Disclaimer: You know…
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In the Control Room.
Speedy fell on his back onto the floor. He groaned in pain as his spine took much of the blow and was feeling like it was being electrocuted. Brother Blood took this opportunity to try and skewer the archer. Brother Blood charged at Speedy's fallen form. Speedy, not wanting to end up with a hole in his mid-section, quickly rolled off to the side to avoid the attack.
Brother Blood's crimson-glowing hand embedded deep into the floor having missed Speedy. He tried to pull it out fast but was interrupted as he looked up to see Aqualad coming towards him. By the time Blood released his arm off of the floor, Aqualad was already upon him, delivering a swift kick to Blood's chest.
"Argh!"
Blood shot back straight into a control panel which broke-up into hundreds of pieces that littered the floor. Brother Blood quickly picked himself up much faster this time in time to react to Bumble Bee. The Titan leader was flying down towards Brother Blood like a dive bomber. When she came to a close enough to strike at, Blood swung a crimson fist at her.
To his surprise, she suddenly disappeared. Bumble Bee had shrunk herself into the size of a grain of rice and moved behind Blood. She turned back into full size while still in mid-air and gave Blood a swift kick in the back.
Brother Blood stumbled forwards for a while but quickly regained his composure. He looked up and saw Speedy aiming an arrow at him. As speedy fired, Blood merely grinned. The evil genius grabbed the arrow in mid-air and threw it back like an oversized dart back at Speedy, The masked archer's eyes went wide as he quickly ducked back down. The arrow missed him by inches and exploded on the wall behind him.
Blood turned his attention to the other teen in front of him. Aqualad appeared a few feet from where Speedy stood and as now facing Blood. Aqualad slapped a fist on the floor. Moments later, water pipes in the floor bursts out and aimed their openings towards Brother Blood. Aqualad threw a hand out towards Brother Blood.
Jets of water spewed out from the pipes and shot out towards Brother Blood. Blood grinned once again and held out both his arms towards the approaching torrent. As the water came upon him, Blood's hand glowed extra crimson. As the water touched his hands, it instantly evaporated. This caused a cloud of vapor to form and fill the entirety of the room.
Aqualad stopped his attack seeing that it had no effect. After a while, he couldn't see anything at all with such a thick cloud hanging over the room. All of a sudden, Blood came flying out of the cloud and crouched right in front of Aqualad. Aqualad stumbled Backwards in surprise and left himself open for a brief amount of time.
Blood spun around and kick Aqualad in the chest. The Atlantean flew threw the air and smacked right into the door. Brother Blood immediately spun to where Speedy was standing and backhanded the archer on the cheek sending Speedy back onto the floor. Brother Blood was about to land a finishing blow when a stinging sensation on his shoulder distracted him.
Looking to the side, Brother Blood saw Bumble Bee back up in the air and shooting away with her twin stingers. Blood started to hop backwards evading the barrage of laser fire from Bumble Bee high up in the air. Blood kept hopping back until he disappeared into the vapor around them. Bumble Bee stopped firing since she lost her target and was in the process of looking for him again.
She was off-guard for but a moment when she went looking for the villain. Brother Blood readily took advantage of this fact and pouncing on her from out of the cloud of steam. He did well in tackling her back down to the ground and keeping her there with the weight of his body. Bumble Bee struggled in vain to free herself from Blood's grasp.
Meanwhile, Speedy was just recovering from his most recent fall. Like everyone else in the room he soon discovered the difficulty of operating in a zero-visibility environment. Being who he is, he decided to find a way of resolving the problem. He took out an arrow from his quiver and aimed it at nothing in particular as it seemed.
Speedy let loose the arrow. Somewhere along the arrow's journey it hit something and exploded. Speedy's already predicted the following outcome which actually came through. The energy arrow exploded on impact and shattered the surrounding glass walls of the Control Room. A cascading effect caused all the galls to shatter and fall off.
The newly ventilated room suddenly experienced a sudden gust of wind from the released pressure. Al of the steam which was fogging up the place suddenly flew out making everything visible again. Brother Blood felt the sudden breeze and was momentarily distracted. Bumble Bee found an opportunity in that and managed to free an arm.
Before Blood even knew what was going on, Bumble Bee was already beating his face in with her now free arm. Bumble Bee threw punch after punch at Blood's face effectively stunning him and causing his grip on her to loosen up considerably. Bee folded her legs under his chest and, using all her might, of her body.
Blood flipped off of Bumble Bee and right out the broken. As evil as villains go Brother Blood is always part of the top group, but that doesn't mean in anyway that having the man fall out of the window was anything near what Bumble bee intended to do. She quickly got up and stared out the widow through the completely clear air.
"Ooops!" she exclaimed.
"Oops is right!" said Speedy.
They all rushed to the edge of the window to try and spot where Brother Blood fell off. Looking down they saw the vastness of the pit that contained the main component for the GeoHammer. The giant needle pointing downward dwarfed the Titans by many degrees. They looked down and could find no sign of Brother Blood.
"Ohh… Titaaans…" Blood's voice called out softly.
The Titans immediately turned their heads to their right, the direction where the voice came from. Brother Blood was standing on a nearby balcony that circumscribed the entire chamber, one of many through out the pit. Blood was ginning and his hands were glowing brighter by the second.
"This isn't good," pointed out Aqualad.
And he was right. Blood reeled back and threw his crimson arms out ward towards the part where the Control Room met the rocky wall. From his hand shot out long tendrils of blood red energy. The tendrils shot out like missiles and impacted with the wall. The energy was strong enough that it broke off the entire Control Room from the wall of the pit.
Inside the doomed room, the Titans looked behind them and saw the walls and the floor spontaneously cracking and exploding. The felt a sudden jolt as the entire room suddenly began to lean forward. They immediately almost lost their balance except for Bumble Bee who immediately took to the air. Speedy and Aqualad fell to the floor and started to slide off the incline.
"Hold on!" exclaimed Bumble Bee.
She flew down and reached both her hands out towards the boys. The boys in turn reached their hands out to her. Bumble Bee grabbed both of them, one in each hand, quickly enough so that they didn't fall off. They all then flew right out the open window to avoid being entombed in the collapsing Control Room.
The Control Room completely broke off the wall with loud deafening creaking sounds. The entirety of the structure then fell the whole length of the pit. It crashed down on the bottom most floor, exploding into millions of indiscernible pieces. Blood looked down from where he was standing and the Titans looked down from where they were hanging in the air.
Blood turned his eyes away from the wreck and looked back up at the Titans who did the same to him. Blood grinned again, his arm glowing crimson. He looked like he was about to shoot out another energy beam only now directly at the Titans. This, of course, worried them.
"Drop me!" suddenly exclaimed Speedy.
Bumble Bee looked down at him confused. "What?"
"Just do it! Now!"
Bumble Bee eventually complied with Speedy's request and let go of his hand just as Brother Blood let out a shot of crimson energy. The sudden release of the masked archer's weight caused Bumble Bee to shoot up a bit along with Aqualad. As Bumble Bee and Aqualad went up and Speedy fell down, the blood red energy beam shot between them and missed them entirely and ended up hitting the far wall.
Speedy, while plummeting to the ground, quickly reached into his quiver and retrieved a grappling arrow. He shot the arrow into the ceiling above him. The arrow trailed behind it a thin yet strong cable that was being fed from Speedy's utility belt which was now essentially his lifeline.
As intended, the arrow stuck itself to the rocky ceiling. Speedy felt the cable from his belt to the arrow loose all it's slack and he swung himself in the direction of the balcony where Brother Blood was on. Blood didn't notice Speedy until the last second. By the time the evil genius could turn around, the masked archer had already landed on the balcony and was already aiming at Blood with three arrows slung onto his bow.
Speedy shot all three arrows simultaneously at Brother Blood. From the archer's point of view, it seemed that Blood didn't have enough time to react as all three arrows seemed to meet their mark and explode on impact. This created a cloud of smoke which momentarily blocked Speedy's sight of the evil genius.
When the smoke cleared, Speedy's confidence dropped as he saw Brother Blood was still standing and barely hurt. The old man had both arms crossed in front of his face and upper torso. Both arms were fully glowing crimson. This was apparently enough to block all of Speedy's explosive arrows.
Speedy knew he needed to change strategies. He reached back into his quiver again but Blood wasn't nice enough to actually give the archer another chance to attack. Brother Blood struck his palm onto the ground which caused a ripple of crimson energy to snake towards Speedy. The ripple of energy stopped at Speedy's feet and exploded, catapulting the archer some ten feet into the air and back down on his back.
Blood grinned at the success of his counter-attack. He was about to rush to the now vulnerable Speedy when he was suddenly distracted by someone yelling out: "Hey!" Blood looked up and saw Bumble Bee with Aqualad hanging from her arms swooping down on him.
"How's you catching arm?" rhetorically asked Aqualad.
Bumble Bee swung him around once in mid-air to gain a little momentum and then tossed Aqualad towards Brother Blood. The man couldn't react fast enough or even think of an effective countermeasure. Aqualad came down on Brother Blood like a hawk to its prey and tackled the evil genius to the ground.
They both rolled around on the floor for a while before Aqualad kicked off of Blood. Aqualad was back on his feet in a few seconds while Blood remained on the floor for a few moments more, rubbing his sore chest. Just as he was getting up, Blood sensed something behind him and looked back.
Bumble Bee was again swooping down upon him and began shooting away with her twin stingers. Blood managed to evade this first barrage of attack but forgot exactly how close Bumble Bee managed to be until she was already sending a foot to his face. Blood fell back down to the ground. Bumble bee landed next to Aqualad and they were soon joined by Speedy.
Blood eventually recovered and got back up on his feet. He turned to see the three Titans together again looking ready to fight. Blood simply gave them a smug look and spit out a wad of saliva and blood to the side. If he was even remotely nervous about the fight, Blood didn't show any sign of it. The Titans were nervous about that but they didn't let that show either.
"You can't win, Blood," said Bumble Bee.
"We've been through this before," said Speedy, "We all know you're just gonna go down one way or another."
"So make it easier on all of us," continued Aqualad, "just surrender already!"
Blood simply stood there, unmoving and unspeaking. He continued to give the Titans that same smug look on his face. It was notable that his grin was getting wider and wider every second until eventually his teeth show. His eyes narrowed as his smile widened. Soon enough, Brother Blood was outright laughing a the Titans making them even more nervous.
"Exactly what is it that you find so freakin' hilarious?" asked Speedy.
Blood stopped himself laughing in order to answer him. "Surrender, you say? Where's the fun in that, I ask you?"
"You really are a sick, demented, old bastard, aren't you?" said Bumble Bee.
"Has it ever been question that he wasn't?" rhetorically asked Aqualad.
"Oh, surely you can't expect me to surrender now that everything I've planned is coming along nicely? Now that would be truly insane for me to do."
They all glared at him. "What?"
"The only reason any of you survived up to this moment is that I wished it to be. The GeoHammer may take some damage here and there but all that can be repaired. However what I've really been asking for all this time was on final chance of ripping you children apart with my bare hands."
Blood suddenly spread out both his arms out. Immediately, crimson energy began to fluctuate all throughout his armor. At first it was only his gauntlets that were glowing crimson, but now his breast-plat and his boots were now also glowing in the same fashion. Brother stared down at the Titans.
"I've decided once and for all that none of you will be walking out of here alive. You children have been a thorn on my side for far too long."
"Oh yeah?" retorted Speedy, "Well, you can just try, you old bastard!"
"Oh, believe me, I have every intention to…"
Blood charged at them again.
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At the generator room.
The twins, Más and Menos where zipping around the room in a blur of red and white which they did out of necessity. All around them where at least a dozen HIVE drones trying desperately clamp down their claws on the twins or hit them with lasers.
So far the twins have been successful of evading the barrage of gunfire and attempted grabs at their persons, but that wasn't leading to much of anything. They knew they had to fight back somehow but with such overwhelming odds, they could barely afford to stop and catch their breath. They had to think of something.
"¿Qué podemos hacer?"asked Menos.
"Tenemos que encontrar una manera alrededor de sus ataques," said Más.
The twins stopped right in front of one of the drones. The drone looked down and saw the twins. It immediately tried to grab at the twins with one of its mighty claws. It failed as the twins zipped out of the claw's way. The claw ended up embedded in the floor. The twins ended up on the drones back.
"¡Aquí!" they called out to the other drones.
Reacting accordingly, several drones that were in range of them quickly aimed their blasters at the twins who were grinning confidently. The all started shooting a barrage of laser fire towards where the twins were perched on. In turn, the twins quickly dashed off to side.
At the same time the twins did so, the drone they were on, now free of the weight on its back, sprang back up to full height once again, just in time to receive all the laser fire that would have been intended for Más and Menos. The drone's upper body was completely incinerated and soon what was left of the body collapsed to the floor.
The other drones in the area responsible for killing off one of their own simply stared at the site dumbfounded. They may be good for battle but that said nothing of their intelligence. The twins were standing to the side mockingly laughing at the dumb drones for their mistake.
"Una lástima," said the twins, "Querer tratar otra vez?"
The drones snapped out of their trance and reaimed their blasters. At that point, Más and Menos looked at each other, smiled, and nodded. They now knew that this was going to be a piece of cake. The grabbed each other's wrist and got ready. The drones started firing again and the twins responded by evading each and every blast.
Again, after a short while of zipping around, the twins stopped in front of another drone to reapeat the process over again. After the drone failed to grab them, the twins ended up on its back. The twins would call the attention to the other drones. The other drones would open fire but by then, the twins would already be gone and leave the poor drone they were on to take the heat.
They repeated this process several times , eventually dwindling the number of foes on the battle field. It was laughably ridiculous that the drones never cared to learn the twins' strategy as they continually shot and destroyed one of their own in an attempt to hit their real targets. Soon there were only two drones left, surrounded by the burnt remains of their fallen comrades.
Más and Menos suddenly appeared in between the two remaining drones, Más standing on top of Menos' shoulders. Both twins were grinning at the two drones.
"La gente es tan patética como vienen," they bothe said
Both drones aimed at the twins. Both drones fired their blasters. The twins predictably disappeared in a blur of red and white. The lasers of either drone traveled through air… and hit the opposite drone on the other side. Both drones now had large holes going through what would be their heads. Out of commission, both drones fell backwards in a heap.
Más and Menos reappeared in the center of the room They high-fived each other as they shouted their slogan. "¡Más y Menos, sí, podemos!"
"La fiesta está terminada, supongo," said Más.
"Hagamos el lo que vinimos hacer," said Menos.
Both twins calmly walked across the room to where the control panel was. They would reach it, operate the power generators with it, and decommission this entire facility. Once that was done, the world would be able to feel a little safer.
Mid-way on their low-speed trek, the twins were barely aware of a 'whurring' sound coming from above them. They stopped and looked at each other worriedly, wondering what the sound was. Listening closely, they traced the source of the sound and looked up.
In the middle of the ceiling a large panel opened up and some kind of machine was coming down from it. It looked like robotic arm of sorts that was hanging down from the ceiling. The twins thought it was unusual that there would be a mechanical arm up there at that particular location since it seemed too short to reach anything of significance.
A closer inspection of the arm revealed a surprising fact. The twins suddenly looked a bit more nervous than before as the large mechanical arm pointed towards them. But it was clear then that iw wasn't a mechanical arm. It was a mechanical turret.
Suddenly and without warning, the turret began firing.
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At the second garage.
The large, white, metallic Insect was near the middle of the room. Its red eye glowed and continuously as it shot out blast after blast of red laser fire towards its intended target, The Stone Dragon.
The target in question was flying around the room, its stone skeletal wings glowing bright gold.
The scenario played out where the Insect was some kind of anti-aircraft artillery trying to shoot down a offending enemy in the air. The Stone Dragon flew circles around the room, evading every laser blast thus far. The Insect on the other hand stayed still in the middle of the room, rotating its body to aim while remaining in the same small general area.
The Insect didn't bother moving from where it stood and fired from. It only had to keep this up until the Stone dragon decides it's too tired or if it gets a lucky shot. It saw no reason to move and advance on the enemy as long as it can keep it at bay like this. It was only trying to stall for time anyway.
The Stone Dragon knew it needed a new strategy if it wanted the battle to progress at all. Playing the defensive position for too long would not only waste its time but waste precious energy that it would surely need for a later concern. So it went on the offensive as soon as it found an opening.
The Stone Dragon flew low to the ground this time at the fastest speed it could manage. As it did so, its mighty wings kicked up a lot of dust that was already on the floor from construction efforts. The ploy seemed to work as the cloud of dust that was kicked up impaired the Insect's accuracy.
The Stone dragon managed to get close enough in order to strike. It swung out its stony claw towards the main body of the Insect. However, the machine was not without its trickery. Just before the Stone Dragon could swipe its claw out, the Insect spread out all it legs on the ground, in effect dropping its entire body down to the floor.
The Stone Dragon missed it entirely and flew over and past the Insect. As soon as it knew it missed, the Stone Dragon tried to stop its flight quickly and turn around to face the Insect. But it was too slow as by the time it did so, the Insect had already sprang back up, turned around to aim, and fired a powerful laser blast towards the Stone Dragon.
The Stone dragon was caught totally off-guard by this attack. The laser blast hit it in its stomach, and managed to throw the creature on its back, crushing an unfinished walkway while doing so. While the Stone dragon was on its back, the Insect decided to move in.
Reeling up its legs, the Insect catapulted itself up into the air and drop right on top of the Stone Dragon. But it also turned out that the Stone Dragon was not without its own trickery. As the Insect was about to come down on it, the large rocky reptilian stretched a claw out and pulled itself to the side. The Insect missed it entirely and found itself staring down a bare floor.
The Stone Dragon didn't waste time and quickly sprung back up on its feet. Without loosing momentum, it fluidly followed up by swinging its long stone tail towards the Insect. The Insect was unable to react quickly enough or even see the attack coming. It was caught of guard and knocked away a good distance.
The Insect crashed into a pile of barrels then skidded on the ground. As the Insect came to a halt the Stone Dragon started charging towards it. The Insect quickly reoriented itself and was back on all four mechanical limbs, just in time to counteract the Stone Dragon that was rapidly approaching.
It raised two of its limbs while keeping the other two stable. The Dragon came at it with its stony claws and in turn the Insect caught each of the reptilian's claws with its own two free limbs. After each of the two locked at each other's limbs, it became, more or less, a pushing game.
Neither of the two refused to give in to the other. The Stone Dragon roared threateningly at its opponent, hoping to somehow intimidate it. The tactic failed to do so and the Insect responded by making its 'eye' start to glow. At that point the Stone Dragon knew what was coming and knew it had to get out of the way.
Just as the Insect fired, Stone Dragon jumped up while keeping both its claws held onto the Insect's limbs. The laser beam went under the Dragon, missing entirely. The Dragon somersaulted over the Insect, still holding onto its legs, and landed behind the Insect with its back to it.
The Dragon then pulled as hard as it can on the limbs of the giant mechanical Insect, effectively flipping the Insect over it and straight into the far wall. The Insect flailed around ion mid-air until it managed to reorient itself.
It hit the wall feet first and clamped its claws down onto the wall. It was now standing horizontally from the wall. The Stone Dragon was a bit surprised at this but only for a moment. The Insect then began to climb up the wall and onto the ceiling.
Fr the ceiling, the Insect's 'eye' aimed at the stony reptilian once again. The Dragon got ready for what was an inevitable attack. The Insect fired beam after beam of laser fire at the Stone Dragon once again, just like when they started. And just like when they started, the Dragon found itself at a slight disadvantage.
As the four-legged machine continued its relentless barrage, the Dragon was forced to evade as best it could by flying low to the ground at high-speed. Again, the Dragon found itself at a very unfavorable position not only because it was being held back but also the fact that it was forced to fly so low to the ground meant the added danger of obstacles.
In addition to dodging the laser fire from the Insect above it, the Dragon dodged various other items on the ground level like construction vehicles and unfinished elevated walkways. However, passing by one of the abandoned construction vehicles did give the Dragon a clever idea.
It flew in such a way that the Insect would not be able to read its strategy. The Dragon circled around the room and came up to a large forklift. As the Dragon approached the abandoned vehicle, it quickly spun around and batted the forklift with is long, rocky tail, sending the vehicle flying towards the ceiling-mounted Insect.
The Insect reacted predictably enough. Sensing the incoming danger, it immediately aimed it laser eye towards the flying forklift. It shot a powerful laser beam towards the forklift which destroyed the forklift in a brilliant explosion.
In this ever so brief moment of distraction, the Dragon flew in a got close enough to attack before the insect could react in any effective way. Using its immensely sharp stone claws, the Dragon swiped at the base of one of the Insect's legs and ripped it off.
The sudden loss of an appendage caused the Insect to loose its grip and suddenly fall to the floor over the stories down. It crashed in a heap on the ground, heavily damaged by the impact, it's armor started to crack in certain places.
The Dragon dropped down to the floor and face the Insect which was barely able to stand due to internal damage to it mechanical systems as well as having one less leg to stand on. The Dragon gave a confident roar towards the near-disabled Insect. The insect, surprisingly enough, stood its ground and looked to be aiming it laser eye at the Dragon again.
At the end of another ground-shaking roar, the Dragon charged at the Insect. The three-legged robot aimed and fired a powerful laser beam, however the incoming Stone Dragon dodged the laser beam by a quick side-step.
It got in close enough before the Insect was able to fire off another shot. At this opportune range, the Dragon thrust one of it claws directly into the Insect's 'eye' and violently breaking it off. With most of the laser in the Dragon's claw, the Insect was now unarmed.
The Stone Dragon took one step back from the Insect and spun its body for one last powerful tail whip. Dazed and unarmed, The insect was powerless to avoid or defend itself against the attack. The insect flew across the room and crashed into a bunch of abandoned construction vehicles that were parked too close together.
The Stone Dragon moved in closer, surveying the damage to its now fallen foe. The impact was strong enough that it ripped off another one of the Insect's legs and left the remaining two unusable. Large pieces of the Insects outer shell had broken off revealing heavily damaged internal circuitry. Most notable was that a hidden door was forcedly opened in the crash revealing the cockpit. As the Stone Dragon stood in its place, the golden shine that was coming from its eyes, wings, and multiple cracks on its body began to fade. Soon the Stone Dragon disintegrated into a pile of rocks and dirt. As the cloud of dust cleared, the lone figure of Silicis appeared, standing on a piece of floating rock.
The girl cautiously went over to the mangled-up carcass of the robotic Insect that lay still on the floor. She walked around to where the door was opened into the cockpit. She peeked ever so carefully inside the cockpit and found… nobody.
Silicis' eyes went wide. The cockpit of the giant robot Insect was completely empty. No Professor Chang. Silicis was no less than baffled. Suddenly a static sound started coming from one of the speakers inside the cockpit itself. Silicis perked her ears as the static gave way to an eerily familiar voice.
"It would seem that I have underestimated you," said Chang's electronic voice.
"Chang!" exclaimed Silicis into the cockpit, "Where the hell are you, you coward?"
Sure enough, there was microphone somewhere in the cockpit that caught Silicis' voice and allowed Professor Chang, wherever he may be, to respond.
"Somewhere out of your reach, I'm afraid."
"Why don't you come out and fight me?"
"Why should I waste my time any more than I already have? I have no need to return to that dreadful place anymore than you desire to stay in it. I have what I came for and now I'm leaving."
"But isn't this your operation? Aren't you worried me and the Titans East are gonna shut this place down?"
"Those are no longer my problems. Though I have not won this day, I'm still sure as hell not beaten yet. In the end that little side-project of my former partner an I shall not matter."
"What are you getting at, you old coot?"
"In the end, nothing shall really matter anymore. You'll see it for yourself, maybe. All that has come to pass shall prove meaningless at the eve of eventuality."
"What…?"
No response. The radio, along with everything else in the cockpit, spontaneously burned out. Circuitry started to burst into flames and black smoke soon filled the cockpit an forced Silicis to back away from the robot's remains. She was left puzzled by what Chang said lastly.
"Eve of…" she mumbled, "…what did he mean by that?"
Silicis pondered on the thought for but a few moments before she suddenly remembered a more pressing matter that needed attention. Her friends needed help and there was nothing more she could do here as of the moment.
"Forget this…" she said to herself, "You've got work to do…"
She summoned a flat piece of rock to her side and, as before, stood on top of it to use it for quick transportation. She headed directly for the exit to resume her search for her friends.
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Back at the power generator room.
The twins were again running around the room at hyper-speed, evading attacks directed at them. This time they only had one problem which was a ceiling-mounted laser turret. Normally, such a weapon would pose little threat to the twins as they can usually speed past defenses like this.
The problem was the turret above them was not the usual type of defense they would normally encounter. Unlike the usual turrets, which were always too slow to do any harm to the twins when they were running at hyper-speed, this turret was actually keeping pace with the twins. It was supped up to keep up with those two.
Laser beams that were coming at rapid succession was eating at Más and Menos' heels. The twins were definitely feeling the heat of the situation as they seemed totally powerless to reach the offensive device. They tried every now and then to run up the wall at hyper-speed to reach the turret and somehow disable it but the turret was just too fast.
They were now officially in a desperate situation.
"¡Rápido¡Esta manera!" shouted Más to his brother.
Más directed them both behind one of the giant cylindrical generators and disappeared from sight. The room was designed so that there was a narrow space between the generators and the wall, strictly for maintenance purposes. It served as the twins hiding spot.
The laser turret that was mounted from the ceiling stopped firing having lost its target but that didn't mean that it was done. It simply sat idle, waiting for its targets.
Behind one of the cylindrical generators, Más and Menos were catching their breath. It was the first time they got a moment to breath from trying to dodge the lasers from the turret. They had seemingly met their match with it and needed a new strategy to if they wanted to win.
"Ahora ¿qué?" asked Menos.
"Necesitamos una nueva estrategia..." said Más.
Más peaked ever so slightly from behind the generator to see the turret. It was spinning slowly around as if searching for a target. While doing so, Más had a hand against the generator for support. As the turret came around to facing him, Más quickly ducked back to avoid being seen.
The turret didn't see anything and continued to search round the room. Behind the generator Más and Menos where safe for the moment. Más soon felt a slight tingling sensation in his hand. He realized that he still had his hand against the generator.
He let his hand off of the generator and the sensation immediately disappeared. Putting his hand back against the generator caused the sensation to come back after a while. Through that he got an idea.
"Dame tu mano," he said to his brother Menos.
Menos gave a hand towards Más who took it. Más then held out his hand towards the generator but not exactly touching it. He then started to spin his wrist around like he was drawing a small circle in the air with his hand. He picked up speed until his hand was just a white blur in the air.
Más kept this up until something happened that he was hoping to happen. Suddenly, a small electrical lightning show started to dance between Más' hand and the generator. Streams of bright lightning jumped in between the youngster's hand and to the outer shell of the generator. Having achieved the desired result of his little experiment, Más grinned.
"Tengo una idea," said Más.
"¿Qué es?" asked Menos.
Más turned to his brother and began to explain to him the details of his idea. Meanwhile, the ceiling-mounted turret continued to search for targets and found non. Being a machine, it had plenty of patience. Behind the power generator, having heard of his brother's plan, Menos grinned.
"Parece bueno," said Menos, "Hagámoslo cierto."
"Sí," said Más.
The turret continued to revolve slowly, searching the room. The twins were peeking out from behind the generator. They then looked at each other and smiled affirmatively. Time to execute their plan. The held on to each other's hand and stood side-by-side.
They dashed, but not on the floor as usual. Instead, they dashed up and across the wall behind the generators, circumnavigating the room. Alerted to the sudden movement, the turret responded by quickly aiming in the appropriate direction and started shooting.
Every time the twins would appear behind a generator, the turret would let out laser fire that would eat at their heels but never hit them. The twins knew that if they just kept moving at that speed, they didn't have to worry about getting hit. They simply kept running horizontally across the wall, circling the room over ten dozen times every second.
Where was this going? It became clear only after few moment of the twins running around the room by the wall. Little by little, sparks, which started out small then started to grow bigger and more numerous, jumped from one tall cylindrical power generator to another. Soon enough, there was a virtual ring of lightning that encircled the room.
As most fans of the Titans East, Más and Menos' powers are closely linked with electricity. Running around the room like they did was having the same effects as a turbine engine. The circular motion around the generators was causing a huge amount of static electricity to be created. But static electricity was not the goal of the twins then and there.
What they really wanted to happen was a by-product of static electricity: static sling. That's what happens when oppositely charged particles attract each through static electricity, like when a sock fresh from the drier clings to a shirt, or when a spark jumps from your finger to a doorknob after rubbing your bare feet on a plush carpet, or the most famous example: lightning.
And just like lightning, static cling is attracted to the nearest conductor. Just like how lightning always seem to strike the tallest lightning rod first before others. But in this particular case, the room the twins were in didn't have a lightning rod.
Instead, it had a ceiling-mounted laser turret.
As predicted by the twins, eventually a strong surge of electricity shot towards the laser turret. The single surge was enough to almost completely disintegrate the turret. All that was left was a charred stub that hung from the ceiling and several burnt debris that fell to the floor.
Más and Menos slowed down which caused the ring of electricity to dissipate entirely after a few seconds. They were again standing in the middle of the room, the same as they started when this whole debacle came crashing down on them. At least now things have finally calmed down and it looked like it was gonna stay that way.
Not wanting to wait before Murphy's Law would take effect, they both rushed to the control panel they spotted earlier. They took a look at it and it was actually pretty simple to operate. The quickly figured out the controls and went to work shutting down the generators one by one. Soon, all of the five cylindrical generators went down with long sighing hums and the entire facility switched to back-up power.
The twins knew their job was done here and they quickly rushed out the room. Their friends might need help.
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In the main cavern.
Brother Blood was squaring it of with Aqualad. The two were locked in a battle of speed and skill in the martial arts. Aqualad did know a few things about martial arts from his training back at Atlantis with Aquaman. But Brother Blood was leagues ahead of Aqualad, in terms of both skill and experience.
Brother Blood threw a punch which Aqualad predictably blocked by raising one of his arms. Brother Blood grinned at this as he launched his other hand and grabbed Aqualad's raised arm and proceeded to toss the Atlantean boy over his head and over the balcony they were on.
Aqualad went flying through the air and went over the edge of the balcony. Thankfully, Aqualad managed to grab onto the railing before he flew beyond the edge and saved himself from turning into a stain at the bottom most floor of the cavern. He was however helpless now while he was hanging that way. This opportunity was seen by Brother Blood.
Blood threw his arm forward towards Aqualad, shooting off a blast of crimson energy at the helpless Titan. Aqualad was quick enough to see the attack coming and flipped himself upwards and over the railing. The beam of crimson energy sailed past him form below, just inches from his body.
Aqualad landed back on his feet on the balcony once again. Upon looking to where brother blood was, the evil genius was already charging at him. Aqualad couldn't react in time and nearly found himself eating Blood's crimson pulsing fist nut thankfully he had back-up.
Blood wasn't able to look to his side being focused on the Atlantean so he wasn't prepared for Bumble Bee who dived in on him from above and tackled him before he could reach Aqualad. Bumble Bee and Brother Blood crashed hard onto the floor and rolled around before Brother Blood forcedly shoved her off of him.
Bumble Bee, instead of falling to the ground, immediately took to the air and drew out her twin stingers just as Brother Blood was getting back up. Bumble Bee started to shot bolts of electricity to rain down on Brother Blood. Being pretty nimble for his age, Blood managed to evade most of the shots or swat them away with his crimson glowing hands.
Again the evil genius was distracted from an immanent threat that was about to come from his side. Speedy had stepped up and slung a new arrow onto his bow, one of his special ones. He aimed carefully and launched the projectile.
The arrow flew at higher-than-usual-speed towards Brother Blood and he never saw it coming until it was too late. Once the arrow impacted, Blood got something he wasn't expecting to come from one of Speedy's regular arrows. As the arrowhead hit him and exploded, it released a foamy-like substance which covered the villain completely with in a few seconds.
As Blood was seemingly drowning in the foamy substance, Speedy grinned from where he stood and was soon joined by Aqualad and Bumble Bee. As the foam stopped spreading, it seemed to harden like rock. Bumble Bee and Aqualad looked at Speedy inquisitively.
"Cool arrow," said Bumble Bee, "What was it?"
"It's something I've been meaning to try out," said Speedy, "The foam is a new synthetic substance developed by Wayne Industries. Once exposed to air, it spreads then hardens like concrete."
"So, what about Blood?" asked Aqualad.
"Oh, don't worry about him. The stuff is porous so he'll be able to breath just fine."
Suddenly, the cemented foam that held brother Blood started to shake violently, drawing the attention of the Titans to it. Cracks began to form on the hardened foam and crimson light started to leak through those cracks. Inevitably enough, the hardened foam exploded in a brilliant flash of crimson light.
The Titans were actually thrown down onto the floor by the burst of the explosion, The quickly started to get back up to their feet to see Brother Blood standing strong once again, his limbs and parts of his torso glowing bright red. He was grinning down at the recovering Titans.
"Surely you can do better than that?" he mocked.
"Man, you are really starting to get on my nerves!" exclaimed Aqualad.
Aqualad raised his hand towards a bunch of water pipes attached to the bottom of the balcony above them. They burst and spewed forth a torrent of water which snaked towards Aqualad. As the water orbited around Aqualad's body, he glared at Brother Blood who annoyingly returned smug grin. Aqualad threw one arm forward a single torrent of water shot towards Brother Blood.
"Don't you ever learn?" said the villain.
Blood knew how to deal with this attack as he did before. He raised both of his crimson glowing hands to block the incoming torrent of water. As before the water instantly evaporated upon contact and lost all its force. Blood grinned thinking he had once again outsmarted the Titans but he didn't see what came next.
As the steam built up from the effect of Blood's crimson glowing arms, a second torrent of water actually snaked all the way around Brother Blood staying close to the floor. The torrent end up behind the villain and before Blood could see it coming it sprang up and hit Blood on the back, throwing him onto the floor face first.
"Ugh!"
Blood was recovering from the fall as fast as he can but Aqualad didn't want to give him the chance. The Atlantean called for the water to form into a large ball over Brother Blood's head. Blood was now standing up again and saw the giant ball of water above him. At that precise moment, Aqualad dropped the ball of water down onto Blood.
Blood clenched his fists and bent down with his knees. As the ball of water was about to drown him, Blood sprang off of the ground with his feet and at the same time raised both his glowing red arms up over his head. He effectively burned right through the giant ball of water and hended up high in the air as what remained of the ball splashed violently on the floor.
While hanging in mid-air, Blood swung out both his hands towards Aqualad who was still a bit distracted from his own attack. From out of Blood's crimson glowing hands shot out bolts of energy that rocketed towards the hapless Atlantean prince. Aqualad didn't see the beams coming in time to make any effective countermeasure and they hit him dead-on.
"Argh!"
Aqualad fell to the floor, momentarily stunned by the blast. Brother Blooded landed smoothly back on the ground and was about to take another shot at Aqualad's hapless form. He was distracted by a whistling sound coming from behind him. He turned his head and saw one of Speedy's arrows flying to his face.
With lightning-quick reflexes Brother Blood turned around and swiped the arrow away with a crimson glowing hand. The arrow immediately changed direction and exploded on a nearby wall. Speedy was not deterred by this setback and lived up to his name by continuously shooting arrow after arrow towards Brother Blood at a blistering pace.
Blood did a good job of swiping one arrow after another and dodging a few but found that he could do little else than that. Stuck in this defensive position, he was vulnerable, something Bumble Bee planned to exploit. The Titan leader swooped down from above, keeping the size of a grain of rice.
Blood never saw her coming and by the time he did notice her, she was already back to her normal size and delivering a foot to his face. Blood flew all the way to the rocky wall of the cavern, a little stunned. Bumble Bee planted both feet on the ground and charged up her twin stingers.
Likewise, Brother Blood was charging up energy in his arms and looked to be preparing one huge blast of crimson energy. The two aimed at each other, Bumble Bee with her stingers and Blood with his glowing palms. They fired at each other at the same time.
Both shots met in mid-air and exploded in a brilliant flash of mixed red and yellow sparks. Bumble Bee was forced to turn her head away from the flash of light that resulted since it nearly blinded her. Once the flash was gone and Bumble Bee turned her head, Blood was already charging at her.
Blood gave a swift kick towards Bumble Bee which threw her all the way to the railing. She hit the railing and was stopped from falling. She quickly recovered and looked towards Brother Blood who was again charging at her. Thinking quickly, Bumble Bee shrunk herself out of sight and Bloods fist swiped at nothing but air.
Bumble Bee, while in her minute size, quickly flew in behind Brother Blood and prepared to knock him out. Either Blood had eyes at the back of his head, or he was just expecting that to happen, Blood quickly spun around and managed to slap Bumble Bee in the face and throw her to the floor, slightly stunned.
Blood was getting ready to finish the job when Speed came barreling down on him, swinging his bow like a staff. Brother Blood faced Speedy in time and grabbed at the bow just as the archer swung at the villain's face. Speedy tried to force the bow out of Blood's grip but to no avail. Blood grinned then gave a quick knee to Speedy's stomach.
"Oof!"
Blood then freed one hand and violently shoved Speedy back and away. Speedy stumbled backwards before finding his feet. Looking back up at Brother Blood, Speedy saw the evil genius throw the bow towards him like a boomerang. Speedy was hit by his own bow right in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him to the floor.
Blood stood smugly over all three of the fallen Titans, clearly satisfied in the knowledge that the battle would almost certainly go his way. The Titans groaned in pain as they slowly recovered and got back to their feet.
"I thought you were better than that, Titans," said Brother Blood, "You barely present a challenge anymore, and I'm suppose to be weaker then I was back then too. I guess I can't expect much from such… lousy students in the first place."
"What did you say?" asked Bumble Bee.
"I tried to make you stronger, and all I asked was your total cooperation. But, as we all know, you refused my very generous offer."
"You can take that offer and shove it up your--"
"As much as I want to stand around here chatting with you, I've much work to do, much things to destroy and rebuild on."
Blood reached into his belt and retrieved a PDA. "It's time for the world to say hello to a new order."
Blood was about to push a button on the PDA that probably would have activated the GeoHammer and launch the attack. But Just as he was about to push the button, the space suddenly turned three shades darker and a little more yellow. Blood, surprised at the turn of events, looked around him to investigate.
All around them the lights began to dim then fade out. In their place were yellow emergency lights that light up, covering the area in a yellow haze. Brother Blood looked down on his PDA and it displayed one message: POWER FAILURE: SWITHING TO AUXILERY.
"Power failure?" inquired Blood, "What is this?"
"¡La caballería!"
Blood turned his attention to see a blur of white and red come at him and hit him right at the jaw. Blood stumbled back and was again hit in the stomach before he knew what happened. Lastly, the blur of white and red blew past him and tripped him. Blood fell to the floor on his chest.
He looked up and saw Más and Menos standing over him making faces in mocking. Blood quickly got up to his feet and swung a fist at the twins but missed the twins again as they disappeared in a blur of white and red again.
The twins reappeared next to the rest of the Titans who have now recovered and were standing tall once again. Blood turned to face them. They were all smirking as if knowing they just won something.
"Don't underestimate us, Blood," said Bumble Bee, "we have more than a few tricks up our sleeves."
Brother Blood didn't look intimidated at all. In fact, he started chuckling a short while after Bumble Bee was finished speaking. As his laughter got louder, the Titans simultaneously grew more worried.
"Shutting down the power?" asked Brother Blood, "Really now, Bumble Bee, it's a nice idea and all, but please, don't think I'm ever that simple."
He raised his PDA, pushing a few more buttons to activate some function the Titans can't see. Nevertheless, they readied themselves for absolutely anything. As Brother Blood apparently finished doing what he was supposed to do on the mini-computer and then looked back at the Titans.
"I have a few tricks up my sleeve too," said Blood, then he pushed a button.
Instantly, all the lights in the room that were out came back on and all the emergency lights went out. The room was once again brightly lit by many fully powered florescent bulbs. The Titans stare in wonder and shock. This was unexpected indeed.
"Did you really think I didn't plan for such an even as a power failure?" continued Brother Blood, "there half-a-dozen, pre-charged, back-up, stores connected directly to this cavern. Even if the rest of the facility is still powerless, the stores are enough to run this particular facility. As well as fire off one shot from the GeoHammer."
"What?" exclaimed Bumble Bee.
"So you see, your efforts are worthless," with that, Blood pushed a button on his PDA.
The needle above started humming as it started to operate. The tip where the golden crystal was began to glow brightest. The thicker, upper part of he needle began to pulsate in golden hues as halos of golden light started to appear around the needle. Soon a beam of gold shot straight down and into the pit below which illuminated the entire room.
The Titans stood back, helpless in stopping what was transpiring. They didn't have the means to counter any of this and were utterly hopeless in their current state. Brother Blood simply kept on chuckling, assured of his victory.
"Now begins a new era!" exclaimed Blood into the entire cavern.
"Think again!"
A girl's voice echoed throughout the caverns. The instant that happened, the beam of golden light began to flicker away to the surprise of Brother Blood as well as the Titans. Looking up, the Titans and the demented villain saw that the beam was redirected, now going towards an unseen source on a higher balcony.
What the six below did not see was that Silicis has arrived on the scene and was standing on a balcony closer to the top than theirs. The beam of golden light seemed to be feeding directly into her as she stood her ground with arms outstretched forward. She was directly connected to the tip of the needle via the beam of golden energy.
She didn't look uncomfortable in anyway. After all she was in her element now. This was her power that she was taking back from this thing. But the problem was there was a little too much power in it. Silicis knew that it would be useless to try and contain all that by herself. So she switched tactics.
Silicis stopped trying to absorb the power coming from the crystal at the tip of the needle. Instead, she mentally froze it there. She didn't allow any more terrakinetic force to come out of the crystal as she forced all of that power to contain itself in that little space.
She may not be able to hold all that power being generated, but she was betting that the crystal can't either.
Soon enough, her theory played out as she'd hoped. The crystal overloaded. There was a brilliant flash of gold as the crystal exploded and released a wave of terrakinetic energy that spread through out the entire cavern. A brief earthquake resulted, rocking all the occupants of the cavern to fall over. Cracks formed on the rock walls.
As the shaking started to subside, rocks that were shaken off the wall began to fall. Cracks spread from the initial quake spread and widened. Chunks of the wall fell straight down onto the cavern floor. Some of the larger chunks hit a balcony or two on its way down, ripping off chunks of the balcony as well.
One particularly large chunk of rock broke off from the wall above a particular balcony, the one where the five members of the Titans East and Brother blood was standing on, began to fall. The Titans had already recovered and moved out of the way while Brother Blood was just finding his feet. The villain looked up and saw a large chunk of the earth coming down on him. He couldn't react except to say one word.
"Dammit…"
The huge chunk of rock crushed the balcony and fell straight to the bottom floor of the cavern, shattering into a million pieces. The Titans took a moment to look down over the edge of the balcony that was left and see down below. Nothing moved as the dust settled, nothing alive.
A creaking sound called on the attention of the Titans and they all looked up. The needle, the main part of the GeoHammer, started to wobbled uncontrollable. Cracks formed on the ceiling above the needle and the Titans knew what was most likely gonna happen.
As predicted the needle broke off from the ceiling and fell straight down to the cavern floor. Upon impacted, parts of the needle exploded into fireballs and scorched pieces of metal, filling the entire bottom of the cavern in a brilliant blaze.
Parts of the ceiling near the wall started to crack. Chunks of the ceiling started to fall. Several large chunks of the rocky ceiling started to fall… right on top of the Titans.
"¡Ten cuidado!" exclaimed the twins.
The titans' eyes grew wide as they all looked up and saw the falling debris coming down on them. The Titans couldn't do anything to react except to cover their heads. They waited with eyes shut at their apparently impending doom.
Moments passed and their doom never came. The Titans slowly opened their eyes and looked up above them. The rocks that were supposed to crush them into oblivion were hanging in the air, floating through an unseen force. They all stared in amazement. Speedy smiled knowingly.
The rocks floated off to the side and fell to the bottom, away from the Titans. Another slowly falling piece of rock caught the attention of the five superheroes. As the rock came to their level, a girl, dressed in an unfamiliar fashion of yellow and black and with short blonde hair, hopped off and faced the Titans who, except for Speedy, simply lingered there and stared curiously.
"What're you all standing there like that for?" inquired Silicis, "This place is about to come down on itself. We have to get out of here, now!"
Silicis ran off and opened a nearby door. The Titans still lingered for a moment or two, turning their stares towards Speedy.
"It's a long story," said Speedy, "I'll explain later. Let's move already!"
As another large chunk of rock fell from the ceiling and crashed into the bottom, the Titans were alerted to the urgency of the situation and started to run out of the cavern through the newly opened door.
As the doors closed behind the Titans, the whole ceiling finally caved in and came crashing down into the bottom of the cavern. All the balconies and all the machinery that was present in the cavern were instantly crushed by falling rock and at the end of it all, the entire ceiling disappeared.
Calmness swept over the fallen debris. If anyone were to come in at that moment (which was practically impossible) and stand on top of the ruble, they would look straight up into the new morning.
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An hour later.
A myriad of emergency response vehicles and crew littered the base of False Vulcan, which, for the first time in it's entire history, was resembling a volcano more due to the fact that smoke was billowing out of its crater at its top.
Dawn had come, coloring the sky a hazy blue. The air was fresh and cool, the way only nature can provide out here in the woods outside Steel City. The Titans were quietly gathered among several rushing policemen, firemen, and medics. The Titans were seated on of a small rock formation allowing them to watch over the organized Chaos from below.
They've had a rough night and now it was time to rest. The cavalry has arrived and seemed to be doing a fine job of cleaning up the whole debacle.
From where they were seated, the Titans could see the entrance to the garage from which Speedy and Silicis entered from and where they all eventually exited from. Now, several officials were coming in and coming out escorting arrested HIVE soldiers who found no other choice but to give up.
A virtual train of HIVE soldiers, and a few white suited henchmen here and there, came marching out of the garage door, closely watched over by officers of the law. Some, due to injuries, where brought out by medics with stretchers.
One particular prisoner caught the attention of Aqualad who was he only one to see her. A couple of officers were escorting Fallacy out of the garage and into a nearby police van. Aqualad could see that her hands were bound with the same handcuffs that were used on him and his friends to cancel out their powers. He was briefly amused by the irony. Fallacy managed to give Aqualad a parting glance as she stepped into the police van. It was a look of utter anguish.
Moments later an officer came up to the Titans and spoke to them. "Well it looks like we've just about cleaned up the entire facility of henchmen."
"Good work, sergeant," said Bumble Bee, "We appreciate the help."
Oh, not as much as this city appreciates your help, missy. If it weren't for you, God knows what could've happened to any of us. The city, and the world, owes you a big thanks… as always."
"Just doin' our jobs," said Speedy, "and we're damn good at it too."
"Nevertheless, I thank you kids," the sergeant turned to another figure resting quietly against a tall rock behind the Titans, "And I thank you too, miss…"
"Silicis." she responded.
"Yes. Um, I may not know you so much miss, but I have a feeling that you just did us a huge favor."
Silicis gave an amused giggle. "You're quite welcome, sergeant, and don't mention it."
The sergeant was about to walk off when Silicis called his attention again. "Oh, and sergeant?"
the sergeant turned to her. "Yes ma'am?"
"Have you found anyone named Professor Chang in there?"
"I'm afraid not, ma'am. Even his own henchmen tell us that he escaped."
Silicis gave an exasperated sigh. "It's just as well, I guess. Thank you, sergeant."
"Much obliged," he said with one last salute and walked off.
Silicis was left to contemplate her own thoughts. It'll probably be highly unlikely that they would be able to find the Professor any time soon. And Chang will probably not show his face for quite a while to come. Still, she though, it wasn't such a big deal.
"So…" started Bumble Bee, "…Silicis, ey?"
Silicis turned to them with a slight smile. "You think it's okay?"
"Oh, yeah," said Aqualad, "I think it's cool. Right guys?"
"Sí, es estupendo," said the twins, "Y también adoramos tu nueva Mirada."
"Yeah they're right," said Bumble Bee, "I also think your new look is cool too."
"Gee, thanks guys," said Silicis with a smile, "I really appreciate it."
They all returned her smile and were content at that moment that they were all together. They were safe and sound.
"So," said Speedy, "Now that we've stopped the villain from, yet again, trying to destroy the world as we know it… what do we do now?"
Silicis looked up into the hazy blue sky. "Well, we're all still alive… I think that's a pretty good start already…"
In the distance, the sun slowly began to rise.
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Author's note: Read the epilogue.