An undetected direct hit to the T-Jet's right wing immediately jerked the plane, sending those inside crashing to the left. Troia's head hit Nightwing's with such fierce velocity that his vision was temporarily gone, but he never lost his grip on the steering console.
"Dick!" screamed Troia as she swiftly regained composure and grabbed her friend by the arm.
"It's okay, Donna," he muttered, straightening the nose of the jet and blindly locking the autopilot. He cleared his throat and yelled, "Gar, Donna, Recon!"
Following this man's lead came naturally to this group of heroes. As the words were being spoken, Troia had already appraised the situation, acknowledging the rest of her teammates' conditions, and was poised to leave the jet; Beast Boy was a green eagle, wings aflutter, impatiently awaiting the release of the cabin door.
Troia shot a look to Cyborg, one he instantly knew as an unspoken 'you're in charge' command, punched the door release and jumped, followed by eagle-Gar. Simultaneously, Nightwing shouted, "Cyborg!"
Cyborg smiled over toward Kole, a vibrant look of reassurance, and vaulted himself to the co-pilot's chair. "I'm here, Robby," bolstered Cyborg.
"Kole… is she—" began Nightwing, as he suddenly felt her hands on his shoulders.
"I'm alright, Dick," said Kole calmly, "but I think Vic is needed on wing repair. I'll co-pilot," she said.
Nightwing wiped his hands over his eyes, trying to clear his vision. "Vic, what's the damage report?"
Vic Stone's left eye had been replaced many years ago by a computerized, laser-driven opti-cell; it could do many things the normal human eye could not, one of which was to zoom in on miniscule areas, much like a microscope. He had already scanned the wing damage and deduced that it had been ruptured from beneath by some type of missile or targeted explosive. Someone on the ground was taking pot shots at the jet. The rupture seemed to be contained to the wing, just barely inches from the engine. Cyborg knew it was simple repairs, and as he shared his analysis with his teammates, he began the repairs.
Tendril-like wires popped out from his cybernetic forearm and plugged themselves into the T-Jet's forward console. Cyborg was about to try something he hadn't done before, but he was confident it would work. His body was no longer simply half human and half machine; when he was merged with the alien community known as the Technis, he had absorbed techno-organisms into his bloodstream called nan-orgs which worked in unison with his red and white blood cells. They were cleansing agents for the computerized part of him, and could be transferred into any other machine through Cyborg's will. Plainly put, he had the ability to "cure" machines.
"Kole," asserted Cyborg, "can you still make crystal anythings? You know, like a chair or a birdcage?"
Kole furrowed her brow curiously. "Yes, Vic, that much is still the same," she reassured.
"Good," responded Cyborg, "put a crystal-plug in that gaping hole out there, willya? I got the rest from inside."
Nightwing's vision started returning; with a nod, he affirmed Cyborg's plan as Kole moved toward the still-open cabin door. The air stream was furious, but Kole held tightly to a canvas hand cord with her left hand. Her right hand glowed like a prism as she projected a burst of crystalline particles toward the T-jet's wing. The first blast of crystal missed the wing completely as it whipped off into the blue sky. She needed to focus, realizing the wing wasn't exactly an easy target while roaring forward at jet-engine speed. Kole steeled her feet and clenched her teeth, pushing the crystal with all her might to its destination. The second blast clung snugly to the hole in the wing like a shimmering bandage. From his vantage point at the co-pilot's window, Cyborg got a glint of sparkle from Kole's repair work.
Kole reached outward for the door hatch and tugged it closed; through the strain, she managed to get the hatch locked in place. She inhaled deeply then exhaled with exhausted satisfaction. "Wing's mended, guys," shouted Kole, "at least superficially!"
Nightwing had already begun descent to rendezvous with Troia and Beast Boy as he questioned Cyborg: "How's it coming, Vic?"
Cyborg looked at his friend while concurrently retracting his tendrils from the console. "Done," he replied, "We're good to go, baby."
A few hundred yards below, Troia, arms stretched before her, hovered beside the green eagle that was Beast Boy. They each scanned the ground beneath them, hoping to catch a sighting of what—or whom—was responsible for damaging their jet.
"Anything yet, Gar?" Troia asked as she peered west.
"Yah, not so much," responded eagle-Gar sarcastically. His silliness, even in the face of danger, never ceased to make Donna Troy snicker silently. As she allowed herself that momentary lapse in concentration, Troia began to sense something from behind her, but before she could react, energy, like a wave of electric static, surrounded her body. At first it felt tingly, until it worsened and began constricting her muscles; it was a matter of seconds before her mind went completely blank. Troia began plummeting downward, her limp body falling like a rag doll.
Eagle-Gar shrieked, "Donna!" His voice resembled nothing human. Wings strong against the wind, he instantly changed course and began after his falling friend. His mind raced: what shape could he take that would not only allow him to hold her safely, but keep them both from splattering on the velvety fields below. At this height, he doubted either one of them could survive the drop. Instinct took charge, as, in a flash of yellowish light, an emerald eagle became a jade gorilla. Gorilla-Gar reached with both hairy arms extended, simian fingers only inches away from Troia. However, the two of them suddenly became engulfed in a sphere of sticky, pink goop. It smelled an awful lot like bubblegum, but there was a different consistency to it, and try as he might, even gorilla-Gar's monstrous strength couldn't punch his way out.
Freefalling like a stone inside a balloon, Troia, barely conscious, squeezed open her eyes and whispered to gorilla-Gar, "Claws." Instantly, her teammate transformed into a 300-lb. tiger. He scratched against the side of the rubbery enclosure that trapped him and Troia, but again got nowhere. It was obvious that neither brute strength nor razor sharp claws were they key, about as obvious as the swiftly approaching earth below them.
"Donna, wake up!" shouted tiger-Gar emphatically. He pawed at Troia's shoulders and shook, but she was out for the count. They were only several hundred feet from impact when gradually the pinkish bubble began to slow, floating softly toward the field below. It felt to tiger-Gar like an invisible hand had caught them and was gently putting them down. Just as the bubble touched the first blade of grass, it popped; it sounded like a teenaged girl's gum bubble bursting, only magnified. The pink rubbery substance was now all over tiger-Gar's fur, and glued on to Troia's midnight-sky black jumpsuit.
"Great!" shouted tiger-Gar, "how am I gonna get all this goop off'a my shiny green coat?"
"That's the least of your problems," said a familiar voice from behind him as tiger-Gar felt his body stiffen from an electrical discharge; as he fell, rigid, to the ground, his body changed back to its human form, draping inches away from Troia's.
The T-Jet was closer now and the sniper had it firmly in his sights. His first shot, intended to disable the jet and separate the team, hit dead on. He had laughed aloud as he witnessed Troy and the green kid exit the jet, thinking how very predictable those brats were. With Grayson aboard that jet, as intelligence had notified him, the next round was going to be interesting, but a round worth playing. And now at his feet lay two down: one powerhouse and one nuisance. According to Intel, two more were on the jet with Grayson, and disabling them wouldn't break a sweat. This made the sniper laugh a little more.
"Hey," yelled the sniper's female associate, between chomps on four pieces of Bazooka, "lemme in on the joke!"
The assailant, looking upward through the scope of his weapon, didn't respond; with the T-Jet dead in his sights, he squeezed out another shot, this one meant to down the vessel completely. As he lowered his firearm, he smiled beneath his full-face mask and watched the jet explode amidst the cloud-speckled blue sky above.
His female associate screeched in hilarity. Her laugh seemed fake, forced, insane. Beside her stood another associate, a male, stunned at what he'd just witnessed. When he signed up for this job, he wasn't in it for the kill, just the thrill. A little bit of revenge, maybe, but no death. He started thinking this was getting a little out of hand. He stepped forward and reached out toward the sniper, who innately twisted his own arm back and grabbed the associate's fingers, bending them backward.
"Ow!" exclaimed the male associate, grimacing in pain, but managed to say what he was feeling. "I'm not being responsible for any deaths, man. I'm outta here now!" he said as he yanked his fingers from the sniper's grip.
"Michael, my little moron, your underestimation of this group of heroes will always be your undoing," stated the sniper calmly as he pointed an index finger upward. "That shot was more than anticipated, you see. Just keep watching and observe the resourcefulness of your enemy."
Michael looked upward, using his hand (the one not being crunched) as a visor to block the sun. Squinting, he could barely make out the image, but he could see something shiny jutting downward, refracting the sunlight. It looked like a prismatic water slide, spinning in a circular wave as it stretched to the ground below. Near that, a metallic object hovered, and it appeared to be holding someone. He guessed that was Cyborg and Nightwing, but what the hell was that crystal slide thing?
Suddenly the ground beneath Michael's feet erupted in red fire. Chunks of earth spattered around as he fell on his knees, watching as more bolts of fire shot from the sky near where his associates stood. As he stumbled, he wondered if Mr. Know-it-all had seen this coming.
Notably, Cyborg's cyber-enhanced implants allowed him to morph his molybdenum parts into anything he could imagine; currently he had a glider jutting from his back, safely lowering himself and Nightwing to the land below. Nightwing was already armed with bat-shaped throwing stars among other surprises. Kole, not far away from the gliding twosome, was lowering herself to the earth with a crystal slide as she beheld a sight of fuming magnificence and yelled, "Kory!"
There below they could see Starfire aiming concentrated starbolts at some costumed characters. Nightwing pressed a tiny chip on the left side of his mask, lowering binoculars over his eyes, and peered at the ground. He immediately recognized the folks who Kory was blasting at, surmised who had shot down the T-Jet, and began to mentally prepare his team's defense strategy. Kory, sometimes a loose cannon, could fit well in the mix, he thought. As they got closer to the ground, he saw Troia and Beast Boy unconscious, swathed in a Pepto Bismol- colored substance. That was not good, but it wouldn't hurt his strategy.
With a gesture from his leader, Cyborg veered off toward Kole so Nightwing could fill her in on the plan. She was eager to oblige. Once they were close enough for a safe free-fall landing, Nightwing dropped acrobatically and let Cyborg loose to head off his quarry. As 'Wing vaulted and landed perfectly in a soft patch of grass, he whispered to himself, "Wilson is mine."