And the writing continues! I love not having homework! I hope it lasts.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the story. But you know that already.
Chapter 7
There was obviously something going on outside. The three sole inhabitants of this small house could hear chaos erupting outside of the walls, but they had no clue as to what might be causing it. Nothing seemed to be the matter at the moment, and it wasn't as if she had anything else to do now that she had her strength back, so she decided that it was about time that she check it out.
Of course, Robin probably wouldn't let her go if he was awake, but thankfully, he wasn't. So she slipped on her blue cloak and rushed out the door, making sure to levitate instead of run so as not to disturb the sleeping boys. Gently opening the door, she peeked out to see what was causing all the noise.
Doctor Light was back, and he was apparently looking for them. Either that or he had lost his teddy bear, because he was completely tearing the block apart looking for something. He finally came towards the block of cement that she was currently inside and began blasting away. A beam passed by her and singed her cloak, at which time she decided that it was time for the boys to wake up.
Rushing down the hallway, she rushed to Robin's bed and started shaking him. "Wake up!"
He groaned, turning over and stretching. "Rae, what's going on?" he asked groggily. "What time is it?"
She shook her head. "We're under attack, Robin! Wake up!"
Well, it is sufficient to say that he was very much awake at that point. He sat right up, which only caused his bruised ribs to throb, and he held his side, breathing heavily as he attempted to stand up. "WHAT?" he managed to bellow.
She helped him stand up and then repeated herself. "I said we're under attack. I think Doctor Light's looking for us!"
Footsteps could be heard pounding down the hallway and several blasts shook the foundation. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What makes you think that?" he teased.
Red X sat up, now fully awake. "What's going on?" he demanded. He then caught sight of Robin leaning on Raven and groaned. "If you two are going to have a moment, kindly try not to wake me up for it, huh?"
Raven glared. "For your information, the reason we're even up is because we're under attack!"
X jumped up out of the bed. "WHAT?"
Raven growled at him. "You two really are a lot alike. Do I have to repeat myself again? Just get moving already!"
"You know, Rae, it'd just be easier if you got us out of here. I don't think we're exactly in a position to be running around," Robin prodded gently, referring to his weakened state and Red X's arm in a sling.
She sighed. He was right, and she knew it, but she really didn't want to waste much energy, seeing as she had almost burned herself out yesterday. "Fine, but then we're all going to need medical attention if this doesn't go well." With that, she allowed her soul self to engulf all three of them and take them out of the building, finally touching down on a rooftop above the site.
"Thanks, Rae," Robin said, dusting his sleeve off. She cocked her head at him. He looked different without his cape and gloves. More...human, she guessed. He looked down at himself and blushed. "What are you looking at?"
She blushed as well. "You just look different, that's all."
He nodded. "I guess."
There was an akward silence between them before X finally broke in saying, "Are we going to get out of here or not?"
The two of them nodded and Raven placed Robin's arm around her shoulder and supported him as they cleared the site. She looked back over her shoulder in time to see the T-car drive up to the scene. She sighed. What she wouldn't give to go back and help them... But she had duties here, and she couldn't just leave these two boys, not in their current condition.
"Looks like he was looking for something," Cyborg observed as he hopped out of the T-car, his sonic cannon ready.
"Or someone," Beast Boy added, looking around at all the scared citizens running around.
"Remember that he is covered in xinothium. Not even I may touch him. Indirect contact is the only way to defeat him," Starfire advised.
"Great," Beast Boy muttered, looking down at himself. "So what am I supposed to do?"
"Um, you try to find out what he's looking for!" Cyborg suggested as they rushed into the crushed cement block. "Whatever it is, he was really determined to find it."
"You do not suppose that he was trying to locate our missing friends?" Starfire asked, her hands flying to her mouth.
Cyborg tried to reassure her. "No, he couldn't be. We don't even know where they are. How could he?" Secretly, though, he had been wondering the exact same thing.
They rushed into the building to see Doctor Light trying to smash down a particularly sturdy door. Beast Boy rushed to the side to begin his "investigation" while Cyborg and Starfire stared down the villain. "Are you looking for something?" Starfire asked, a harsh ring in her tone as she fired up her starbolts.
Doctor Light whirled around. "Ah, the Teen Titans. Looking for your lost friends, I presume?"
Cyborg's eyes narrowed. "Where are our friends?" he growled, charging up his sonic cannon.
Doctor Light smiled. "You don't know? Well! Why would they keep secrets from you?"
Starfire growled. "I am sure that they have a very good reason as to why they have not told us where they are at this time. You have no business in trying to hurt them!"
Their opponent laughed. "Trying? My dear girl, I'm only here to finish what I started!"
Cyborg caught the tone in the doctor's voice and gasped inwardly. "What did you do to them?"
"You'll soon find out!" Doctor Light replied, charging up his suit for a heavy attack.
Beast Boy wandered through the hallways, trying to find whatever it was that he was supposed to be looking for. He finally stumbled over a trapdoor by accident. "What's this do?" he wondered aloud and opening it, walking down into the darkness.
He finally came back up on the other side to find a hot, stuffy room writhing with electric currents. The whole room was one big block of cement except for a single barred window on one wall. Scanning the room more closely, he found a peice of one of Robin's birdarangs on the floor. So this was where X had held them captive! he realized. Wondering where they could have gone, he decided to follow a different path in that tunnel. Changing into a firefly so that he could see, he flew down into the cavern, finally coming back up at the other side.
The sight was truly confusing to him. It looked like a normal house, with a bunch of computers and TVs and such, but there were three medical beds set up in the middle of the room. Something had happened to their friends, but what? He changed back into his human form and walked around for a moment, examining everything. Whatever they had been doing, they certainly had been pretty messy about it. Wet towels were strung over the sides of the couch and there were still dirty dishes sitting in the sink.
Something caught his eye and he wondered over to a research table where there were several birdarangs and X-shaped gadgets. Some of them had been taken apart and studied. So Red X and Robin had been trying to compare gadgets or something? Some sort of research had been going on, he figured, but he couldn't fathom what it might have been.
He plopped down on one of the beds and rubbed his temples, trying to take it all in. At this point there was a high possibility that Raven and Robin had been working together with Red X, but for what purpose? He decided that it was best to continue his search, so he got back up, accidentally knocking something over in the process. As he bent down to pick it up, he recognized its green color. Bringing it out to the light, he realized that he had found one of Robin's gloves! He checked under the other beds and found the following items: One of Red X's gloves, the other green glove, Raven's boots, and Robin's cape.
Now he was even more confused. He knew Raven and Robin pretty well, at least, he knew as much as they would let him know, but one thing he did know was that they would never leave behind their uniforms, and he was guessing the same went for Red X. They had probably been forced out of there somehow. Or driven out by Doctor Light's attack...
The door burst down in a green flash and Starfire came flying across the room, all the while shooting starbolts into the cloud of dust she had created. Spotting Beast Boy, she asked, "Have you discovered anything yet, friend?"
He held up the gloves and cape and gestured towards the boots and silver glove. She gasped as he explained, "I found these under the beds. They were here, Star."
She touched down beside him and held the cape up to the light, as if she didn't believe what she was seeing. "This is Robin's! He never leaves without it! What has happened to him?"
"STAR, WATCH OUT!" Cyborg's voice boomed and she zipped out of the way just as a blast of both light and xinothium demolished the area where she had previously stood.
Her eyes lit up. "What have you done to Robin?" she screeched, preparing an enormous attack.
The gravel was beginning to hurt her bare feet, but she was too tired to try to levitate at the moment. She really had used too much energy the day before in trying to heal the boys' wounds, and now she was feeling the repurcussions of her choice. So she tried not to show any pain, even as her feet began to turn red with sores.
"Rae, are you sure you're okay? Maybe we need to stop for a minute," Robin suggested, concern lining his words.
She shrugged. "No, I'm fine. We need to keep going."
He shook his head. "No, you're not. I can tell, Rae. The next hotel we go by, we're stopping. No buts about it. You need to rest. We've put you through too much these past two days, and I don't think you've truly recovered from Doctor Light's attack."
She sighed. "How can you always tell these things?"
He shrugged. "Guess I'm just lucky that way. Or maybe it's that bond we share."
She looked him straight in the eyes- or in the mask, in his case- "Or maybe it's something else," she whispered so that only he could hear what she said.
He blushed. "Maybe."
Red X turned around. "What are you two talking about back there?" he asked.
Robin opened his mouth to respond, but something stopped him. He could hear someone approaching, but he couldn't tell who it was exactly. Raven heard it too, and she turned around to face whoever the person was. Her jaw dropped in surprise when she saw them standing there, all six of them holding weapons that glowed with xinothium.
"Chang," Robin growled, recognizing the henchmen immediately.
Red X recognized them too. "Aren't those the..." he trailed off, since he really hadn't known what had been going on that night when he had saved Robin.
Breathing heavily, Robin assumed a fighting stance. It wasn't a perfect stance, but he didn't care. "What does he want?"
Red X pulled out his gadgets as well with his good hand. "That's what I'd like to know."
With that, the six figures attacked.
"Boo-yah!" Cyborg shouted as his sonic cannon sent Doctor Light flying across the room. It didn't work as well as he had planned, though, for Doctor Light simply got back up and charged again.
Beast Boy, meanwhile, was standing at the research table where the gadgets sat. "They were working on this for a reason, and I bet it has something to do with Doctor Light," he muttered to himself, picking up one of the X-shaped gadgets and examining it. On a hunch, he threw it at Doctor Light, and, surprisingly, it seemed to do some damage. He grinned, picking up some more of the gadgets, both Robin's and Red X's, and hurling them in Doctor Light's direction.
Putting his hands up in defense, Doctor Light shouted, "Stop, stop!" and tried to put up a light force field, but Beast Boy's barrage of gadgets kept raining down on him, forcing Doctor Light to retract the sheild. Frustrated, the doctor blasted Beast Boy with a ray, sending the changling flying into a television screen and shattering it.
"Beast Boy!" Cyborg and Starfire shouted in unison as their friend lost consciousness, red sparks dancing across the young boy's chest. Taking advantage of their distraction, Doctor Light exited to go after his original targets.
Starfire shook his unmoving form. "Friend Beast Boy, please awaken!"
Cyborg scanned him. "He's alright Star, just knocked out. We should get him back to the tower. Along with those," he said, pointing towards the gadgets that Beast Boy had discovered.
She picked them up. "I wonder what caused these to disrupt Doctor Light's power," she mused.
Cyborg laughed. "Star, I think you're starting to talk to yourself too!"
Blushing, Starfire replied, "Is it not a custom on your world? I suppose I have merely adopted that trait."
Cyborg rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just help me get BB back to the T-car so that we can study those things."
The fight wasn't going very well, Raven had decided as she fell to the ground for the fourth time in the past five minutes. The boys weren't having any luck either, she realized as she watched Robin take out his bo staff and try to attack one of the men. Sure, he succeeded in bringing one of them down, but it had drained him of energy so fast that it didn't take much force at all to send him flying into a brick wall. She winced when she saw him connect with the solid surface, and she tried to get back up.
Red X was having the best luck in bringing them down of the group. Fighing with only one hand had its disadvantages, but the ability to diappear and reappear made up for it in some way. In fact, he had already taken down two of their opponents before he was hit full on with one of the xinothium-charged weapons and sent to his knees. He rolled away from another attack and ducked into a nearby alley to catch his breath.
Raven growled when she saw the remaining three advancing on Robin, and she began chanting. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she shouted, bring a ton of bricks on two of them, leaving only one henchman standing. The effort had exhausted her, though, and she fell against the wall for support as her vision blurred. Suddenly, a gloved hand reached out and pulled her into the alley.
"We need to get out of here. I don't think any of us can take another hit!" Red X said. Even as he spoke, he was struggling to breath, and each word was edged with pain despite the voice distorter.
"Alright. Let me go-" A blast of light energy interrupted her and Doctor Light stood in front of them, grinning like he had just won the Nobel Prize.
Robin had seen their dillema and rushed forward to attack Doctor Light, but the remaining henchman blocked his path. Breathing heavily, he bared his teeth at this annoying obstacle. "I do NOT have time for this," he muttered, throwing several exploding discs at the man to temporarily blind him so that he could get to Doctor Light. With a strangled cry, he lept forward, his bo staff connecting with the doctor's face and sending him flying backwards.
Raven knew that Robin couldn't take another hit, but what could she do? She only had enough energy to get herself and maybe one other person out of danger, so until she regained her strength, they were stuck here. She watched with fear etched into her features as Doctor Light got back up to attack Robin.
He knew that he didn't have the strength to fight, but he had to anyway. Raven was powerless to stop Doctor Light if he let him get by, so what else could he do? Growling, he prepared another attack, but something behind him stirred. He whirled just in time to see a bright red object flying at his head, then nothing.
She had screamed when he had fallen. Tears had sprung to her eyes almost instinctively and she wanted to lash out at that one henchman, but she knew it would not be wise. Red X grabbed her arms and turned her around to face him. "We have to get out of here!" he shouted.
"But Robin-"
"Can take care of himself. If we don't get out of here now, we're going to get the same thing!"
"But what if-"
"Just do your magic thing and get us out of here!"
She blew out her breath in frustration. She knew that he was right, but she couldn't just leave Robin! Sighing, she dejectedly forced herself to engulf the two of them in her soul self, and they disappeared from the site. Tears were now freely falling from her eyes as she hoped that Robin would wake up, that she hadn't abandoned him...