Author's Note: Not much to say here either. I don't own anything please review.
6. Out Of The Frying Pan
When they finally surfaced Robin was gasping for air. Artemis was about to hand back her breathing thingy, as she had decided to call it, but before she could Kid Flash's voice rang out.
"Look out!" She had never been happier to hear his voice as she and Robin dove back under the water, narrowly avoiding another shower of fire. Following the red of Robin's shirt she surfaced nest to the immobilized forms of Kid Flash and Superboy. It looked like someone had heated and bent metal around them to keep them in place.
"You guys alright?" Robin panted trying to assess the situation and catch her breath at the same time. Superboy was the one who answered, he looked panicked.
"Don't worry about us! Help M'ggan!" Robin looked up to the secondary level of the hanger. She could just see the glow of fire up there, not good for a Martian, or an Atlantian for that matter.
"Aqualad, is she…." Artemis couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. She couldn't say dead, because that would make all of this too real.
"She is unconscious. I fear she, we may not survive much longer." Their conversation was cut off however as another ball of fire came flying their way. They dove under the water as Wally cried out in fear, though whether it was for them or himself was anyone's guess. Robin and Artemis surfaced running up the stairs but before they could reach Aqualad and M'ggan the female red robot blocked their path. Artemis pulled an arrow her heart clenching as she realized that it was her second to last one. She backed down a few steps before she heard Robin pull out two bird-arangs. She glanced behind her and saw the other red robot rising from the water to block their path.
"Any ideas! I'm running low on arrows here!" Robin nodded fingers fiddling almost imperceptibly with one of the devices.
"Distract her, now!" Artemis fired and the robot swatted aside. Robin knew exactly what she was doing as she threw her bird-arangs, they clanged off of the robot and went flying exactly as she wanted them to. She heard Kid Flash curse as he very nearly got a haircut. Robin dove off the stairs back into the water, Artemis following seconds later. Robin could feel the water heating at the surface as the female red threw fire at them. Robin lead the way down to another vent cover and with only a slight effort pulled it out of the wall. She let Artemis go first and quickly followed letting the vent cover sink down to the bottom of the lake that had once been the hanger. They both surfaced gasping this time as Robin climbed out of the water. Artemis followed, she was close to tears as the monotone voice returned.
"Six minutes."
"What do we do now?" Robin coughed, spitting out a bit of water before answering in a steely voice Artemis hadn't heard since they had last patrolled in Gotham.
"We save them, that's how this works."
"Maybe that's how it's supposed to work but those things took down our four super powered friends!" Robin paused watching Artemis behind the white lenses of her mask.
"You seem distraught." Artemis was practically hysterical.
"Of course I'm distraught! M'ggan is dying! We have no powers and I'm down to my last arrow! How could I not be distraught?!" Robin glared.
"Well get traught or get dead!" Artemis looked at her stunned, she'd never heard Robin raise her voice before. Artemis's voice shook.
"How are you so calm?" Robin began to crawl down the tunnel.
"Practice, I've been doing this since I was nine." Artemis's eyebrows rose. Maybe Diane was right and Batman was guilty of child endangerment. But she had other things to worry about now.
"What good is any of that now! How are we supposed to beat unrelenting machines?" Robin slapped a hand to her head.
"Duh! How could I have been so stupid! They're machines! And one electromagnetic pulse will shut down any machine within range!" Artemis glared at the young acrobat.
"That's great but you'd better have an EMP emitter in your utility belt because I know I don't have one in my quiver!" Robin shook her head. Normally she had several EMP grenades in her belt but she had taken them out to work on them and hadn't put them back yet.
"Fresh out. But I'm betting we can make one." She tapped her earpiece.
"What do you say KF? Doable?" Artemis just barely heard Wally's voice from Robin's earpiece.
"Totally doable, with the two of us anyway. And you know if we had more time."
"How are you talking to him, I thought the coms were down?" Robin nodded as she listened to Kid Flash give her instructions.
"They are, I bypassed normal communications by using one of my bird-arangs to rig up a closed circuit com link between it and my earpiece." Artemis stared.
"You had a bird-arang ready for that." Robin nodded.
"How is it you don't have an EMP emitter in there, you've got everything else!?" Robin nodded as she pulled a vent cover off the wall and slid into the med lab.
"Poor planning on my part, Batman's gonna be pissed when he finds out. I'll be running extra drills and polishing the Batmobile for a month." Artemis let out a slightly hysterical laugh as Robin led them to the x-ray machine. Robin focused on the machine. Artemis could only hear Robin's half of the conversation.
"A ripple effect! Like dropping a stone in a pond." She paused listening to what Wally was saying. She pulled up a schematic on her wrist computer.
"So I'll need to hook it up to the cave's main generator." Artemis looked at her.
"Is there any chance at all that the generator isn't in the hanger?" Robin shook her head.
"With our luck today? Do you even think you should ask that question?" Artemis shook her head, eyes looking scared.