Chapter Six! I'm glad this story is gathering a lot of fans! I hope it has been developing to your liking! Things are getting more and more original as they go on! So keep an eye out for things getting a little more romantic and reveals in Luna's past! Enjoy!
When Luna arrived in first, she found Robin being thrown into a pillar from the force of a red robotic-looking figure. She leapt with agility to his side, not bothering to help him up.
"That was foolish." she told him plainly, analyzing the enemy in front of them.
"Gee, thanks for the compliment." he retorted, still laying on the floor, propped on his elbows.
The others came running in behind the two. "Who's your new friend?" Superboy inquired gruffly.
"Didn't catch his name, but he plays kind of rough!" he replied, watching Superboy charge at their opponent next.
"My apologies." He said with a smart-aleck deep robot voice. "You may address me as Mr. Twister.
His large hands let out tornado strength winds at Superboy, who had difficulty walking through them. It slowed his pace down considerably.
It didn't help that this new enemy pulled a fast one on him and used a mini tornado to propel him into the far wall behind him.
Megan looked to the others with shock on her face. Aqualad became determined, Kid Flash pulled his goggles over his eyes, Robin got up, holding his side, Luna adjusted her sunglasses and had her swords come out from under her long sleeves, and Lantress started floating in the air, her green ring alight with energy to fight.
Kaldur looked to Miss Martian and nodded. She became serious and nodded back, hovering into the air and charging with him and Kid Flash.
Wally rushed towards him and did a backflip to kick at him, but he got caught in his circling winds and was thrown out the loading dock behind Mr. Twister, skidding on the ground and landing in the woods a bit away.
Mr. Twister turned back to the other two teens and threw Aqualad into a pillar and Miss Martian into the stair railing of the loading dock.
"Oh, now you're gonna get it freak!" Lantress snapped, charging at him with a green hammer appearing from her ring.
She went to smash it down on him, but it never hit impact because he used his powers the whisk her farther upwards into the air to bash her into the ceiling. Kyra fell all the way back down to the ground. It was a fall that would've killed her if she hadn't had her powers.
"I was prepared to be challenged by a superhero." Mr. Twister said to the remaining teens in front of him, Robin and Luna. "I was not, however, expecting children." he emphasized the last word with mockery.
Robin scowled and pulled out two of his ninja star grenades, throwing them at the enemy. "We're not children!" he snapped back.
Luna followed up on his attack by charging with speed close to Wally's with her hand swords. That attack was also foiled as Mr. Twister repelled one of the trinkets right into Luna's face, causing her to be blown back on the ground. The other was flicked away behind him.
"Objectively, you are." he replied.
"Now look who was foolish!" Robin insulted right back.
"It doesn't work if you use it twice." she frowned as she got up.
"Have you no adult supervision? I find your presence here quite disturbing." Mr. Twister commented.
"Well, we hate to see you disturbed! Let's see if you're more 'turbed once we kick your can!" Dick tried being witty.
"That's not a word either." Callie told him bluntly as Megan used her telekinesis to break open a canister-like object above their opponent and drop its contents onto him.
Superboy went at him after that, only to be thrown back into a floating Lantress behind him. Robin, Luna, and Aqualad charged next.
Aqualad's hand sparked with electricity and Luna's frosted with ice as they went first, Robin following. But they were each caught in their own individual tornadoes and thrown into each other, dropping to the floor.
"That was quite 'turbing'. Thank you." Mr. Twister said fakely, turning to fly out the plant and leaving the team on the floor.
Thankfully, he had forgotten about one team member temporarily.
Wally ran and somersaulted in front of the large entity. "Hey! What have you done to my team?" he demanded.
"Embarrassed them largely." he replied, forming a tornado in his hands and catching Kid Flash in it.
"Whoa!" he cried as he was nearly thrown back into the power plant, but instead he found himself floating in mid-air.
"I've got ya Wally!" Megan told him as she and the others approached.
"Whoa, thanks." he replied with relief as he was set back on the ground.
"I would've thought you'd have ALL learned your limitations by now." Twister said mockingly.
"What do you want?" Aqualad demanded at the top of his lungs.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm waiting for a REAL hero!" the enemy rose into the air, beginning to twist the air around him.
"Read his mind! Find a weakness!" Kaldur turned to Megan.
"I-I thought I wasn't supposed to do that!" She stammered nervously.
"It's okay with the bad guys!" Robin threw his arms out in emphasis to his annoyance and urgency of the situation.
Miss Martian closed her eyes and concentrated, until Lantress interrupted. "Don't bother! I've already checked him! I'm not getting any brain waves off of him at all!" she said from afar, over the roaring winds above them.
"You can read minds?" Superboy called over the wind.
"Something she learned training with some... expertise martial artists with her uncle a few years ago." Luna explained.
"Huh. Neat trick. For someone who's human." He gave the floating girl a small smile.
Lantress grinned back but the cozy moment ended quickly. "Ahem, if you guys are done with your moment...!" Miss Martian spoke up, somewhat annoyed and jealous. "I think this guy is Red Tornado in disguise!"
"What makes you think that?" Wally asked, running back over.
"No wavelengths from his mind and he's inorganic! And how many androids do you now that can generate tornadoes?"
"Red Tornado sent us here!" Aqualad saw the connection.
"After telling us we'd be tested soon enough!" Robin scoffed. "THIS is his test! Something to keep us busy!"
"Speedy called it; we're a joke." Kid Flash said with bitter contempt. "This game? SO over."
He and Robin and Aqualad walked to be underneath their opponent. "Wait, I am not so sure that-" Luna was totally and completely ignored as they called up to Mr. Twister.
"We know who you are and what you want!" Robin called up bitterly.
"So let's end this." Aqualad requested firmly.
"Consider it ended." Tornadoes whipped around Mr. Twister's robotic hands violently, creating one huge, darkly dangerous tornado around them all, placing them in the eye of a nearly uncontrollable storm.
"Uhhh, can Red Tornado do that...?" Kid Flash asked nervously, pointing to the sky above them.
"You think I'M Tornado? Ironic." A bolt of lightning came down from the whirling clouds around Mr. Twister and slammed itself into the ground, causing a blast that blew the whole team off their feet.
"As I was attempting to say before," Luna brought herself out of Superboy's arms, which caught her when the blast hit. "I do not believe that Red Tornado would be keeping up the charade, nor recommend that we continue the way we have been if that washim."
"Gee, thanks for the totally useless news flash, Luna!" Robin retorted as they got up.
Superboy took off his torn jacket and jumped into the air, preparing to sock the large robot, but he was rejected with a lightning hard shock to the chest, propelling Superboy back down to Earth on his back, right back into the others. This kept them down on the ground in close defeat.
'At this rate, we could fail our mission as a team before we have even started...!' Luna thought tiredly, propping up on her elbows.
She watched the enemy approach when something shifted in front of them, something barely there in appearance. It caused Mr. Twister to stop in mid-air. Luna glanced over to see M'gann with her hand up at him. It wasn't long before she pieced together that Miss Martian had moved her bioship in front of them in camouflage mode to hide them while they recovered.
"Fine then, I won't deny that you children have power." Mr. Twister began in his large, echoing, booming voice.
Kid Flash stirred and Miss Martian put a hand to his mouth to keep him silent. He quickly figured out why. Robin moved as well, getting up to yell something mindlessly when Luna sprinted over and quickly brought a hand to his mouth. "Not a word." she ordered, watching Mr. Twister carefully.
Robin would've argued, but he knew the price and stayed quiet. He couldn't help but feel fascinated with the act that even in the heat of the falling summer, Luna's skin was as cold as her attitude and the ice that fueled her powers. Her hand was frigid over his warm lips and the rising heat of his face. And although the Boy Wonder didn't know it, Luna's slow, cold, beating heart sped up just a bit at the contact. Something the girl was quick to ignore.
As Mr. Twister flew off, the others rose from their positions on the grass clearing. Luna released Robin and stood beside him. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Lantress had landed on top of Superboy and both now had a red tint to their cheeks. The ice girl concealed a secret smile inside herself, knowing that that moment wasn't an appropriate time for such thoughts.
"What happened...?" Wally asked in a dazed state, sitting up.
"I placed the bioship between us..." Megan replied, only to have Superboy punch the boulder along the side in anger.
"And that's supposed to make it right?" he scowled, rejoining their group. "You tricked us into thinking that Twister was Red Tornado!"
"She didn't do it on purpose!" Aqualad insisted, defending her.
"I-It was a rookie mistake." Robin said. "We shouldn't have listened."
"You are pretty inexperienced." Wally pointed out awkwardly as Miss Martian looked up at them. "You should hit the showers. We'll take it from here."
"Stay out of our way!" Superboy demanded as he stalked off to go after Mr. Twister with the others.
"I was just... trying to be part of the team." Megan said quietly, looking down.
Luna and Aqualad looked at each other. "To be honest..." Aqualad sighed, a hand on his head. "I'm not sure we have a team."
He and Luna then took off to follow the rest of the teens.
Mr. Twister was terrorizing the harbor pier with small tornadoes ripping everything out of place. "Certainly THIS will get the required attention."
"You got ours! Full and undivided!" Kid Flash called out, running straight at the robot, flipping and pushing it away with his feet.
"You are a distraction I can no longer tolerate!" Mr. Twister yelled, frustrated.
Superboy then dropped down from above and stood between Twister and KF, glaring and ready to fight.
It wasn't long before the others arrived as well and the battle went into full swing. And even with all the gadgets and combined powers, things were NOT going well.
"Damn it!" Lantress cursed, hiding behind an overturned boat on the ground with Luna. "If only that stupid martian chick didn't convince us into that this guy was Red tornado earlier! We might've kicked his butt!"
"Android, Lantress. And I don't think it wise to blame someone you hardly know, let alone blame her for something much larger than what she actually did. You made a rather similar mistake when you first started out, if I remember correctly." Luna scolded with her single tone voice, watching the battle carefully.
The dark-skinned girl irked and gave a slight glare at her best friend. She didn't, however, object to the truth.
'Listen to me! All of you!' A familiar female voice rang throughout all the team's heads.
"What did we tell you?" the two girls heard Superboy say furiously from a distance.
'I know! And I know I messed up! But now I'm very clear on what we need to do. Please, trust me.' Miss Martian begged.
They listened to her plan (which even Lantress could admit was clever) and it wasn't much longer later that Red Tornado flew over to the area and landed in front of them.
"Hit the showers, all of you. I was hoping you could handle this. Clearly, you cannot." he told them.
"But we've got a plan now!" Robin objected.
"The subject is not up for debate."
The team walked off, disappointed with themselves in appearance.
"I was beginning to believe you'd NEVER show up." Mr. Twister said mockingly as the two androids stood across from each other.
"I'm here now." Red Tornado replied, slightly fazed by the comment.
He sent a tornado at his enemy, only to have him deflect it. Mr. Twister sent one at Red Tornado only to have him block it with ease.
"It seems we are evenly matched, Twister." Red Tornado told him.
"No, Tornado, we are NOT!" The enemy robot sent electricity at the hero.
Red Tornado flew up to avoid it, but when the stream of lightning hit an overturned boat, it blew up and sent Red tornado flying into the ground, limp.
"Remain still android." Mr. Twister said as he hovered over to the robot's unmoving form, sending wires to plug into him (it?). "The reprogramming won't take long."
Then, Red Tornado turned and grabbed the wires, pulling them away. His head morphed into Miss Martian's.
"Longer than you might think." She told him with a smart aleck tone to her voice.
"No!" Mr. Twister was pulled into a makeshift tornado of Kid Flash's making, sending him into Superboy, who punched through the robot several times before sending him into the water. There, Aqualad took the initiative by whacking the android with a makeshift hammer of metal and sending electricity from him through the metal and into Mr. Twister, shooting him back out of the water. Miss Martian and Lantress flew up into the air and used their powers to rip the robot's arms off, making him hover helplessly in the air. Robin threw his grenade stars and Luna fired off ice shards at the remains of the robot, making it explode and fall to the ground in a smoking heap.
They all gathered in front of it as it sat on its knees and its torso opened up, a man in a green and white jumpsuit falling out of it. "F-Foul, I call foul." he stammered, looking up at them.
Mis Martian used her telepathy to pick up and boulder and bring it over. Before anyone could do anything, she dropped the boulder on the man. The others were all in shock.
"M'gann, I don't know how things are done on your planet, but this was completely-" Luna was interrupted in her forcibly calm scolding.
"Stupid! Here on Earth, we don't execute the people we defeat unless it's totally necessary!" Lantress snapped at her.
The martian girl gave a witty smirk at her teammate. "You said you were going to trust me." she lifted the huge rock up to reveal the remains of a robot.
"A robot controlling a robot. Totally uncool!" Robin commented, frowning.
"THAT'S why I couldn't read his mind." M'gann explained.
Kid Flash strode up and picked up one of the eyeballs from the robot. "Cool! Souvenir." he grinned, holding it up.
"Bro, you got some issues." Lantress rolled her eyes, smiling. "I wanna see it now!"
"No way! It's my souvenir! I called it!"
"We should've had more faith in you." Aqualad said to Miss MArtian, putting a hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him.
"Yeah! You totally rocked this mission! Get it? 'Rocked'?" Wally tried to make a joke.
"Wally, you should know, your jokes totally suck!" Kyra grinned, making fun of her brother.
"You know what?" he began an argument with his sister, making the rest of the members rolls their eyes.
"Ignore them, we're all just 'turbed you're on the team." Robin told her with a smile.
"Thanks, me too." Miss Martian smiled back.
Little did they know that they were being watched by the remaining camera-eye of the robot...
"It was clearly created to sabotage or destroy you." Aqualad said to Red Tornado, examining the remains of their enemy with the other team members back at Mount Justice.
"Agreed." Red Tornado replied.
"Is that why you wouldn't help us before?" Miss Martian asked him.
"No." he explained. "This was your problem. I do not believe it is my role to solve your problems for you. Nor should you solve mine for me."
The others looked up at him with that comment. "But, if you're ever in any trouble..." Miss Martian tried to reason.
"Consider this matter closed." Red Tornado said simply, turning and leaving.
"Batman, Aquaman, and Flash would've jumped right in to fix things. Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, too." Wally realized, voicing the idea.
"Guess if we're gonna have a babysitter, a heartless machine is exactly what we need." Robin gestured to the retreating robot with sarcasm.
"Dude! Harsh." KF replied back quietly.
"And inaccurate." Red tornado replied from afar, not turning around as he left. "I have a heart. It's made of carbon-steel alloy. I also have excellent hearing." he stopped and turned to look at Kid Flash and Robin.
The younger of the two laughed nervously. "Sorry, I'll strive to be more... accurate." he said.
"And more respectful, no?" Luna added, walking past him with a wry, mocking smile.
"I must agree with her on this." Aqualad nodded, putting a hand on Robin's shoulder as he shot a glare to the girl who spoke previously.
"Ya know, Speedy was wrong though." Kid Flash pointed out happily.
"This team thing..." Robin thought aloud.
"Might work out." Aqualad finished with a smile.
"Gotta agree with ya there!" Kyra grinned, giving a thumbs up.
"Yes, I believe I agree as well." Luna added in, a ghost of a smile attaching to her lips.
It was as they were all walking out together that Luna heard Superboy say, "Sorry." to Miss Martian.
She allowed herself a secret smile. Yes, with work, they could be an excellent team.
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