I do plan to do some things different with this as it goes on. Anyways, on with the story.
Bart and Conner trudged along (well, hopped in Bart's case) as the two teen superheroes were being led by Carnelian, Topaz, and Ruby. The hyperactive speedster nearly fell over from hopping too fast.
Carnelian growled and lifted up Bart harshly. "On your feet, Earther!"
"Ow! Hey! Watch the spandex, Skeletor!" Bart insulted before he was poked by Ruby's cattle prod-like staff.
"I find it quite laughable," Carnelian began. "How can such infuriating creatures like you manage to take on our most elite soldiers without so much as a scratch?"
Bart smirked proudly. "What can I say? Guess we're just that badass, am I right Conner?"
"Damn right. Us Earthers can do a lot of things. Like last night, I #$%^& her mom," Conner jabbed, gesturing his head toward Ruby.
She decided to poke him with her cattle prod also.
"Ow!" Conner cried out. "Seriously, lady! You poke me with that cattle prod one more time-"
"Quiet! Bored now!" Ruby dismissed.
Conner looked toward Bart, who was still smiling smugly. "How's Dr-I mean-Robin? Red Robin?"
"For one thing, he decided to get rid of that stupid name," Bart derided. "I mean, seriously? 'Red Robin'? Come on, it's like he wants people to confuse him with the burger place. Which tastes better than Big Belly Burger."
Conner shook his head. "I don't know, man. Big Belly Burger is pretty bomb if you ask me. Especially if you get the-"
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" Carnelian roared.
"Jeez, who pissed in your Cheerios?" Bart asked. Conner guffawed at the joke. "Hey Skeletor! What's that over there? Where'd you get the stupid armor from? Do you fight against He-Man and She-Ra?"
Carnelian stopped in front of Bart and stuck his giant sword to the speedster's neck. "Dear Lords, you're such an obnoxious creature. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just kill you on the spot, right here, right now?!"
"Carnelian. Don't we still need to bring them to Lord Opal?" Topaz reasoned. "If you kill them right now-"
"Oh, I don't care, Topaz! And what did I say about talking?!" Carnelian retorted.
"Here we go again," Ruby sighed. "Listen, Carn. If we don't do this right-"
"You two," Conner interrupted, looking at both Topaz and Ruby. "You guys on his payroll?"
"You want to know because..." Topaz answered.
"Shut the #$% up, Topaz! Don't talk to them!" Carnelian ordered.
"Look here," the half-Kryptonian said. "I've had a very rough time on this place. I've fought monsters way bigger than all three of you combined. If I demonstrate on Mr. Chuckles here about why you should let me and my friend go, will you just, you know, let us go? I promise nobody will know."
"I'll know," Bart added in, his voice cheeky.
Carnelian snickered derisively. "You're in no position to be making demands, Kryptonian. Be quiet before I kill you where you stand."
"Ah, so you do know what I am," Conner continued. "All the more reason as to why you should just do what the hell I say. Unless of course, if you're a coward."
Carnelian's eye twitched and he gripped his sword tightly. "I should thank you, Kryptonian," the Gemworlder began. "Because now I can show my two dunces what the power of the House of Opal can do."
Conner stayed completely still as Carnelian jumped into the air, intending to do a downward slash and bisect the Superboy. Topaz and Ruby were baffled as to why Conner was not reacting at all this this, but Bart knew. The speedster looked at Conner's right fist, which was now beginning to pulsate with a blue energy.
As Carnelian nearly descended toward Conner intending on cutting him in half, the unexpected occurred: the Superboy jumped up and punched Carnelian in the center of his armor.
*BOOM*
A large exploding sound erupted into the air, complete with smoke and a dust cloud. When the clouds cleared, Bart, Topaz and Ruby were greeted to the sight of the Superboy standing triumphantly over a dazed, groaning Carnelian, whose armor had completely shattered and was only clad in his boxers and socks.
"Owwwww," the Opal Gemworlder moaned.
Bart vibrated out of his bonds and zipped over to Ruby, swiping her cattle prod and poking her with it, shocking her and sending her to the ground.
"Doesn't that suck? I just shocked you for no reason," the impulsive speedster mocked. For good measure, he also shocked Topaz as well.
Conner kneeled down to Carnelian. "Where's your castle? You better answer since I'm in a good mood," he threatened.
"Ok, ok!" Carnelian said, his voice whiny. "Head east of here. You can't miss it. It's a big, dark, brooding castle. Oh, if only my father was here to see thi-" He was cut off by Conner punching him in the face.
"Shut up," Conner said. He looked over to Bart and smiled. "Still got it."
"Bro!" Bart said, zipping over to Conner and hugging him. "That was amazing!"
"I know, huh? Anyways, who else came with you?" Conner asked.
"There was Drake, there was Cassie-"
"Oh #$%, Cass?" Conner cut him off. "Alright, we gotta go find her quick!"
"Dude, there's still people I haven't told you about. A cowgirl like one of those western movies and some Green Lantern. And how can we be so sure they're even at the castle?!" Bart wondered.
Conner looked at Bart with a deadpan expression. "Bart, it's Drake and Cassie. They know how to get themselves into trouble. The others you didn't mention? We'll get them too."
"Alright! Let's do this!" Bart cheered.
"Let's go save the hot chick! And the other guys too!" With that, Conner flew off with Bart zipping behind him at his usual super speed pace.
Back at the prison pit of Castle Opal
As the rest of the group were nursing their wounds or trying not to freak out, Amy was lazing about near the door of the giant cell her and her newfound friends were imprisoned in.
"Hey guard!" Amy called out. "Hey buddy! Tell Dark Lord Opal that Princess Amethyst wants a word with his punk ass!"
"No," a voice from the other side of the door replied.
Amy looked out from the bars of the door's window at him; she could see that he was walking away. "Hey! Hey! What's your name guard? Gua-oh! Oh, screw you! Get back here!" After getting no response, Amy stomped away from the door, kicking the dirt on the floor.
The redheaded gunslinger scooched over closer to the Boy Wonder. "Hey, uh, Robin," she began, nervous. "Jinny here. Y'know? Girl with the shotgun?"
"I take it back from earlier," Tim said. "A shotgun is something we could all use right now."
"Yeah," Jinny said. "Lookie here, I'm gon' straight up admit it: 'm a lil worried right now. Y'see, in my pickup, there's this chest in the back-y'all ever heard of Jonah Hex?"
Tim raised an eyebrow at Jinny. "Yeah. The old cowboy Batman talked about sometimes. Mean mother #$%^& if you ask me."
"He was. That's my great-great grandpap. That chest in there: that's his too. Or used to be," Jinny explained. "It's full of weird #$% I can't even explain. I'd sound crazier than a wacko basket sayin' this to somebody else, but I don't think all that comes from Earth; and I don't think it's safe either."
Tim digested all of what Jinny said; he knew only bits and pieces of the famous Old West bounty hunter, but anything else was a 'need to know' thing as Batman would say. However, his eyebrows raised when he came to a realization.
"You got Rannian ray guns?" the speedster said to Jinny, surprised.
Tim looked back at Jinny. "You're right. Those two ray guns you had? Alien tech?"
"No #$%. Really?" Jinny replied, her voice holding no sarcasm.
"Yep." Tim confirmed.
"Well, I just don't want anybody #$%^& with it and gettin' hurt," Jinny confessed.
"So that's why you were in Metropolis?" Tim asked rhetorically.
"This #$% is just all new to me, man. I'm just tryin' to find somebody that can make sense of it."
"And you figure who else but Superman?"
"Damn straight."
"If they mess with your chest, that's their problem, right?" Keli Quintela rang near.
Jinny looked at the girl and raised an eyebrow. "M'sorry, is the kid with a Green Lantern thing-a-ma- #$%^& really sayin' this?"
"Speaking of which-Keli, right? How'd you get that?" Cassie Sandsmark asked, approaching the young girl.
Keli smiled and began her story. "Back in Bolivia a few months ago, I was searching through a junkyard, I found this glowing battery core, I hacked into it, made a glove that lets me use its power, and voila! Teen Lantern rises!"
Tim, Cassie, Jinny, and Amy's eyes all widened at that. "You straight up hacked a Green Lantern battery?!" Tim asked, his voice getting higher in pitch.
"Si, senor Robin," Keli replied, nodding her head. "Badass, huh?
"Not just badass," Cassie began. "You're some kind of child prodigy."
"It was easier than I thought," Keli said, shrugging. "All I had to do was isolate a few unstable isotopes, channel it through the gauntlet, and bam! Instant hard light construct projection!"
"Why were ya in Metropolis, girl?" Jinny asked.
"I was gonna show this to Superman and get an internship at the Hall of Justice," Keli answered.
Cassie tilted her head at the answer the eleven year old gave. "You didn't think that you would get in serious trouble? I mean, the Lantern Corps probably wouldn't take too kindly to a little girl hacking their tech."
Tim paced around, chuckling. "It keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it?"
"I know, Robin. You're probably not used to all-" Amy said before Tim cut her off.
"No, Amy. I mean all of us." Tim looked up at the ceiling of the giant cell. "Isn't it just a massive, almost perfect coincidence that we were all there in Metropolis at the same time and now we're here? It's almost like someone, or something, wants us to be together."
"What, like fate or some other bull #$%?" Jinny commented.
Tim shook his head. "I don't believe in fate or destiny. However, something's just a little too perfect about all this."
Amy looked down at the ground before looking back up at Tim. "Robin? Have you or anyone else here heard of 'the Crisis'?'"
The other four looked among each other and back at Amy. "Back on Earth, who hasn't?" Cassie replied.
"Yeah. My mama would always tell me stories of 'red skies' that happened years 'fore I was born," Jinny said.
"There's been several of them since," Tim said. "What're you getting at, Amy?"
"A year back, the Gem Council, those douches, discovered that the Crisis and the others that followed didn't just affect Earth, but here as well. They had no idea what to do and constantly bickered, so Dark Opal took matters into his own hands-"
"-and that's why he invaded Earth," Cassie finished, finally getting it.
"We, all of us in here, are now a threat to him," Amy further explained. "Just before you arrived, reality shifted, which led me to Robin."
Keli looked over to the Boy Wonder. "Maybe it's not a coincidence, hombre. It's like we were destined to meet each other."
Before Tim could object to that, the group all heard shouting erupting from outside of their cell; ray blasts were also heard and so was a familiar whooshing sound that brought smiles to Tim and Cassie's faces.
"Something's going on outside," Amy said. The Princess of Gemworld began to feel a surge of energy coursing through her veins. "I can feel my powers coming back."
A few seconds later, the ceiling of the cell cracked open and two hands grabbed the debris; it was soon revealed to be Bart and the Superboy himself holding the debris over his head.
Tim and Cassie's eyes widened at the sight of him. "Conner?" Tim and Cassie asked.
Conner smiled at them. "What up, peeps?" he said, throwing the debris to the side. He jumped down into the pit along with Bart and the four of them hugged each other in joy and relief.
Amy, Jinny, and Keli all looked on, however, Jinny was impatient. "I'm glad y'all found us and y'all hunky-dorky, but can we get the #$% out of here?!" she shouted.
The four others broke their hug and Conner looked at them. "So Bart was right, huh? Young Jus-"
"NO!" Bart cried. "I want Robin to say it!"
As the group of seven escaped from the prison pit, Amy conjured up her crystal shield and scimitar and hacked through any soldier that dared cross her. Bobbing and weaving with the grace of a ballerina performing Swan Lake, while at the same time delivering most likely devastating slashes and blows.
The group stopped in front of a room where Jinny saw her red pickup truck. " #$%^& A!" she cheered, running toward the vehicle. Keli also saw her Green Lantern battery pack and ran over to it.
"So what now?" Cassie asked, deflecting a crystal blast with her bracelets.
"Point me to an exit!" Jinny declared, sitting on the hood of her truck. Tim ran over and got into the passenger's seat while Amy hopped into the pickup section. The princess gazed at the chest underneath the tarp, tempted to touch it, but shook her head.
Keli, now with her battery pack, rubbed her hands together. "I got this, vaquera," she said. Keli conjured up a green bubble construct that enveloped Jinny's pickup truck.
As she did this, a Gemworld soldier barged in, intent on a fight; before anyone could react, Keli conjured up a construct of a giant baseball bat and pummeled the poor guy into the ground. "This is the most violent thing I've ever done," she said.
"Let's roll!" Tim declared. Everybody began flying, or running in Bart's case, as fast as they could from the dark fortress.
"So, how's it been going, babe?" Conner asked, looking at Cassie.
"Now's not the time for flirting," Cassie retorted, trying to stop a smile from spreading across her face.
"But you're smiling, so it's working," Conner said. "If we get out of this alive, what're you doing Saturday night?"
Jinny looked in the rear view mirror of her truck and saw a massive crowd of Gemworld soldiers coming behind them. "Now there's an army after us. There's a #$%^& army coming after us!" she cried.
"God, this is exciting!" Bart said as he ran.
"¡Esto es asombroso!*" Keli cheered, pumping her left fist in the air.
*: ¡Esto es asombroso! - This is awesome!
Nice to see this story getting a little bit of traction. Thanks.