A/N: I have just realized that my life is so painfully boring that I have not one idea on how to continue any of my other stories except this one.
Disclaimer: Maybe you guys don't speak English. Ai du no tenr adolescina dios!
Crimson spread over gold as Cyborg picked Kale up and turned her on her back, supporting her with an arm. Kale's breath was labored and he did not trust himself to speak. A strange, uncomprehending look crossed her face.
"You, know it doesn't feel the way the movies and books portray it. It feels like a poison spreading through me," she said quietly. Cyborg nodded; he had felt the pain of a bullet wound before and with his mechanical body, most likely never would. At least not to the extent a 'normal' human would.
He assessed the situation; the bullet was lodged somewhere in her, for there was no exit would on the other side of her arm, but by the looks of it and the use he was able to get out of his X-ray eye, something else was wrong.
Cyborg noticed that some of her organs seemed to be in the wrong place, tendons stretched longer than normal, and he could have sworn he saw an odd pocket in her lungs. Before he had a chance to look any farther, panic filled his head as Kale uttered a small whine-grunt of pain and he went back to the task at hand.
He found the bullet. It had not pierced very far; it was in a muscle, far enough away from the heart to lull Cyborg into a momentary sense of relief. That vanished when he felt some thing warm trickle down his hand. He turned Kale back over; she made no complaint at being handled like a rag doll.
Blood was spilling out of the wound at an alarming rate; much faster than what he would have expected. Cyborg turned her over once again, being gentle. At this rate, Cyborg concluded, Kale would pass out in minutes. At the way Kale groaned and described the pain, Cyborg was sure she should have, but she did not. She did not even cry. So Cyborg tried not to either.
"Kale, why aren't you crying?" he asked, his eyes tearing up.
Kale laughed mirthlessly, the chuckle turning into a pained choke. "Cyborg, I came to Jump City a year and half ago and haven't cried since I woke up on the cliff two years ago. Something tells me I didn't cry before the cliff either. I'm just not that kind of girl." Her eyes were slightly glazed. "Cyborg, you don't have to act like I'm dying. I'm not. I've been through worse than this."
"When?" Cyborg said, trying to banish the stinging tears from his eyes. He wanted to keep her mind away from the pain that had to be coursing through her.
"Well, once when I was far away from the cliff town, a month after I left it, I was in Ithaca, Greece, not New York…" Kale told Cyborg a short story of why she was there (wandering), why she stayed (to help the townspeople regain a little of the former glory they had when they were ancient), and what happened (she met StoneBlock and had two ribs broken and a leg nearly ripped apart.)
"StoneBlock?" Cybrog asked, confused at the familiarity of the name.
"Yeah, I think he's related to that CinderBlock guy that was stomping around the city a few days ago," Kale said. She smiled weakly, "See? Even bad guys have families."
Suddenly, Kale scowled. She blinked a few times, and Cyborg felt her go limp. Cyborg kept his hand away from the open wound, to keep it from hurting, but that didn't stop the blood. He was actually amazed the Kale had not passed out sooner.
A bird flew overhead. Cyborg felt alone. He heard something clinking up the fire escape. Cyborg put Kale down, carefully on her other, uninjured shoulder. He readied the cannon, its blue light as ready to threaten teenagers as it was to blast Johnny or Control Freak.
"Cyborg it's me," Robin's hand reached over the side.
Cyborg helped him up, and looked down to find the girls wearing normal clothes. Robin, too looked like a completely normal citizen, except for his mask (Cyborg noticed, annoyed that he would take even a small chance on their safety), that is.
"Sorry we took so long, but Rae, Star and I had to change, and then we had to take the bus… What the hell!?" Robin had caught sight of Kale, and the blood running down her back, wetting the cemented roof of the building.
Cyborg motioned to her. "She's hurt. We need to either get her to the hospital or the tower. Where's Beast Boy?"
Right here." The bird that had been flying around them dropped down halfway between the team and Kale. He looked at her shoulder closely. "Dude, what did you do to her?"
"You think I would do this?" snarled Cyborg.
"Cool it, man," Beast Boy said, putting his hands up as a signal of capitulation.
Cybrog sighed. "So what's the plan, Rob?" he turned to Robin, happily turning over command as leader.
"I say we get those punks off your car and drive back to the Tower. We already have it on defense," Robin offered.
Cyborg nodded. "Do you have your weapons?"
Robin shook his head. "Not enough to take care of all those kids without seriously hurting them."
Cyborg picked up Kale and gently deposited her in Robin's arms. "Stay back and be careful, she's bleeding a lot."
Robin nodded and the grim-faced teens went back down the ladders, Robin going last because he had to walk slower and because of the burden in his arms.
"Titans, Go!" Cyborg yelled to his teammates.
Cyborg did not even get a chance to fire his arm. Raven marveously took up the front. She moved the kids off the car and opened the back door with her black magic, which Cyborg was immensely happy that she had at the moment. Robin ran straight to the T-car and slid Kale into the back seat. He himself crawled over the front seat and sat on the passenger's side.
Everyone looked expectantly at Cyborg.
"Right. Rae, you and Star fly back fast as you can and get the infirmary ready. You too, BB. Rob and I will be there in a few. Let's move, people!"
They all nodded and the girls and Beast Boy took off. Cyborg got in the car and sped through the streets faster than he had that morning, if that morning had indeed existed. Cybory could not remember his anger or annoyance at Kale, nor could he remember how sorry he was. Right then, there was only a now, and Cyborg new that he held Kale's future was in his hands; death or crippled, he would be damned before he let either happen to her.
Kale laughed. She laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes. "You... you seriously thought I was going to die from that? Cyborg! That bullet didn't even hit anything. God, are you always such a drama king?"
Cyborg looked down, his cheeks flaming. He muttered, "It wasn't so silly when you were actually dieing." He hoped that Kale hadn't heard him, but she had. Even more than that, she smiled at his last comment.
Then her smile faded. She fiddled with the end of the blanket. "So, when are you guys going after… you know? The kids and Jonathan?" She absolutely refused to call her former friend by his new name.
Cyborg shook his head. There was no point in lying to her. "Probably right now," he said, standing up.
"All right." Kale through the blankets off herself and started to get up, wincing only a little when she leaned on her bad shoulder.
Cyborg looked surprised for a moment, and then his face hardened. "Oh no, girl. Get back into bed. This is the same as any hospital, you're on bed rest."
Kale put on a mock-pitiful face. "Can't you just give me some pills like a normal doctor?" she whined.
Cyborg allowed himself a small smile, but remained firm. "Tell you what, I'll drive you home tomorrow and you can do whatever any drugs you want," he said jokingly.
"Or you can give me the drugs, and drive me home now." Kale smiled and raised an eyebrow to tell him that although she had a joking tone, she was seriously suggesting just that.
"No."
"Ah come on…"
"No."
"But what if I just…"
"No."
Kale crossed her arms. "You're really annoying, you know that?"
"And you're not getting out of here," Cyborg said lightly as he stepped out the door.
Of course, the happy, light-hearted effect was destroyed when he locked the door from the outside, causing a loud sound that sounded like he was locking a deadbolt from a submarine. Wincing slightly, Cyborg went to the elevator, sighing and rolling his muscles as it the elevator moved down to the garage.
He stepped out of the elevator, his face set and ready for fighting. He walked silently to the T-car. Raven, Beast Boy, and Starfire were already there; Robin had decided it was not safe for them to fly, of course, it made Cyborg wonder how safe driving a motorcycle could be, but he did not voice his opinions.
They drove out, over the water at first, the T-cars newest upgrades allowing them to fly over the surface. Cybrog could see Kale's silhouette in the Titan's infirmary where the lights were still on, through the mirror. She waved, and turned around. Cyborg spared himself a fond mental farewell to her, then thought of nothing but the road and set his mind, wondering what they were going to do with more than fifty relatively harmless kids.
Kale watched the Teen Titans go and bit her lip. She trusted Cyborg, but she did not want any of the kids to get hurt, whether it was by accident or on purpose from Jonathan or Control Freak. They were, after all, just misguided kids.
She winced at the itching pain in her shoulder. She had borrowed one of Starfire's extra shirts. It was purple a purple T-shirt. The girls were close enough to the same. One could easily see the large bandage Cyborg had put over her wound on the back of her arm. The wound had stopped hurting while she was unconscious, but she would remember the pain for a while to come and she had to now endure an odd itching sensation. She sat on her infirmary bed for a few minutes, and without anything to do, was forced to concentrate on the itch.
Slowly, however, the itch gradually changed to a dull throb in her muscle. A few minutes later, it disappeared altogether. Frowning, Kale pulled off the bandage. There was no sign of the wound that had been there. Indeed, there was only a faint pink scar in the shape of a perfect circle. All that was left of the painful bullet wound was a few smudges of crusting blood where it had been moved around.
Kale smiled, though she was concerned that it had healed so fast. She shrugged her shoulders, assuming it was her quick ability to heal that her friends in Ithaca and other places had always envied her for as well as Cyborg's great medicine, and ready to move on. There were kids out there that needed her help and guidance; she could worry about the wound later.
She went to the window, on the way shutting off the light. She left her eyes adjust to the darkness, only brightened by the lights of the city, and pushed against the window. It moved a little. Pursing her lips, Kale kicked the window's sill, careful not to break the glass.
It burst open. Kale looked down. It was just then that she realized that she was pretty high up.
Oh well. She thought to herself, hurried by the thought that the Titans had a good half hour on her.
She stepped down from where she was so that a little of her weight was resting on top of the window below her. Gasping as she nearly lost her footing, Kale gripped the sill and pulled her leg back in. She stood for a moment before making a decision. She quickly untied her sneakers before throwing them out the window, hoping that the water below would not take them.
She tried again, fully allowing her body to come out of room, and into the elements, gripping the sill like a lifeline. Which, of course, it was. The wind blew in a slight breeze, but to Kale it was a hurricane around her. Swallowing, she slowly let go of the open window and allowed her weight to rest entirely on the two-inch area for a second before scrabbling to grab the window again, breathing heavily.
Okay Kale. Let's be smart. She told herself. She turned her feet sideways. She was lucky her feet were tiny. They fit on the ledge. She crouched, and dropped one leg, then the other down to the next ledge while holding on to the first. Her heart beat wildly as she realized that she was not a speck on the dark rocks below her. She continued like this for a few minutes until she was one story up. Then, swallowing and gathering her courage, she jumped. She landed, but her knees buckled under the shock.
She gave her legs a minute before she tried to stand. Again, Kale paused, and then went to the edge of the little island, finding her shoes on the way. The water splashed up against the shore. She gave a little yelp as the water touched her and a searing pain struck through her head. An image of glowing water… then nothing. She hadn't swum since she woke up on a cliff two years ago. Taking a deep breath for breath and courage's sake she jumped in.
Kale surprised even herself. She moved like a bullet through the water and closed the space between the Tower and shore in what she was sure was record time. Heaving herself up out of the water almost regretfully, she looked for a way to get to the East Side's farthest corner. Hailing a taxi, she got in breathlessly.
"Look I can't pay you..."
The driver grunted, "No pay, no ride."
Kale felt her blood boil as she felt time close in around her. Her hand shot out and turned the man around so she was holding him by his collar. "Listen, bub, a lot of kids are gonna get hurt if you don't get me to the East Side corner, and if you do, you can gurantee I'm coming after you with a pack of angry Teen Titans at my heels. I'm going to ask you this once: can you take me to the first light on the East Side?"
"Can do," said the driver quickly and they sped off.
A/N: alright I made it a little longer this time. Review!