There's a large hole sitting where a section of the road used to be. Green smoke billows upwards, rising into the night. Faintly, Robin can pick out the remains of what looks like a small spaceship. There are purple wires hanging and all sorts of motherboards that Robin hasn't seen before, knows Cyborg would love to investigate, but in the next moment his attentions are already on the who.
Who might be inside, who was the cause, if there's any survivors and if they're a threat. Robin considers all of this as he pushes his way through the going crowd, hand hovering at his belt and looking down into the crater. The smoke's too thick.
Behind him, Cyborg is shouldering his way through, and Beast Boy circles overhead as some kind of bird. It's a bad crash site. The metal vehicle is badly damaged, and Cyborg expresses his doubts it'll be salvageable considering how it seems to have nearly bent itself in half. Several of the cars have stopped, the onlookers gathering around the crater for a better look. A dog barks.
Cyborg coughs twice, stepping on what might have once been part of the hatch. The smoke is rancid, kind of like when someone leaves the oven on with a bowl of popcorn and pork inside for four days, and there's a gag up above. Now is not the time to stop flying, BB, Cyborg thinks. That's a good twenty to twenty five feet drop.
"That's enough," Robin starts exclaiming when two teenagers debate about going down to check it out - "It's dangerous down there."
But before he can say anything else, and before the teenagers can argue, the smoke dissipates, and he sees the silhouette of a teenage girl come into view. Red hair, metal, orange skin.
"Slopforn ivortmat!"
The redhead slides down one of the broken slabs of concrete and advances towards the crowd, and that motion alone scatters the crowd father than it had gathered. The civilians flee the scene, screaming. The new arrival holds the strange metal restraining her hands to her like a weapon, shouting words that none of them can understand. Blue stains her side, stains one of her arms, and already there's screaming. If it's blood, it isn't hers. The crowd starts thinning, humans running left and right.
Is she a criminal? Cyborg cracks his knuckles and Robin narrows his eyes. There's a possibility. This isn't their first, but it's definitely the first time one's crashed into the street like that.
Even though most of the crowd is escaping, one man - one very confused man - stays in sight as the red haired woman advances. He steps back, first, on wobbling legs - there's a camera in his hand. He nervously brings it to himself, but-
FLASH!
The woman recoils, eyes squeezed shut, and then the situation descends into chaos. The alien's screaming is painful, and Cyborg runs in to pull the guy out of the way before the cuffs can go swinging at their heads. Readying herself again, the woman lashes out, but before she can get any closer Robin sends one of his birdarangs into the fray. It catches her in the side of her face, causing her to falter for a second before turning on him. It's all of the hesitation he needs. Before she has time to react, he closes the distance to catch her in the side of the face with a fist. She stumbles, angry eyes turning to the boy wonder.
"Who are you?" Robin inquires, one hand to his belt. She yells something indecipherable in return and jumps towards him, cuffs at the ready.
The first attack misses Robin by inches, and he notes two things - she isn't used to the weight of the metal, and that she could have easily have caved his head in had he been any slower. Still, it's a heck of a shot - in failing to hit him, the cuffs goes through a car windshield instead. Glass scatters everywhere and there's a loud screech from the car - and from the alien.
She's swinging every which way, an unpredictable ball of energy and rage, and Robin finds himself backing up more as they grow faster. It wouldn't do to get his ribs smashed in for not being vigilant enough.
"Slopforn! Ond gudshik zerrole!" She yells, swings at him again, but this time Robin realises she's growing more desperate. He takes advantage of this, slipping through the attacks before they can land. She's about to charge forwards again when Beast Boy rams her in the side, sending the two flying. The cuffed alien hits a lamppost back first, bending the metal entirely in half, and for a moment... Robin thinks she's downed.
She proves him wrong by jumping back up to kick a car at them. Cyborg jumps in the way, catching the car like a bag of groceries, and then throws it back. Another explosion - the car hits the wall, not the girl. She's faster than her strength signifies, and she's quickly growing outnumbered at this point, but she's holding her ground surprisingly well.
The three of them exchange blows with the alien girl until Cyborg slams his fist down to the middle of the shackles, and then follows up to a second punch that sends her into one of the cars. But again, she straightens up, no worse for wear... and smirks, cricking her neck. Something heavy hits the floor. The outer casing of her cuffs. Under them, she's still somewhat restrained, but now her hands are free.
This, apparently, is a very good thing for the alien, which becomes clear to the rest of them when her hands start to glow the neon green that her eyes were. She extends her hands.
"Oh, that's not-" Cyborg starts, but he's cut off as the first of the energy blasts hits him directly in the chest.
He's thrown against the overturned bus, grunting in surprise more than pain.
"Go! Go!"
Cyborg scrabbles up and they dive for cover, barely avoiding further hits as the barrage comes thick and fast. Fortunately, there's cover - the overturned bus provides the three with enough cover to not end up as Swiss cheese. Cyborg almost feels guilty about the vehicle getting wrecked instead.
"You alright?" Cyborg looks over. It's Beast Boy. Cyborg just grins.
"Takes more than that to down me, you know that, man."
The bolts of green light just keep coming. How can the redhead have this much juice? But still, as Cyborg's thinking this they move out to other directions - Robin has disappeared back to divert the alien's focus in the fifteen seconds they've been here, and it's unlikely that Robin's going to be stopping for any breaks soon at this rate.
Beast Boy goes to peek over the bus during a lull in the barrage. Suddenly, he's yanked back behind the bus. Above him, a burst of green light whizzes where his head had just been. He squeaked, drawing in closer to Cyborg.
"Wow, uh, close call, huh?" Beast Boy starts. Cyborg fixes him with a look, one hand on the green teen's shoulder. The green boy pulls himself out of the grip with an embarrassed thanks, face taking on an interesting hue.
"Girl's gonna wreck the whole city at this rate, BB. You gotta be more careful."
"We've got to do something!" Beast Boy exclaims back, then pulls himself to his feet, wiping a hand across his mouth.
"Getting your head blown up isn't the best idea," Robin cuts in from his side of the bus. He's working with some gadget, using it to look around the corner, and Beast Boy thinks it might have been a part of the bus a few minutes ago.
»»-¤-««
Revenant wakes to light and, strangely enough, warmth. She's lying somewhere else than where she had fallen asleep, she becomes aware of in that not-quite smell. There's a sickening moment as something lifts from her head, and her dreams are forgotten. Something else goes with it. She can't find it in her to care about something she no longer knows anything about.
Her eyelids are static, and slithers of light seep out from underneath. Faint. Flickering with her breath. She's still weak, then - hasn't slept long. The grass and dirt that had been under her is replaced with… soft. Soft something.
A bed.
Her actual sense of smell tells her that she's lying somewhere clean. Artificially clean - not a meadow, no actual flowers. Chemicals. Something stronger on her shoulder. It stings in her nostrils and in her shoulder, but there's difference. Healing. Her flesh slowly pulls itself back together. It'll take a bit more time for this, she knows, as she is- wait.
Someone's here.
She hauls herself up, sudden and jarring. The room she finds herself in isn't familiar. The wallpaper behind her back isn't stone, the ceiling isn't dripping. No screams, now. Her fingers become claws that latch her on to the surface when the world spins, and she bares her fangs. Through the fog that's suddenly crept up on her, she can make out the face of a girl - grey skin, purple eyes, purple hair.
"—easy, now. I'm not here to hurt you."
The girl has a grey hand out towards her - slowly approaching. Revenant hunches forward with bent legs, readying herself to pounce.
"You've trapped me," Revenant shoots back, and she noticed the woman retract her hand a little. Perhaps she'd noticed her fangs. The last one hadn't.
"I'm not trying to trap you here," The woman says gently, and Revenant notices the woman look up - Revenant's shadow flickers against the wall, drawing upwards.
"You just plan to sell me back there," Revenant accuses, and she moves to shuffle further away. A bad idea - pain shoots up her wound and she hisses instinctively. Raven sees fangs.
"I wouldn't do that," she starts, "I just want you to sit down and listen."
Revenant looks on, a suspicious twinge building at the back of her lungs. Sensing that she wasn't going to budge, the woman deliberately steps back, and then sits in the seat. Her waking sense of panic begins to fade and rationality sets in.
"You're not a part of them."
"The people who shot you, I assume? No."
"Good," Revenant sighs, "I got out, then."
"Out of where?"
Revenant moves her hands to her shoulder. Her hood is gone, but she sees it on the table, and the shirt she currently wears isn't one of hers. It's a lot less worn. She grimaces, looks at the woman with her eyes narrowed, and then slides down the wall.
"Who are you?" Revenant croaks.
"Raven. We found you in the woods. You got shot."
Raven's voice is even, monotone - straight to the point despite the rapid subject change. Revenant notes that the woman either sees no point in lying, or that she's a good actor. She looks back to the wallpaper. No. They wouldn't miss a chance to rub her failure in her face.
"I'm -" She doesn't know, actually. She'd just gotten so used to simply... not having a name of her own, only the one they'd given her. Blynx. But no. She won't take that with her. She resists the urge to hide her eyes and tries again.
"I'm Revenant."
Revenant eyes the woman, then lowers her head. She can't tell Raven. She's a stranger. Despite this, Revenant finds herself drifting again. Perhaps she's used up a little more energy than she'd originally thought. She lets herself slide further down the wall, lying on her side, and then the world fades away.
»»-¤-««
Why didn't he think of that before?
"Alright, I think I can reason with her," Cyborg says, stepping forward.
"After all of that?" Robin whips out his staff to his hand, extending it - he looks at Cyborg quizzically, eyes darting to and from the alien.
"I got it, Rob." Cyborg fixes Robin with a determined look.
Robin starts objecting, "She's-"
"I've got it. She's scared, bro."
Even Robin looks a little incredulous at that. "Did he hit his head?" Beast Boy mutters. There's a crack in his voice. Cyborg shakes his head and heaves the bus out of the way, drawing the alien's attention.
Robin clenches his hands around his staff and Beast Boy hunches over. In the next moment, Beast Boy is a mass of fur and claws. The tiger hunkers closer to the concrete, growling as his tail swishes back and forth. There's still a phantom pain in Cyborg's chest, as if he should be expecting a bruise to form, but he knows it's all mental - everything under the site of impact is titanium and paint. Battery charge at 82%. Systems undamaged.
The alien halts her barrage, falling to her knees. Cyborg sees the undercurrent of desperation behind her angry expression, dancing in her eyes and hiding behind the metal covering her arms, and he tries to place himself into her much smaller shoes.
Metaphorically, of course, considering his feet are four times bigger.
The restraints don't look like Earth technology, and they're not quite power inhibitors, considering she can still use those energy blasts. They're more like a cover... a muzzle. She's escaped from somewhere and landed in an unfamiliar planet. She might not know anyone here. Of course she'd be scared. She didn't attack the civilians - she let them flee.
She breathes in, then flares out her elbows, staring him down. Her eyes light back up with the green energy, and behind Cyborg, Beast Boy presses his ears to the back of his head. Robin readjusts his staff, readying it as he prepares himself.
Cyborg mutters, "Here we go."
The alien's fierce look intensifies as Cyborg steps closer. Breathing shallow and teeth bared, she narrows her eyes, pointing her hands at him. He places both of his arms up in return. This time, there's no second barrage of light, but she steps closer, a shout booming at the back of her throat.
Cyborg is overcome with an incredible need to comfort her, and in the next moment he finds himself holding her in a warm hug. Starfire finds herself clinging back to him the best she can. The manacles around her wrists make it difficult.
"It's okay, you're safe."
The girl lets out a breath, then brings her cheek to Cyborg's. Skin contact. There's a fuzz between them, and Starfire's mind opens, accepting a plethora of new words and grammar rules. Words that didn't exist previously fill her mind and finally, finally, she can understand what everyone is saying past the rudimentary language barrier.
"Thank... you?" She tries.
"You speak English?" Cyborg answers, surprised.
"You helped me learn - I learn through touching skin," Starfire breathes, "Power of my people."
She's free, she's free now.
»»-¤-««
It doesn't take long to get back to the apartment, but the few minutes it takes to walk there gives them time to introduce themselves by name. Starfire floats about a foot in the air, animated but still awkward in the face of the huge misunderstanding. Her smiles are too wide and she very nearly squeaks when Cyborg pats her shoulder.
She explains why she's at Earth. She was a... prize. Given away in order to guarantee the planet's continued existence. She was about to be transferred elsewhere in the galaxy when she escaped, and fortunately, she'd made it to Earth. Her English is still faltering, but considering she's learned it less than half an hour ago, none of them have the heart to make fun of her when she messes up her grammar.
Soon, they cut through one of the alley ways, and the apartment comes into view. A few steps ahead, Beast Boy breaks into a run, whooping - the next moment, he's gone, and there's a green bird flying away in his place, directly through one of the open windows.
The building they enter isn't like anything back on Tameran. The ceilings are lower, the floors are covered in strange fuzz - carpets, Robin points out when she asks him - and they crowd into a moving box.
Starfire wrinkles her nose. "An escape pod? But we have just arrived here."
Robin shakes his head, smiling, "It's an elevator. It takes you to the right floor."
"Beast Boy's not a fan of these, so he went ahead," Cyborg says, pressing one of the buttons. The door closes, and odd music begins as they ascend upwards. From the lack of reaction the two boys are expressing, Starfire doesn't let it get to her either, but she smoothes down her skirt with practiced preparation.
"Oh." Starfire begins, but she's cut off as the doors open. The corridor they exit on has two doors, and Robin and Cyborg head towards the one on the left.
It's a good couple minutes before she says anything else, and by then they've converged in the main room of the apartment. She doesn't understand a lot of the terms they're interchanging, though. Starfire turns her head as a pale girl emerges from one of the other rooms. She doesn't say anything, just goes towards the kitchen, but Robin looks up.
"Everything alright in there, Raven?"
Raven nods, flicking on the kettle with one hand and moving to retrieve a cup with the other.
"She was awake for a little while," Raven murmurs, then starts preparing her tea, "But she fell asleep again. She's tired, understandably."
"Did you get any information from her?"
"Not a lot. Her name is Revenant and she escaped from somewhere."
Robin makes a thoughtful noise, eyes narrowing.
"Best we keep an eye on her then. She might have people after her."
"Likely." The kettle pops as it finishes boiling, and Raven reaches towards it. She looks over her shoulder, to the new arrival. "And who is this?"
"I am Starfire. It is nice to meet you, friend!"
Raven freezes. The cup nearly overflows with boiling water, but she composes herself just in time to finish.
"I'm not your friend."
Tense silence. Raven quickly excuses herself back to a separate room, and Starfire frowns. Not that she expects it to be instant, but she isn't very familiar with such a metaphorical emotional wall.
"Don't take it personally. She's not very social," Cyborg says, flicking between channels. His feet are grounded in the carpet. The television switches from animals to cooking meat. Beast Boy makes a disgusted noise, crossing his arms.
"I bring you... apologies," Starfire begins, wringing her hands, "For this."
Cyborg turns towards the redhead, watching how she curls up with her knees tucking to her chest.
"No one was harmed, that's what matters," Cyborg replies, smiling encouragingly.
Starfire takes a deep breath and manages a small smile. "Thank you for reminding me."
Starfire doesn't know where to look after that, so she settles for staring at the carpet. She traces a finger across the lined pattern. It's rather rough, a little similar to the wool of her old pet zarnic, Crauck. She brushes her palm against it next. Very nice texture, indeed.
"On my world, only my k'norfka has shown me such kindness."
"K'norfka? Like a... parent?" Beast Boy assumes, kicking his legs when he slides down next to her. Unlike Raven and Robin, the boy can't stay still for a second - he taps a pattern on his knee, though he pays rapt attention. Leaning in, eyes wide.
She clicks her tongue once, thinking, and then utters, "Yes, near."
»»-¤-««
Revenant falls asleep at some point, but she can't really remember that fact. She curls up in the warmth, under the blanket... this is the most comfortable she's even been, at least in her memory.
She wakes up to darkness and her hair's a mess, pooling down the pillow. Longer than it was before - she'd need to cut it again.
Hesitating for a minute, Revenant pushes herself up and heads for the door. With another thought, she pushes the switch near the door frame, and the light turns off with it. She hesitates before opening it, ears perking up. She can hear noises, voices. She doesn't recognise any of them until Raven speaks, and her shoulders lower. There was at least one familiar person nearby, then.
After a breath, she turns the handle and enters, clicking the door shut behind her. The walk through the hallway was silent, her feet sinking into the carpet, and now she could hear them even clearer. Methodically, she steps forward. One step. Two step. Nothing's stopping her or holding her back. It's real.
"Oh good, you're awake," a voice says to her left; she turns and sees what she recognizes as the Boy Wonder. Traffic Light outfit, spiky hair, domino mask.
He's a lot shorter in person.
She blinks once, twice. Huh, he's real too. Questioning everything because- is this real? Is it fake? It's a hard distinction. She's only seen brief images of him, mentioned by name down... there. Between the dripping and the fighting and the screams, hushed whispers of a hero.
Rumours of him coming away from Gotham. The net of superheroes was widening, and soon, soon they'd all be saved. She supposes that's why she'd gravitated down here in the end, though. She couldn't wait for what might have been entirely fabricated.
And then she realizes that she should probably reply before he notices she's just staring, so she does. Revenant tries to smile, but the expression comes out too flat for her own tastes, so she stops. Instead, she looks at her palms.
"I never said thank you, so," Revenant swallows, "Thank you."
She doesn't look up. She refuses to look up. She stares at her hands and wills them to obey her. "For rescuing me, I mean."
"You don't need to thank us. It's what we do."
»»-¤-««
A/N: Formatting is awful carrying over to fanfiction dot net, sorry. You can blame this on how dated it is. I've lost patience with how dated this site is, which is likely to bring this down a tad, but eh. I'm xsjb on archive of our own, by the way. Just search for the same fanfiction title name.