"Leaping blindly into a random maintenance shaft perhaps wasnt the best idea" mused Thomas(Lunatic) absently, staring up at the coin sized disk of light hanging high in the darkness above him, the fall had been close to a hundred and fifty feet thankfully to water, "oh god i hope this is water" he thought feeling his stomach churn at the thought it might be something else, amidst the sloshing of the "water" Lunatic could hear a high pitched voice echoing down towards him, "uh guys i don't think he made it" squeeked the green kid, "all things considered i think we should probably go down there and check, Raven get Robin to the infermary, the rest of you follow me" that was the borg, a long string of plain wierd guttral words followed by "and then feed them to you!" was likely the orange flying girl that shot the exploady green stuff, the light over head was rather bright green at that point. The current within the maintenance tunnels was dragging him downstream towards the ocean, as the Titans fanned out to search for him splitting up making it easier for him to be found, he continued his drift into a darkened tunnel flanked by concrete ledges, pulling himself out of the murk with a groan, the rapidly dwindling adrenalin mixed with the sudden shock of the bitterly cold water had pulled the fight out of him, sliding back against the tunnel wall he sighed and began unbuckling his breastplate and pulling the whole thing off feeling at his sides to check for broken ribs, finding none he peeled off his shirt wringing out the excess water before pulling it back on and strapping on his breastplate once more, he unlaced his boots long enough to pour out the excess water and tied them up tight to minimize the squelching, as he got to his feet he spied the brightly glowing green light of the orange girl approaching at speed.
Fury born of frustration and worry boiled beneath Starfire's skin barely contained by the knowledge that she would find *him* the one who mocked her in battle who teased her with chase, and who unforgivably caused harm to befall her beloved, if unaware Robin, perhaps she would only break his legs, to keep him from running of course. The light comming from her energized right hand flung back the shadows one hundred feet in all directions, "by the seven hundred free floating eyes of splynn itself i will find you and make you pay" she snarled into the retreating shadows, until luck simply failed her, Lunatic held position amongst the pipes in the cieling smiling down at the red headed girl as she passed beneath, releasing his hold he allowed himself a chortled before levering a hammer blow to the top of her skull that nearly pulled his aching shoulders out of joint, the explosion of pain that collided with the back of her head sent her crashing into the murky water below her and sent an explosion of water upwards soaking Lunatic once more, hands aching he glanced into the roiling water noticing that the murk had taken on a rather unseattling greenish glow and was begining to boil, "ooookay thats my cue to run" he gulped and made a break for it with all haste as the green eyed orange skinned *very* angry alien girl screamed her outrage into the tunnels causing her voice to crash about the city like thunder from below.
Beastboy, hearing Starfire's scream morphed into a bat and started his fluttering near blind flight towards the rather painful echos of her voice closing in rapidly as the constant "peep, peep, peep" of his echo location revealed the tunnel ahead of him, on his last peep the foggy outline of the villian they were chasing was briefly visible, beastboy became a wolf pivotting on his hind quarters and giving chase with a long drawn out howl, letting his friends know where he was, hearing that long drawn out howl echoing up after him Lunatic put in an extra burst of speed his lungs aching, his limbs tired and his body calmly yet insistantly remiding him of his limits, and the fact he had nearly reached them, the stagger in his step was a sure sign that he wouldnt be able to keep this pace much longer without a bit of a breather, so with that he stopped cold whirled on his heel and charged the now startled form of the wolf, lashing out with his trailing leg Lunatic managed to knock the wolf across the tunnel and into the piping of the opposite wall, the result a young green skinned man lay in a heap upon the floor groaning in pain, checking to make sure he hadnt accidently done more harm than intended cost him a few second but aside from a nasty gash on the side of his head and a few broken ribs he seemed fine, searching the green guy's belt finding the circular communicator he fiddlied with it a bit before it keyed on revealing the enraged face of the violet eyed sorceress with the red stone anchored to her forhead, "how did you get Beastboy's communicator, if you've hurt him so help me.." she growled her eyes glowing scarlet and at that moment a peel of thunder boomed ominously overhead "oh thats a bad sign" thought Thomas, "ah thats the thing, I kinda hit him harder than intended and he is unconsious, this thing has a tracking device right?" she stared blankly at him eyes still glowing but managed to nod confusion evident, "ah good" replied Lunatic as he placed the communicator on the ground beside the green teen, and took off at a jog down a side tunnel, trecking through the near darkness until he found a short ladder leading upto a manhole cover, quickly scaling the ladder and listening a moment for traffic and finding none shoved the lid up and to the right before pulling himself out of the tunnels and replacing the lid quietly.
The rain falling upon his exhausted aching form felt like heaven as Lunatic staggered down the vacant sidewalk, it had been a very long time since he felt so tired, he had managed a half hearted jog for a while just enough to get some distance between him and the Titans, "stupid name or not they definatly live up to the titan part" he muttered to himself as a bright red sports car pulled up beside him and Billy's welcome and familiar faces appeared in the window, he took a moment to pull himself together as he popped open the door the strains of a steel guitar wafted from the car, "get in, fella the Titans 'r still lookin fer us, what the heck happened to you anyway?" Billy looked worried as he ever did, "they chased me instead of you guys" grunted Lunatic as he settled into the uncomfortable passenger seat. "And you got away, hot damn boy you got some skills or some crazy luck to pull off something like that yer first time out that calls fer a drink" with that Billy withdrew a bottle of rye from shadows under his seat and tossed it into Lunatic's lap, wasting no time he unscrewed the bottle cap and pulled it to his lips taking long slow swallows of the burning liquid until, much to the agitation of Billy Numerous the bottle ran dry, "aw hey c'mon now what about Billy?" complained his red suited partner in crime, "shouldnt drink and drive" belched Lunatic as he settled into the seat letting his head nod into his chest, "Take me home would ya Bill?" murmured Lunatic as the booze hit his bloodstream and started washing away the aches and warming him up, and sending him into a deep slumber.
For the last three hours Billy and Private Hive, had been cautiously searching for thier wayward dorm mate, checking alleys, barrooms, pawn brokers, A.T.M.s, anywhere a criminal might be found, as it turned out the surest way to find him was to follow the titans, P.H. still nursing a limp and a concussion had relented after an hour and returned to the academy leaving Billy to spread out and continue the search, it was hard and, he had to spread himself thin, but after three hours he was pulling himself back together and heading for home his hard drinking compadre sleeping off a fifth of rye as the red sports coup sped through the city streets headed for home and rest.
It was dark when Lunatic awoke, his body ached all over, which as you can immagin was an unnerving thing to wake up to when your nearly impervious to pain, with a soft groan he managed to sit up revealing that his armor was still snuggly fitted to his damp person, further the suspicious damp spot on his bed where he had been previously reclining was around the same shape as his person, to top it all off he smelt like a jock-strap, so with a full body shudder Thomas shruged out of his armor placing it ungently upon the floor, yanked his bedding off and tossed it in the laundry chute, and grabbed up his towl heading for the bathroom, after a nice long shower he returned dripping to his now foul smelling room intent on cleaning his armor and burning his clothes until he was stopped cold by a familiar voice.
Gizmo sat in his room staring down at the computor moniter, it hadnt taken alot of time or effort to get the security feeds he needed, the sheer number of hidden applications and backdoors in the system were boggling even to his considerable genius, as it stood he wasnt entirely sure that the security staff didnt know he had hacked them, but as they hadnt knocked down his freaking door he wasnt overly worried, certainly not when his revenge was so close, he cast a glance over at the power armor he had just finished, well armor was a sever over simplification, truely it was a manned combat robot, standing over eight feet tall, heavy reinforced pressure treated titanium armor platting that utilized a flexable interlocking mechanism to cushion against heavy impact, a personalized move by wire system that patched directly into his nervousystem for superior movement and reaction in all situations and the most advanced sensor network he had ever created, his magnum opis to be sure, well for the moment, topped off with a pair of self targeting proton cannon turrets mounted to the shoulders made certian he'd keep track of his target regardless of how fast he thought he was, a small almost childish giggle escaped him as he gazed at it longingly, "soon baby real soon we'll paste that snot eating crack sniffer, just have to wait for the right time" he glanced at the secondary measure, his back up, a trio of automated attack drones currently charging in thier housing not as tough or as advanced as his new suit but the three of them had proven effective in the past and linked to his upgraded computor network they should be just enough to tip the scales in his favor, heck after he took out Lunatic he might take a little stroll down to the bay and take care of the Titans, just 'cause, the sensor net peeped alerting him to the fact the crack sniffer in question had just left his room, catching sight of his pale butt and the towl over his shoulder caused a wince of disgust followed by a slow menacing smirk, "Show Time" he cackled leaping from his desk and rushing to his bot.
"Had a nice shower?" cackled the familiar voice of Gizmo, electically distorted by the speakers in Thomas' room, he noticed the eight foot broad bodied robot immediatly, the second thing he noticed was the fact his armor had been kicked into the far corner of the room with the bot between them, the shoulder mounted cannons flanking the bots head had him targeted an experimental shifting of his stance prooved that little theory immediatly, "SUCK PROTONS PIT SNIFFER" snarled the pint sized inventor as his cannons blazed, the quarter heartbeat between that exclimation Lunatic was moving charging head long towards the firing armored suit, fist cocked back he delivering an armor shattering blow to the heavyily armored torso, the impact knocked the bot straight back into the far wall, manic laughter erupted from the speakers "yer gonna have ta do better than that" the right claw of bot lashed out faster than fast, the impact caught Lunatic in the midsection hurling him back across the room, he managed to roll with the blow, even as the tracking photon guns tore up his floor panals, once he struck the wall he managed to gain his feet narrowly evading one of the photon bursts only to dodge into the second, the brilliant blue green energy bolt boiled away flesh like water on a hot stone leaving behind angry red muscle and the slightest teasing peek of bone beyond, "ok this is bad" thought Lunatic as he smirked and readied to throw himself back into the fray.
The shots never let up for a moment forcing Lunatic to duck and weave out of the way, focusing his concentration on defence alone was frustrating to say the least but without his armor he couldnt risk closing in, Gizmo however hadnt let up with the laughter, pacing along the opposite side of his room letting his cannons solwly but surely wear Lunatic out, eventually one of his shots would hit home and to speed up the process Gizmo thumbed the controls to activate his drones.
Private Hive groaned as another crash resounded from the batroom, "damnit Billy keep it down!" another crash followed by the distictive noise of the recently organised toilettries clattering to the floor finally snapped P.H. to full awareness, with a groan and a wince he sat up gathering his shield and pulling on a pair of sweat pants he walked into the bathroom intent on brutalizing the Texan, stepping into the entry hall connecting thier rooms scrubbing his short cropped blonde hair he noticed the manic laughter of Gizmo, his upper classman echoing from Lunatic's room, "HEY! Luney keep it down some of us need more than four hours sleep here!" the crashing continued followed by the unmistakable sound of weapons fire, with a lurching limp, P.H. keyed Lunatics door lock frowning as the override made an odd buzzing crackle, cursing he wrenched the pannel from the wall staring at the mess of wires he began to panic as he realized he had no idea how to override the override, turning on his uninjured heel he hammered on Kyd Wykkyd's door, "WykkYd! i need your help" from the thin air of the shadowed bathroom the cloaked red eyed form materialized, sparing a glance to the noises comming from lunatics room and the sight of the door pannel torn from the wall reaching out he opened his cloak nodding to Private Hive.
Without another word P. through the portal of shadows beneath Kyd's cloak, and for one very unnerving moment he was weightless then abruptly he found himself in the shattered remains of Lunatics room, an unidentified bot was unloading blast after blast from shoulder mounted cannons while three spider like bots the size of dinner plates tried to skewer thier target with brilliant red lasers, thier target obviously Lunatic was a blurr of motion twisting, dodging, rolling and sliding from the blasts, bleeding from multiple hits to his person, "SIR! you have made the singularly worst mistake of your life!" shouted P.H. as he charged in shield first ignoring the screaming of his left leg, comming in low and fast his shield taking the brunt of the impact he managed to knock the bot off its feet and onto the ground, startled by the unexpected attack Gizmo howled in outrage "get offa me you freaking soldier wannabe" as he grabed the shield and hurled P.H. from his person his cannons trying to realign on thier target and unable to cope with the bad angle.
The whole scene was almost painful to view in the oppinion of Kyd Wykkyd, two of his dormmates locked in battle with a large green robot that seemed intent on blasting Lunatic while fiending off the stubborn blows of Private Hive, Kyd vanished into the shadows of his cloak drifing through the passages between shades for a moment he appeared beneath Lunatic dragging him into the shadows and tossing him out into the nearest safe place he could find, returning a moment later to grab the bot and its piolet, dragging the whole thing into the shadows and leaving it beneath the bay bridge across town, returning to the room tired but satisfied, Kyd Wykkyd stared with his calm red eyes at Private Hive as if to say "happy now?" and vanished into the shadows, reappearing once more in his now quiet room where he settled onto his cot with a soft sigh and slept for the first time in a week.