CHAPTER TEN
Mmm… Guys…" Roy said, clutching his bleeding shoulder. "What did he mean by literally?"
"Here." Cyborg injected something into Roy's shoulder below the wound. "It will numb the pain, at least. Well," Cyborg started, being a genius, "Adios comes from the Spanish words a and Dios and literally means 'to God…' Which I suppose means he's expecting us to meet our maker."
Suddenly the temple began to rumble. "Oh X'hal no!" Starfire screamed. "He has used the power to bring the temple down on us!"
As if to accentuate her words, one of the Platinum columns holding up the ceiling bent and snapped in two, falling to the ground, almost smashing the injured Arsenal.
And as if that wasn't enough trouble, the statue of the Tamaranian woman came alive, and drew swords, a white energy coruscating over it. But it wasn't a living statue; It was truly a living being, perhaps petrified all these centuries by something. It drew swords of gold and swung down at the fleeing Titans.
The Titans continued to flee, gaining ground, but with the temple collapsing, alarms were going off, and doors slammed shut, trapping the Titans in the Catalyst Chamber. Robin looked up when he realized there was light coming in from outside, the faint glow of the lightning of the distant storm and what few stars could shine through. He would have seen it sooner, had it been day.
"Kori!" Robin yelled, "I've used all my Bat-Grapples. You have to fly us out of here!"
"I can't…"
And Robin remembered; when she had been emotionally distressed on the planet where they had crash landed, she had been unable to fly. And now, she suffered the same distress from Delirium's betrayal.
Cyborg glanced back at Roy, to check on him, and was surprised to see him aiming a crossbow with a grappling arrow at the ceiling. He pulled the trigger and the arrow went flying upwards, taking the rope with it.
A loud crash resounded and another of the platinum columns fell, and Robin jumped out of the way just in time. Robin leaped to his feet and grabbed Kori, placing her on his back and climbing up the rope. Cyborg followed, and at last, Roy. Robin was amazed he could do it with that shoulder wound—even with the numbing agent, it still must have caused him agony. I've heard you were good. Robin remembered his words to 'Speedy' when they first met.
The top of the temple was thankfully a slope, so the Titans could slide down it.
"Robin, no!" Starfire insisted. "We must go back…"
"Star, the temple is coming down. We have to get back to the ship and stop Delirium." Cyborg took her from Robin and leaped from the top of the collapsing temple, sliding down, thankful his robotic body didn't have nerve endings.
"But…" Starfire's voice trailed off as she slid out of Robin's earshot.
"Roy, you up to this?" he asked.
Rather than answering, Arsenal jumped out of the way of a falling sandstone tower and slid down, follow closely by Tim…
The two non-metahuman Titans hit the ground hard and rolled in the cold nighttime desert floor of the dead planet, and then Robin passed out.
0000
Raven sat back in her favorite chair and sipped some herbal tea. Impulse was back up north in Dakota City, Mas and Menos were patrolling, and Beast Boy was busy making sure they didn't miss anything.
She was thankful for the alone time, though she felt a bit selfish for enjoying it so much. She knew it was a foolish feeling. She had offered to help the patrol, but Beast Boy had insisted that she would only slow them down. After all, they were two Speedsters and a guy who could run at the speed of a cheetah—as long as he was one.
It was also possible that Gar had kept her there for other reasons. Her insomnia from the Trigon-induced nightmares, and his own desire to prove himself based on the fact that she was in command and he wasn't. She sensed he may have had a bit of resentment being the lowest ranking of the five, even though he had the most experience next to Robin from his days with the Doom Patrol…
It had been three days since she'd last seen Trevor, and a full week since she'd met him. Has it really only been one week? It seemed like much longer. And that scared her.
Suddenly, something didn't seem right. She felt some small, barely perceptible psychic vibration, something she wouldn't have noticed at all over the noise that normally cluttered the tower. She set her tea down, levitated the book from her lap to a coffee table and hovered into ops. She didn't see anything, but she still felt something…
She quickly turned around… Again, nothing. Perhaps it was just a side-effect of the nightmares or the bouts of sleeplessness. Perhaps…
"You know, this tower seriously needs better security," a voice came from… above.
Suddenly, a figure in a dark jacket dropped from the ceiling into Raven's peripheral vision. And before she caught the red hair, familiar face and knowing eyes, Raven gasped in fright, causing a nearby lamp to shatter, simultaneously grabbed the intruder, wrapping him in dark energy and hurling him through a nearby window, shattering the glass and sending him plummeting, most likely to his doom…
Then the face and hair clicked in her mind and she remembered the stranger from the pizza restaurant. Raven ran over to the window to look down, but before she got there, he hurled himself back up through the window, his jacket slightly tattered but not a scratch on his body…
"You!" Raven yelled, her hands raised and encased in black energy. "How did you get in here?"
"I just used your password. Honestly, you could have thought of something more creative than 'Allera'—you're mother's name backwards is one of the first things hackers go for."
"How do you know my mother's name?" Raven was calmer now, mostly because he didn't seem a threat... and because panicking would likely destroy the tower.
"I know a lot about you, Raven."
She glared at him, trying to probe his thoughts, and still unable.
"Why did you come here? Who are you?"
"I'm a friend." The stranger flicked his wrist and suddenly, a metallic object was in his hand was in his hand. Raven couldn't make out exactly what it was. "I want you to have this. He is coming; the day draws near, Raven. I want you to be ready."
He handed he the object, and Raven took it, reluctantly, fearing a trap. But she sensed no malevolence from him. So either he was as good at keeping things in as he was at blocking her out, or he was genuine. The metallic object in her hand was sharp, a shard of something broken—perhaps a sword, judging by what appeared to be a blood grove on the duller side.
"What is this?" she asked looking up, surprised to see him standing at the window she'd knocked him through. Only Batman moved that quietly—without metahuman talents, at least!
"It's the only thing in this world—short of a miracle—capable of defeating your father." He started to go out the window, but Raven stopped him.
"Wait? Why do I feel like I know you?"
He smiled. "Trade secret."
Raven turned and started to walk away, and then she turned back and asked, "How did you survive me knocking you out the window?"
As he left, he said, "I've had a lot of experience in that department…."
0000
Starfire felt like her heart shed a dozen pounds when Robin's eyes finally opened.
Ugh?" He groaned as he sat up. "Wh.."
"Welcome back, Tim." Kori embraced him. "Thank you for rescuing me. But…" As grand as the implications were, she couldn't wait to tell him, but again, Robin shrugged off her important info as he got down to businesses.
"You're welcome. How is Roy?"
"Oh, me?" Came the voice of Arsenal. "I'm fine. You've been out for about half an hour."
"And that's a half hour head start that Delirium has on us." Robin jumped down from his resting place on the T-ship. Robin glanced over at Roy and saw his shirt, dabbled with blood. But where there had once been a hole where the arrow had pieced his arm, there was now nothing. "What happened to your arm?"
"I don't know. The wound just randomly healed up about the same time that statue came to life."
"I couldn't figure anything out either," Cyborg said, standing up, holding a glass tube. "It's just like it healed by magic. Anyway, Collin, or Delirium or whatever the expletive his real name is sabotaged the T-Ship, so until I can get it fixed, we're stuck here."
"How long will that take?"
Cyborg opened a panel on the outside and tore out a plastic tube and inserted the glass replacement.
"About five seconds—startin' five seconds ago," Victor said smugly.
0000
The temple that once towered above the dessert was now certifiably a ruin, mostly collapsed in on itself.
The cloaked figure moved through the now moonlit chamber of the Ultimate Catalyst, not sure what he was searching for. The poor guardian, whatever it was, never had a chance. An enormous sandstone brick had fallen from the ceiling, breaking into several sharp fragments on the way down. And the largest of those impaled it through the neck
The cloaked figure stepped over the growing pool of blue liquid that served as its life's blood . And there, in a crevice in the wall behind the Guardian Statue was a smaller effigy, carved in the legendary likeness of X'hal.
Holding a glowing white sphere. A hand, Caucasian and masculine, reached out from the cloak that protected its wearer from the heat and cold of the dessert. He picked the device up, and immediately, the harsh burns the dessert had caused to his palms faded, the skin regenerating more rapidly than even the best metahuman regeneration talents.
A Catalyst of Regeneration.
The Tamaranian had told him of it. Not the Koriand'r who had just left, barely saved from death by her true love. No. It was another Tamaranian. Somewhere else. Far, far away. That Tamaranian; she did not know where it was located... But she did know it existed.
And the monster Delirium? He could have stopped him. He could have defeated him before, the last time they had met. If he hadn't been such a coward.
But that was one mistake he wasn't going to make again. Because this time, a planet died because of his cowardice, something he'd regret as long as he lived.
The only problem now was, how to get back to Earth?
0000
The Justice League, formerly of America and now bearing the more universal moniker of Unlimited, was perhaps the greatest assortment of metahumans and costumed vigilantes to ever bear the burden of justice.
And their headquarters reflected this assumption quite grandly. The Watchtower: an armored and armed space station orbiting the earth, accessible only by Javelin or through the teleportation unit manned mostly by J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter.
And it just so happened that pretty much every member was currently aboard this station for the tri-annual affairs meeting when a klaxon began to blare.
Superman was the first to react. "What is it, J'onn?" he asked the Martian, who was currently manning the scanners.
"I am uncertain. There is some sort of special anomaly developing outside the Watchtower. I am putting it on screen."
The assortment of JLUers, as they had come to be known, gasped or arched curios eyebrows collectively when the screen activated to show what looked like reality itself bulging, a sphere of bent space sitting out side.
Thin it began to spin like a globe, slowly, until it turned an apparent 180 degrees, revealing..
Delirium.
The psychopathic teen gave an evil smirk, kept alive by the surreality field around him that allowed him to survive in space. "Hm. I can't have these do-gooders attacking me before I remake the world my way, I suppose."
He extended a hand and the Dark Catalysts energy, enhanced by the Golden Catalyst, bent around the Watchtower, causing it to seemingly bulge just as he had. And with a causal wave of his hand, it was gone, hurled billions of light-years away.
That would be sufficient. He didn't hurl them into a star or turn the station inside out, because frankly, Delirium preferred his murder to be a bit more… personal.
And he couldn't absorb them and their powers unless their bodies were mostly intact. So it was a pretty fair trade he supposed. The Titans and his rival were stuck on Tamaran, probably already dead, so that just left Raven and Beast Boy.
He descended towards the earth, laughing inside at the special things he had planned for them…
0000
Blaring through hyperspace in the T-Ship, the Titans began planning Delirium's demise.
"Starfire, does the Dark Catalyst have any limits?"
"Only two; it must be aimed, like any other weapon. And it cannot bring the dead back to life. That is a power not granted to mortals."
"Alright. That first one is definitely helpful. What about the Ultimate Catalyst, what can it do?" Robin inquired. "Aside from enhancing the others, of course."
"Robin, I do not believe he has the Ultimate Catalyst."
"What?" the other three blurted.
"When… Delirium betrayed us, I was reading the inscription above the Guardian. It said to look beyond the Guardian to the hands of X'hal if you seek the Ultimate Catalyst. I believe we overlooked something important."
"Starfire, why…"
But she cut Robin off, "I tried to tell you we needed to go back, but all of you continued to interrupt me. Either way, the temple was destroyed, so it is unlikely we would have found anything."
"What's done is done," Roy said. "We need to make a plan to beat him"
"Okay. Whether the device he has is the Ultimate Catalyst or not, it doesn't matter," Robin thought aloud. "He has the Gold one, and we need to strategize around that."
"It can do nothing but enhance, Tim." Kori said. "It is merely a decoy. And I believe that…"
Just then, a blur of light and metal blasted by and went right over the T-ship. A very familiar blur of light and metal.
"Um…" Cyborg began. "Was that the Watchtower!"
"Looked like it," said Roy.
"BRUCE…! BANNER'S BONES!" Robin yelled. "Batman is on there!"
"OLLIE…! OLLIE OXEN FREE!" Roy echoed. The Green Arrow was up there too!
"We have to go back for them," Robin insisted.
"No, Tim," Kori reprimanded. "Would Batman not want you to put the safety of earth above his own life? We must stop Delirium or we will all be 'in the screw.'"
"That's 'screwed', Star." Cyborg corrected.
Yet again, Cyborg's words seemed to hang in the air…
0000
Mas and Menos were just about to turn around and head back to the Tower, whensuddenly a figure in green armor landed in front of them, causing the ground to ripple out like water.
And he grabbed both of them by the throats. "Hi, boys." He held them apart. "I don't suppose you're any threat when you're separated, so I just have to keep you that way. He hurled them into the side of a nearby building, blasting them with Dark Catalyst energy, causing them to turn into a set of immobile trashcans.
"Well, that's two down." Delirium held his hands up and began focusing the power of the Dark Catalyst through the Golden one. The energy coursing through the armor manifested into a ball above his head; soon, he would be ruler of this planet.
0000
The T-Ship burst into our home solar system, near earth, and began angling towards the planet.
"How'd we get back so fast?" asked Roy.
"You know the trip back is always shorter than the trip to." Cyborg shot back.
0000
By now, the giant ball of surreality energy was hard to miss, but the police wanted nothing to do with this fight.
"Where are Mas and Menos?" Raven demanded, to the figure with their back to them.
"And just who are you, anyway?" Beast Boy asked.
Delirium turned around, his energy apparently unaffected by his motion.
"COLLIN?" Beast Boy blurted.
"Why you…" And then the horrible realization struck her. "You're a traitor. You… left them there to die, didn't you?"
"I swear you won't care soon enough. You'll be dead too."
"Monster!"
"I beg to differ. Try deity." And suddenly, the energy flashed throughout the Universe.
And it was remade to fit the desires of one Collin Roberts…
Author's Note: You know, that bit where Robin screams BRUCE BANNER'S BONES and Roy yells OLLIE OLLIE OXEN FREE...
I think I might need to explain that one for all you non comics fans out there.
Batman's real name is Bruce Wayne.
Green Arrow's real name is Oliver Queen, or "Ollie" for short.
But the Titans aren't allowed to know this, so when they scream the names of their former mentors, they have to cover, some how.
And if you were wondering, Bruce Bannner is the Incredible Hulk. Why the DC characters know about Marvel characters? That's a subject for another time.