(A/N: Check it out, people...I shall give you a few hints.
The real aster fighting comes DIRECTLY AFTER this chapter, so don't give up on this story. But I had to show what happened when they stole it. Also, ITS NOT THE USUAL KRYPTONITE, so don't think I cheated you, okay? There's a twist here, and yes, they will be captured...BUT NOT BY WHO YOU THINK.)
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When the motorcycle finally came to a stop, and the engine hum died down to a silent rumble, Wren and Robin dismounted it swiftly, shaking out their drenched hair and emptying water out of the barrels of their guns.
"Jeez...I haven't been this wet since we blew a hole in the Gotham Dam." Wren complained, drying her communicator. Robin laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. That was great, though, it looked like Noah's Flood...until a certain someone plugged the break with freeze breath."
Wren's face darkened, and she cocked her pistol angrily. "Yeah. Alien asshole. Why is it always him and the clone that gets us in trouble?" Robin shrugged one shoulder and glanced at her smugly, a wicked gleam in his eye that she could see even behind the mask. "Mm. Well, that won't be a problem today."
He tilted his head back and looked at the darkening sky. "We need to get stationed. We've got about an hour until the convoy rolls through this location."
They were in the industrial part of Gotham, near a factory that was about twenty meters away from the outer limit of the security facility. Robin activated the cloaking device on their bike, and they both climbed up the factory fire escape to wait.
"Wren, I got movement. Thermo...looks like we were right. Miss M's using her inviso-trick."
"WE were right? I was right. You owe me five bucks, Dick."
"How's your leg, baby sister?"
"Shut up..."
Both twins hit the thermo scans in their masks and crouched closer to the edge of the factory roof, shivering with excitement. The huge bank truck was invisibility to the eye, but clear as day to them. They watched it roll towards the front fence, followed closely by Miss Martian's heat signature. It came to a stop, and the green skinned girl made herself visible, floating a few inches above the ground. Miss Martian glanced around warily, nodded at an unheard message, then closed her eyes and placed her fingers to her temple, sending out a widescale telepathic scan.
"*Oh damn, I hate this part...*"
Robin and Wren winced in pain as the tiny devices embedded in the base of their skulls vibrated and pinged, effectively scrambling their brain waves and rendering them invisible to telepathy. Slade had the scramblers put in their heads after they had been discovered like that their third mission...after their beating.
Miss Martian nodded again, and another super sidekick became visible as she swooped silently out of the sky- Hawk Girl.
Hawk Girl opened her mouth and let loose an inaudible screech at the same time that Robin hit a sonic switch on his arm brace, covering the both of them with low frequency sound waves that blocked her echolocation. She closed her mouth, satisfied, and Wren and Robin snickered soundlessly. "*Well, now that THAT'S over.*" Wren grinned. Robin's shoulders shook with dark humor. "*Give us audio.*" Wren obliged and flicked yet another switch, turning on the mini satellite they had set up on the opposite roof. After a few seconds, their voices were coming through loud and clear.
"-...Sure that no one's here?" Martian was saying, wringing her hands nervously. Hawk Girl nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yes. No enemy can hide from telepathy AND sonar."
"Who else is coming?"
"Wally, Artemis, and Bat Girl...and I believe Conner is coming, too."
"Conner? But that's...He was told specifically-"
"He convinced Batman. He wanted to see this through."
"*Crap.*" Wren hissed. Robin's teeth showed. "*Crap.*" he agreed.
"*Why do you think-*" Wren started, but cut herself short as a red blur entered the scene. The blur solidified into a skinny redhead in a ketchup and mustard suit with a pissed off archer on his back. "Heyyo, everybody!" Kid Flash started, before Artemis slapped him on the back of the head. "Shut up, Baywatch, and let me down. You draw enough attention even when you're standing still." The redhead pouted and dropped her on her butt, then blurred out of the way of a sharp whack from her bow. Hawkgirl glared icily at the both of them. "Stop messing around. The perimeter is secure, we're just waiting for Conner."
"You don't have to wait any longer, I'm here." Kon-El responded, walking up. Even from a distance, Wren could see that he looked pale and weary, almost sunken.
"*He looks sick.*"
"*Good. Bastard.*"
"And I brought someone with me...apparently Batman thought we might need some help." he said. Behind him trailed half of the the Teen Titans- Cyborg and Beast Boy.
"*Where's Princess Light Brite and the Grim Reaper?*" Robin mused. Wren nudged him and shushed him, even though she was wondering the same thing.
"What? No way, Con, we don't need any help. Uncle Barry said-"
"This is OUR city, KID Flash." Cyborg cut in, crossing his massive arms over his metal plated chest. His one red eye gleamed angrily. Kid Flash copied him, but it looked much less impressive on his bean pole frame. "The only reason we drove the thing through here is cause you guys have the lamest villains-"
"Where's the rest of the leauge?" Beast Boy spoke up. "They decided we could handle this." Artemis told him.
"Yeah, we don't need those old guys. So, we wanna get this party started?"
One by one, the sidekicks filed into the truck, and it rolled through the gates, flanked by gun toting guards.
Wren sat up and stretched her arm out, glancing at her brother. "It's just the sidekicks tonight...No adult supervision required." Robin nodded, turning off the satellites and racking his own gun. "Yup...Mommy and Daddy are out of the house. Let's go throw a party."
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They only had to wait a little while until the gates opened again and the truck rode back out, moving faster than before. Once it reached the street, Robin and Wren stood up on their perch.
Two loud pops sounded in the air, and the two guards that had been stationed on the roof dropped to the ground with two huge holes blown into their skulls. Bone and gore flew like confetti.
Wren blew imaginary smoke from her pistol while Robin fake applauded her.
Robin removed a grappling gun from his belt and aimed it carefully at the roof of the security facility. He pulled the trigger with ease, and the hook flew through the air and latched onto the edge of the railing. He stepped back and bowed mockingly. "After you, sis." Wren fit her hands into a pair of blue kevlar gloves and grabbed the cord, arching herself gracefully off the roof and zipping silently towards the facility, Robin flying in right behind her.
They came to gentle rolls beside the leaking bodies, unhooking the grappling line as they landed. A well placed bomb disk destroyed the lock on the roof entrance, and they slipped inside.
They landed soundlessly in a dark corridor and didn't move again, scanning the surrounding area with ears more than eyes. Robin pulled another small tablet from a slim, metallic backpack and typed in another code. The motion sense cameras above them hissed with static, then went dead.
They both stood up and grinned, blood flowing hot and fast. They had learned to enjoy this, the rush of adrenaline and danger. Learned to love it, too. The halls were deadly quiet as they crept through them, follwing Robin's digital map.
The chamber with the artifact was darker than tar, but their thermo and night vision scans worked perfectly. They could see each other and the enormous metal case in the center of the room. Robin put a hand on Wren's shoulder to stop her from moving forward, gesturing at the thin red laser lines criss crossing the floor like a spiderweb. She raised an eyebrow. 'Is that it? That's insulting.' He smiled and reached for his pad again. The lasers flickered and sputtered before going out, and they advanced toward the secure looking case. A strip of glowing blue light glimmered along the seam of the metal box.
"Pressure alarm," he breathed. "I got this..."
He dipped his hand into his belt and removed it with a smear of something clear on his finger that he spread on the thick metal in a wide circle. The area he touched smoked and sizzled as the substance ate away at it. They both inhaled sharply as the mystery artifact became visible...
A glowing chunk of green rock, about the size of a large water bottle. Wren clicked her teeth in annoyance. "Oh what the...Kryptonite?! THIS is what he wanted us to risk our necks for? What a waste of time."
Robin frowned and crossed his arms. "That can't be it-we must have made a mistake. Lex Luthor could have sold us a ton of this stuff. This can't be what we came here for."
Wren stuck her hand in the hole and withdrew the Kryptonite, studying it. Now that she looked at it, it didn't look like normal Kryptonite. The green was brighter than usual, and it was laced with thick lines of pulsating black and red, like bloody veins. Her brow furrowed. "Robin...something's wrong with this Krypto-"
Suddenly, the lights in the room blared, blinding them both. They flinched and backpeddled, frantically turning off their thermo as the shadows bled out of the room. The altered Kryptonite wobbled in Wren's fingers.
The two missing members of the Teen Titans stood on the opposite end of the case, looking grim and ready for a fight. Raven's eyes were glowing with black light that writhed over her fingers, manipulating the dark. "That is none of your concern." she deadpanned, face set and emotionless. StarFire clenched her fists and drifted closer, green light in her eyes. "Put that back, please, apprentices of the evil Slade. That is not yours." Wren sneered at her and clutched the space rock closer. "No can do, Glow Stick. Finder's Keepers, losers weepers. We're taking this home to our Master."
"But thanks for keeping it safe for us." Robin added sarcastically.
"You will not leave this building with that meteor."
"Stop us."
Robin flung a handful of disk bombs at the both of them that exploded upon contact with Raven's black shield, filling the room with smoke and knocking the case loose. A blaring alarm began to ring, ear splitting and screeching. Starfire fired blindly into the haze, coughing. Raven waved her hand and cleared the smog, revealing nothing but an empty room and a missing ceiling tile. She blinked once and raised her wrist to her lips.
"Titans and Young Justice- the criminals Robin and Wren have stolen the Kryptonite. They are in the ventilation system and headed for the outside. Meet them and prepare for combat."
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They scurried through the ventilation system hurriedly, breathing hard and trembling. It wasn't that they had been caught...that didn't matter. But the entire Teen Titans and the baby JLA had shown up and knew they were there. Those odds were a little stacked, even for them.
Robin put his fist through the roof entrance and pulled himself through, reaching back to help his sister. His handsome face was contorted with anger. "Shit shit shit..." Wren crested the opening and stretched her hand to him-the hand that had been holding the Kryptonite...
The hand that was now grey and diseased looking, laced with the same red and black lines that were on the rock itself. She gasped in pain and horror, flinging her hand around and around in momentary panic. The rock had bonded to her skin, and the nasty color was spreading up her arm. "Robin-!"
He let out a strangled cry at seeing her hurt and snatched at her limb, gently removing the meteor from her fingers. It throbbed with sick green light as he peeled it away from the fused skin. Her fingers hissed and burned like acid, but as more of the rock came away from her flesh, it returned to her natural pale pink color. Wren chomped down on her lip to hold in her screams. When Robin detached the Kryptonite from her hand, she leaned back and cradled it to her chest, shaking harder than ever. "Kry-Kryptonite d-DOSENT do that." Robin nodded slowly, staring at it distrustfully. "No shit, sis."
"Slade...why didn't he-"
"I don't know." he cut her off, removing a steel container from his backpack and carefully putting the rock inside. "But right now we need to focus on getting out of here alive." He sealed the canister and sat it down, then turned to her with worry on his face, inspecting her hand. "Are you okay?" Miraculously, she was fine, and she was already regaining her tough composure. "I'm fine. But I'm pissed, and I really want to hit something...I don't care what it is at this point." she growled, flexing her sore fingers. Robin helped her up, and they both looked over the edge of the roof at the mass of sidekicks waiting for them.
"Then you're in the right place."