Spark of Genius
Disclaimer: I don't own buffy verse, girl genius verse, DC comics or any of that, so give it a rest.
AN: This is story, not ficwad or another adult fan fiction site, so my love scenes are not going to be smoking hot melt the computer screen type mature adult only scenes. If I start feeling that the story calls for it, then I will just take the scene out and post the complete chapter somewhere else. To tell the truth, I'm thinking of taking this entire story and posting it somewhere else anyway. Just a thought for now.
AN: Tis easier to destroy than create, so good on you to the flamer's for keeping to the minimum effort and not even writing your own stories while lambasting mine.
'Thought'
"Speech"
Chapter 5: Know Thyself, Know Thy Enemy
"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories."
~ Sun Tzu
It was called the walk of shame, not the walk of absolute humiliation. That is why Xander had chosen to wear a pair of Zatanna's sweat pants rather than wrapping the silk cloth around his waist like a kilt for his walk back to the junk yard.
Like kryptonite to Superman, the color yellow to the Green Lantern, and fire to the Martian Manhunter, when magic reared its head Xander was in for a lot of trouble. This was what was going over and over again in his head as he took a barefooted 'walk of shame' home to the junkyard in nothing but his leather jacket and a borrowed pair of what must have been Zatanna's baggy sweat pants; on Xander they looked like Capri-pants and only covered to right below his knees.
'I have got to figure out what to do about magic repeatedly kicking my ass, as well as figure out what is left over from my heterodyne self.' Xander thought as he wandered up the hill from Metropolis to the junk yard. Xander was thankful that his body was hardier than it had been before the Halloween fiasco otherwise the walk over the hot asphalt with its plethora of sharp pebbles would have been more than uncomfortable. His body's unnatural ability to heal itself immediately cured any scratches and dispelled any thorns or sharp rocks from his feet before he could even take another step; it even adapted itself to walking on the rugged asphalt by thickening the skin along the soles of his feet.
'So here's the plan, figure out what if anything I retained from heterodyne, and then figure out a way to protect myself from magic and its never ending quest to kick my ass six ways from Sunday.' Xander agreed in his mind as he made it to the gates to the Junkyard and squeezed through the Xander shaped hole that he had left in the wire fencing from his first trip to Metropolis.
"Eh, What's up Doc?" Number 5 asked in Bugs Bunny's voice as the combat bot's patrol route of the junk yard led it past Xander.
"I've got some work to do 5, see if you can get some of the clanks to grab some of the gas tanks of nitrous oxide that we bought from that medical supply company, and meet me in the lab." Xander instructed as he continued to proceed towards the warehouse and his laboratory.
Walking into the warehouse Xander stopped to take off the too-small pair of sweat pants and changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed a welding apron and long leather lab coat that he used when he was working in the lab, and proceeded out to where he heard the robots working together in the motor-pool area.
"Yo Optimus, did we ever get that shipment of black market purloined smilex, poison-ivy spores, and fear gas from Gotham? I think I ordered it last week for the immunity distillery, should be in the orders that came from the thugs that looted the operations of the former Black Mask?"
"Affirmative Xander prime," the large robot answered as it moved over towards a large metal shipping container and removed three gas-tanks of the requested dangerous substances.
"Excellent!" Xander cackled, as a gleam started to come to his eyes and a smile crept across his face.
"Wa ha ha ha ha..." Xander began to chuckle evilly, before catching himself and covering it with a cough.
"Um, take it all into the lab area and hook them up to the distillery, I'm going to go get the coffee from the 'Mr. Perfect Coffee Engine' that we created last week and I'll meet you next to the distillery." Xander shouted over his shoulder as he diverted his path to the kitchen.
"Affirmative" the hulking Optimus stated as it lugged its cargo into the laboratory section of Xander's work space.
"Behold…the creator of God's nectar of life! The Mr. Perfect coffee engine model 2.0," Xander announced dramatically as he walked into the kitchen, not that there was anybody there to hear him besides a couple of clanks who were working near the stove.
The coffee machine was a monstrosity of gauges, copper silos, hoppers of beans, blow torches, a coffee engine from Milan, an old wash-bin, heating coils, cooling coils and a few gadgets whose dimensions would make mother nature cringe from their appearance of unnaturalness. But this machine made the perfect cup of coffee. The 'Spark Roast Coffee' was an invention that came with Xander's new memories. The coffee that came from the machine had been dubbed 'perfect' by the author of "Bean There Done That" the senior most thesis on coffee making and bean roasting perfection. Xander had modeled his machine after that created by Agatha Heterodyne on her adventures. The coffee that came out of it was so caffeinated, so incredible, and so perfect that the author of the famous book had gone on a rant the moment he'd taken his first sip, a tear falling from his eye:
The taste is a perfect blend of all the tastes and essences that make coffee what it is. A perfect blend and yet I can discern each and every one perfectly. Even the way the liquid adheres to the inside of the cup – indicative of the way it flows along the taste buds- is aesthetically perfect. It reveals the mathematical perfection of the cup itself! The delicate smoothness of the china with its own inherent temperature which mitigates the otherwise extreme heat of the coffee itself…
The original author's poetic waxing brought on by the imbibing of the perfect fluid had been interrupted at the time, but the sentiment was still the same for the fluid that came from Xander's own coffee engine; which he simply dubbed the "Mr. Perfect". Of course, seeing as how it was the model 2.0, it now had twice the caffeine of the original, and as a result would probably be outlawed in twenty states as well as thirty seven small countries.
Xander flipped a few switches, a steam whistle blew, alarms and klaxons sounded, and a small cup of dark coffee was poured perfectly into the mug before him.
"Ahhhh, smells good." Xander announced to the kitchen as he picked up and sniffed the mug of heady caffeinated perfection. With that, he carried the mug out of the kitchen through another door and into the laboratory area.
Bunsen burners burned hot, caldron's swirled, fluids bubbled, and weird aromas issued up into the air throughout the room, swirled nicely by an animatronic witch with one eye, and that was just his clothes washing machine.
Walking past the clothes washing station, Xander proceeded into the back where he saw Optimus hooking up hoses and ventilation hoods over the smilex, spores, and fear toxin.
Each of these chemicals was deadly in their own right, but in different ways. The Joker's smilex was always a guaranteed laugh, the spores promised a good time, and the fear toxin balanced them out with shear paranoia inducing agony and angst. With a touch of the Mr. Perfect Spark Roast blend, Xander was betting on coming out ahead.
His original idea had been to examine the chemicals and figure out a way to become immune to some of the more deadly toxins in his new world, but now, he was going to use them to try and get in touch with his inner psyche.
The chemical brew that he was planning would be perfect: two parts madness, one part lust, three parts caffeine, so pretty much a bottled embodiment of the chemicals that raged through most teenagers, only in their concentrated synthesized form.
Xander walked up to the steam pump that was connected to the distillery, gave it a kick, spun the nozzles on the smilex, fear toxin, and Poison Ivy's spore container and then carefully measured out two drops of the coffee into the hopper on top.
Shrugging to himself, Xander gave an, "Better be safe" before just upending the entire cup of coffee into the hopper.
The machine shook, shimmied and moaned before ending with a 'Ding!' of a bell as it dispelled two drops of cloudy purple liquid onto a spoon that waited at the output nozzle.
Xander pulled up a wheelie chair and spun it around so he could sit on it.
Taking the spoon carefully, he gently swiveled his chair around so that he was facing a large highly polished sheet of steel that was mirror bright.
"Ok gang" Xander called as he looked at the clanks that were gathered around, Optimus looking down at Xander from his tall height.
"This should work to get me into a hallucinogenic state by which I can consciously converse with my inner psyche." Xander explained, "Of course, there is a 32.241 percent chance that this could also turn me into a gopher, small woodland creature or outright kill me, but it's worth the chance to finally figure out what I can do with this new brain and body." Xander finished with a shrug.
"If this doesn't work, and something happens to me, Optimus, you get the oil supply and my autographed picture of Zatanna in nothing but her stockings and heels, the clanks get the bolts and my collection of Big Band hits, and Number 5 and Number 6 can split the collection of Three Stooges, Monty Python, Star Wars and Mel Brooks DVD's. The Twinkies and the yellow crayon are to be buried with me, alright?" Xander explained as he looked around at his gathered creations.
A cacophony of "Affirmative" toots, honks, whistles and "Yes my master" in James Earl Jones's voice was his reply from the gathered robots.
"Alright then, down the hatch!" Xander stated, as he took the spoon into his mouth and swallowed the concoction that had come out of the distillery.
The results were immediate. First he shuttered, then smoke came out of his ears while green mist was exhaled from his nose. He hiccupped, then giggled, then snorted and coughed.
Xander used his hand to hit his chest to stop the cough, and a smoke ring shot out of his mouth and dispersed itself against the polished steel mirror.
Looking up at the mirror, Xander noted that the smoke and mist had stopped coming out of his ears nose and throat, and yet he was still alive.
"Well at least I'm still alive." Xander put forth positively as his shoulders slumped in defeat, "It's too bad that it didn't work though." He finished.
"I wouldn't be so fast to pass this experiment off as a loss just yet my lad," said a voice from in front of Xander.
Xander looked up and saw that the image in the mirror was leaning forward in his chair and smirking back at him.
"Um, did you say something?" Xander asked as he looked at his reflection.
"Yep, I did, congratulations on a successful chemical brewing." The image replied as it stood up from its chair and started to pace back and forth in the mirrored steel.
Xander smiled at his reflection.
"So what do I call you?" Xander asked, "It would be kind of hard to have a conversation if I called you Xander, or me." Xander pointed out from his seat in front of the mirror.
"Just call me Heterodyne for now." The image stated, "Ok, so you wanted to know about me the person and memories you gained, so the easy answer is, in short, you're me." Heterodyne announced with a smirk.
"What do you mean I'm you?" Xander questioned with an inquisitive rising of the eyebrow.
"Well, you know the costume you made was some wacky amalgamation love child of Agatha Heterodyne, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Othar Tryggvassen Gentleman Adventurer, and the Castle Heterodyne itself; all normal for the gaslamp or steam punk that is the Girl Genius universe but overall a bit weird." The image of Heterodyne explained.
"What you don't know is that the Castle was really alive. It was the imprinted mental and physical manifestation of Agatha's mother as well as the multitude of Heterodyne warlords, mad chemists botanists, mechanics, physicists, evil MD's, engineers and even one evil lawyer; and believe me, he was evil, even for a lawyer." The image continued, shuddering when it explained the last part.
"All of that knowledge and personality was imprinted into the DNA of me, Xander Heterodyne." The image continued to pace and wave its hands about as it went through its explanation. "Now don't get me wrong, I'm not evil, my genes do have a good bit of both Othar Trygvassen, the noted hero, as well as Agatha heterodyne and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach; but both of them were more on the grey side of good with a whole lot of chaos added in." Heterodyne finished explaining as he finally stood still in the mirror.
"So that's all interesting, but I was hoping for the cliff's note edition if possible." Xander stated, not trying to be rude but really more interested in what all of this information meant for the here and now.
"Ok, in basic English, you're going to have all of the wacky brainy sciences, a bit of law, and a lot of crazy bad and good luck rolled up in you with a hint of chaotic neutral tendencies. Your body is hardier and stronger than any normal human, and you have a healing factor that can keep you alive for a good period of time even if your limbs are chopped off; assuming that you can get them sewed back on within a reasonable period of time." Heterodyne summarized with a smile as he looked down from the mirror at the still seated Xander. "You're a mad scientist, a spark, you, just like I and all the rest of the major sparks in the Heterodyne family, have the ability to bend, break, or even ignore the laws of nature physics or whatever when you want to invent something. Pretty handy when it comes to fidgeting and creating things, and I think you would best sum yourself up as a 'MacGyver' on crack or some other term like that.
"That's the good news." Heterodyne continued.
"Hmmm," Xander mused as he thought about everything that his Heterodyne imaginary self had just explained to him, and then the last statement about the 'good news' clicked in his head.
"Wait, what do you mean about 'that's the good news?'" Xander questioned a bit cautiously. "So what's the bad news?" Xander asked, a foreshadowing of doom starting to creep into his voice. 'After all, this had all been too easy and Lady Luck was never this nice to him without kicking him in the crotch a bit later.' Xander thought at the end.
"Well two things really," Heterodyne explained as he stood there, "First, remember what I said about the warlord bit? Well, besides the fact that you may be prone to wanting to take over the world, you and I both know you aren't the typical type of hero that this world is used to, if you know what I mean."
"What? No, I don't know what you mean." Xander sat back in his chair and questioned, he'd really hoped that he could be a superhero while he was here in the DC comic and justice league universe.
"Well, let's put it this way." Heterodyne answered, "What would you do to a vampire?"
"Kill it." Xander immediately answered.
"Ok, so what would you do to the person who decided carve their name in Willow's forehead with a knife before gassing her to death or shooting her in the head?" Heterodyne asked.
Xander's eyes immediately turned dark and a palpable shadow of darkness seemed to flash across his face. "I'd torture them until they couldn't scream any more, and then I'd kill them." Xander stated without hesitation and with a deep growl.
"See! There!" Heterodyne explained, "Both answers would be perfectly acceptable for dealing with the big bad in your old dimension, no matter whether it is human or demon. But here, the Hero's don't kill, they don't even kill when somebody commits horrible genocide or hacks up little kids. Even vampires are allowed to live if they don't turn people or aren't caught killing anybody." The image explained.
"You and I both know that you aren't that type of hero, I'd call you more of the 'gray knight' type rather than any old white knight like Superman or that so called "black knight" Batman. They might call themselves by some other title, but none of them are really willing to kill where you and I agree it needs to be done. That's not to say that you aren't willing to save the day, you and I both know that you have done things to save Buffy and Willow and save the world, some things that they don't even know about. You are a hero if you want to be, just not the type of hero that will get you invited by Superman to go over for cookies at Ma Kent's house," Heterodyne finished.
Xander was silent as he thought over his inner psyche's message. It was true, he really couldn't call himself a "white knight" like some had referred to him in his old dimension, nor could he really compare himself to the boy-scout that was Superman or the 'never kill the monster' rest of the hero's who belonged to the Justice League.
"Ok, I understand that part and can agree with it." Xander stated as he pulled himself away from his introspection and looked up into the eyes of the Heterodyne image. "So what's the second part of the bad news?" Xander finished.
"I am." A deep growling voice stated as the image of Xander Heterodyne split and a second image, this time with green glowing eyes, fangs, claws and wearing a gray and black speckled set of clothes.
"Primal, meet Xander, Xander, meet Primal spirit of the Hyena." Heterodyne introduced as he pointed from the image beside him to Xander who was now recoiling in shock.
"This is why your senses, strength, healing factor and speed are even faster than I could have done to you if it was only me that you bonded with on Halloween." The image of Xander Heterodyne explained. "It's also why you are more gray and a bit more bloodthirsty than you would have been given my family's genetic history of terrorizing the world and being warlords, what with it being balanced out with the heroes that were my immediate parents." The image added.
"How's it going bub." The image of the Primal stated with a smirk as it pulled a cigar out of an internal pocket, pulled a strike match from its pocket, and snapped its fingers on the match's head, causing it to flame up.
Xander was still in shock as he watched the image of the Hyena spirit use the match to light its cigar and started puffing on it. Seeing that Xander was staring at it, the Hyena spirit showed Xander its middle finger.
This seemed to bring Xander out of his daze.
"So what about the original me, am I still in there also?" Xander asked the Heterodyne image, as it seemed like the Primal spirit was content to smoke its cigar and glare at Xander seated in front of the mirror.
"Sure is." Stated a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt wearing image of Xander as it stepped out from behind the Heterodyne one. The Hawaiian shirt wearing image pulled a Twinkie out of its pocket and shoved the whole thing into his mouth. "Mhhhyy Anhoth thojw Heterodynooth Contohrousl thooo Primhoal." The Hawaiian shirt Xander stated with a mouth full of Twinkie.
"What my alter ego is trying to say is that I and Hawaiian guy here keep the Primal mostly in check, though your conscious mind plays a key role in making sure that Mr. Primal doesn't take control." Heterodyne explained, and Hawaiian Shirt image finished swallowing the Twinkie with a big goofy smile and a thumbs up.
"Yep, sure do." Hawaiian image stated as he turned his smile on the Primal. The Primal in turn blew a big cloud of smoke into the Hawaiian shirt wearing image's face, causing Hawaii guy to cough and choke.
Xander, seated in front of the steel mirror just took in all the information for a minute, before speaking out again.
"Ok, so that's everything right?" Xander asked.
All three of his images nodded and smiled at the physical combined version of Xander; or in the case of the Primal smirked at him with a fanged smile and a cigar chomped in his mouth.
"Ok, thanks. So now what?" Xander questioned.
"Now? Well now is the time when the distilled potion starts to cause you to go on an acid trip and you are forced to watch us turn into ballet dancing hippos and alligators." Heterodyne stated with a crazy smile coming across the image's face.
"Really!" Xander asked, with growing horror.
"No, not really." The image of Xander Heterodyne answered with a wink.
With that, Xander found himself facing an image of only himself, seated in a swivel chair facing a mirrored surface of polished steel. The only other image in his reflection was that of the clanks and robots that were still surrounding him in his lab.
Xander kicked back from the mirrored steel, swiveled around to a work table, leaned back and kicked his feet up on the table.
Xander threaded his fingers behind his head and reclined further in the swivel chair, smiled up at the towering figure of Optimus and said, "Well that went better than I expected it to."
Optimus answered, "Affirmative."
Just then the wheels on the chair that Xander was reclining on decided to slide out from under him due to his incline.
Xander thudded to the ground, knocking his head hard and causing him to see little clanks circle before his vision.
"Owwww." Xander called out from his new position on the floor. He figured that he was content to lay right where he was for a while before moving on to dealing with his next problem, how to stop magic from kicking his ass.
Xander was seated before his drawing board, a pencil wedged behind his ear, staring down at the coffee cup ring stained drawings of a mace. This wasn't a drawing of any old mace; this was a drawing of Hawkgirl's mace, a mace made out of Nth Metal.
'Nth Metal is the key to stopping magic from affecting me. Well I hope it is…' Xander thought to himself as he continued to stare at the drawing of the mace while sipping his coffee. It was going on 11:00 at night and Xander still didn't have a plan on how to figure out if Nth metal would stop magic from attacking or affecting him.
'So here's the problem,' Xander thought to himself, 'In all of the DC comics and cartoons that I remember reading or watching, Nth metal is rare and yet very good at stopping physical attacks. In some parts of DC comic lore, Nth metal stops magic, in others, it stops most elemental attacks but doesn't say anything about magic. The only person who I know of who has Nth metal at this time is Hawkgirl." Xander pondered as he continued to slurp his coffee.
"How the hell am I supposed to get Hawkgirl to lend me her mace without her ending up using it on me?" Xander stated out loud as he smacked his coffee cup down on the drawing.
"I can imagine it now, 'Hey Hawkgirl, you don't know me, but I'm a mysterious traveler from another dimension with no form of current ID, and I was wondering if I could borrow your mace for a bit so that I could learn how it works and what forms of energy it deflects versus what its weaknesses are, ok?" Xander mimed to himself in a condescending manner.
"And then; POW, BAM, and BIFF, right to my kisser that mace will go." Xander yelled with frustration as he stood up and angrily broke a ruler over his knee.
Xander looked down at the two halves of the ruler broken in his hand, and examined the impact that his knee had made on the metal and wood instrument.
Xander's eyes got really big, and a crazy smile came across his face as his spark of mad genius kicked in. 'Impact! That's it!' Xander thought.
Xander whipped out his pencil and started making drawings, throwing pieces of paper out of the way as the madness and genius took over his brain in equal parts.
"I'll need fire… and a high pressure force gauge… diamond drill bit and industrial cutting laser…" Xander ranted to himself.
"Number 6! Fast, go grab that laser death ray focusing gem from that crashed alien craft, I need it here now!" Xander shouted over his shoulder, not even looking to see if his orders were followed.
"Toots and Honks, get the clanks warming up the cutting and welding torches as well as the fusion defibrillator array, and somebody get me a refill of coffee!" Xander shouted, the sounds of scurrying clanks, clunking robotic feet, and a myriad of musical tweets came from all around him as his creations moved into high gear to keep up with the speed of his creative thinking.
"Somebody take the cold water coolant tubes off of the liquid nitrogen system and rig them to the old marshmallow gun tube and firing mechanism." Xander ordered again as he continued to make hasty and rapid drawings, doing calculations on the fly and putting them into his paper as he worked.
Stepping back, Xander withdrew his hand from its rapid scribbling and he gazed down at the drawing before him.
"Hmmm, it needs something more, but what could it be?" Xander hummed to himself while stroking his chin.
Two little clanks ran towards him across the tops of the tables and drawing desk, both carrying fresh cups of coffee. Unfortunately, or fortunately, both were so devotedly looking up at their master that they didn't see each other and both ended up running into one another.
The coffee from the cups splashed into the air, and dribbled down the sides of the two mugs, both mugs ended up flopping right down on the drawing of the monstrosity that Xander was creating.
Picking up both mugs with disgust at what his minions had done, Xander gazed at the photo to make sure that it wasn't ruined. There were now two circular coffee stains on the drawing, one on the face of the robot, one right in the middle of its chest.
A smile slowly and darkly crept across Xander's face.
"He, he," Xander started to chuckle, the chuckle built into a laugh, and then it spilled out of him in all of its chaotic goodness.
"WA HA HA HA HA! BWA HA HA HA HA HA…" Xander's laughter turned maniacal, head reared back, clawed hands reaching towards the ceiling as the genius of his plan came to fruition.
Somewhere high in orbit of planet earth, Hawkgirl sneezed.
It was a beautiful day in Ohio, the wind was blowing through the fields of ripening corn and wheat, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and a twenty foot tall robot with wings was flying over the fields with a flamethrower lighting the fields on fire while dragging a banner behind it that read, "Hawkgirl hits like a girl!"
A sudden boom heralded the opening of a boom-tube and the disgorgement of Hawkgirl who flew out of the opening of the transporter field.
Hawkgirl was not happy to have her lunch with John Stewart, the Green Lantern, interrupted by the Martian Manhunter telling her that he had an issue for her to deal with, 'one that had her name written all over it.'
Seeing the robot glide along on its rocket boots as it did crop duster runs on the fields, its mocking banner streaming behind it, she took off after it at full flight to see if she could figure out what it was doing first and if it could be stopped peacefully before using her mace; the other justice league members had been telling her that she needed to not give in to her temper so much.
As she gained ground on the gliding robot, she saw the cable towing the banner release, letting the banner catch the wind and sale back towards her. Swooping upwards quickly, Hawkgirl dodged the now fluttering banner and halted mid air to address the mechanical being. She was surprised to see that it was already floating right there in front of her.
About thirty feet in front of her was a robot that looked to be a fighter jet that had morphed or transformed into a bipedal robot, both of its legs provided thrust through rocket engines. It looked like a giant humanoid robot; except for where the robot's face should have been was a giant red and white circular bulls-eye. A giant red and white bulls-eye was also painted on its chest.
"Stop what you are doing and give yourself up!" Hawkgirl yelled across the distance to the robot, "Whoever you are, your reign of terror has stopped." Hawkgirl spouted, realizing a second later that her statement sounded a bit corny and that she was really glad that none of the rest of the Justice League was there to witness her statement.
"Who am I?" The robot's voice asked, coming out as a high pitched nasally French voice, "I am HITME. However it is not I who matters you Thanagarian idgit! You're mother was a dodo and your father smelt of pigeon droppings! I fart in your general direction!" The robot yelled, pounding on its head with its own hands in imitation of a certain actor from a British comedy movie.
The robot then turned around and bent over, only for the red and white bulls-eye on its rear-end to shoot a stream of freezing cold water right at Hawkgirl.
Hawkgirl was so surprised by the actions and taunting of the robot that she wasn't prepared for the blast of cold water that hit her right in the chest, knocking her back and sending her tumbling head over heels through the air.
Finally righting herself, Hawkgirl hovered for a second to make sure she was ok. Looking down, she realized that she was soaked from head to toe, and that it also had been a bad idea to come to the battle while wearing the white blouse that she had picked out for the date, rather than her usual secure yellow top.
Hawkgirl growled in menace, just as the robot raised its hands to the sides of its head where its ears would have been, and pretended to be sticking out its tongue and waving its hands. The sound of "Nanny nanny boo boo, you can't hit me!" Came from speakers on the robot.
That did the trick. Hawkgirl was now officially mad.
Yelling in anger, Hawkgirl streaked across the sky towards the still floating robot, and started beating the crap out of it with her mace.
First one blow to the face that knocked its head back, then one to the chest to try and drive it into the ground, then as the robot tumbled towards the earth, she helped it on its way by hitting it on the bulls-eye on its ass.
"Hmph, that should fix you." She stated out loud as she spit after the robot and its tumbling path towards the earth.
The robot crashed into the ground with a bang as its steel body impacted the freshly tilled and slightly charred earth of a field of wheat.
Just as she started shaking her shirt to try and get the water out of it, a tingling in the back of her head told her that she needed to dodge.
Diving quickly to the left, she barely missed having her feathers singed by a plume of fire which the now standing robot had shot at her.
Suddenly music started to blast out of speakers hidden on the robot, as its rocket boots thrust it into the sky after the diving Hawkgirl.
"Let's get ready to RUMBLEEEEE!" Came a sports announcer's voice out of the speakers of the robot, right before the music changed to that of Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries.
The robot shot streams of liquid fire out of a nozzle attached to its right arm as it continued to chase the dodging Hawkgirl.
After a few blasts, Hawkgirl was tired of dodging and decided to take the fight back to the musical robot that was really starting to get on her nerves.
Swinging her mace around, she deflected a blast of fire back towards the robot, effectively hitting it and knocking it over and back towards the ground.
As the machine tumbled towards the ground, a blast of water shot out of its hind quarters, right at Hawkgirl.
Not wanting to be hit with another blast of cold water, Hawkgirl again used her mace to deflect the stream of fluid so that it went around her form. The tumbling robot was able to turn its face towards Hawkgirl, and a bright red laser beam shot out of the center of the bulls-eye on its face.
Hawkgirl again used her mace to deflect the laser away from her, and then continued to follow the path of the plummeting robot.
As she watched the robot continue to fall towards the ground, Hawkgirl decided to make sure it didn't get back into the air this time.
Using her mace to great effect, she dove at the tumbling robot and repeatedly beat on it with her weapon, keeping it from being able to get its feet and rocket powered legs under control. Time and again she thudded into the machine, only pulling up at the last second as the robot plowed into the earth and left a large gouge out of a hill.
Floating ten feet away from the robot, Hawkgirl taunted back at the machine.
"Have you had enough?" She growled, shaking her mace in one hand at the machine as she hovered where she was, looking down at it.
The large robot, aka HITME, pushed itself out of the ground and then shook its head.
"I don't know…it depends what you're offering. If I didn't know better, I'd think this was 'exciting' you." A man's voice issued out of the speakers on the robot, while the robot's hand and finger went to point at her chest, only to do air-quote when it mentioned the word 'exciting.'
Looking down at her chest, Hawkgirl saw that the cold water along with the evaporation from flying around had caused a certain reaction in her chest area; a reaction that was on full display due to the combination of cold water and now see through white shirt.
That seemed to do the trick, as Hawkgirl saw red, figuratively. Before, she had been a bit ticked off at the insults, perhaps even a bit mad. But as anybody who read comic books knows, you don't make fun of a super heroines figure. That's just asking to get your ass handed to you.
Hawkgirl screamed bloody murder, and pile-drove herself into the robot, beating the ever living hell out of it with her mace, even going so far as to head-butt the robot's face with her helmet.
The beating went on for a few minutes as the only thing that could be heard on the hill was Hawkgirl's grunting and screaming and the quick series of metallic thuds, bangs and clangs as she pounded on the machine.
Then, all of a sudden there sounded a "DING!" The tone was followed by a female voice coming from the speakers of the robot that said, "Analysis completed, have a nice day."
With this, the tide of the battle shifted. The robot who had up till this point taken the beating and not really swung back at Hawkgirl, grabbed the incoming end of the mace as it plummeted towards its face, and stopped the weapon's downward momentum cold.
Flinging its arm out to the side, the robot used the leverage of its grasp on the end of the mace to fling Hawkgirl off of her grip on her weapon and causing her to go rolling down the hill that they had been fighting on.
As Hawkgirl tumbled over and over down the hill, she didn't see the robot's left arm flip out a little industrial diamond drill and laser which then cut a small flake of the mace's metal off and collected it into a sample tray; the tray then disappearing into the arm of the robot.
Hawkgirl finally stopped rolling down the hill and turned back to face the taller robot, only to duck as her mace impacted the earth next to her head.
"Badee Badee Badee, that's all folks!" the voice of 'Porky the Pig' shouted from the speakers of the robot. Then the speaker's voices changed to that of a group of frightened English men yelling, "Run Away! Retreat!" With some strange sound effect of a cow and something twanging also being played in the background.
With that, the robot leapt into the air, transformed out of its human form and into that of a twin engine MIG like fighter jet, and rapidly hit the afterburners.
Hawkgirl was stunned at how quickly the battle had ended, and the direction it had turned at the end. It was absolute insanity, and she had no idea what the hell had just happened to her or what the whole thing was about.
Looking around, she picked her mace up off of the ground. Looking down at herself she realized that she was still cold and soaking wet, now dripping with muddy water as well as covered with caked on dirt and grass from her roll down the hill; she sniffed herself and really hoped that it was only dirt that she had rolled through.
Looking around again she sighed, she was really glad that none of the rest of the Justice League had seen this.
Rather than asking for a transport home, she figured she would fly to her home and save the embarrassment of letting the people at the station know what happened.
This was one battle that she was never going to tell anybody about, period.
Back in the warehouse, in the middle of junkyard on the outskirts of Metropolis, Xander Harris removed the headset from his head and rubbed his eyes from where they had been staring at the screens through which he had watched the battle between his robot and Hawkgirl.
Cracking his knuckles, he looked around for a second, wondering what to do.
Then a slight devious smile came across his face.
Smirking to himself, Xander leaned down and pressed a button on one of the DVD trays on the computer attached to the monitors. Popping out one of the recordings of the fight and slipping it into a hard plastic case, Xander called out.
"Ok gang, who wants to travel to Gotham for me and put this in the outgoing mail at Wayne Manor? Send it to the national news station, care of Bruce Wayne" Xander called out to his clanks with a chuckle.
'Probably not the most sane thing in the world to be taunting both Batman and Hawkgirl, but ehh.' Xander thought to himself with a mental shrug.
One little clank, shaped like a pyramid, came forward and gave Xander a salute before putting its metal hands up to receive the DVD. Handing over the DVD, Xander watched the little clank run over and jump itself into a shipping box. The other clanks then sealed up the box and started carrying it away as they post marked it for Gotham.
Xander leaned back in his command chair that was positioned in front of the monitors, watching as his jet/transformer cleared the airspace of Ohio at mach 2.3. The jet was hugging the ground on its way back towards Metropolis and the awaiting Xander. The sensor data from the video feeds and the impact blows had given Xander all of the stress test outputs that he needed on the Nth metal, and the fire, and water retardant capabilities matched up with what he knew regarding Nth metals ability to withstand both physical and elemental damage. The graphical interface details on the side of the monitor told him that the analytical devices housed in the arm of the robot, where the drill and cutting laser were both contained, informed him that the diamond drill had blunted itself on the mace while the laser had shorted out from the refraction of the laser being reflected back into the focusing lens. He would just have to wait to get the small slivers back before he could check the magic protective capabilities of the metal, but so far the metal seemed like it was everything he wanted when it came to stopping power.
'After this it's just finding a large enough supply of Nth metal for me to work with.' Xander thought to himself with a satisfied smile.
His day had started off 36 hours previous, waking up with Zatanna asleep on his chest. Now, he had a better idea of his capabilities and a sample of metal that may be able to stop him from being magic's butt monkey. Ideas of what he could do with the metal floated through his head, it all depended on how much he could find.
"Yep, all in a good day, and nights, work for your resident mad genius." Xander stated to no one in general as he got out of his chair and headed towards his bedroom.
By the time his head hit the pillow, he was already smiling in his dreams. Dreams of a certain naked magic user, and a flying girl in a wet white t-shirt; god he loved his new eidetic memory.
AN: I liked this chapter, this was fun to write. I hope you enjoyed it also. So answered some questions and made some preparations for the future. Xander is going to pick his own path and he isn't going to be controlled by fate, 5th dimension midgets or any rules on what a hero does or doesn't do if he wants to fit in. Should be fun with a 99% chance of mad science and a frosty to go. Mmmmm, chocolate frosties.