54. Full Circle part 1
"Noir!! Get. Your. Butt. Down. Here. NOW!!!"
I gritted my teeth as the communicator blared in my ear. I leapt off the buildingside, flipped, fell, and blurred my feet down the face of the structure. Rapidly, the hard concrete floor of the City's environment rushed towards my face. I took a breath, summoned murk through my limbs, and vaulted myself outwards diagonally towards the ground. I spiraled, slowed my descent with a plume of smoke, and settled down softly onto the ground, upon which I zoomed lightning fast across Town to rejoin my Titan allies.
Night. A very hot and dark night.
This was all part of a week that had been turning out increasingly frustrating. We were five days into pursuing Slade's plethora of bomb threats throughout the cityscape. We circumnavigated tons of dead ends, false leads, hoaxes, and inaccuracies. Now—presented with a grand parallax of information and at least three near-hits, we were on our biggest break yet in tracking down Slade's explosives. And—as it turned out—our 'biggest break' had a flaw in it. The latest carbonite bomb he was threatening to trigger was in one of three places.
We had just spent the last frantic hour narrowing down the possible locations to one…and that was where Robin was at that very moment. He let out a cry for help. Raven and Beast Boy immediately flew from their area of search to assist him. Starfire and I were also on the move. The only thing, Starfire could fly. I was making the best I could on foot, skirting around buildings and cars and blurring down streets at the maximum of my power's speed.
To put it shortly, the rest of the Titans had already assembled at Robin's location of the bomb. I was doing my futile best to catch up. I had to rejoin the Team.
I bolted through an intersection. I flung my arms behind me and tilted forward; becoming streamline. In such a fashion I ran a ground-heating path straight between two lanes of opposing traffic. Screeches, loud honks, and curses flew past me as I blurred on towards the destination. At one point, a commercial bus was changing lanes—thus blocking my path entirely. I held my breath, fell back on my shoulders, and literally slid on a carpet of smoke under the heated vehicle and out on the other side. I vaulted my body up, flipped, landed, and blurred off the road and onto the sidewalk. The faces of gasping people soared at me. I gritted my teeth, ran up the buildingside to my right, and took the rest of the road's length in a vertical sprint over windows, awnings, and flagpoles. At the end of the avenue, I launched my body up off the buildingside and sailed through a thin alleyway across the street. I landed and blurred past garbage heaps, metal staircases, and the occasional bum.
I came to a metal fence stretched over a water canal that formed the border between the Eastern District's commercial zone and the industrial center. I leapt mightily upwards, soared through the air with trailing smoke, and landed hard on the other side of the canal. I landed, rolled, jumped back to my feet, and continued blurring without a second breath.
Now warehouses were soaring past my sides. I sweat. I glanced left and right under glistening shades.
One of these……one of these warehouses was where--
An explosion. Laserfire. I glanced to my right.
A plume of glowing, amber smoke rose to the sky.
Ah…follow the explosions.
"Noir?!?!?!"
I'm COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!
I darted right, blurred around a stray van, soared up the side of a utility shed, rounded the rooftop, and leapt off mightily. I soared down towards the scene…which was sprawling with Slade's robot henchmen.
I gasped.
Lasers were flying everywhere. Some at me. Some at seemingly nothing at all. I saw a speck of red and green which I knew was Robin, and a streak of green which had to have been either Beast Boy or Starfire providing cover from above. But the one thing I saw clearly was blue. Electric blue. Just to my immediate left was Cyborg. The android Titan was encircled by a throng of pummeling, relentless androids. He was giving them one hell of a beating, but it wouldn't have been for long. In mid-fall, I reached a hand back to the hilt of Myrkstaff. My black eyes narrowed. I applied a burst of smoke that glided me down towards his growling, pounding aura and---
I landed.
CHIIIING!!!
Myrkblade warbled thunderously forward in a straight line and my body followed. I skidded to a stop past a handful of bad guys. Some of the asphalt actually sizzled under my heels. I exhaled, holding my sword out. I turned to look behind me.
Three android henchmen—standing in a line besides Cyborg—were frozen in place.
I blinked.
Their torsos fell clean from their hips all at the same time. Then everything collapsed.
I took a deep breath. I spun around and rushed back to Cyborg's side, hacking off a robot that was grabbing him from behind.
"RRRAUGH!!" He shouted and threw the remnants of his combatant into an oncoming charge of two more robots. They fell hard to the ground.
The android Titan wiped his human brow and gritted his teeth at me. "This is it, alright!" he panted. "Slade wouldn't send so many of his damn machines here to guard a hoax, now would he?!"
I shrugged.
"Behind you!!"
I grunted, spun around, and met the charge of a razor-clawed henchman with my blade. I stabbed at him and warded him off.
Cyborg stepped over till we were back to back. In such a fashion we were close enough to both talk and fight off the encircling horde of evil machina.
"Robin says he saw the actual bomb inside the warehouse!" Cyborg shouted, smashing a robot's face in with his fist. "It's a big one, he says!! Big enough to form a crater twice the size of what brought down Sakura Scraper!! As soon as we all got here to assist in disarming it, these bastards showed up!! RAAUGH!!" He punched his fist into the torso of a robot, converted his arm into a laser rifle, and blasted the robot apart from the inside. BLAM!!! "First order of business. We smash heads! Second order of business. We smash some more heads!! And third order of business---" He paused to dodge the swipe of a robot's claw, then gripped it hard by the shoulders and flung it across the warehouse lot and into an exploding fire hydrant. "There is no third order!! We just gotta help get Robin safe passage into the warehouse so he can disarm that damn thing!!"
I nodded. I slashed off the arm of an invading robot and then noticed a fresh phalanx surrounding Cyborg and I. I sweat.
"Guess we gotta part for now…," Cyborg said. He frowned and switched both of his hands into laser rifles. "Go! Go! Go!!!"
I let out a silent scream and flew at the wall of charging robots. I slid on the ground between a gauntlet of them and swiped Myrkblade left and right above me, hacking off sparking legs, ankles, calves. A hulking android raised its titanium fist and flung it down at me. I vaulted up from my slide, flipped over him, and immediately stabbed him reversely in the back upon landing. Two androids came at me, claws glistening. I put my weight on the hilt of Myrkblade which was embedded in the hulking robot behind me, lifted up my legs, and kicked both attackers back. I then brought my lower body down, summoned up a pulse of smoke energy, and swung the entire weight of the robot behind me in a one-hundred-and-eighty degree arc over my head and smashing down onto their twitching, sparking bodies.
WHAM!!!!!!!
I jabbed Myrkblade out of the entangled mess of metal, wires, and circuitry just in time to spin around and hold off a wave of hobbling, footless robots clamoring all around me.
In the meantime, Cyborg was having one hell of a heyday with his dual laser rifles.
He took aim in two separate directions, melting titanium fiends away with his blue fury. They kept coming from all sides of him. He spun around and aimed both laser rifles directly ahead of him at an advancing phalanx. Two robots flew apart. One jumped over the blast and soared down at Cyborg with lunging claws. Cyborg fell down onto his back and met the leaping robot with his legs aimed upwards, pinning the android in place. The henchman swiped at Cyborg's head. The Titan tilted his cranium and deflected the claws with the metal part of his skull. CLANK!! He gritted his teeth and squished the attacking henchman's head between the barrels of his two rifles. ZAAAAAAAAP!!! The robot's head was obliterated in a heartbeat. Cyborg grunted, kicked the metal body off of him, and jumped to his feet. An android grabbed his neck from behind. Cyborg struggled to get loose, at the same time blasting off random, advancing enemies in front of him. He pivoted his body around till his back was to a streetlamp and rammed back into it, squishing the clinging android. The robot fell off him. He promptly kicked it over into the center of a group of henchmen, took aim, and fired. The laser beam struck dead center in the grounded android's energy core. It exploded, blowing back the creeps lumbering around it.
Across the lot, a green elf finished karate kicking a robot's head off and elbowing its body away. Three razor-sharp androids approached him. Beast Boy stepped back, frowned, and flexed his arms. The arms exploded into rippling, hairy muscles as the changeling morphed into a hulking gorilla that roared, stomped forward, and literally punched a robot torso apart with a single fist. The primate then grabbed a second robot by its leg, swung it up, and used it like a club…smacking the third henchman across the street and into a utility shed. The gorilla effortlessly tossed his robot 'club' into the air, morphed into a T-Rex, and snapped its jaws through the sparking torso of the android. The green dinosaur roared and stomped its way over towards a crowd of some of the robots surrounding Cyborg. It ducked its head down, bit, swiped, and thrashed its teeth around. The sparking limbs of henchmen flew, while most simply sprawled out painfully across the lot. One huge robot aimed a laser at the T-Rex. The changeling promptly leapt into the air and morphed into a green sparrow that dodged the laser shots and dove down at the robot. When it reached the android, it dropped to the ground as a snake, slithered a spiral up the legs, hips, and torso of the henchman, then vaulted off the fiend's back in the form of a kangaroo. The android was plowed so hard into the ground, it formed a crater in the asphalt, sparked a few times, and died. The kangaroo turned into a panting green elf who swiped the sweat off his brow and ran off to take on another wave of Slade's forces.
At the same time, Starfire flew over the carnage. Her hands glowed bright green as she provided cover fire from the skies, blasting the torsos and legs out from under Slade's henchmen with her righteous fury. Emerald eyes caught fire as she flew down at a mass of churning robots converging around me and my sword. She let out a Tamaranian growl, fisted together two hands, and summoned a huge orb of starbolt destruction. She soared to the ground, skidded to a stop on two boots, anchored herself, and unleashed the fiery orb with a cry. I looked over my shoulder, held a breath, and jumped away just in time as Starfire knew I would. The henchmen stood for a split second of confusion before the starbolt reached them and melted them into oblivion from the inside out. The alien girl inhaled and turned around—SMACK!!! A robot punched her hard in the gut. She went sprawling. The attacker and two fellow fiends pounced on her. She shook her head, opened her eyes, and immediately unleashed a beam of green destruction from her pupils. The center henchmen flew apart, blowing the other pouncers to the side. Starfire jumped to her feet. A robot grabbed her from behind. She grunted and struggled in its grasp. Another joined in and grabbed her left arm. She gritted her teeth and charged up another stream of energy in her eyes. But then a hulking android came in and clamped his metal palm over her face, cutting off her firepower. Starfire gasped. More and more bodies formed a dogpile on her. Her hands burned bright green against the clamoring, robot bodies. Her legs flexed. She took a deep breath…and lifted off the ground with boundless confidence. The alien girl and about nine or ten androids lifted as one body. Higher and higher into the air. Pulsing and flexing and struggling. Starfire took a deep breath, frowned into the palm over her face, and cut off her power of flight. SWOOOOOOSH!!! The huge mass of entangled combatants sailed straight down towards the hard ground of the lot. The Tamaranian let loose the starbolts in her hands blindly at the point of impact. FLASH!!!!!!!!!!!! Her whole body exploded forth a wave of green fury. Robots and metal limbs and circuitry flew everywhere in a halo of shrapnel, disorienting many of the grounded henchmen around her. She took a deep breath, took to the skies once again, and proceeded to provide cover fire.
Underneath Starfire's soaring figure, Raven levitating cautiously backwards as a line of robots approached her. The dark girl's eyes narrowed. The robots' limbs flexed…and then they pounced.
"Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos!!" Raven's right hand stretched forward. One of the pouncing robots was encased in obsidian energy. It twitched and floated in mid air. Two more robots flew at Raven's body. The girl flexed her left hand out to her side. A pickup truck shook with telekinesis and floated up on a black platform. Raven gritted her teeth and aimed her left hand at the attackers. The truck was encased in black. It soared like an onyx meteor through the air, smacked into the two leaping robots, and slammed into the ground, upon which it slid across half the lot and smacked into a couple of the robots taking on Cyborg and Beast Boy. A few laser beams flew at Raven from her side. She glanced at them. Her eyes glowed bright gray. She focused on the robot she was still telekinetically floating in place with her right hand. She stretched her other hand out, flexed her fingers, and slowly drew her forearm back like she was drawing an arrow into a bow. The robot convulsed and sparked as its limbs were literally ripped apart slowly from Raven's administrations. Soon what was left of the victimized henchman was two floating arms, two floating legs, a torso, and a head. Raven pivoted about to face the laser-toting robots. She flexed her hands and brought the floating body parts in front of her. She then extended her fingers towards her foes, and the limbs flew out like missiles. A torso slammed into two of the robots. A head sailed straight through the chest of another. Two limbs smacked three robots into pieces. A left arm severed an android in half. Then the last arm went to the henchman with the largest rifle. Raven gritted her teeth and flexed her wrists. The robot arm floated up, literally bitch-slapped the robot fiend, and sailed down its recoiling chest to where it met its energy core, sparked, and caused the whole android to explode brilliantly. Seeing the damage done, Raven glared and floated over to assist Cyborg while Starfire flew overhead.
At this point, I had made it to the center of the lot. I was spinning around at a circle of robots around me. Myrkblade soared about, cutting the air with the heat of warbling smoke. I gritted my teeth and sliced a head off…an arm…a shoulder. My eye caught the glint of a laser rifle to my side. I sidestep, spun, and dodged a close laser blast. I knelt into a stab that sent the tip of my sword planting itself in the barrel of the laser gun. Smoke danced out from under my shades as I let loose a pulse of destruction through my weapon. The laser gun exploded—so did half the torso of the robot holding it. I leapt up to my feet, spun around, and immediately slashed an attacking robot in half down the center. I kicked its halves away from me, charged forward, slashed through two more robots, and came to the clawed block of a hulking henchman who swiped at my cranium. I ducked. He swiped again. I backflipped. I blurred. I literally dashed through him, swinging Myrkblade into what ended up being a shower of exploding metal, chips, wires, and circuitry. I came to a stop. I panted. Something rushed up behind me. I held my breath, gritted my teeth, and spun with a heavy swing of my blade.
CLANG!!!!!!!!!
Robin's staff.
Robin.
He had just blocked my swipe.
I gasped. Sweat.
His eyemask narrowed. Sweat.
We brought our weapons down and simultaneously spun to face an advance of robots.
While bashing henchmen back with his staff, he grunted: "We can't be fighting like this forever! Slade knows that we've found his carbonite bomb in storage! These robots will only distract us while he tries to relocate the explosive! Noir…help me get to the warehouse! The Titans have been holding off these creeps long enough as it is! We should be safe facing off all that's left. But right now—for the sake of the City—we have to get. into. that. warehouse!"
I nodded.
"GO!!"
He charged at the building and I alongside him.
Immediately, over two dozen robots converged on us to stop the charge. I dashed ahead and ripped a path through three of them. Robin vaulted over with his staff, reached into his utility belt, and threw forth a fan of birdarangs in his descent. The projectiles shredded four robots apart. I ran on ahead and clashed with two laser-toting fiends. Robin growled and bashed two attackers away with his staff. He spun his bludgeon, leapt into the fray, and cracked the android skull in of one of my opponents. I ripped the last one to shreds and we had a clear path to the warehouse.
The team leader and I dashed over towards the side. A huge, metal door blocked the entrance.
"Rrrggh!!!" Robin exclaimed, frustrated. "They lowered this thing since I got here!!" He reached into his utility belt. He pulled out an explosive disc. He planted it onto the door, pressed a few numbers on the pad, and dashed over to the warehouse's side beyond the doorframe. "Fire in the hole!!!"
I nodded and ran over to my other side.
3…2…1…
BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fire, dust, and metal flew.
Robin out a handful of birdarangs.
I gripped the hilt of Myrkblade.
He jumped into the doorway.
I blurred up beside him.
We stared in, and there it was. In the center of the dark warehouse. A metal obelisk with blinking lights. The carbonite bomb. At least twenty robot henchmen were swarming around the explosive…fastening it to something. They looked up at us after the explosive entrance. Their solid-white eyes narrowed.
Robin pointed. "Give it up!! The bomb is as good as ours!! We need that thing for analysis!! Soon we'll be tracking Dagger down…then on to squash your pathetic lord and mentor, Slade!!"
The robots flexed their arms into attack mode. Others raised laser rifles at us.
I glanced around from under my shades. Sweating….
"Believe me…," Robin glared as he held the birdarangs up over his head. "You all have more than perished today…."
They didn't listen. The lasers blasted off and a handful of fiends pounced us.
Robin and I ducked the streams of energy.
Robin dove to the side, flinging out his birdarangs with a grunt.
Laser rifles and robot wrists sliced apart.
I blurred against a wall, jumped up, and sailed down through an attacker's body—Myrkblade first. Circuits and metal flew. I inhaled, I dashed across the floor of the warehouse—deflecting lasers off with Myrkblade—and hacked off the head of another henchman.
Robin smashed torsos in with his staff, grunted, and spun around to strike the broadside of two other androids. Lasers streamed at him. He ran up a wall, jumped off, unleashed a grappling hook in mid flight, swung across the length of the warehouse, and slammed his feet into a swarm of robots, piling them on top of each other.
As the Titan leader and I made scrap metal out of the final layer of guards, one robot positioned by the obelisk looked around, pulled out a remote, and tapped a red button it. The explosive obelisk blinked with an amber light.
Robin and I froze in the middle of our battle—panted—and looked over at the oddity.
There was a deep humming. Slowly…the obelisk rose into the air.
I made a wyrd face. I glanced down and saw a platform of some sort. A craft….hovering beneath the obelisk. Lifting it up. With thrusters.
The other Titans ran up/flew down into the entrance of the warehouse at that time. Piles of android bodies rose in the lot behind them. They all froze and gasped.
"Um….is it just me?" Beast Boy uttered. "Or is the tower of death floating away?!"
"A hovercraft!!" Robin shouted and pointed at the obelisk. "Slade's trying to fly the thing away!! Stop it!!"
"Good times….," Cyborg mumbled. He aimed his laser rifle to blast out the craft's engines.
And just then…the thrusters flared. The hovercraft lunged to the walls of the warehouse. It struck hard. WHAM!!!!!
The whole building shook. The ground beneath us rumbled. The Titans lost their footing. Starfire cried out. Beast Boy pratfalled. Cyborg couldn't get his shot off.
WHAM!!!!
The hovercraft slammed into the wall again. The whole building shuddered. Metal groaned from above.
And…..a flash of pink light.
I gasped. I stared up through my shades at the ceiling.
A shadow darted away at the last second.
I squinted my black eyes.
The hell??
GROAN!!!
The metal rafters suddenly broke out of their foundations above…and fell.
Robin gasped. "Look out!!"
Cyborg looked up. He gritted his teeth and flexed his arms up at the last second.
But he was too late…and the falling of the metal pylon was too intense. Rubble fell down around the metal bulkhead and grounded the Titans. They were stuck under the debris.
Robin and I ran over to get them out. The Boy Wonder pried with his staff like a lever. I stabbed with Myrkblade.
The hovercraft with the carbonite bomb started plowing its way through the warehouse's dilapidated wall.
"Forget us!!" Cyborg shouted, struggling from the weight.
Starfire waved. "The explosive!! It is escaping!!"
"Rrrrgh!!" Robin jumped back with his staff. "We'll be back. Come, Noir! Now!!"
I nodded and saluted the pinned-down Titans. Robin and I ran for the hovercraft. In mid sprint, a hole cracked open in the damaged warehouse's floor. Robin let out a cry and tripped over. His rod fell against the floor with a CLANK! and he grunted.
I skidded to a stop. I turned and faced him, gasping.
"I'm….stuck!!" he shook. "Rrrghh!! Can't move! The hovercraft's getting away!!"
Raven's eyes glowed gray. From where she was pinned down, she stretched out a hand and encased the body of the hovercraft in black energy.
The vehicle shuddered to a stop halfway through the gaping hole of the warehouse. The obelisk wobbled. The whole hovercraft struggled. The thrusters flared brightly, fighting against the dark girl's manipulations.
Raven gritted her teeth. Her temples throbbed. "Too….strong. Can't……stop….it…."
She sighed and dropped her hand.
The hovercraft soared out the warehouse and lifted up towards the air in the lot outside the warehouse.
I ran after it.
Robin called out: "NOIR!!!"
I froze to a stop. I spun around and faced him, panting. Eager to give chase. All other options lost.
Or were they??
There was a pained look on Robin's face. He sweated heavily, swallowed, and looked back at the other Titans.
They responded with a look of similar pain and shock. How did things end this way?! Such despicable circumstances. Every Titan pinned down, except for one……
I knew what they were thinking. I had the Messenger to thank for that. But they didn't know that I knew what they were thinking.
Could they trust a traitor??
Right now??
With Slade's prized bomb slipping nastily from their grasp?!
It was a painful thing. It felt like poison in the air. Not just then…but for the last five days since I talked to the Messenger. Between detective research, hardly a word was exchanged between the Titans and me. Not even smiles or nods of acknowledgment in the halls of the Tower. We were so afraid to look at each other. So afraid to tap the reserves of our distrust. The Titans expected to lose their heads…to lose their honor…to have their wounds reopened and toyed with like Terra and Slade had done so viciously long ago. Or was it so 'long' ago??
And I……I expected to lose a family. A family I had grown to love and respect and base my whole damn day from rise to fall on. Things had happened so quickly. I had jumped into their arms, and soon—it was boiling over—I was bound to be tossed out of their halo of trust and once again into that lonely abyss I called 'me'. I had been 'me' before. Not the 'Sixth Titan'. Being 'me' tore into my being because I had nobody to share my oxygen with. Nobody to prove I was….still a good person.
The trust between me and the Titans had been dissolved. Soon I would be alone with my memories again. Things would come full circle like predicted. And I would never get the chance to fight with them, smile with them, or suffer alongside them again.
All of this was churning and twisting in my soul as I anxiously awaited a word from Robin. And I knew—as much as it shredded me apart—that something similarly painful (if not more so) was burning at their hearts as they all shared a communal glance of helplessness and then turned to me.
And the words that came out of Robin's mouth made me want to cry: "Okay, Noir," he said…as if it was so obvious that he had made a monumental decision. "Go after it!! Take this!!" He slid a grappling hook to me along the floor.
I kicked it up into the air, grabbed it, and nodded at him.
"Remember!!" he shouted. "We need that bomb in tact!! If we can access the core, we can find out its origins and possibly get a lead to Slade and Dagger! Now go!!" he pointed with a gloved finger. His teeth grit as he forcibly had to spit out: "We're counting on you…."
I took a deep, painful breath. I spun around, and blurred out of the warehouse.
I left the warehouse in a blurring, dark street. My helpless companions were abandoned to somehow get themselves free on their own.
When I was gone, Robin slumped down against the length of the floor and sighed.
"Dude….," Beast Boy shook his head from under the rubble. "Not good. Definitely not good."
Cyborg muttered, "Tell me about it."
Raven rubbed her aching head.
"Are you sure that was…..wise, Robin?" Starfire asked.
The Boy Wonder propped himself up on an elbow and struggled to get unstuck from the hole. "Something tells me we're about to find out…"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The hovercraft elevated into the night's sky ahead.
I blurred after it, clinging to both Myrkblade and the grappling hook.
I gritted my teeth.
This was my chance to prove myself. To show the Titans I could still be trusted. I. Had. To. Catch. That. Bomb.
I blurred up the side of a tall warehouse and rounded out onto the metal rooftop.
The Messenger was right about some things. He was right suggesting I stay with the Titans and help them track down Slade. Even if they didn't trust me. But he also told me I would have to be an 'antithesis' of the Third Apprentice. Well……I hadn't caught sight of her yet. And neither had the Titans. As far as I was concerned, I was ahead of the Messenger. I was going to stop this hovercraft…and prove to them once and for all. I. Am. Not. A. Traitor.
POW!!!!
I fired the grappling hook up at the flying craft.
CLANK!!!
The hook clamped in.
I gripped hard to the cord with one hand and lifted myself—through the air—and swung a curved arc down and up towards the escaping hovercraft. I let go of the cord and stabbed Myrkblade into the edge of the vehicle with a breathy grunt.
I dangled…swung my legs…and pivoted myself up and stood on the wobbly edge.
I balanced myself a hundred feet in the air, pulled Myrkblade out, took a breath, and marched towards the Obelisk—WHAM!!!!
A metal fist slammed into my face. I went tumbling. Myrkblade slid over the sleek body of the craft and teetered on the edge.
I gasped and looked up, wincing.
I had forgotten there was one henchman left on the craft!!
His robot foot came slamming down.
I rolled out of the way. I jumped up.
He and the obelisk stood between me and my precariously balanced myrkblade on the other side of the craft.
I raised my hands into a fighting stance.
His gray, robot eyes narrowed. He charged at me.
A serrated fist flew at my face.
I ducked, spun on one knee, and swiped his legs out from under him.
He sprawled out onto the vehicle.
I made a dive for my sword.
He grabbed my leg.
I fell down flat. "!!!!"
He tumbled over till he lay on top of me and brought a handful of claws down.
I gripped his arm and held the claws at bay just inches before they could dig into my nose.
I struggled with him. I summoned murk into my limbs and shoved him hard.
His metal body flew back and slammed against the obelisk. CLANG!!
The whole hovercraft shook.
Myrkblade wobbled.
I winced. Damn it!! There's a bigass explosion in that pillar!! Can't bang it up too much!!
I slid over, grabbed Myrkblade, and paced myself carefully around the circumference of the hovercraft.
The robot stood up and paced himself across from me. Glaring.
Buildingtops streamed by beneath us.
The wind kicked at my black hair in a constantly changing direction as I circled the center of the hovercraft and its obelisk. I kept facing my enemy.
My enemy kept facing me.
At one point I stopped, flexing my fingers around Myrkblade.
He stopped two.
We had a staring match.
The muscles in my frowning face tensed. I gripped hard to Myrkblade and dove straight at him.
But then the henchman did an odd thing. He jumped up and down in place once.
The result: the entire hovercraft tilted towards him from the weight of his jumping.
I was thrown off-balance in my attack.
I slammed hard into the obelisk, spun around it, and tumbled directly into his grasp.
He gripped my shoulders hard and slammed me face-down (hard) into the body of the hovercraft.
I winced. He gripped my head from behind.
I gasped as he forcibly tilted my head up….and forced it over the edge of the hovercraft and directly into a white-hot thruster.
I immediately lifted Myrkblade up, stabbed it into the side of the ship, and put my weight into it.
Struggling…shaking…I thus managed to fight his pressing of my head into the thruster. My face sweat from the boiling heat of the fiery propulsion. I gritted my teeth. The bright pulsing light of the thruster blinded my black eyes through their shades. He pushed harder…harder….
I bit my lip and clenched my eyes shut. I forced a whole wave of Destruction Energy through Myrkblade and into the body of the hovercraft. A ripple was sent through the hole, and a thruster on the other side exploded.
POWW!!!
The hovercraft shook and plunged straight down to the earth, now that one of its four lateral thrusters was gone.
SWOOOOOOSH!!!
As a result, the whole vehicle tilted.
The robot lost his balance. His clawed grip of my skull loosened as he literally fell over me and clung to the side of the craft, hanging on for dear life (if robots have 'lives').
I rolled over, awkwardly got up through putting pressure on my sword, and dug Myrkblade out of the hull. I marched over slowly, saw the robot clinging to the side below, and raised Myrkblade to swing down and cut him off.
And that's when the hovercraft's descent lowered us into a busy street of the City and grazed a building side to the right.
SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!!!!
The craft jolted. I fell back against the obelisk.
The robot swung his legs up, flipped onto the craft, and swung his fist at me.
I gasped and dodged to the side.
SLIIIIINK!!
His claws grazed me and imbedded itself deep into the obelisk's body. CLANK!!
I gasped—not so much from the fresh blood leaking from my shoulder—but in surprise that, from such an impact as that, the carbonite bomb still didn't go off.
There was no time to sob over my wound. I gritted my teeth and stabbed Myrkblade into the side of the robot.
CHUNK!!!
My blade went in deep into his hip.
I was about to charge smoke energy into my weapon and finish him when the robot caught me by surprise by gripping the length of the blade with one hand and elbowing me with his other arm.
SMACK!!
I fell back, yanking the sword out of him.
He sparked and limped a little, but he came at me with sharp claws.
I blocked for all I was worth.
The hovercraft descended further. Eventually, it struck the pavement of the street between the city high rises. Sparks flew as we scraped along…and then came the traffic.
Cars swerved and honked around us. Automobiles crashed into each other and structures on the side of the road to avoid us. Everything was chaos. Finally we clipped the rear of a line of trucks in the right lane, scurrying away from us.
CLANK!
CRASH!!
SMACK!!!
All the while, the working thrusters of the damaged hovercraft kept firing…and the robot henchman and I kept fighting and fighting around the fragile obelisk and its huge explosive contained inside.
He lunged at me with a sharp armful of claws.
I spun to the side, raised Myrkblade up, and brought it down over his arms with a cry.
SLICE!!
His right arm came clean off.
The android was unphased. Immediately after the laceration, he lifted his leg up and kicked me in the chest.
I stumbled back just as we scraped past a crashing minivan. I leapt back off the hovercraft, planted my feet against the van, blurred, and dove into the robot.
WHUMP!!
We tumbled across the hovercraft, barely missing the obelisk. I stabbed down at him.
He gripped the blade of my sword with one metal hand and managed to shove me back.
I tumbled in reverse and was about to attack him again when I heard the unmistakable sound of a semi truck head.
I looked over…and my black eyes widened under the shades.
We had veered into the left lane and was heading bull-first towards a semi trailor.
I did quick thinking. I looked at the rear of the hovercraft. The rear thrusters were flaring brilliantly. The mount they were on pivoted loosely now that one of the lateral thrusters was gone. It was like a rudder……
The robot came up and charged me.
I kicked him away and dashed to the rear thrusters. I stabbed Myrkblade down between the main body of the craft and the mount they were on. I strained, gritted my teeth, and pushed at my blade. The sword acted as a lever and repositioned the rear thrusters to aim us back into the middle lane.
SWOOOOOSH!!!
We missed the hulking semi by a hair's inch. Sparks actually flew besides the left of the craft and the truck's wheels.
The robot pounced again.
I couldn't get Myrkblade unstuck.
WHAM!!
He slammed into me, and because of that, I pushed awkwardly at Myrkblade.
The rear thrusters pivoted to the side.
The hovercraft barreled through the right lane of traffic, over the sidewalk, and scraped against the buildingsides. Loudly, we smashed straight through newspaper vendors, lampposts, traffic signs, parked cars. Sparks flew in a constant shower. Cars honked as they soared past us. The robot henchman and I struggled. Claws scraped at my side. I kicked him away, let out a silent scream, and pushed on Myrkblade in the opposite direction.
The hovercraft careened left.
We slammed into the side of a commuter bus, forming a dent and causing metal shards to fly.
The robot teetered against the obelisk from the jolt.
I looked at them…and above them.
I gasped.
We were heading straight into Kobayashi Tower.
The obelisk wobbled. The carbonite core rattled inside.
Images flashed through my mind. Control Freak. Sakura Scraper. The construction site. The explosion.
Full circle……
I exhaled and kicked off the body of the hovercraft. I yanked Myrkblade hard to the rear of the hovercraft, tilting the mounted rear thrusters so that they aimed directly into the earth.
WOOOOOOSH!!!!
We angled up…fifteen degrees….twenty….forty-five….sixty….
We soared over tops of semis, vans, buses.
The wall of the JCN broadcasting tower loomed ahead.
I pushed harder, my teeth gritting.
Seventy degrees…..eighty degrees…….
I hung on by the mere hilt of my sword.
The robot henchman clung with his one hand to the obelisk which was almost….
Ninety degrees….
SHOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
We literally scaled the wall of the building's face. We soared up, up, up…past windows and floors and offices and everything. About twenty stories up, we smashed through one of three flagpoles. It snapped and fell loosely/wildly to the distant street below.
The thrusters were beginning to short out. They couldn't handle the weight and intensity of the strong ascent.
The hovercraft angled out….lumbered….
We reached the top…or at least nearly the summit. The glass windows of Kobayashi tower curve upward to meet the steel-reinforce rooftop with its two, huge steeples.
The thrusters started to die.
I gasped.
We struck the glass.
SHATTTTTTTTTTER!!!!!!!!
A veritable sea of blue shards splashed up and over us. I shaded myself with an arm as much as I could. I formed numerous scrapes and cuts as we plowed up…scraped a terrible path through the windows…and landed to a dead stop in between the two steeples.
And the hovercraft stopped humming.
The robot shook its head—as if disoriented—and looked at me.
I took a breath. I yanked Mirkblade out. I charged at him in a blur.
SWOOOOSH-STAB!!!
My sword went straight through the henchman's chest.
The fiend twitched and convulsed.
I let loose a silent, breath scream…swung Myrkblade around, and let centripetal force fling him off the tip of my sword and up over the side of the rooftop to suffer a crushing death in the streets over thirty stories below.
I panted….panted….panted….let out a final breath, and smiled.
And that's when…..a shadow graced the corners of my eyes.
I did a double-take. I spun around atop the hovercraft…atop the roof of the Kobayashi Tower. Atop the City.
My black eyes darted left and right.
My heart beat fast.
And…I could have sworn I saw a reflective glint of bright pink off the surface of the vehicle.
I gasped and spun around.
Nothing but night's sky.
And then….the obelisk started to glow.
I looked at it. My eyes widened.
There was suddenly a countdown timer.
60 seconds.
How the Hell?! Why now all of the sudden?!
Panicked, I ran over to the obelisk and looked for a button or a console or a switch or anything to cancel the sequence!
But I could find none. I had stopped the hovercraft, all right. But now I was sitting there…atop one of the most famous buildings in all of Western Society's broadcasting. I had well over a thousand working citizens on the multiple floors beneath me. It was a tower owned by the same, wealthy, overseas investor who was funding the Sakura Scraper. There was a bomb with me…and it was going to take all of that and send it to Hell in a handbasket.
It seemed too ironic to be true. To many things wrapping around and kissing each other while the Titans and myself—especially myself—watched helplessly.
Full circle……
50 seconds.
I sweated heavily.
Chills ran all through me.
Robin wanted me to preserve the explosive.
He wanted the core in tact.
But now it was set to blow.
45 seconds.
The Titans trusted me to save this thing. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if there was anything I could do.
Except….save people.
40 seconds.
I made up my mind. I spun Myrkblade, held it over my head…and jabbed into the obelisk.
SLASH!!!!
I warbled Myrkblade into my weapon and used it like one would use a turkey-cutter. Through meatball surgery, I hacked the carbonite core—detonator and all in tact—out from the interior of the obelisk.
35 seconds.
I sheathed Myrkblade, held the carbonite core to my chest, and ran off the side of the building.
I blurred down with the explosive in my grasp. I came to the street where people had gotten out of their cars and night restaurants to observe the path of destruction the hovercraft had left.
I blurred past their gasping forms, cradling the explosive to myself. Heading East. Due East. Blazingly, quick, son-of-a-bitch-fast East.
30 seconds.
I summoned all the stealth, all the speed, all the teleportation, all the Destruction, all the Construction—every facet of my smoke energy into the blur of my legs as I warped in and around cars, alleyways, pedestrians, parks, houses, and shops. I came to the canal. I jumped inside. I ran on the water. Fountains kicked up at my feet.
25 seconds.
I blurred through tunnels. Through the sewers. Up the walls. Up a manhole—CLANG!!—and onto a street. Towards the docks.
20 seconds.
Around warehouses, over warehouses, through warehouses.
SMASH!! SMASH!!
15 seconds.
The smell of fish and salt water and sea breeze.
The Bay stretched out beyond me.
I rocketed….
10 seconds.
The core started to glow.
I raised it in my hands.
I dashed out into the Bay. Over the water. Towards the unmanned island far off the docks.
5 seconds.
The thing was on fire in my grasp. The detonator whined. Smoke danced out from under my shades as I performed a final running leap, lunged, and tossed the explosive with all my might.
….
….
….
It plopped silently into the water at the beach of a tree-covered island.
0 seconds.
I was underwater when the explosion went off. I'm not even sure I heard it.
But I felt it. A mountain of liquid carried me high into the air. But at that one moment in time, it wasn't air. It was pure water. A crater of water. And through that water flew entire trees uprooted from the islands. One of them clipped me in the side and sent me spiraling just seconds before I flew through the air, covered forty feet, and splashed hard into the currents just a dozen meters off of the boatyard.
I came up to the surface, gasped, sputtered…and saw the moon eclipsed by a tidal wave.
I gasped and dove down as the second wall of water came crashing down and sent me flying through the supports of the docks until I slammed into a concrete wall. Only the bare instinct of my blurring powers alone cushioned me and kept me from shattering like bones inside of a rag doll. When the currents lowered, I realized I was still underwater and needed air.
I darted through the water on a pulse of smoke energy and broke through the surface just beyond the docks. I shook the stringy, black hair from over my eyes…lifted my shades off…and stared at where the islands once were….but now were gone.
I tread water and spun around.
Boats had been literally tossed up and onto the warehouses surrounding the docks.
It didn't seem like anybody had been working or mining the boats at that particular hour.
It was another miracle. But, suffice to say, it was a miracle at my hands. Robin would see that…and he wouldn't like that.
And he wouldn't like the fact that there was no explosive material to trace back to Slade.
I waded to shore under the gloomy shadow that—in fact—things had gotten much…much worse.