Four
Fight!
"So that's the plan, then?" Raven asked.
"It seems sensible enough," Slade replied. Raven still hadn't gotten over the whole fighting along side with her arch enemies thing, but the enemies of her enemy were her friends, for now…
"What makes you think Shadow will have minions to fight? You said he works alone," Blackfire put in.
"Shadow has slaves from across the galaxy, but some of them are good enough to fight and he'll use them as minions in case anyone ever rebelled. Shadow doesn't often do menial tasks like fight unless he can gain from it," Raven explained.
"OK, so let me get this straight," Gizmo said. "We fight whatever things he has at the entrance to his hideout, then we fight our way to him if necessary. Then when we find him you'll hold him off, Raven, while we go and free the heroes?"
"Yes," Brother Blood said. "But remember, Shadow will probably have some sort of connection from the heroes to himself."
"Right, so we have to cut them off?" Control Freak asked.
"Correct," Raven replied. "Otherwise it'll be painful for my friends and probably impossible to free them."
"But what if we run into trouble right before reach Shadow?" Slade asked.
"Then you guys will have to fight them and I'll take care of Shadow by myself," Raven finished. "Now… now we just have to figure out where Shadow is hiding."
"That shouldn't be too hard," Blackfire said. "He'll be releasing a lot of power."
"Slade, can your computer find him?" Raven asked.
Slade nodded and walked over to his computer with the others following. He typed in some orders to the computer, and in an instant a map of the world came up, and it zoomed in until it came down on an old abandoned castle in Europe.
"Always has to the prince," Raven muttered. "OK, here we go everyone, gather round, OK good. Azerath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven cried, and the black raven covered them… and they appeared in front of the castle. Floating above the castle was the form of a black dragon, drifting in the wind but never disappearing.
At the gate of the castle was a sleeping dragon, as black as the eclipse.
"How the hell are we supposed to get around that?" Gizmo whispered.
"Kill it," Blackfire grinned.
"Easier said than done," Raven grimaced. She had forgotten about Shadow's dragon that he kept as a guard, and she remembered fearfully what happened to the last person who had fought the dragon… the man had made quite a good snack.
"Raven fly us over," Slade suggested.
"That would work," Control Freak agreed.
"I doubt it," Raven replied pessimistically.
"Why not?" Brother Blood inquired.
"It will wake, trust me the thing doesn't sleep heavily. And if we're above it, it'll eat us all in one bite," Raven said confidently.
"Yeah we can go without flying over it," Gizmo answered, smiling slightly.
"I guess Blackfire's right," Control Freak continued, "Looks like we'll have to fight it."
Raven nodded despairingly. They might not even make it to Shadow. At that moment, Slade picked up a rock, and hurled it at the dragon. The beast woke immediately, roared and shot a mushroom of black fire into the air. As it looked around warily, Slade jumped, and took out his staff. He dodge the jet of flame that came at him and charged into the dragon, causing it to shake violently and even step back.
Blackfire rose into the air and flew around, confusing the beast and shooting it with orbs of purple energy. Meanwhile Control Freak summoned and enlarged little movie characters that he kept in his pocket to attack the dragon, distracting it while Brother Blood used his magic to hurl powerful jets of red light at the beast. Gizmo jumped around in his spider legs, shooting rockets and lasers at the beast. Finally, Raven rose into the air and cried, "Azerath Metrion Zinthos!" a huge chunk of earth shot up from the earth and was hurled at the beast. It blew the dragon back into the ground, but it quickly got back up and with its tail whipped them all to the ground. It opened its great maw and black fire spewed forward. Brother Blood and Raven erected a double shield that barely protected them, but as the fire faded the dragon's claw came down upon them, and Raven only just was able to teleport them away, but they all had to roll away quickly as its tail came crashing down upon them.
Blackfire and Slade crashed into the dragon, piercing through its skin, and Slade jumped onto his head and started hitting it with his staff, while Blackfire picked it up by its tail and threw it just as Slade jumped down. This gave Brother Blood just enough time to create a red cage around it and Control Freak to animate the trees to attack it. Meanwhile, Gizmo threw a series of mines around it, and Raven had to cover her ears as they exploded. The dragon was severely weakened and near death, all she had to do was finish it off.
"AZERATH METRION ZINTHOS!" she roared and a huge black raven rose into the dark air, and a shaft of lightning crackled behind it. The raven descended upon the dragon and covered it completely, and they heard the beast moan in pain. There was a flash of red light and the scream of a beast that knocked Raven off her feet. When the red receded the darkness had returned and the dragon lay bloodied and tattered, dead.
Raven exhaled and returned to the ground. "Come on, we have to keep moving," Control Freak observed, and led the way to the castle. Blackfire blew the door open and they entered.
"Raven, we can't keep on fighting every enemy we meet," Brother Blood said. "We'll be too tired by the time we reach Shadow."
"You're right," Raven replied, "But what are we to do?"
"Become invisible!" Gizmo exclaimed.
"How do you expect us to do that?" Control Freak scrutinized the boy.
"I don't know a spell to do that," Raven added.
"I do, but I fear I won't be able to maintain it all the way to the throne room," Brother Blood finished
"Duh! It's called technology," Gizmo snickered, and he took out a contraption and pressed a button. Raven was taken by surprise and gasped as she saw the others disappear.
"You're a genius Gizmo," she smiled even though she knew he couldn't see her.
"Teehee, thanks." Raven moved ahead, and constantly used her magic to make sure she could feel all of them and that they weren't trying to sneak away. It was a good thing Gizmo had that machine because several times along the way they ran into Shadow's minions and Raven was sure that they would have been exhausted.
Finally they reached the doors to the throne room, and Raven was dismayed to find that two Azerathians guarded it. She swore under her breath as she noticed two groups of two coming down the hall from opposite directions.
Raven could have screamed in anger at what happened next. The next thing she knew Gizmo said: "Oops…"
"What do you mean—oh crap!" Raven exclaimed as she saw all the others forming around her, and was even angrier to find that they were in a circle around her. They had been waiting all this time to kill her, waiting until the opportune moment.
"Intruders!" the guards shouted. At that moment the villains all dove down on her and she just barely flew out of the way.
"Azerath Metrion Zinthos!" she roared, her eyes had turned black and her teeth were gritted in anger. All of the villains were lifted up and thrown at the guards, but not before Control Freak pressed one of this buttons. Two of the suits of armor sprang to life and descended upon Raven, who barely dodged and thrust her hands forward, sending them flying into Control Freak. She then shot her hands into the air and the gray bricks that the castle was made of were dislodged and formed solid imprisonments around the villains; layers upon layers of bricks encased them, but Raven was exhausted from the effort. She dropped to her knees and clenched her fists. "I should never have trusted them," she whispered angrily. Just then, the bricks shook a little, and Raven got up, mustered what strength she had, and walked into the throne room.
