around like a rag doll." Noel commented. "Is it anyone we know?" There was a pause and a few blips.
"Nope, someone new. Let me punch up a vid-link." Cyborg said, getting a picture of the attacker. Nigel gasped and stepped back, a look of utter fear on his face. The attacker moved closer to Robin, but her ears twitched and she turned around, looking straight at the floating camera. She pulled that strange gun from her back again and aimed it, firing quickly and destroying the camera. There was a pause as they turned to the deathly afraid Blacktrinian.
"It can't be..." He muttered in his native tongue, his eyes as wide as saucers. Cyborg pulled up the image of the attacker before she shot the camera.
"Yo Nige, what's up? Why does she work you up so much?" Cyborg questioned, turning from the monitor to the newest Titan.
"Unless we think of something, within twenty four hours we will all be dead." He said. He shook his head slightly, unable to think, unable to do anything. The others gave a slightly confused expression and tried to calm him down. He was now muttering pure gibberish, things they had no clue about.
"Slow down Nigel, whoa. Calm down." Noel put his hand on his shoulder to try and reassure him. It took the Titans around five minutes to just get him to speak English. Once he was a little more himself, they started to ask him questions.
"Who is this person?" Raven asked. She had arrived and tried to help calm down the stressed out Scalpel as well, though she was still a little wet and annoyed.
"She is a member of the Blacktrinian armed forces. She is a part of an elite squad known as the White Holes. They are, put very simple, military police. This one is Rebecalnatrac Styilnifanalan. I suppose Rebecca Styles would be the closest you can get to it in English."
"So they are MPs, no big problem." Gauntlet called, turning around and walking away. "Give me five minutes and I'll have her down."
"Foolish human!" The Blacktrinian snapped. "What do you expect to do?!"
"Well seeing as you are average for your race and seeing as we defeated you..."
"What on the five moons of Gidium gave you that idea?" He demanded. This took the others a little by surprise.
"Back up a little, what exactly is wrong?" Cyborg asked, starting to get a little more concerned about their situation. Nigel sat there for a moment or two, thinking what he could, should and must do. There is indeed a difference between these; could do is where you think of all possibilities, should do is the things that would seem right in your mind, and must do is what feels natural due to your instincts. Unfortunately all three pointed to a way that he didn't much enjoy.
Leaping to his feet and walking over to the consol. A few strange looks came across him at this newfound determination as he pressed a few buttons. "I said before you would be dead within five minutes if you ever met a proper soldier. That's not just a proper soldier, she's one of the best of the best. Robin has been going for around ten and that's about 8 minutes of borrowed time. Stay here. This is something I have to deal with."
And with that he slammed his fist down onto the consol and the security systems activated, metal shutters coming down across the windows and the outer doors locking tightly. Nigel turned around and spirited towards a window as this happened and jumped, smashing the glass. Savior tried to follow but the shutters were coming down and he was pulled out the way by Gauntlet. Nigel had actually sealed them inside their own home. The question was, is this to stop them, or protect them?
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"You humans are such wonderful punching bags." The Blacktrinian, now known as Rebecca, said as she slammed another kick into the Teen Wonder, sending him back a little more so he now balanced precariously on the edge, too dazed to even counter or to grab ahold of something if he fell. "But alas, your company grows tiresome and I have a lot of work to do." She added. She pulled back for a large final kick, this one aimed to pierce a lung or two.
"Styilnifanalan!" A shout came from behind her, as well as the sound of something snapping into place. She gave a smirk and turned to see Nigel, armed and ready with his glaive.
"Looks like my job won't take as long as I thought." She replied in her natural tone. "Why on the home-world they want ME, the leader of the White Holes, to deal with you I have no idea." She rasped in the growling Blacktrinian language. Her arrogance was even more evident in her own language, as she flicked her hair out slightly and laughed.
"Shut the hell up!" Nigel replied in his tongue, as her smirk faded. "I'm surprised you would even waste your time coming here to find me. What, the empire didn't want to get their claws dirty again?"
"Probably. If it makes you feel any better I don't really want to be here, but hell, I was told to come here and seeing as I'm here now I may as well do my job." She said, as she fiddled with her earring lightly before turning her attention back to him. "So you gonna come quietly?"
"No damn chance." He spat. By this time Robin looked very confused about what they were conversing about. "Earth is my home now."
"Pity." She said in English, and leapt forward and slashed at him with her claws. Luckily, he managed to get the glaive up in time, but it wasn't enough as she quickly slammed a foot into his side, knocking him away. Nigel quickly countered and slashed at the ankles of Rebecca, but she jumped and grabbed the glaive, throwing him over her head and down onto the hard concrete. Robin got up and tried to attack her, but she performed a backhanded swipe that almost broke his jaw and cut his lip off before she followed up with a kick to the neck. She would have followed up with another, more fatal, blow, however two familiar clawed hands wrapped around her middle and lifted her up and back, doing an all too familiar German suplex with her on the receiving end. Chris Benoit, eat your heart out
Nigel quickly flipped back up and retrieved his glaive.
"A battle move I learned while on earth." He commented, a stern look across his features. Far more quickly then he would have liked, the White Hole stood up, and extended what looked like some form of old style mace, with the expression of someone who is very much unimpressed.
"You are weaker than advertised. Living among humans has softened your abilities. And now I am bored and hungry so I think I'll finish this quickly." Rebecca said. In her other clawed hand she produced another gun. Unlike the first one, which was relatively straight, this was more pointed and looked like it was made up of some form of cone strapped to a couple of cylinders and an orb.
She threw her hand up and shot, catching Robin off guard and in the shoulder, knocking him back, and then she quickly re-aimed and shot Nigel in the other shoulder. Unlike the first gun, this had small thin bullets in it rather than gel capsules. She ran forward, grabbed Robin's foot, pulled it out from under him, and taking hold of it, she lifted it into the air and kicked the knee joint of the foot that was still on the floor outwards in a way that it shouldn't bend. The mercenary then grabbed his ankle and tried to throw him into Scalpel, but he managed to dodge the, er, Robindoken, and swung his glaive. He missed, and in the process overextended himself so much that he stuck it in the floor, and she countered by grabbing it with her feet and flicking it up to her hands, taking hold of it. Nigel, with nothing left to support his still forward motion, fell on the floor.
And she brought the glaive down and through him, causing him to yell in pain.
She just laughed. She twisted the blade a little, causing him to squirm and holler even more, trying to escape something he could not, as the blade had passed through him and into the rooftop. Nigel clawed long swaths onto the stone as he furiously tried to get away. His race may be immune to serious harms from blades inside and out, but they were not immune to pain, and this woman knew exactly how to use that immunity to hurt him, as she twisted the strange glaive, wrapping his organs around like when you turn a fork in spaghetti. And no matter where you are from or what innate biological gifts or protection you have, that has got to hurt.
There was a sadistic smile on her face as she turned the blade...a smile that soon faded as her ears once again twitched and she sidestepped a blue blast that shot across her shoulder. She turned, her yellow eyes focusing on who fired it.
"Yo, big shot! Let's see you fight all of us!"
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Looks like the Titans are screwed in the most royal of ways.
Nigel: See you in the next chapter... I hope. Ow...what sick Clive Barker fantasy did you get THIS move from, my author...