We ran through the dense forestry of Yellowstone National Park, uniforms in stealth mode. Once we hit a few meters away from the location Ivo had gave us however, we stopped and Robin scanned.
"Ivo's right." He muttered. "There's something down there."
We continued our run until a strong windstorm caught us all by surprise, making us all fall back. As we looked up, we saw Red flying up above us in a two-story tall hurricane.
More hurricanes formed, at first randomly before forming a circle around us. As I looked at my mentor's face, I almost missed what the wind was writing in the dirt.
Play dead
"Why Red? Why are you doing this?" I screamed, not completely acting. I honestly did want to know, but that question was going to be asked at a later time.
"Message received?"
"Who cares why!" Conner growled. "Let's nail him!"
"Superboy's, maneuver Seven!" Kaldur yelled, and Conner cupped his hands for Kaldur's foot, which when placed in Conner's grasp, was launched into the the air. Red simply punched Kaldur, sending him back to the ground, crashing into Conner.
Next Artemis launched two arrows at Red, but he deflected them with a sweep of his hands and let them boomerang back, hitting both the blonde archer and Robin.
Megan tried to sneak attack from behind while Wally formed a hurricane of his own: but both were taken out in sync.
Zatanna tried to cast a spell, but was stopped when Red grasped her throat and sent her to the ground as well.
Even if this was an act, I had to make it look good so, to get my winds up to full strength: I extended my hands and put the hurricanes to rest before using the air that I had stopped to form a hurricane of my own. Sending it to Red, I handed control over to him as he sent it to me and made it 'crash' into my body. 'Defeated' I lay on the ground, not moving.
When the battle appeared to have been won, another android I had never seen came up. He had the same architectural design and style as the Reds, but had a bigger build and orange streaks on its vessel. He also elevated himself to Red by forming a mountain of sorts out of the ground.
So he's an Earth-manipulator?
"Quite the preformance brother." The robot said, a deeper tone then Red's. "But we both know that's all it was. I have all your memories, plus a next-gen processor: I know your next move before you do!"
The new robot picked up the ground Red's message was imprinted in, and we all got up: preparing for a fight.
"Blowing a message into the sand? Pathetic!" The new robot scoffed as he crumbled the ground and sent it flying straight at us.
I was able to blow most of the rubble away working together with Megan's telekinesis and Kaldur's' swords: but one accidently slipped passed and almost hit Robin and Zatanna, who were able to jump out of the way.
"Zatanna?" Robin asked.
"I'm good." Zatanna assured. "But Red Tornado's getting away!"
I looked up to see that Red was indeed flying away.
"Is he abandoning us?" Artemis asked.
"I don't believe that!" I assured before sweeping up all the wind I could and launching an attack on the new Robot. He simply grabbed me by the throat, making me halt and falter: needing air.
"You stand no chance against me, humans." The robot scoffed as he threw me to the ground. Luckily, I was able to summon winds in time to fly.
"We're not humans!" Megan and Conner yelled as they attacked, but their tag-team was stopped by a pair of giant hands coming out of the ground and 'clapping' them.
"I apologise." The robot droned. "I suppose the all-inclusive term is...Meat-bags."
I tried delivering an air-slice as Robin threw a birdarang. Both attacks didn't even gaze him.
"Red Tornado's memory files and my next-gen processor allow me to know your every move!" He growled, sounding annoyed.
"Nrut eht ekoms otni a dlofdnklb!" Zatanna chanted, and suddenly the smoke from Robin and my attack formed into a blindfold around the robot's eyes.
"Tornado never knew my moves!" Zatanna bragged.
"And I've bet you've got some good ones." Robin flirted, but then realized what he said. "Sorry that might have come out a little to Wally..."
Zatanna laughed. "I don't mind."
Can you two be adorable later?!
Suddenly, lasers exploded from the robot's eyes: removing the blindfold. At the same time however, the volcano behind him suddenly erupted.
"That can't be good." I muttered.
I saw Wally run towards the robot, but tripped over a sudden cracked formed in the ground from the explosion.
"He's forming a stage-two eruption." Wally explained. "If it gets to stage three: kiss the hemisphere goodbye!"
"Hit him from all sides!" Kaldur exclaimed, and went to attack with his water-swords, but was swept to the side. Conner followed with his infamous jump-punch-attack, but was stopped by the fist before thrown away like a ragdoll.
Megan tried to pull him down telekinetically, but the robot created a crack in the ground by Megan, which released mass amounts of heat: rendering the Martian girl inactive.
"M'gaan!" Conner exclaimed, and went to get her but was stopped when the robot dropped in the middle of the couple. The Android proceeded to back-slap Conner before grabbing Megan by the cloak.
"Distraction! Now!" I said as I flew behind the robot. I saw Zatanna place a hand on Wally's shoulder.
"Ekoms dna srorrim...etaerc dik hsalf noisulli!"
Suddenly, an army of Wally's appeared and began running towards the robot, who launched attacks on the copies. Using the brilliant distraction, I used my powers to grab Megan.
I caught her easily and flew back to stand with the rest of the team, setting her down gently.
Suddenly, a strong force of water hit the robot and sent him falling into a pool of lava.
"Nice hit!" Robin complimented Kaldur.
"The hit was not mine." Kaldur said, confused. "Look!"
We all turned to see one of the robots from before, the one that controlled water, standing there. He suddenly used more water to elevate himself from the ground. The new robot began to lift up from the lava, but Red (who came flying out of the sky) came crashing down into the rock. Next, the female robot that controlled fire began shooting fire-balls before landing in the water and pushing the new robot back into lava.
"Sister! Brother! Stop!" The new robot.
So they see themselves as siblings...That's kind of sweet in a weird way.
Eventually, the three older Android's all were in the lava; shoving their 'brother' down. Luckily Superboy grabbed Red before anything but his legs had been submerged.
We didn't have much time though, as the volcano began to explode.
"Wally!" I exclaim.
"Right, Tornado: we're on the verge of a stage-three eruption! There's no turning back from that. We need to vent pressure fast or the ash cloud will bring on a world-wide nuclear winter unless you and Lina divert it." Wally explained before turning to Robin. I didn't understand a lot of the words he said, but I understood what I needed to do. "Triangulate the route of the pressure lotus."
Robin pulled up a holo-screen of the volcano. "Here, here and...Here."
Artemis took charge and shot three arrows on the spots Robin and located. The volcano suddenly erupted and I grabbed Red's hand, flying us both into the air.
"Ready?" I asked, and Red nodded. I threw him as his powers kicked in and we began to swirl around the ashcloud in different directions, tunneling up into the air. Just as I neared my limit, the cloud began to dissipate and I saw the lava began to cool from below.
Flying over, I attacked Red into a hug.
"We did it!" I exclaimed, twirling in the air.
I watched anxiously, sitting at Red's side as Robin fiddled with my mentor's controls. We were in Morrow's lab, and we were all more then a little antsy.
"There, that should do it." Robin finished.
"Yes, I can speak again." He said, and I placed a hand on his shoulder with a smile.
"You were willing to sacrifice yourself to save the planet." Kaldur said, stepping forward.
"The planet would have survived." Red corrected. "It was humanity that was saved, but not by me. My brother and sister were the heroes today."
"The point is you were never a mole." I said happily, grinning like a child. "You never betrayed us!"
"No." Red answered. "I left to prevent further attack, and to find my creator: Morrow."
I smiled even more as I encased Red's torso into another hug. Do to the fact that he didn't have use of his arms, he wasn't able to hug me back but I took what I could get.
"Cool!" Wally said, ruining the moment. "Souvenir."
I looked over to see the ginger holding a large, red, robotic hand. I snorted in laughter.
"Red!" Robin exclaimed. "We can rebuild you! Better then before!"
"I do not believe I should be repaired." Red said sorrowfully. I arched a menacing eyebrow.
"Not on my watch Mister! We're making you as good as new!" I said, feeling like a mother scolding her child.
"Why'd you volunteer to be our den mother in the first place?" Conner asked.
"It was the pragmatic choice." Red said simply. "I don't require sleep, I don't have a secret identity or second life to live..."
"But you do have advanced A-I programming." Wally said, playing with the giant hand. "Designed to learn, adapt, evolve."
"You...Wanted to become more human?" I asked. This was news to me, not that I disapproved or anything.
"And you couldn't do that with the league: they're stiffs." Artemis laughed.
"You're sure not gonna learn emotion from Batman." Robin chuckled. "Trust me."
"What? Big surprise!" I exclaim sarcastically.
"Then the cave was not just a proving for us, but for you as well." Kaldur said.
Red looked around at all of us. "I do not know if these statements are accurate, but perhaps they are true. And if I have come to understand the word correctly, I believe I have come to...Care for you all."
My face flushed as I, once again, wrapped my arms around Red.
"We love you too Red." I said.
"See?" Conner asked. "Already a meat-bag already."