(A/N: I don't really have much to say except that I hope you guys are ready for this chapter. I know that I'm ready for it.
Don't expect for there to be a lot of trigger-happy themes. If anything, the only thing I can say is that there's a couple of graphic details, but it's nothing gory.)
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As they continued to search for the parts they needed for the Rust Bucket, both Gwen and Raven couldn't get rid of the feeling that they were being watched. They couldn't explain it, but it was as if something or someone was following them; watching them.
They went into a building that appeared to be some kind of repair shop, judging by the machines that appeared to be motors and aerospace engineering. Just by taking a brief glance around, it wasn't difficult to determine that they had finally found the place they needed.
Kevin opened a metal box and grinned at the contents, "Hell, yeah!"
His exclamation startled everyone else, making them wonder what he found. Had he found what they were searching for?
"What is it, Kevin? What did you find?" his girlfriend asked.
"Exactly what we need to get out of this galaxy," he responded with a grin.
"A hyperdrive? You found a hyperdrive?" Cyborg questioned, surprised and in disbelief.
"Yup," he replied. He absorbed the metal of the box and took the item out of it.
It was a cone shaped object with a flat top instead of a pointed one and it was approximately one meter tall. It was navy blue in color with darker blue circuits. Several layers of dark metal shielded it from large to small, bottom to top.
He unsheathed himself and tapped on the top of the machine part, "Here it is, a Class 3 hyperdrive."
Hyperdrives are often divided into different classes because of the number of vehicles they can be used in. It ranges from something as massive as a starship to something as small as a basic space pod.
"So, if we have what we need, should we call up the other team then?" Cyborg asked again.
His smile dropped, "No, we still need a new battery before we can go anywhere. If we use a new hyperdrive with an old battery we would be sitting ducks in space."
"What kind of battery are we talking about that we can't find up here?" he questioned, slightly baffled.
"A potentially dangerous one called Element X. When combined with certain minerals and elements, such as what we call iron ore, it could create an explosion powerful enough to destroy an entire solar system," Gwen explained.
Cyborg's jaw practically dropped down to the floor, "It's that powerful?!"
Gwen nodded, "Unfortunately, yes. When Ben and I were kids, a couple of bounty hunters stole a sample of it and came to Earth in order to mine iron ore with the intent on using it for destructive purposes."
"What I find pretty ironic about it though is that it's useless unless used to destroy something or used in ships," her boyfriend commented.
"Well, I say we go back to your ship and do what we can and wait for the others to come back," Cyborg suggested.
"That sounds like a plan to me," he replied.
The cybernetic hero picked up the hyperdrive and held it down over his shoulder. They left the building and started to go back the way they came to the Rust Bucket.
Suddenly, Gwen and Raven felt the same presence they felt earlier. And... whoever or whatever it was, it was close.
So close in fact that they felt prompted to look over the platform they walked on to look down at the waters below. They saw nothing and thought they were just a little paranoid because they were on an alien world they knew next to nothing about.
"Hey, you guys coming?" Kevin called out to them after noticing they were falling behind.
"Yes, we are," Raven responded.
The two girls caught up with the rest of the group and they proceeded to the ship. The presence they felt was suddenly gone and they hoped that they wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.
Then, they heard water moving and something coming onto the platform. They looked and were utterly surprised by what they saw looking at them.
It was a group of a couple a dozen creatures of approximately the same appearance. They all had charcoal gray skin, noses like that of an elephant seal, large mouths with thick lips, and pure white eyes that appeared to lack souls.
They all had long, stringy, dark hair that went down to their ankles and covered their bodies like blankets. They wore clothing that appeared to be a mix of oceanic vegetation and the skins of various creatures poorly sewn together.
The arms of these beings were long and spindly with long, sharp, ivory nails. They had webbed feet like that of a frog, although the membrane was not transparent from what they could tell.
One of them stepped forward, causing them to take a step back out of uncertainty, he didn't appear to be hostile, but it was difficult to tell. He wore jewellery made of bones and teeth with aquamarine and violet colored stones. He was the only one to wear such ornaments, which possibly suggested some kind of leadership.
He made sounds that sounded like a school of piranhas chewing at the scraps of another predator. He made an 'X' with his nails and cupped his hands together, extending them out to them.
They couldn't understand what he was saying, but it was obvious he wasn't hostile. Gwen and Kevin were tempted to take out their Plumbers' badges in order to communicate with them, but they worried that it would cause some sort of confrontation based on the mere fact that these people appeared to be quite primitive.
Starfire could use "lip contact" in order to learn their language, but there was just something about their grotesque appearance that almost made her sick. She, of course, knew that it was wrong to think that way, but she just couldn't help herself.
He started to repeat the sounds and gestures again. This time, he looked rather angry that he was not given a response the first time.
Not knowing what else to do, Gwen took a step forward and nervously introduced herself and her group, "Um, hi, my name is Gwen and these are my friends."
He held up his hands to her, as if begging - or demanding - her to give him something. She started to dig into her pockets, trying to find something to give him.
She eventually found something and took it out. It was only a penny, but it seemed that he would take anything she could offer him. She placed in his hands and took a step back unless he got upset with her offering.
He looked at it in his nails with curiosity as it gleamed in the light. He then placed in his mouth and bit into it, but spit it out and it landed right in front of them.
He pounded on his chest and threw his fists in the air. He looked either angry or very displeased with the copper coin he spit out.
"I don't think he liked it," she uttered.
"You think?" her boyfriend retorted.
He then broke off a sharp, elongated bone and extended it towards them. It was like he was trying to threaten them with it, if that's what he was really doing at all.
Nevertheless, in her nervous mind-set, it caused Gwen to inadvertently fire a disk of mana at him. It hit the section of the platform near his feet and it startled him and caused him to fall onto his back.
His followers immediately flocked to his aid and helped him to stand. They glared at them and the hairs of each individual suddenly stood up like the hair of a mage. Then, a green, fog-like mist suddenly emerged from their bodies.
"Could that be what XL was warning us about?!" Cyborg shrieked.
"Let's make a run for it!" Kevin shouted.
Before they could, however, more of these people suddenly appeared behind them. They were trapped.
Kevin opened the door of the building nearest to them, "Everyone inside! It's our only chance!"
Ordinarily he would not run away from anyone or anything, but when the most deadly foe is one they can't fight, he's not going to take any chances. Even though he's not sure if what XL said was the whole truth.
They covered their mouths and noses in order to prevent themselves from inhaling the illness causing mist. Better to be safe than sorry.
Some of them followed them inside, causing them to fight back. They were able to send them back, but that meant nothing if more came in.
While using her powers to push them back, Raven inadvertently backed into a panel that opened a hidden door. It looked like some kind of elevator, a series of buttons on the side revealed a number of floors ranging from the ground floor to roughly sixty levels high.
She gestured for everyone to follow her inside and they rushed over to her. They got into the elevator, but not before Starfire shot one last bolt at them. The doors closed as she pressed the button for the top floor.
Before they knew it the elevator was moving upwards towards the top. Anywhere was better than being where those creatures were.
"What are they? Who are they?" Starfire inquired.
"I don't know, I just know I'm going to kick XL's ass for getting us into this mess!" Kevin growled.
'Technically it's not his fault,' Raven thought.
"Kevin!" his girlfriend growled warningly.
The elevator eventually came to a stop and, with caution, they walked out. They discovered that they were taken directly up to a living area. This was an apartment building.
The flat was completely white, the walls, the floors, the ceiling; all white. The carpets were more of a champagne color, while the furniture itself was the very pale yellow color of seashells.
They took a look around, there didn't appear to be anyone there. It looked like this place hadn't been lived in more years, although it looked ready for its occupants to return at any moment.
"Looks like we can lie low here for a little while," Cyborg uttered.
They looked around the space and went over to a large window that encircled nearly a quarter of that space of the flat. A glance down showed that the creatures had long since left, but the mist they left behind was still in the air.
Raven walked away from the window when something caught her attention on the wall. They appeared to be tablets made out of an acrylic glass.
It looked like there were people depicted on them, but she couldn't tell. It was dark in the space and it was cloudy outside, which made it very difficult for her to make out the characteristics of them.
"Can you give me some light?" she asked no one in particular.
Cyborg turned on the light on his shoulder, "That good?"
"Yeah, that's good," she replied.
With that light, she could see that these were pictures and appeared to be pictures of a family. There were pictures of children playing, adults interacting with each other and their children, a child holding a baby while smiling up at the photographer, there was even one of a newborn baby being held in the arms of his mother while surrounded by at least a dozen other people.
"This... this was home," Gwen muttered sadly.
Raven took a closer look at them and saw a toddler sitting in between the legs of an older child who had his arms around him. The toddler looked distinctly different from the child and from everyone else in the other pictures. He had much lighter skin, almost like a teal color more than a cyan, a tuft of black hair, whereas most of the others were hairless, and black eyes, whereas everyone else had red eyes. He looked exactly like how XL described his nephew.
"Take a look at this," she told the others.
They looked at the picture she was looking at, but couldn't figure out what she was trying to tell them. It just looked like an ordinary picture to them.
"It's a picture of some kids," Kevin pointed out monotonously. "I don't see anything special about it."
Gwen took a closer look at it and she could see what she was telling them. "Not just any kids, look at the younger of the two. He looks exactly like the description XL gave us about his nephew. What are the chances that he belongs to any other family?"
This was extremely difficult to believe because the chances were just so low. They had actually found the building where XL lived with his family until he had to leave the planet.
"Follow him?" Ben repeated in disbelief. "He must be as fast as a rocket down here! How could we catch up to him?"
"He said we were getting close, did he not?" he pointed out.
He wasn't really sure where he was going with this, "Yeah, so?"
"It's possible that in the back of his mind he knows he has to go somewhere for some reason and might go there in order to figure why," he explained.
"Or he could go to a cave and wait for us to pass by then kill us," he retorted, slightly exaggerating.
"Remember how he got away from me?" he asked.
He was a little taken back by this question, "Yeah, we all saw it."
"I never held him in that position, I always had him facing me, never away from me. Nor have I ever put him into a choke hold," he claimed.
Robin seemed to see where he was headed with this, "Yet he knew exactly how to get out of it, as if it's happened before."
"That means somewhere in the back of his mind at that moment, he was remembering something that likely happened years earlier and from his memory knew how to get out of it," he surmised.
"If he could remember something from years earlier in that state of mind, it's possible that he can remember what he said to us just an hour or so earlier," he acknowledged.
"So, how are we going to follow him?" Ben asked. "He is very fast down here."
"It's been a straight descension down this entire time," he responded. "It's a safe bet to assume that our destination is directly below us."
With nothing to lose at this point, they descended down deeper into the abyss. With no idea what was in store for them and no clue as to what could be lying in wait for them, it was like venturing straight into a war zone.
They continued down for an amount of time that only a divine deity would know. Ben, Robin, and Beast Boy made sure to keep a sharp eye out for anything that could kill them, while Slade was more focused on keeping an eye out for his 'son'. If his experience as a father and as a soldier taught him anything it's that you need to have eyes everywhere.
Suddenly, he extended his arm out to stop them from going any further. They were about to say something, but he gestured for them to be quiet and pointed down.
They looked down and saw at least three buildings, but they were all rundown and destroyed. Looking through a massive hole in the roof of one of them was XL. He didn't appear to be feral anymore, in fact, he looked very calm.
Once he was done with that building, he moved on to the next. He spotted his team above and waved up at them, smiling.
"How can he just look up at us as if nothing happened?" Robin inquired aggressively.
"Because nothing did happen," Slade spoke.
"What? What the hell are you talking about?!" Ben shouted. "He attacked us and bit into you and him!" He gestured to Beast Boy, who nodded again.
"In his mind, he wasn't. He was saving us," he claimed. "He freed him from a certain death and warned us before it had a chance to strike. He might have been hoping that we leave him behind because he's so used to being alone. Or perhaps because he knew that the only way to stop it meant losing his sanity, however brief or prolonged it may have been."
While they stayed behind to think about that, he went down to greet his 'son'. He looked very content to see his 'father'.
"You need to learn to keep up with me," he joked slightly. He then looked up and saw that the others were still above them, as if suspended in animation, "Why are they still up there?"
He looked up at them and gestured for them to come over. They were hesitant for a second, but then made their way down to them.
"Open your mouth," Ben told him as soon as they swam up to them.
He cocked his head to the side in confusion, wondering why he wanted to see his mouth. He looked up at Slade and he gave him a slight nod. With only a moment of hesitation, he opened his maw wide open.
When he did they were surprised to see that his teeth were no longer sharp like that of a carnivore but were more blunted like that of an omnivore. It was as if his teeth had gone through a form of metachrosis.
He closed his mouth and asked, "What are you looking for in my mouth?"
They were dumbfounded and slightly embarrassed that they just had him do that. He looked at them positively perplexed, waiting for some kind of answer.
"Sorry, it's nothing," Robin replied.
"It can't be nothing if you wanted to see something specific," he pointed out.
He was given no response to that before Ben decided to tell him point-blank, "You went insane and attacked us."
Surprisingly, he wasn't at all surprised by that, "Remember what I said earlier about instinct?" He nodded. "Well, what you saw was my primitive instinct."
"Primitive instinct?" Robin repeated.
He nodded, "Yeah, whenever I tear into flesh and draw blood everything goes red."
It was both amazing and terrifying to hear something like that. Just knowing that he could snap and attack them like a hungry shark if he sees blood is a truly scary thought.
"I believe it could have something to do with being descended from an aquatic, carnivorous species," he explained. He then got back to the more important matter at hand, "We are here for a battery, are we not?"
"Uh, yeah, we are. How did you know that exactly?" Ben asked.
"Simple. I knew that the other team would be able to find everything we need to leave except for a battery," he responded.
"What kind of battery are we talking about?" Robin questioned.
"It's called Element X," he answered. "If used properly it can be used to power an entire star destroyer, which are massive and extremely rare. However, if used improperly or combined with certain elements it can be used to destroy a solar system."
Robin's jaw dropped, "It can destroy an entire solar system?!"
He nodded, "That's why we keep it down here for safe keeping." He then gave them some startling information, "We have to go deeper in order to find other storage facilities and buildings."
"Why? Why can't we look here?" Ben asked.
He started to swim away towards the structures and gestured for them to follow, "Come see."
They followed him and he led them to the building he was looking into before they arrived. When they looked inside through the large hole in the roof they saw half a dozen perfectly round, peach-colored eggs. Eggs that looked familiar to Ben, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
"Eggs?" he questioned.
XL nodded, "This is the nest of what we call a rock whale. By nesting here, she's marked her territory. We can't search in this area, we just can't. We have to leave before she comes back. Otherwise, she will devour all of you."
"Us? Why not you, too?" he asked again, confused.
"I'm protected by the mucus that covers my body, it makes me taste bitter to potential predators," he replied with a slight smile that showed a hidden smugness behind it. "They just spit me out." He then went on to add something, "However, there is a way to avoid being devoured."
"How?" Robin inquired.
Before that could be answered, a call that sounded like that of a vulture and a blue whale rang out. XL knew what that sound meant and that it wasn't anything good.
"We have to move out, now!" he stated.
"Wait, let's look around for a minute, maybe we can find what we need before it gets here," Ben told him rather calmly.
"First off, not an 'it', a female. Second, do you have a death wish?!" he shrieked, pushing him back.
He held up his hands defensively, "I get why you're scared-"
He cut him off, "No, you don't!"
"But if we can find the battery here, we can leave quicker," he finished, unfazed by him.
"It also increases the chances of getting killed!" he argued, crossing his arms. He then threw his arms up and shook his head, "But if that's what you want, I'm not going to stop you."
He swam away and came to a stop over one hundred meters away from them. He wanted to be a safe distance away from them if the expecting mother comes back and sees them there.
While he watched and waited from the distance, they went along to scavenge the buildings for the battery. They decided it would be best to avoid the nest as much as possible and explore the other buildings, which were in no better condition.
Nothing was found in the first building, nothing but debris. It appeared that it had been looted the day it was destroyed. They checked the next and last building, but it was the same as the first.
XL sat on a rock while he waited for anything to happen. He had a device to his head that looked like a fork with only two legs instead of four. His eyes were closed and he was facing down as he let out a deep sigh.
He opened his eyes and looked up when his antenna gave a slight twitch, someone was approaching. It was his team, they were empty-handed. Just as he suspected.
'We should have left already,' he thought.
"Nothing. We found nothing," Robin informed him, somewhat frustrated. He just nodded and said nothing in response.
Ben noticed the device he had to his head, "What's that?"
"It's a device that stimulates certain areas of the brain that induces the production of hormones specific to those areas with the use of sound waves," he explained.
"May I?" Robin asked. He gave it to him.
He examined it and noticed a dial on it with numbers. Most likely the numbers represented the intensity of the sound waves the device produced.
"What's this dial for?" he inquired.
"Intensity," he responded. "One being the lowest, four being the highest. One simply relaxes you, two would be the equivalent of rewarding yourself after a long day of exercise, three would be if you were with someone you like to be around, don't ask me what four is."
"Why not?" Ben asked.
"Let me put it this way, it would be like if you were thinking about something not so innocent," he replied, choosing his words wisely.
The reactions of Ben and Robin were priceless and he was just glad to have a photographic memory. Slade's reaction was just a smile and chuckle.
Then, they heard another call. This time, it was longer and it sounded much closer to them.
However, in the distance, XL could hear something that they couldn't. That's because his audible range was much wider than theirs and allowed him to hear sounds and voices at distances they can't.
He could tell that it was definitely from a rock whale and that it was a male, not a female. Not only that, but it was a young male, possibly an adolescent.
He studied the development of rock whales when he was young, it was one of the first things he learned when he first started out with marine biology. He knew that the way they developed was similar - but not identical - to most sapient species, including his own.
He felt a hand being placed on his shoulder, which snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked to see who it was and saw that it was Ben.
"Hey, we gotta get out of here," he told him. He noticed how he was in deep thought before he interrupted him, "You okay? You looked like you were thinking pretty hard about something."
He nodded and replied in a slightly low voice, "Yeah, I was."
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(A/N: I hope all of you enjoyed the new chapter, I had a little fun with it, but it was also a bit of a challenge. I know some of you are probably going to bagger me about the dirty joke I put in this, but I was bored and I did say that I would add a random element in this every once in a while.
I published a new story just the other day called "Sieges of Two Lives". I hope those of you who have read it enjoyed it. I'm working on the new chapter for "Hunter to Hero", but it won't be finished for a little while.)