Prologue 1: Chasing Fire - Part 2

"Dude, where'd she go?" asked Beast Boy, voicing everyone's thoughts.

Robin came onto the sidewalk with his friends, rubbing his aching hand. "I don't know." He said, lifting his hand up to examine it. "But I think…she burned me."

"Burned you?" repeated Cyborg. "How'd she do that?" As he was speaking, Starfire and Raven came over and looked at Robin's hand. Curiously enough, it was unmarred.

Weird.

Beast Boy thought for a second, then piped up. "She did that to me, too, when we were in the air. I was hanging on to her, but then she got way hot, and I had to let go. But it didn't leave any marks, either." He held up his arms in proof.

"Maybe Slade's given her a weapon." Raven offered. She looked up from Robin's hand. "Or maybe it's part of her powers..?"

"And how did she vanish so quickly?" came Starfire's soft voice. "Perhaps teleportation?"

"If she could teleport, I think she'd've done that at the beginning of all this." Raven said.

Robin dropped his hand and looked up at the sky, which was turning pink and purple with the oncoming sunset. "There's only one way to find out. We need to keep looking. Cyborg, Raven, are you guys getting anything?"

Cyborg checked the scanners on his arm. "She's too far away now, man. My sensors are picking up squat." The Cyber-teen turned to Raven. The cloaked girl closed her eyes and held her fingers to her head for a moment.

"I can sense her," she answered, "but it's very faint. I can't put an exact location on it; she's still somewhere in the city."

The group nodded at the information. Robin spoke up. "Alright, team, split up. We have a better chance of finding this girl if we cover more ground."

"And we'll need to hurry." Cyborg said. "The sun's almost down and –."

"And I'm gonna miss the season premiere of Clash of the Planets!" Beast Boy cut in whiningly, as if his TV show was the most important thing in the world.

Raven gave the green boy a sideways look. "We just need to get to her before the police do, and before she does anything dangerous."

"Perhaps she isn't as dangerous as we believe." Starfire offered. "During the pursuit, she seemed quite scared."

"Well, it was all five of us against the one of her," Raven answered. "And if she is with Slade, who knows what he's told her about us. It's not exactly a surprise she wouldn't want to get caught."

"Well, then, what are we standing around here waiting for?" Cyborg said. "Let's get a move on."

With that, the teen titans split up and began their hunt around the city.

Raven and Starfire took to the air in the west and east, respectively, scanning the city's skyline and peering down into alleyways. Beast Boy went to the south, alternating between a bloodhound and a bird, with Cyborg tagging along close by. Robing went north, ducking into building and alleyways, and climbing up onto roof tops. As they searched, they kept constant tabs on each other through their communicators.

"Beast Boy to Robin. Any luck?"

"Nothing in the business district. How about you and Cyborg?"

"Cyborg here. I'm not picking up anything either."

"And I am not seeing anything in the area of residences. Raven?"

"The same, Star. Her presence seems to be getting stronger on and off, but I still can't pinpoint it."

They kept on like that for several hours, looking high and low throughout the city for the mysterious girl. But there was still no sign of her.

It was now night. The sky was cloudless, unusual for that time of year, and stars shone done on the city like thousands of fireflies, all oblivious to the happening below them.

Meanwhile, the five superhero teenagers had practically exhausted themselves in their search, having scoured more than three quarters of the city, often looping back to where they had looked before in the chance that the elusive metahuman had come to that location while they had been gone.

"Alright, titans," Robin's voice came over the communicator. "Let's regroup."

"Well, it's about time!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "My arms are tired, and my nose is all sniffed out."

"Starfire and I are at the rundown apartments on Vine Avenue," came Raven's voice. "It's pretty close to where the rest of you are. And we think we may have found something."

"Got you, Rae," Cyborg answered. "We'll meet you there."

The boys found Starfire and Raven in a back alley between two rundown apartment buildings. Shadows filled the place, and small rodents scurried to and fro from the walls and trash bins.

"Okay, so what'd you find?" Robin asked. The sudden sound of a trash bin lid slamming shut echoed across the brick walls, followed by the squeal of a mouse. Starfire squealed, and Cyborg jumped, signing his shoulder light around.

"Can we make this quick?" he asked. "This place is giving me the creeps."

"Not to mention I missed the season premiere of Clash of the Planets." Beast Boy grumbled, crossing his arms.

"You're still thinking about that?" Cyborg demanded, annoyed.

"Alright." Robin cut in, stopping their argument. He turned to the girls. "What'd you find?" He repeated.

Raven pointed to the brick wall behind her, and Cyborg shone his light in that direction, revealing what the girl was referring to. A few long, thick, black scorch marks were seared across the wall, all the same distance from each other, resembling claw marks of some giant creature. "We found some burn marks here." She explained. "They're very recent, too recent to have been a natural fire and be put out."

"And the pattern is most strange." Starfire continued Raven's line of thought. "It is too…perfect. A normal fire would not leave marks in this way." Both girls turned their heads toward Beast Boy and Robin. "Friend Robin and Friend Beast Boy, did you both not say that you felt the girl burn you?"

"Yeah, but she didn't leave any marks." Cyborg said. The boys turned thoughtful as they realized what the girls were getting at. He surveyed the marks along the wall. "You think she could have make those? We aren't even sure what her powers are yet."

"No," Robin agreed, "but it's the only lead we've got. Let's look around some more, and –."

Raven suddenly gasped and whirled around to face the exit.

"Raven, what is it?" Robin asked, all of them now alert.

"She's here."

"Here? Like here, here?" Beast Boy asked. He turned toward Cyborg. The Cyber-teen activated his scanner.

"I'm picking up her heartbeat. Raven's right, the girl's only a couple of buildings down, in that direction." He pointed to the left, indicating the way they should go. The rest of the group nodded in acknowledgment. The teens wasted no time. Hurriedly they ran (or flew) to where Raven and Cyborg sensed the girl was, hoping to get there before she started moving again. Thankfully, though, the girl's location remained the same.

The team emerged from the shadowed back streets into a clearing in the middle of the complex, which was bordered by four brick apartment buildings, one on each side, making it a sort-of square, about 400 feet in perimeter. They all looked around for a second and took in their surroundings. The clearing needed some serious cleaning. The place was just full of stuff; bicycle and car parts, scrap metal, trash, wooden planks, and cardboard boxes looked like they were just tossed there carelessly, thrown into large piles scattered all over the place.

They had been led to a junkyard.

The kids looked at each other, most of them having the same look on their faces. Seriously? They were supposed to find one girl in all that mess? Where the heck would they even start? And why would a young villain hide here, in all places?

It was Starfire who voiced that last thought. "Why would she choose such a place to hide?"

"Yeah," said Cyborg, "wouldn't she head back to Slade? Even if she didn't, I'm sure she'd have other, better, places to go." His voice was slightly concerned, suspicious.

The answer came from Robin, as determined as ever. "I don't know why, but right now it doesn't matter. We can figure that out later. For now we just have to find her; that's the important thing…." His voice started out hard, but then trailed off has he looked around, his eyes flitting back and forth as he surveyed the massive heaps of objects that littered junkyard. This was quite a task before them. While Cyborg's scanner told them that the girl was still in the same general location, it didn't tell them exactly where she was.

"How are we supposed to find her in all this mess?" Beast Boy demanded, throwing his hands slightly up in the air in exasperation. "Where are we even going to start? We've been out here for hours, and now this? How long is this going to take?" Under normal circumstances, the young green shape-shifter wouldn't have complained so much, but their lengthy, mostly goose-chasing search had left him somewhat irritable – and the fact that this girl had ruined his TV plans just added to his frustration. Just who did she think she was, coming barging into Jump City, disturbing the peace, and sending them on this wild chase? "This is too much trouble! I'm tired, and –."

Raven silenced the boy's complaints with a look and a hand placed softly on his shoulder. "I know where she is." She said. Greatly relieved, the other members of the group nodded in acknowledgement and followed Raven as she wordlessly swept past them, leading them toward the center of the clearing. They quickly weaved through the piles of junk, Starfire flying above them, while Raven, for some unknown reason, chose to remain on the ground.

Upon reaching their destination, Raven stopped abruptly. She pointed with an index finger and mouthed 'she's in there.' In the center of the junkyard, where Raven's finger had indicated, was a much smaller pile of junk, consisting mostly of vehicle part and scrap metal, with a few wooden boards here and there. The blue-cloaked girl soundlessly flew off the ground and landed on top off the pile. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." She murmured. Her eyes glowed simmering white, and black energy encased the top layers of junk in front of her. She lifted them off of the pile, moved them to her right side, and let them clatter down the other side; silence wasn't important now.

Raven stepped closer and looked into the hole, which she had only partially created, in the center of the pile. Peering up at her, eyes wide and whole body rigid, was the girl they had been looking for, making no motion to flee. Finally, after all that chasing, they had found her, cornered her once again.

Yet, as they had learned from their previous encounters, this was no indication that it would stay that way. Yes, they had found her.

But now they had to catch her.

Here's the second part to the prologue. I was going to tack it on to the 1st part, but for now this is easier. There'll be a third part, after which I'll just combine all three into one chapter.

As always, reviews are welcome!

Signed, Skyfire