Yeeah. Hetalia fics neglected. Feel guilty? A bit. Loving new story? A LOT. Heh. Anyways, this is going to be a pretty decent size fic, so get strapped in for the ride! =D Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: Yadda yadda don't own YJ, though might as well with all the material they give us for KFRobs ;D
Note: Wally knows Dick's ID justta let you know
Also posted on my Tumblr: blackhayate13
Chapter One: Seven year of bad luck my ASS
The moment the screen went black and the Young Justice team were minus a televised Batman their speedster spoke up with a huffed mumble.
"Of course we'd have a mission on Halloween."
"If we're lucky, the mission will take long enough that we can't attend your stupid party," Robin grinned, entering the coordinates into his wrist computer.
"Oh no, you're all going." Came with a determined nod. The redhead would get them all to 'his stupid party' if it was the last thing he did. It was a Halloween experience! Sure, just a costume thing at his high school, but it was something for Superboy, Meg, and Kaldur as their first Halloween, and Robin as one he wasn't busy fighting the idiots that always came out on this night with Batman.
"Not to be rude," from the side of the two the Atlantean rose a brow, "and I never would have thought I would say this to the two of you, but perhaps we should 'get moving?'"
"Yeah, I'd rather not let that whiny bitch-boy achieve whatever he's planning," Artemis huffed, first to leave the room for the bunker.
Robin trotted after her, eyes glued to the holographic screen in front of his face. "I find it odd how he practically broadcasted what he was planning. As if he was trying to attract our attention."
"So it's probably a trap of some kind?" Offered M'gann, floating alongside them with pursed lips. Kaldur nodded. "It is a possibility."
"He didn't seem like much of a planner when we last faced him." Robin didn't break stride, walking onto the bio ship as M'gann brought it out of dormant state. "There's probably someone else pulling the strings if it is a trap."
"Is there any point in talking about it?" Superboy growled. "Let's just go."
Flushing, Meg frowned in her sitting. "Well, even at top speed it will still take a bit to get to England." From her studies on Earth geography the Martian female specifically remembered the distance between coastal US and the island nation of England. While her bio ship was faster than a large majority of jets, that didn't make it able to travel an ocean in mere seconds.
Kid Flash, on the other hand. "I'll go and do recon stuff!" Just as he'd risen a hand like a child offering to do a classroom chore the teen was gone in a blur of red and yellow.
Artemis put her bow and quiver on the floor and allowed the ship to buckle her in. "The idiot has no idea where he's going, does he?"
"Of course not." Robin rolled his eyes and closed his computer. " M'gann, let's get going to we can hope to get there before he eats all of England's food."
On cue, the moment the ship came into range to comm link Kid Flash came on with a bit of static, as they had only just reached the coast. "Hey, guys, in case you get lost - not that you would with wonderful M driving~ - just follow the creepy storm clouds. Kinda hard to miss."
"I see them." Through the head of the ship the sky of England was dark for the time of day. Not strange for a rainy nation, but the clouds were increasingly ominous, stretching in an almost straight band towards a point.
Their target was a large tower, Stonehenge in the distance with the clouds swarming around it. Electricity crackled from the top of the tower, mixing with the flashing lightning in the sky. The grounds around the tower were filled with people, but as the ship landed and lighting lit the sky, the dead skin and rotten limbs were visible on these 'people.'
"Zombies. Great. Is this an attempt for a joke?" Robin sighed and jumped to his feet. "What's the plan, Kaldur?"
"First and foremost we must keep those things from attacking civilians." Down towards the beings spreading out from their source at the tower Kaldur nodded.
To mirror his words was Kid Flash's voice coming in again, "a little help here?"
"What, big bad Kid can't handle the zombies by himself?" Artemis snickered and rushed out, shooting arrows as she moved.
The rest of the team followed, but a disgruntled Superboy held Robin back. "Zombies?"
"Just smash them!" Robin burst into laughter and leaped into the throng of animated corpses. He heard Superboy doing just that behind him and laughed even more.
He shot his grappling gun at a window in the tower and started swinging over the fight. "I'm going ahead to stop Klarion!" He called into his comm link. "I'd rather not wait and find out what he's planning."
"Wait, Robin, you should not-!" It was difficult to be a leader ordering the team when you were trying to defeat the undead.
"Too late!" The teen cackled, breaking the window with his feet and propelling himself far enough to get away from the broken glass. At least that was the plan. Darn. He missed the total break point by several inches. Glass still remained on the edge of the frame, a piece sparkling with red blood from his arm. "Batman's going to have my hide for making a stupid mistake like that," Robin grumbled.
Chanting flowed down the staircase in an eerie fashion, effectively making Robin forget about his minor injury and focus on the task on hand. He raced up the stairs and skid to a stop at the doorway.
Klarion stood in the center of the room, swirling yellow and purple light surrounding him as he chanted. His cat sat on his shoulders and whipped its head to stare at Robin and hiss. The witch-boy didn't spare his foe a glance, and kept his focus on a large mirror opposite him. "Take care of him Teekl. I'm almost done!"
The cat tensed and jumped off of his master's shoulder, his entire body seemed to start shifting. Robin wasn't going to let that happen. He threw several exploding batarangs at the mirror- was that a hand coming out of it?
But then the entire room shook with the explosion, blinding Robin with white light as he hit the ground. Damn. Apparently magic and batarangs didn't go together. As the dust settled and the spots left Robin's vision, he was left with an empty room and broken mirror.
"Heh what a coward." Robin jumped to his feet and went to inspect the mirror. He picked up a piece of broken mirror and inspected it curiously. Chills ran down his spine, but he shook it off without a second thought. "Wonder what he was summoning."
"Rob, let us beat him up too! Don't keep all the fun for-Where is he?" In the doorway was Kid Flash, raising his brow at the lack of the pilgrim dressed boy. When the mirror was broken the zombies had all fallen apart and left the Young Justice team surprised for a moment. Course, the moment was shorter for KF, thus his dashing up to get his own pounding in. "You blew him up too?"
"Why would he leave without a fight when his plan was thwarted?" As Kaldur bent down to inspect some of the mirror shards, puzzled at everything now.
"Robin!" Never would Robin get a word in. One right after another the team came up, and in her arrival M'gann made the most noise. Even more than Kid Mouth, which was saying something.
A paler shade of green, the girl held her hand in her face in a dramatic expression of shock. "You broke a mirror! That's bad luck!"
"M'gann, that's only a superstition," Artemis laughed, replying when Robin seemed too consumed in inspecting the mirror.
"But bad luck does exist!" She exclaimed. Taught about Earth society as she was, this Martian had a firm belief that such things were a fact of life, like the effects of gravity on an object. "Kid Flash, you need to reverse the effect!"
That certainly caught him off guard. Wally looked up from his place beside Robin, standing with his hands on his hips and leaning over to also look into the mirror contemplatively. But at that statement he brought his head up and asked dumbly, "Wha?"
"You said you were Irish on St. Patrick's day, didn't you?"
"... You're not pulling this luck of the Irish thing, are you?" Superstition was on the same level of magic, thus to this logically minded teen it was about as believable as Superboy giggling. "That's nice to pull when people are hating on you for being a ginger, and on Nationality Day at school, but seriously Meg. I'm living proof that that luck only comes in one well placed bolt of lightening."
Robin placed a large shard of the mirror in a pouch on his waist and stood, finally acknowledging M'gann. "The superstition that breaking mirrors is bad luck stemmed from back when mirrors were extremely rare and valuable. People just make stuff up to protect their belongings."
"Yeah, what Rob said."
As usual, Kaldur had to return the group to reality. "We should return and report to Batman."
"We didn't achieve anything though!" Superboy mumbled crossly. He had smashed plenty of the zombies, as Robin told him to, but there had ultimately been no purpose to his actions now that their target was gone. "We don't even know what the magic boy was trying to do!"
No one seemed to know how to respond, but then a light laugh filled the room. Robin walked up to the frustrated clone and pat his arm comfortingly. "Don't worry Supey. Sometimes the bad guy gets away before anything really bad happens. Batman deals with it all the time! What matters now is taking the clues back home and analyzing them. You did well!"
This explanation placated Superboy and he almost smiled in his curt nod to Robin. "We have clues then?"
"Yup! The mirror should have some residue of magic on it. There's a member in the league that can help us out."
Magic residue. Green eyes rolled. More like chemical remnants. "We're done early, so there's time to get back, report, and go to the party! Come on!"
"Think you could fly really slow?" Artemis whispered to M'gann as the group headed down the tower.
"I'm sure he'd know." Then a pause in the hushed tones, "what's so bad about going to a party? I thought it sounded fun."
"But it's a costume party and his school!"
Robin joined in step with them and sighed. "There's no getting out of it. He already asked Batman and I'm off of patrol for the night. Batman thinks it'd be a good experience for M'gann and Supey. How he could agree with anything KF says is beyond me."
"It is something normal for the both of them to do for the first time. Not just seeing it in a film," Kaldur spoke calmly to the three. The movie nights when it was either of the two's turn was taken up with something high school related, a glimpse into teenage life.
"We could have just had a party at the mountain," Artemis sighed. "I mean, really, costume party? Don't we dress up enough as it is?"
"Costume?" Superboy stopped mid step and turned to look at the group lagging behind. "Why must you wear a costume for a party?"
"Because it's Halloween!" Shot back the source of everything, standing by the bio ship with arms crossed and foot a blur in its tapping.
"Why?"
"It's tradition in America. But we really don't have to dress u-" Robin's sentence cut off into a loud yelp as the ground suddenly spun out from under him. He caught himself easily enough with a roll and bounce back to his feet... But he didn't trip! Ever!
The strangeness of such a thing certainly didn't go unnoticed. By the time he'd righted himself Robin found his friend beside him. Wally rose a brow at him quizzically after he'd made sure the ground was slippery or anything. "Did you inhale some of his smoke or something?"
"I don't know..." Robin stared at the ground, brows scrunched together. There weren't any narcotics in the room; his sensors would have picked them up.
"Bad luck." Superboy stated.
"Does not exist! No offense, Miss M." While normally he would include a wink and pick up line whenever the opportunity presented itself, at this point the flirtatious speedster was too anxious to get going. "So, everyone in the bio ship! Before little Robby hurts himself."
"Hey. Not cool Kid. I must be affected by his magic still is all!" Robin shoved his friend harshly and plopped into his seat with a scowl. What the hell he didn't trip!
"Do we have to wear costumes?" Superboy asked curiously. "What kind of costumes are permittable on Halloween?"
For the time being, pouting Robin was ignored in favor of an explanation. Kaldur shook his head when Kid Flash opened his mouth to launch into his explanation of how girls could wear risqué bunny outfits while guys were cool in Freddy costumes or stupid dressed as a giant banana. Kids were superheroes or fairies or firemen. Adults usually were an odd mixture of children and teenager themes. This was all said with great animation to show the redhead's exuberance on the topic. Why wouldn't he be excited for a party, after all? One with his team, no less! Arrive there with his group of strong looking guys, hot babes, and Robin. Oh it'd be wonderful.
And Meg, sweet M'gann, asked the question of the century. "So what are we wearing then?"
That grin grew ever wider in Wally's face. "Well it'd be dumb to wear our uniforms," he snickered, "but don't worry, beautiful, I have it all worked out."
"Oh god, no." Artemis whined, placing her fingers against her forehead. "I refuse to wear anything you picked out."
"C'mon, it's a school thing. I know I can't do anything too showy." And a showing of his tongue, "besides, if I had something like that, I'd rather see it on Miss M."
"Well, it could have been worse..."
"Yeah if Kid Dumbass didn't want to keep his so called manhood."
Artemis and Robin sat the top of the bleachers of Wally's school gym, watching the masses of normal high school students mash against each other in what they called 'dancing.' Artemis' skin was a pasty gray, courtesy of Wally's aunt and a Halloween make up kit. Her hair was let loose from its normal pony tail so it could be teased and thrown all over in a crazy mess to fit under her bridal veil. The whole zombie bride get up was idiotically ironic, after the whole fighting the undead thing, but it was much better than Wally's previous costume suggestions.
He had pulled out a cute checkered dress and ruby slippers for M'gann; the alien girl immediately recognized it as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. She had been very excited to wear it and even changed her skin and hair to look more the part. To match her, Wally had a 'human Toto' outfit (which was really just a normal outfit with cute puppy ears and a tail) for Superboy. The clone seemed reluctant at first, but when M'gann looked to him with her shining eyes and excited smiles, he put it on without any argument. The true show of Wally's pure creativeness was his costume for Kaldur, a scuba suit and shark fin to fit on his head. Yeah. Real original.
For himself, Wally showed his true geek colors. He dressed himself as Captain Kirk from Star Trek and even tamed his hair some what. Robin became his right hand man as Spock with dark sunglasses, or as Wally proclaimed, "Bro Spock!"
At first, Wally tried to make Artemis a red shirt. She may not have been a Trekkie, but she knew what that meant. With a glare from her and a threat from his Aunt, Wally sighed and suggested Artemis be the Wicked Witch of the West. Yeah that got him a punch in the face. At least his Aunt was nice enough to find the zombie bride costume. How could such a nice woman be related to Baywatch?
"At least Supey and Megan seem to be having fun," Robin pointed out, nodding to the matching duo as they attempted to fit in with the dancing teens around them. Eyes scanning the gym, the kid laughed and pointed at Kaldur. "I think he's chatting up some swim team girls. Well. They're chatting him up at least."
"Unlike Supey over there who looks like a fish outta water." Beside Robin was, again, the source of all their troubles on this night. Well, for the most part. Torso leaned forward his elbows rode his knees so he could cup his chin in raising a brow at the scene from a different view. From here it was different than what he'd seem moments before on the floor. There were more girls around him. "But apparently that's hot."
"The stoic type is hot," Artemis sighed dreamily. "Leaves more room for the imagination."
"Woah! End that right there!" Robin got to his feet and scowled. "I'm going to get some punch."
"Get me some too?"
"Sure Arty, you want some too,-" As he was speaking, Robin nimbly jumped down the bleacher seats, but the bad luck seemed to have made its return. He pivoted on the ball of his foot to look up at Wally as he posed his question, but the plastic seat suddenly became slick and frictionless, sending the little hero falling backwards from the tall bleachers.
"I don't think so..." Robin was obviously shaken. This was twice within hours that he tripped. This wasn't some accident something was WRONG with him!
"Hey Bird Boy, did something more happen in the tower than you're telling us?" Artemis leaped down next to them, worry etched across her face.
Robin frowned and wrapped his arms around himself. "No... I told you everything. I don't think Klarion had time to cast any enchantments on me. I don't know what's wrong."
Instead of going on another tangent about the impossibility of magic Wally birthed a reassuring smile and put a hand to Robin's shoulder. "Rob, you were in direct line of an explosion. You're just jarred. The effects of light and sound at that intensity screws with your brain. And yeah you've been in lots before, but then you weren't in a room with nothing to dive behind or a Bats to shield you. That mixed with inhaling the smell of rotting corpses would screw anyone up."
"Perhaps..." Robin shrugged Wally's hand off and pulled his phone out of his pocket to text Batman. "I'm still going to get myself checked out by Zatanna," he mumbled to himself. He didn't care what kinds of explanations Wally tried to come up with. He knew his body better than anyone and this wasn't natural.
"I'll go get us some drinks," Artemis offered, smiling to Robin when he looked up. "Just stay here and try not to kill yourself Boy Blunder, kay?"
Robin laughed and put his phone away. "I dunno, seems like Baywatch is becoming Birdwatch lately."
"Dur." With his bright smile Wally hugged Robin, undeterred by the rejection of his former contact. "I won't let anything happen to my bud. Even himself!"
Artemis snorted and turned her back to the buds. "You guys are so gay sometimes," she laughed to herself, jumping down the bleachers with the grace Robin should have had.
"Your face is gay!"
Artemis just flicked him off, not even bothering to turn around or take a pause in her stride to the food table across the gym.
"That was the lamest come back ever," Robin snickered, pulling away to go back to their original spot at the top of the bleachers.
And right after him was his friend that was now very adamant in his goal to stick to him for the rest of the night. "Good enough for her."
"Yeah if that's what you want to tell yourself." Once seated again, Robin's eyes scanned the gym for their friends. Seemed Kaldur had escaped the gaggle of girls to join Artemis at the punch table. M'gann was looking a bit annoyed as she kept getting pushed away by the girls trying to dance with Superboy, who was completely whelmed and had no idea what to do. "Dude, I think Supey and Megan need relief before he explodes."
"Huh. Well," a grin spread across Wally's face, "we could leave and test what sugar does to your screwy reflexes."
"My reflexes are not screwy!" Glaring fiercely, Robin got to his feet. "Bring on the candy, Wally. It's not going to affect me at all!"
"To the candy it is!"
Wally changed his tune when they actually got to the magical land of candy, AKA, his Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris' house.
In their arriving the group had to wait, a few curious about the strange orange buckets suddenly in their hands and others unamused by the speedster's antics. The and others namely Artemis, not that he cared. What he cared about were the faces on M'gann and Supey's faces when the door opened to Iris and Barry, bowls of candy in hand. When they received elbows from KF and Rob they got out a sweet, "trick or treat?"
Course, once inside and doing the usual trading of the goods, something occurred to the ginger Kirk in time for him to swipe the Whopper from Rob's hands. "Wouldn't want you to choke~"
"You're an idiot," Robin scoffed, going through his pile to find some Twizzlers. "I don't like Whoppers anyways."
"More for me~"
"H-Has Robin already started choking because of his bad luck?" Stuttered an again wide eyed M'gann.
"For the love of-" He abandoned his search through his candy to look to M'gann, trying to best to not get annoyed with the foreign girl. "Megan, I'm not plagued with bad luck from breaking the mirror. I'm definitely not going to randomly choking either."
Robin sighed and finally gave up looking through his pile to just go ask Iris if she had any Twizzlers left in the bag. He was able to stand safely, but couldn't even walk past the group surrounding him without tripping and falling flat on his face. Great. Now he wasn't even catching himself. "Do not say anything," he grumbled.
The streak of bad luck just continued. Kid had Robin sitting up so he could better hear the exclamation of, "that's it! Robin, you have to stay with Wally! It's Luck of the Wallace."
End of Chapter One
Eheh. Hi guys xD Go here.
First things first: headcanon of Wally? He is a Trekkie. C'mon, he's a geek. He totally knows Trek, Firefly, Stargate, all that shit.
Second: as a history geek I feel I have to fill you in on the wonderful tower featured here~ It's called Alfred's Tower, after Alfred the Great of England. It was built in commemoration of him not far from a stone at which his battle against the 'heathenish' Dane's supposedly occurred. After that they were forced to convert to Christianity and give up their Pagan ways. Thus the irony of Klarion casting spells there
Third: as an overall geek, explanation of red shirt. Basically, if you watch Star Trek, and there's the random guy in a red shirt, it's basically a rule that he's gonna die by the end of the episode. That's just how it goes guys
Fourth: She whines about being scared of messing up characters. Just skip this.
Fifth: … BACON!
PS (five and a half-th?): Title for this email passed between us? xD 'Cause this is thriller~ Thriller night.' Heheh. Couldn't resist
