(A/N: I hope you guys are ready for this because I know that I'm ready. I'm eleven chapters into this and it just feels so surreal because I never thought I'd ever be able to get this far.
Just so you know, warning: semi-graphic detail of corpses and mentions of numerous deaths and mass killings. This is going to be very difficult for me to write, but I hope it's not too difficult for any of you to read. If it is, I think you already know what to do.)
0-x-X-x-X-x-0
Kevin, along with the other members of the above water team, was searching through every building they could get into for the parts for the Rust Bucket. So far, they found more than half of what they need, but they still haven't found the most important parts. What they still need to find are a replacement hyperdrive and a battery for the ship.
The only battery for their ship is an especially dangerous one known as Element X. Element X, although is a very powerful energy source, can most definitely be used to kill. Which means it's very unlikely that it will be found in the city, it's much more likely to be found underwater.
In the meantime, they would have to search for a new hyperdrive so that they would have a chance of getting to Augstaka. Once that's in hand and once the underwater team comes back up to surface, it's just a few repairs and that would be all.
"Hey, you guys find anything else we need?" Kevin asked as he held some tools he found.
"I ain't found squat," Cyborg replied, frustrated.
"My powers don't work too well with machinery, so I haven't been able to find much," his girlfriend reported. "But I'll keep looking anyway."
Her eyes glowed a bright pink as she continued her search. Instead of finding a wrench or other tool or even a small machine part, she found something else, or rather someone else… outside the building.
She gasped at the presence she felt, which caught the attention of Raven, who was standing near her. "What's wrong?"
"My powers are sensing someone or something just outside," she responded.
"It's probably just a fish, this planet is nothing but water," Cyborg affirmed.
Raven decided to check it out herself with her powers. "It's not a fish, it's a sentient lifeform. Multiple in fact. They feel suspicious, but not hostile."
"Sounds like a good reason to get moving to me," Kevin uttered.
"Agreed," Starfire nodded. She was beginning to grow a little creeped out by the building.
The five of them left the building in hopes of escaping the lifeforms the two magic users sensed. And hopefully they will be able to find another hyperdrive as well.
As they walked along the platforms that extended from and connected each building, they were watched from the waters below. The soulless white eyes that observed them looked on with suspicion and curiosity.
The underwater team swam into the depths of what seemed like an endless ocean. XL led the others down where his memory told him where the buildings were. It wasn't much to go on, but at least it was something, which was better than nothing.
He had to swim rather slowly since he's essentially their guide. He doesn't like to swim slowly, but he has to because it's the only way all five of them will be able to find what Kevin needs for the ship.
Robin, Ben, and Beast Boy were still very disturbed by what he did when they were on the ship's wing. They still couldn't believe XL would brutally kill a fish just because he was annoyed by it. It just shows that anything can make anyone with serious problems explode. They just hoped that it was reserved for those flying fish - as he called them - and nothing else.
Slade was a little disturbed by what his 'son' did earlier, but had since gotten over it. After all, it was just one little fish.
In the short time they had been down there, most of what they saw just swam away from them due to not being accustomed to their presence. Some of the creatures, however, looked like they wanted to know what they tasted like, but they all swam away when they saw XL was with them.
"How far down have we gone?" XL asked.
Robin checked a device on his forearm, "According to this, we just passed the one hundred fifty foot mark."
He stopped his movements and turned to face them, "We can stop to rest if you want."
Ben was quick to respond, "No, it's okay. Let's just keep going." His tone was very rushed and his voice was shaky, his face was as pale as a ghost.
This did not go unnoticed by him, he could see right through him. If his time as a repeat fugitive has taught him anything it's how to spot a 'fake face' - as it's what he's heard some people call a person who's an awful person, but pretending to be a good citizen. He's seen it plenty of times before.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked.
"No, there's nothing wrong," he replied in the same manner, quick and nervous.
He narrowed his red eyes, "I can tell there's something wrong. A lifetime on the streets makes you empathetic."
He was silent due to both nervousness and utter shock, his entire body felt cold on the inside, but eventually gave his response, "It's just-" he paused and let out a sigh, "you killed a fish in the most brutal of ways and it was just- just wrong!"
He looked at him oddly, "Not wrong, instinct."
"Instinct?! You're not an animal!" he shouted. The green shark right next to him nodded.
"No, but I am an amphibian, amphibians are naturally aggressive," he replied calmly, "as are primates. Also, why are you so upset about that? Fishermen on Earth do exactly what I did on a daily basis, do you judge them?" No response came. "I thought so."
"I think it's just how you did it that's so startling," Robin spoke, choosing his words delicately.
"I did it the only way I know how," he responded, calmly still. "Isn't it the nature of all life to eliminate what annoys you? However subtle or crude it may be."
That's a hard argument to argue against, because most of it was true. What is the natural reaction whenever someone sees an insect or rodent? To kill them; or get rid of them at the very least.
He was about to say something more, but then spotted something in a massive rock formation near his teammates, except it's not a rock at all. It's actually a type of coral rock his people call "death coral" and for good reason.
It's not that it can kill you, it doesn't do anything to you physically, but it could cause severe distress among other things. Why? Because it's something that can only be formed by the decomposing bodies of the deceased of his species combined with the saltwater of their world's vast ocean.
He swam closer to the formation to get a closer look. His heart dropped and shattered like glass.
He clamped his hands over his mouth and struggled to keep his steady position. It was as if he had suddenly forgotten how to swim.
Everyone went over to him to see what was wrong. His 'father' tried his best to comfort him and calm him down.
"What's wrong? What happened?" Slade asked.
He pointed a shaky finger at the coral rock, "Death coral! Death coral!"
"'Death coral'?" Ben repeated. "What's that?"
He took in several deep inhalations of water, "When my people die that's what becomes of us!" He buried his face into Slade's shoulder like a child would.
While he comforted his 'son', the others got a closer look at this so-called death coral. They immediately regretted it.
They saw the faces of the dead as they took their final breaths, it was as if their petrified faces had been carved into the coral itself. They could see the positions of them as well, some of them were huddled together at their time of death.
What they were seeing wasn't anything to laugh at or be in doubt of. What they were seeing was a preview of death itself.
When XL eventually calmed down, Slade decided to get a closer look himself. He immediately knew what he was looking at and where they were.
"My God," he uttered softly, "we're in a killing field."
Beast Boy started to swim around erratically once he said that. He nearly hit everyone, but they were able to move out of the way just in time. He eventually stopped when his face collided with the death coral.
When he pulled himself away from it and shook his head. When he saw what he hit, he immediately swam away and hid behind Ben.
Some of the coral rock he rammed into fell off the petrified body and revealed the most innocent of things. It's the most innocent of things that have such an impact on everyone.
When XL looked and saw what it was he felt like making like a goldfish when it bites the dust. He immediately went to his 'father' and hid his face from sight.
"What did you see?" he asked his 'son'.
He raised his head slowly and choked up, his mouth covered by a hand before he removed it, "A fetus! One of the victims was carrying a child when she died!"
He understood how traumatic that can be for a parent to see, especially as a father himself, but he never thought it could ever have such an effect on anyone who was not a parent. This proved his assumption wrong; very wrong.
He looked down at his 'son' and was immediately reminded of how he used to coware behind him whenever he was frightened by one of their 'travel companions'. He also vividly remembered how savagely beaten he was when he tried to defend a grieving grandmother when she discovered her grandson was dead.
'How cold-hearted could those bastards have been?' he asked himself. Even he never went so far to do what they did. Not even back in his hay-day.
Meanwhile, XL tried to forget the faces of not just the ones in the formation near them, but also the ones he saw when he was forced to leave behind his homeworld. But every time he closed his eyes, flashes of the blood, corpses, and many other things that happened that fateful day flooded his mind.
After Slade was able to calm down his 'son', they started swimming again. Although it was a slim chance, they hoped they wouldn't see any more of that coral.
They swam down further into the depths, but they haven't seen a thing with the exception of very tiny aquatic life. As small as they may be, it's the small things that can be more dangerous than anything else. Especially in the ocean.
"How far down have we gone now?" Ben asked.
Robin checked the device on his forearm again, "It says we're about three hundred feet down."
"Well, at least we are getting closer," XL tried to be optimistic.
'Yeah, at least,' he thought.
As they continued to go downwards, Beast Boy suddenly found his boredom at an all-time low. He just needed to find something at least a little exciting. He doesn't think he's ever been so bored in his entire life!
Unfortunately, there was nothing stimulating enough for him to combat these feelings. He was beginning to wonder if he would ever see something exciting ever again.
Then, he spotted something perched upon a plate rock. It was as if it was being presented to him in the open hands of an angel.
He swam towards it to get a better look at this mysterious object. His team swam ahead of him without realizing he wasn't with them.
It appeared to be some kind of deformed egg, colored the same shade of blue as a robin's egg. It was just simply bizarre and it stood out like a jem on the dark rock.
Suddenly, the top of the egg opened up like a flower and fibrous, glowing white tendrils slowly emerged from it like a cobra coming out of a basket. He wasn't really startled by them because after everything he saw on Starfire's home planet, very little could surprise him.
He tilted his head to the side curiously and the tendrils mimicked his movements. He tilted his head up slightly and it copied him again.
He moved backwards a little, thinking that it would follow him, but that's not what happened. Instead, without warning, the tendrils suddenly wrapped themselves around him and forced him towards it. He tried to get away, but it continued to pull him closer towards it with more force than before. He continued to struggle, but he feared that this may be a battle he would lose.
"Hey, where's Beast Boy?" Robin questioned when he realized his friend wasn't with them.
'I thought it was a little too calm,' XL thought.
He closed his eyes and he concentrated solely on his sense of hearing. His audible range was much wider than any human's, it shouldn't be too difficult to locate him.
It took a moment, but he was eventually able to pick up what he thought was water being swished around violently, as if someone was in a life and death struggle. He swam upwards towards the source of the sounds.
"Follow me," he told the others.
They didn't have to swim very far when they found Beast Boy wrapped in the tendrils of an odd egg-shaped lifeform. He was struggling violently and it looked like he was losing.
His gills were completely covered and he could feel himself losing his oxygen. Just as he thought he was a goner, he could suddenly breathe again.
The tendrils of the odd lifeform had been torn from his body by XL who ripped the fibrous appendages to shreds. The fibers drifted in the water like barbs that had been torn from feathers.
The remaining portions tried to retract back to the safety of the egg, but he grabbed them and tore them out of it, tiny vessels could be seen at the base of each one. The misshapen egg fell limply on its platform as he continued to tear apart its appendages.
When he was finished with its tendrils, he turned his attention to the egg-shaped lifeform itself. He was tempted to tear it out of the platform by the roots and tear it to shreds in his hands, but he decided not to because it was already dead and anything else would be pure overkill.
He turned back to the rest of his team, Ben and Robin looked completely dumbstruck. He looked at Beast Boy, he was the same way.
He rolled his eyes, 'Not this again.' It was trying to kill one of their teammates, how could they feel sympathy for something like that? "Don't tell me you're going to overreact over a merciless pod."
"No, it's not that, don't worry," Ben replied assuringly with a smile. "I was just thinking that it kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and I had this transformation called Ripjaws and I used to fight things like mechanical squid and even poachers."
He grinned, "That's pretty cool."
He let out a small laugh, "Yeah, he was definitely one of my coolest aliens, but I could only use him in or near water because I would dehydrate otherwise."
While they were having their friendly conversation, Robin decided to get a closer look at the dead egg-shaped pod. Carefully, he opened up the top of it in order to get a look inside. He discovered that it had several rows of small, but sharp teeth with serrated edges.
"Don't play with that unless you want to go blind," XL warned in a monotonous voice.
He wasn't sure if that was a joke or if he was serious, but he decided not to take his chances. After all, just because it's dead, doesn't mean that it doesn't have at least a few hidden tricks. And it did.
"Are you okay, Beast Boy?" he asked. He nodded. "That's good."
"You know what else is good? I remember seeing one of those as my parents carried me down here when we were invaded," XL pointed at the pod. "We are getting closer."
"What is that thing anyway?" Ben asked.
He thought about it for a moment, trying to remember what it's called, "Ubh mealltach-" he paused, "I'm sorry, it's a deceptive egg. It's what the natives call it, they call it that because it looks like nothing, but then it tries to kill you."
"Natives?" he repeated. "I thought you were native to this planet?"
He was about to respond, when he spotted something coming up behind them. It was a thin, fleshy tentacle with a sharp spine at the end.
He moved them out the way with his arms, shouting, "Look out!"
He grabbed the tentacle near the top where the spine was and tore it out with ease. It started to retract, but he grabbed it again and did something very startling. He opened his mouth and bit down on the fleshy appendage! A black fluid flowed out of it as soon as he sunk his teeth into it. The force of his bite was so strong that when he ripped his head while his still teeth were in it actually tore the flesh clean off the remainder of it.
The rest of it managed to retreat to the safety of its host pod, or so it seemed. There is no escape from a Tyro Yagon when he draws blood.
He then turned his attention towards the egg and narrowed his eyes, growling like a feral animal. This was his quarry and he was the hunter.
He didn't hear Ben and Robin when they started shouting at him. His 'father' looked on at him proudly with a small smile.
He gripped the blue pod on either side and tore it out of the rock it sat on. He sunk his fingers into its girthiness and ripped it half! The same black fluid flowed out of it and gave him almost a wild appearance. He let go of the two halves and watched as they sank into the depths.
He relished in the feeling of finally eliminating his quarry, he now knew how his ancestors felt. It was then that he finally heard Ben and Robin shouting at him. He clenched his fist tightly.
He faced them, his eyes as sharp as knives coated with fresh blood. His jaw was clenched and he bared his teeth as he growled at them in the same way he growled at the egg.
He let out a fierce hiss that sounded like a combination of the warning of a snake, a hostile cat, the sheer cry of a vulture, and a hint of a growl from some other kind of apex predator. When he opened his maw, his team thought they saw a mouth full of sharp, carnivorous teeth.
His ferocious gaze scoured over all four of them before his predatory eyes landed on Beast Boy. In his eyes in his current state of mind, he looked... delicious.
He lunged at them and they moved out his way in reaction, but Beast Boy wasn't able to get away from him as he roughly grabbed onto his tail. He tried to get away from him, even going so far as to bite his arm, but quickly spit him out due to a bitter taste invading his mouth.
'Why does this always happen to me?!' he mentally cried.
He grabbed him by his underbelly so that any attempts to get away from him would be futile. He opened his mouth to bite down onto Beast Boy's tough skin. He flinched in pain and he awaited his final attack, but it never came.
Ben and Robin were able to get him out of his grasp and push him away. He was then wrapped in the arms of his 'father' from behind. One arm was around his waist, the other was around his neck in a choke hold.
As he struggled in his arms, Slade tried to calm down his 'son', "Calm down, calm down, just relax."
Instead, he bit down his arm in an attempt to get away from him. Fortunately, the armor of his Plumber suit kept him protected from his maw.
Slade knew that there was only one way to calm him down while he was like this. It was something he discovered when he first met XL nearly a decade prior.
Even as a young child, he often had frequent episodes of extreme mania and he discovered that he calms down almost immediately whenever he listens to his heartbeat. Which was what he attempted to do, but he wouldn't let him and continued to struggle against his 'father'.
This was all very confusing for Slade, though, he was never this animalistic and wild, he was argumentative and occasionally temperamental, but he was never like this. What's more was that he wasn't calming down, he usually relaxes almost as soon as he looks at him, but it only seemed to make things worse.
He kicked him in the legs, but he didn't let go of him. He continued his kicking, the armor was able to keep him protected, although he would be lying if he said that it didn't make him a little sore. One thing's for sure, he's definitely stronger than he looks.
Robin went over to his friend and observed the bite mark XL left near his dorsal fin. It didn't look deep enough to cause any serious damage and he wasn't bleeding, but it still looked painful.
"Are you okay, Beast Boy?" he asked. He nodded.
"You sure? That looks pretty painful," Ben commented as he swam over to them. He nodded again.
He then looked back and XL, who was still struggling against his 'father', who was struggling to hold him back. He looked like a rabid animal in a cage.
"Just calm down," Slade uttered to his 'son', almost demanding him to do so. Once again, he did not.
He started to remove the armor of his Plumber suit and tore at the body armor underneath with little to no effort, exposing his bare skin. With his skin exposed, it made it impossible for him to keep his grip due to the mucus covering his body. Mucus and water is not a good mix and makes a good grip virtually impossible.
He managed to slip right out of his grasp and kicked him in the gut, putting him into a brief daze, but it was all the time he needed. He swam away at speeds equivalent to that of a missile.
Ben activated the Ultimatrix and was about to transform, but he was stopped by Slade holding back his hand by the wrist, "Don't."
He ripped his hand away from him, "Are you crazy? We can't just let him get away."
"We're not," he responded calmly. "We're going to follow him."
0-x-X-x-X-x-0
(A/N: I'd say this is as good a place as any to stop. I know, I'm leaving you guys on a cliffhanger and believe me, I hate them too.
Just so you know, XL won't be in that state for very long, but I can't say for how long. All I can really say as of now is that it has to do with his race and his mental stability. Those of you who have read "Interstellar Roots" probably know what I'm talking about.
In case you don't know, I recently published a "Star Wars" one-shot called "Birth of a Miracle". If this piques your interest, it has to do with the origin of the Child (Baby Yoda) from "The Mandalorian".)