Hi everyone! Please have the next chapter! The next chapter is the last chapter that I have planned, so I'll write it up and see where it gets to but the likelihood is that won't be the end of this story. I just can't see it getting done all in one chapter next time!
KaliAnn: Hi hi. I know, they were all so close and then they got completely knocked back. Anyway, you'll find out what the League is going to do next chapter :)
immnony: Wow! Thanks a lot! I'm so glad that you are enjoying my stories! I won't kill anyone, don't worry. I don't think I could do that very well, a death needs more of a build-up really.
sharyvagram: Everything did get worse. But it'll get better: promise! And by the way, please don't worry about when you review. I appreciate every review I get no matter when it is given, so honestly don't worry about it :D
Karce: Thanks, and I think it's next chapter you'll find that one out ;)
Guest: Hahaha that would've been funny! Thanks a lot for the compliments and thanks a lot for the review!
S. S. Pie: I know right? I've put them in one of the crappiest situations ever! It's pretty fun to write though! Hahaha, read on and find out what happens next my dear! Thanks for reviewing :D
Nightwing15: THIS is what happens, hah!
BlueJayRobin: Hey Blue! Thanks a lot for the support! And yeah, I know, they're in a weird situation and the phone call was just for a lightening of the mood a little bit hahahah :)
DARKSOMEONE41: Do you not usually say OMG or something? Should I take that as a compliment...? Hahaha! I'm so glad that you like it, please enjoy this chapter too!
weathergirl17248: Thanks a lot!
ArkieR: Yes. Yes I did just do that! Worry not, please read on and find out what happens!
Allypallycally1: I did this because I ooze drama and it just seems to keep coming out. Perhaps I should see a doctor about that... Meh, either way, people are enjoying my drama-ooze so thanks for reviewing!
ForbiddenVoid: Awww don't cry! Things will get better, I promise. I'm going to make the situation improve soon! Worry not :D
On to the story!
Wally heard Artemis call his name worryingly as he ran out of the shattered Bio-ship but he hadn't given himself time to acknowledge how stupid running out there with no apparent plan was. He felt that familiar tug at his heartstrings when the archer said his name, but he as usual pretended that they weren't there. Wally had kind of hoped that a plan would form itself and if it didn't then, well, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. But as he skidded to a stop in front of a bemused looking android that was almost the exact depiction of Superman, the bridge was right in front of him and he couldn't see a way to cross it. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to put even a toe on that bridge. Sure, the android looked like Superman; but there was something so sinister about him. He froze, and was glad when he heard his teammates racing out to his aid.
Connor had left Robin's side to follow after that stupid speedster, gripping tightly onto whatever he could to keep his balance. The explosion had left his head spinning and he still couldn't hear very well. It was almost as though he had strapped pillows to each side of his head over his ears and it was getting increasingly more annoying when his vision blurred out. As the Kryptonian emerged from the ashes into where things were clearer, his eyes immediately flicked to the Superman android and the small mechanical monkeys that appeared to be awaiting the androids orders. I hate monkeys, thought Superboy. Connor may not have liked Superman all that much, but his feelings were still conflicted and he wasn't so sure he would be able to really focus on defeating the android, so instead he thought he would instead pay attention to the android monkeys. At least those he was certain he hated. Superboy voiced, "I'll take care of the monkeys."
M'Gann was also deeply affected by the explosion and both her sense of sound and balance had been severely thrown off, so flying or telekinesis would be a bad move. Thinking about it though, M'Gann was certain that if she used her powers in her current state she would probably wake up in the middle of next week wondering why she had pushed herself so hard. She had only moments ago lost her Bio-ship and that had torn a chunk out of her soul, well that's how it felt anyway. She would have to rely on her ground skills. Still, even though her hearing was strange and she was unhappy at how unaccustomed to it she was, she still heard Connor's assurance that he'd keep the monkeys off of everyone. She was glad when the Superman android smiled a malicious smile and pointed his mechanical finger directly at her tear-stained face and told the monkeys to 'kill'. Superboy immediately jumped to her aid.
One of the small monkeys jumped for her face and she raised her arms defensively before Superboy jumped in front of her and with a tired wink in her direction swatted the thing away and tore it in two. After seeing this, the other monkeys perceived Superboy as the most present threat and flocked to him in an attempt to take him down. He could handle them though; M'Gann was certain enough of that. So instead she looked around for something useful that she could do. That was when she spotted the Superman android picking up another grenade to throw at the defenceless Robin and Artemis still inside the ship. That was what she could do then. M'Gann called out to Kid Flash and Aqualad who was just emerging from the ship, "I've got the explosives! You two get the android!"
Aqualad ignored the fact that he wanted to tear Kid Flash's head off for running out there without any defence or strategy and just instead focused on the more imminent worry. If they didn't somehow drive this enemy away or shut it down then it was obvious his teammates would either be captured or killed. He didn't exactly want to stick around to find out which of these it would turn out to be anyway. The leader thought for a moment or two about getting M'Gann to set up a mind-link for them all to coordinate better. But just with one look in her direction the idea was cast from his head, she was fighting on foot, hand to hand with the monkeys who were trying to stop her from getting to the explosives that she promised to neutralise. That meant she wasn't comfortable using her powers right now otherwise she's already have them.
"Kid, this is up to us!" Aqualad instead called to Wally with a gesture in the Superman's direction. Once he was sure that he had Wally's attention, he made the gesture that the team had practised so many times in practise and hoped that the speedster remembered which formation he wanted and in what context. Lucky for him, a lot of people often forgot that the kid was a prodigy and so he caught on fast to what Aqualad was getting at and immediately began to run in circles at impossible speeds around the Superman android's feet.
Aqualad then took his water bearers out and cast as much water as he could into the air movement that Wally was creating. Clearly, the Atlantean had been hoping that this would create a barrier that the android wouldn't be able to escape from. Of course, this was just a quick fix because even Wally couldn't run for the amount of time that they would need to in order to defeat the opponent. Aqualad thought that his barrier would be enough to give him a bit of time to think of another plan. But it quickly became apparent that thinking time wouldn't be easy to gain because the Superman android seemed to analyse Wally's running form for a few moments before – in perfect timing – sticking his leg out and forcefully kicking Wally away from him, effectively breaching the fragile barrier.
Wally tumbled head-over-heels several times before skidding along for a moment or two before finally coming to a painful stop. His burnt back was excruciatingly painful now and he writhed around on the floor on his front for a while. The speedster knew that everyone was needed right now and so he forced himself onto his hands and knees, but he found that his hands and knees were as far as he could go. It was too much, the pain reached levels that affected his eyesight. Every time he tried getting to his feet large black blotches appeared in his vision and he soon found himself back on the ground.
"Stay down, Kid!" Aqualad ordered in a shout to Wally after seeing him try (and fail) to get up several times. Clearly his injuries had been underestimated. No matter how determined Wally was, defeating the android wasn't worth anything if the team lost a member. The leader was engaged in a hand to hand fight with a machine and this was not the first time that he discovered machines were far better at it than he was. Still, Aqualad believed that he was a distraction for the machine to focus on instead of hurting his other teammates, or at the very least he was an annoyance.
Connor chipped in where he could, he had gone through a total of fifteen monkeys now and there were still more coming directly for him: they appeared to be ignoring his other teammates with the exception of M'Gann. The Kryptonian considered that an advantage seeing that Aqualad was hard-pressed both defending and trying to land an offensive on the Superman android, M'Gann was still trying to get to the grenades whilst fighting through her own enemy robot monkeys and Kid Flash looked as though he had fallen unconscious after his spectacular fall after a failed attempt of what looked like a water barrier. Superboy had even managed to land a few hits of his own on the Superman android whilst passing by in an attempt to help Aqualad out a little bit.
M'Gann was being bombarded by robot monkeys and she knew that if any of them were at any time free they would grab a grenade and run with it, so she needed to secure them and fast. She reached down and grabbed one of the robots before slinging it around and whacking the other monkeys with the one she had gripping tightly in her right hand. She managed to clear the monkeys out of the way of the large crate of explosives and hurriedly bent over to pick the crate up so that she could do something with it. The best thing she could think of doing was a controlled explosion to get rid of all of them. The safest way to do that was with her telekinesis, but that would all depend on whether she was physically capable of doing that right now. Still, what was important was that for now the explosives weren't in enemy possession.
Meanwhile back inside the ship, Robin was beginning to struggle again for breath. Artemis carefully turned him on his side like Wally had the last time his lungs weren't proving strong enough for him and he immediately seemed to have an easier time letting air in. The archer was lost; she had no idea what she was expected to do. Her ears were ringing with an unpleasant high-pitched squeaking and her head was spinning. She thought that she might have a concussion but she couldn't be sure without help from someone else, her eyes were blurring uncomfortably (at least she assumed so: she couldn't see any further than a metre in front of herself with all of the ash flying around) and she felt more tired than she had been only moments ago.
That reminded her, something miraculous happened just moments earlier. Robin had said her name. But before the crash when he last regained consciousness he had completely forgotten everyone with the exception of Wally. At the time, nobody had a chance to be worried about it and to be perfectly honest nobody had really had the chance to even think about it since the crash happened. Everyone had been too preoccupied just trying to get this whole disaster to end. But he had definitely said it; there was no mistaking that he said her name. Maybe he'd overheard someone else talking to her, or maybe he really, truly remembered her. But surely it wasn't that easy, people who lose their memories don't get them back just like that, do they? She didn't know, she supposed that a question better suited for Batman, or a doctor. Once again though, she didn't really have time to dwell on it.
Artemis could hear the sounds of her teammates fighting outside and she couldn't fully focus on Robin knowing that she wasn't doing anything at all to help. The archer was trying to ignore how her stomach dropped every time she heard something that sounded like it was Wally shouting to the others. She couldn't see what was happening, but the team didn't sound like they were in a good place. They sounded like they were fighting and loosing. Artemis turned back to Robin just in time to see him fling himself up to his feet and stagger backwards on shaking legs at the same time as grabbing his head with an expression on his face that betrayed how much just standing up had hurt his body. He wasn't ready for that kind of movement yet. The archer, mindful of her own head injury, carefully moved over to him and grabbed his arm. Robin's eyes flicked over to her face and a worried look crossed his eyes.
"They need help," Robin implored. Artemis' heart broke at the way that her younger comrade was physically incapable of helping anyone with anything but still fought to his feet for his friends (whether he really remembered them all or not). The ninja fell down to his knees, exhausted already, and looked up into Artemis' eyes again, "They need help from both of us. We have to do something, right?"
Artemis looked away from his incriminating gaze; he was right. Artemis began to brainstorm what she could possibly do to help and whilst she did that she noticed the ash beginning to clear and she could almost make out a few flashes of movement going across the torn opening in the ship. They had to do something to help, but exactly what that would be was unclear at that moment. That is until Artemis looked back to Robin and saw that familiar expression on his face that only meant one thing: light bulb.
Robin gestured to somewhere behind Artemis, and when she turned around she found her quiver and bow and just a little ways to the left was Robin's utility belt. She couldn't help herself but grin, the kid was plotting again. But she loved it when he did that, but his plots always tended to make things turn the team's way in a battle. Artemis scuttled over to the items in question and gathered up all of the pieces that she could see scattered from the crash. Once it was all in her arms, she returned to Robin's side and he grabbed an arrow from Artemis' quiver. The archer almost protested, no-one touched her arrows, but under the circumstances it was fine. Robin then searched around in the pockets of his own utility belt and began to attach things to places. Artemis had no idea what was going on, but the little ninja seemed to be absorbed in his handiwork.
Once complete, Robin made a satisfied grunt and then handed two modified arrows to Artemis and slumped back to the ground in utter exhaustion. Artemis put one of the arrows in her bow and drew back to aim through the poor visibility and her own suspected concussion. Robin laid one of his hot little hands on Artemis' aiming arm before she let go and forced her to look down at him briefly before shooting, "For God's sake, don't miss." Robin said sternly.
Artemis nodded firmly and aimed again, then after taking a deep breath she shouted 'down!' as loudly as she possibly could, watched three figures drop to ground and then fired at the biggest target which must have been the Superman android. Then she watched as the arrow bury itself in the metal of the android and then blow up in a brilliant bright light that she squinted away from. The Superman android fell backwards and then fell to the ground, completely still. The archer had thought that her arrow had permanently felled her enemy, but of course not. Only moments after falling, the machine began to laugh and returned to a standing position. But the arrow had probably done more damage than the rest of the team had.
In Artemis' eyes, that was a job well-done. Artemis armed herself with another arrow to use when it was at its feet again. Once again Robin, you've save our butts, Artemis thought as she drew her faithful bow back to strike again.
Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and do let me know if you spot any mistakes.
Please leave a review if you want to!
Varishi x