STRANDED
CHAPTER TWO
The sharp, whizzing sound of thrown fire rang out in the 'silence' as a flame flew right past them and crashed into a tank; it wasn't a hard enough blow to do more than dent the tank, not reaching the oil inside.
Snapping out of his trance, Robin stood quickly, helping Raven up as well. Standing in front of them was a young, pimply red-haired boy wearing baggy, camouflage cargos and a loose red tee-shirt; each looking very strange on such a thin, stalky boy. He grinned at them coldly; or as 'cold' as one could manage with flames erupting from your hands. He took slow steps forward from where he stood opposite the Titans, on the far side of the landing.
"H-" Robin tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He swallowed hard and began again: "Who are you?" he asked doubtfully.
"Just another villain-wannabe," Cyborg said lightly, smirking. He called to the slowly approaching boy, "Lemme guess, you're a big fan of the Human Torch, right? Where'd you get the flame-throwers? E-bay?" he taunted.
"Cyborg," Raven warned quietly, "I think those are-"
"They're real, all right," the boy assured mordantly; "Very real."
Cyborg cocked an eyebrow at him, tensing. The three slowly backing into a fighting stance.
"Don't believe me, Tin Man?" the red-head mocked, still inching closer to them in rhythm with the alarm. Beep step Beep step Beep step... He looked no more than sixteen years of age; young, considerably, to have already taken up a life of crime (Let us not mention a certain Slade-hunted, earth mover...).
"Don't believe me?" he repeated; "Well, then here's a little thought for ya: could a cheap flame-thrower do this?" Lunging forward, the boy emitted two large, spherical orbs of flame, one from each hand, sending them at the three baffled Titans.
The alarm continued to go off, even despite the green octopus that had latched onto the button in an attempt to stop the noise. Starfire was desperately searching her thoughts for something to do, but the bellowing siren kept all logical ideas at bay. She only hope Robin and the others would come down to help them soon. But when they didn't come after a while, she chose the best idea she had.
"Beast Boy! Let us search the crates for a way to silence this unbearable damor!"
Beast Boy morphed back to normal. "What? I can't hear you!" he yelled over the noise.
Ignoring him, Starfire grabbed the nearest crate (mind, most of them were about as tall as Beast Boy, some taller) and started to pry off the top. Beast Boy followed suit, turning into an ant and crawling through a crack in another box, then shifting to a hippopotamus, imploding the crate.
He gasped, "Uh, Star?" his voice shaking slightly and sounds of an uproar above them was heard over the racket of the siren. "Uh, is there TNT in your box, too?" he asked nervously.
Starfire nodded mutely, her eyes wide and staring at the numerous sticks of dynamite and other explosives inside the crate. She and Beast Boy exchanged a quick, panicked glance then dashed to another box, hurriedly prying off the lid to reveal more explosives. And the same in the next... and the next...
It wasn't hard to dodge the fireballs: Cyborg split to the right, Robin and Raven to the left. The flames instead hit a tower of crates, the blow upsetting the stack and sending the boxes crashing to the ground; some knocked into the stack next to it, creating a domino effect of the heavy, wooden boxes. Many of them split open upon collision with the concrete floor, their contents spilling out.
"Holy shit..." Robin mumbled, stepping back from the bombs and dynamite spilling out of the crates, eyes wide. He backed up farther, as more crashed down, until he backed into one and sent it off the edge of the landing, breaking the ocean's surface with a splash.
"Now look what you did," the red-head accused mockingly; "That's what happens when you're not careful;" on that, he kicked the nozzle off the tank closest to him, sending a stream of the dark liquid across the ground.
"Oops," he scoffed, shrugging; "My bad."
"Listen," Robin implored, approaching him slowly with his hands up, half in surrender, half as you would approach a dangerous animal; "If you do this, you're going down, too. None of us can survive the explosion-"
"Who says I'd survive?" the boy scoffed, shrugging again. He looked around thoughtfully. "Sure, I may've preferred having a few more years, but that wasn't convenient for the Boss's plan." The dark pleasure one sometimes has when you're breaking the rules shone clearly in the boy's eyes as he turned to Robin.
"Sometimes ya' gotta make a few sacrifices in order to complete the task at hand," he continued. "In this case five of them; not including myself, of course."
Choking on fear, Robin's voice came out soft at first: "Sacrifice... Slade! NO!"
He reached toward the boy to stop him, but a moment too late. He leant down with his flaming hand and lit the trail of oil, not failing to light his soaked pants leg also. His agonized screams merged with the screech of the alarm.
"Raven! Jump!" Robin ordered suddenly.
"What!" she asked desperately, tearing her eyes away from the frightening scene before her to face her leader.
"JUMP!" Robin yelled, and shoved Raven off the landing. Her scream caught in her throat as the explosives lit, a line of them running down the steel poles ad into the underwater segment of the section of the base. The great explosion took place in mere seconds.
Four-thousand, nine-hundred forty-two stealth bombs; one-thousand, two-hundred sixty-one firebombs; and eight-thousand, four-hundred forty-nine sticks of TNT and dynamite went off within three seconds; all exactly zero point sixty-eight seconds after Raven was pushed off the landing, still suspended in mid-air.
And, finally, the sound of the siren stopped.