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Blight: Myths and Monsters
Mihaela had always been taught that showing weakness in public was a sign of a deeper weakness of spirit, and that a true leader would endure pain, if necessary, and not flinch. But now, as the chemical that had madeher immune to sunlight was slowly used up within her body, the pain of the sun's rays became indescribable, greater than anything she'd ever felt. Greater than the pain of being turned.
She began to whimper. She heard a muffled explosion, and then something slammed into her side, and she felt it push her across the street, through brown door which broke into splinters down when her shoulder slammed into it.
"Mihaela!" she heard a voice cry. It was Robin.
She looked up through aching, almost blind eyes to see the outline of the Boy Wonder above her, and heard his grappling hook slowly realign back to the grapple gun.
Robin unfastened his cape and draped it over her, kneeling. His voice was urgent, and she had to concentrate to understand what he was saying because her body ached so much.
"Are you okay?" he asked fiercely.
"I don't know," she replied, and suddenly realized she was quaking beneath the cape. "It hurts. It hurts all over."
Robin exhaled."They're dying."
His voice caused Mihaela to gasp, because it had a deep and melancholy sense of helplessness about it. The tone caused her mind to sharpen and her vision to focus slightly. The floor was made of wood. She could tell by a little light bouncing in beneath the cape he had covered her with…
"Your head and hands are burnt," Robin said after a moment. "Some of it probably got through your clothing, too. Blight is still out there. And so is Firstborn. Stay here, we'll get you medical attention when it's safe."
"She's too powerful," Mihaela rasped. Her tongue felt strange and dry. "You can't fight her."
"I've heard that before," Robin said. "Lots of times. I'm sick of it."
"No—" Ragnarök stared dumbfounded.
"Idiots," Hotspot hissed. "We told them what was going to happen. We told them to stop fighting, but they were too stupid to listen."
Ragnarök began to call Robin to see where he was, but then, his visor blipped, and he glanced behind Hotspot to the center of the park, where a sole figure moved in its direction.
"Who is that?" Hotspot demanded.
"I'm getting an insanely high threat reading from her," Rag said. "It's more than nine thousand!"
"That means nothing outside of context," Hotspot spat.
"Okay, you want context?" Rag tapped a button on the side to cycle through the system memory. "Your threat level is 150, Robin's is 90 when he's calm, and Raven's is about 500."
Hotspot let out one of this universe's expletives and fire danced from his finger tips. "She's a vampire, right? That means she's still weak to fire. I say we take her down before she becomes even more of a threat."
Ragnarök reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black sphere that had a faint violet glow. He cradled it for a moment in his gloved palm before he fastened it into a slot on the back of his left hand.
"What's that?" Hotspot asked.
"A Catalyst." Ragnarök raised his hand and formed a ball of red energy. "An ancient Tamaranean machine that can do basic reality manipulation."
"And you've been holding that back until now why?" Hotspot demanded.
"I have my reasons. Never mind that, let's go."
Hotspot ran forward, and Ragnarök matched his stride, charging up a blast of time distortion. He reached the woman—gasping as he realized she was covered in hideous scars and had black, soulless eyes. She was sure happy about something, though.
Ragnarök realized suddenly.
"Firstborn!" he cried, launching his sphere of energy. It slammed into Firstborn, knocking her backwards in slow motion, as if time itself was distorted. And Hotspot blasted at a slow moving target with a massive wave of fire that sent Firstborn careening into the broken fountain. A ball of fire exploded from the wreckage, and Rag and Hotspot ran towards the billowing smoke cloud.
"Would it be genre blind to assume she's dead?" Hotspot asked. As if answering his own question, he fired fiery blasts into the smoke.
Suddenly they came back out and slammed into Ragnarök's chest, sending him sprawling onto the pavement. Hotspot's eyes widened as Firstborn stepped from the smoke, her leotard torn to shreds.
The pieces blackened, flying off as bats and swarming at Hotspot, who blasted uselessly at them. One sank its fangs into his fiery arm and burnt up.
Rag smelled blood literally boiling as he got up, his visor's readout fluctuating wildly as energy began swirling around Firstborn.
"Now what?" Hotspot said.
"We run."
He raised a hand, and a bubble of space-time surrounded both Titans, and immediately took off, moving to the far end of Haney Park, but before they could get there, a beam of energy lashed out from the cloud swirling around Firstborn and struck Rag and Hotspot in the back, sending a flash of light through their vision. Rag saw that Hotspot was unconscious, his flame extinguished. Ragnarök joined him before they hit the ground.
"You coward," Blight spat. "Kick me through a window and then run off in attempt to hide yourself."
Blight jerked backwards, the whip digging further into Robin's flesh as he was pulled forward through the strength of the cybernetic armor Blight's body was sheathed in; Blight promptly smashed Robin across the face with his fist.
Robin started to fall, but strained his muscles to stay on his feet, then grabbed a birdarang and flung it at Blight's wrist as he put some distance between himself and the hunter. The projectile struck Blight's hand and caused him to drop the whip, and Robin quickly unwrapped it from his arm.
He didn't have time to treat the wound further before Blight dive-tackled him, and Robin kicked the hunter in the chest, sending him sailing across the street into the post of a stop sign. Robin got up, grabbing his grapple gun in his right arm and using it on a fire escape. He pulled himself up and climbed to the roof, grabbing some first aid gel and gauze from his utility belt.
He barely finished wrapping the cuts when Blight reached the rooftop. Robin would have to grit through the pain and take the hunter down before anything could be done about Blight.
Robin charged, activating his birdarang sword again. Blight chose his own blade, and the two clashed, Robin and Blight's weapons clanging together again and again as they moved across the roof top. Blight pulled off an awkward strike, fueled by anger, that only scraped the toe of Robin's steel-toed boot.
The Boy Wonder made him pay, stabbing the sword into Blight's leg at a place the armor was weaker. Blight hissed and smashed Robin across the face, then charged at him again, the armor apparently negating the damage of the wound.
Or maybe Blight was just as determined—some might say insane—as Robin.
Blight arrived, slashing the sword down, and Robin rolled out of the way, slashing up with his own as he regained his feet. Metal clanged together, but Robin parried too slow and Blight backed off, spinning around and striking from Robin's weak side.
The pain in his arm flared and Robin took a step back to avoid getting sliced open. He found the edge of the roof, and had to step out of the way between the edge and a rather large air-conditioning unit to avoid getting pushed off.
Blight had no trouble navigating the relatively narrow strip of rooftop real estate. Robin backed up and threw a bola at the hunter distracting him long enough to go for Blight's footing. Robin swung the sword with his left hand—there was no room on the right side—and cut into Blight's ankle. The blade didn't break skin, but the attack clearly hurt from the look on Blight's face, Blight's grip weakened for a bit, and Robin kicked the sword out of the hunter's right hand and off the building.
The Boy Wonder's forearm throbbed in protest, the gauze already stained red from the blood exertion had pumped out.
"You feeling lucky, punk?" Robin asked, in his best imitation of Eastwood. He stepped back into a deep stance that kept his injured arm on the far side of Blight and his right arm—and the birdarang sword—pointed directly at Blight's head.
Blight backed away, and Robin stepped forward, not wanting to give the hunter any room to counter attack.
"Short memory," Blight said as the two backed away. He was wary of Robin's sword, but Robin didn't see fear or defeat in his eyes.
Robin was waiting for a concealed weapon to pop out at any minute. But he didn't betray this fear. Instead he shrugged. "Been a rough week."
Blight reached the corner of the roof where he wasn't blocked by the air conditioner, and dove to his left onto the roof. Robin followed, hearing Blight shout something as he turned the corner. What Blight said earlier suddenly made sense, and Robin hit the proverbial deck seconds before Illumina sailed over his head and into Blight's hand.
"That trick never works," Robin growled, getting up.
Blight didn't say anything, instead using the armor to leap to a higher level of the roof. Robin followed with the grapple gun, and almost got skewered on Illumina as he was reeled in.
Their blades clashed again as Robin landed. The fight was far from over.
"What are those?" Hotspot asked.
Ragnarök zapped them with more Dark Catalyst energy, and suddenly they grew; three of the objects became books, and one became some sort of black gothic spy glass. One of the books had an alchemy symbol from the cover. Ragnarök winced as he saw Hotspot glare at him. "Did you swipe those from Raven's room?"
"Don't tell anybody," he said. "I'm trying to figure out what she's doing over there."
He picked up the black spy glass and pushed his visor up onto his hair. Then he looked through the lens. On the other side, there were marvels; invisible particles of energy swirled through the air, forming double helix strands through the sky, moving towards Firstborn in the center.
"Some sort of ritual," Rag guessed. "Lots of energy—some kind my visor can't see." Still, Ragnarök had questions. Why here? Why Jump City? Why this particular park? What was the point of killing so many vampires? "Maybe the answer is in these books," he said at length, opening one about vampires."
Hotspot blinked. "Wish Raven was here."
"Join the club."
The vampire fell on the ground and began twitching; Mihaela had told Cyborg that it could last for days—longer unless the bullets were removed soon. Cyborg wasn't sure if he was comfortable letting a sentient creature suffer that way, but they didn't really have time for compassion. More vampires came, and Beast Boy chanced a shot and hit one of them in the shoulder. It must have severed a nerve, because the arm fell limp. Cyborg fired a few more sonic cannon blasts.
"So," Beast Boy thought aloud. "Is this the girl's locker room or the men's locker room?"
"Why do you care?" Regina spat. The building shook with yet another explosion outside. Cyborg hoped the other officers were alright.
"Being in a woman's locker room would just feel weird," he said. Beast Boy transformed into a dilophosaurus and began spitting poison at the Ferals, hitting their eyes and causing them to recoil. (Cyborg had informed Beast Boy time and time again that the dilophosaurus probably didn't really have those neck frills or spit acid like in the movies, but somehow it always had them when Beast Boy transformed into one. Cyborg chalked it up to Beast Boy's short attention span at first, and later to simple adaptation decay.) "We came in here," Regina said before firing off a couple shots, "because the hall that leads to the store room is on the other side of that wall." She pointed over towards the back wall of the shower area. "And you were hopin' I could knock it down," Cyborg said, blasting away some. "I would, but since my sonic cannon is about the only thing keeping them from getting to us at the moment, we need a Plan B."Beast Boy assumed human form again. "I'll do it." He transformed into a large animal—Cyborg didn't even look to see what—and smashed the wall down with a loud thud. Regina and the two Titans ran through the hole and into the hallway. Vampires and officers were shooting it out down the corridor. One officer went down and a vampire lunged forward and began drinking away her blood, first from the bullet wound and then from the officer's neck. Regina unloaded her clip into the vampire's head, ejected it, then shoved in another one. The vampire twitched for a moment, and then burst into flames. Cyborg's biological eye widened in surprise. "I guess if their brains become too damaged, they can't heal or something." Beast Boy grimaced at the sight, but nodded at Cyborg. "I think Raven once said that pretty much any mystical creature can be killed by good ol' destruction of the head. Like what you did to squid-face on Sunday."
BLAM BLAM BLAM came several more rounds of gun fire. An enormous explosion rocked the entire building, and Cyborg began to wonder where they were getting all their explosives. This particular report sounded like it had surrounded the entire station.
Rag looked through the spyglass again, just in time to see a surge of magic energy push Firstborn up into the air. Strange green particles of a different energy began to wind up from the floor of the park, and Ragnarök looked with his naked eye and saw nothing.
"What's going on?" Hotspot asked.
"Not sure." Ragnarök flicked down his visor and scanned it again, and immediately, there was a match on the energy type. The date on the file was five days ago—Sunday. The energy belonged….
He looked back through the scope, and an explosion of energy surged up, an impression of a body, of massive wings, and of a hideous tentacle-covered face. A familiar voice groaned in pain—and still somehow managed to sound bored while doing so—and then was silenced. All the energy swirling from the shape of the dreaded Old One into a vortex that joined Firstborn's aura.
"What was that scream?" Hotspot asked. "It sounded like the boss fromOffice Space."
"You're not going to believe this," Ragnarök said, "but I think she just… ate Cthulhu."
Another brilliant flash of light blinded the Titans, and when it cleared, the aura was gone. Firstborn hovered there, her clothing shredded, her proportions distorting grotesquely. Her flesh darkened and a thick black carapace tore out from beneath her flesh, her arms and legs extended into massive three-story high columns of bone and muscle but tapered to a point, resembling a gargantuan scorpion.
As if to complete the picture, a hooked, stinger'd tail and two massive wings exploded from the growing creature's back, and Firstborn's formerly human torso extended and elongated into a massive demonic thorax and face, a row of impossibly sharp teeth flashing out from a pail visage the color of a decaying body. Her mouth seemed to glow with impossibly red fire. It was a stark contrast to the rest of her matte black body. Silver hair flowed from her hair, like the demonic locusts of Apollyon's army.
The new carapace cracked and dripped with fluids as the transformed Firstborn moved, and a foul smell reached them from fifty yards away.
"What the—" Hotspot said, before launching into a stream of obscenities.
Ragnarök tapped Hotspot's shoulder, and pointed to his visor. The threat level had gone up. It now read 50,000.
"It's her!" Blight said. "Firstborn. I have waited a long time for this opportunity."
Robin pulled out his communicator and dialed up Davis.
"Yin, this is Robin. Are you alright?"
"HOLYCOWZOMGDIDJUUSEETHATHUGEFIREBALL!" came the voice over the communicator.
"Yin," Robin repeated. "Calm down. I need you to stay where you are. This has gotten way beyond your league. I repeat, stay at home."
"But—"
"That's an order. Robin out."
Taking advantage of Robin's distraction, Blight slammed into Robin, knocking him down, and ran off towards the park before Robin could get up off the rooftop. But before Blight could get far, Robin pulled out his grapple gun and fired it, smacking into Blight's back and knocking him flat on his face. Then the gun caught against an antenna on the roof where Blight was, and Robin jumped as it reeled in, swinging against the side of the building and running up the wall with the pull of the gun's motor aiding his ascent. He jumped over Blight and landed between him and Firstborn.
"If you want to deal with that thing, you're going to have to go through me first!"
"Big mistake!" Cyborg growled, putting the sonic cannon right in the vampire's face as blood ran down her chin. He fired, the beam sending the Feral careening down the all where she crashed against yet more Ferals.
"We're almost to the store room," Simmons called. Cyborg glanced back and saw Beast Boy become gorilla and break a locked door down. They emptied from the narrow corridor into a two-story room with desks all over the place. There was a higher balcony level where several offices seemed to be.
"Dispatchers room," Simmons said. "We need to expand the building, but the State won't allot any more money over here because the idiot Mayor insists we remain a sanctuary city."
Cyborg didn't say anything, instead blasting away at vampires as they tried to crowd into the room.
Suddenly he heard glass breaking above them, and a horde of vampires leapt from the offices on the floors above—some of them wearing police uniforms—and crashed down around the small party. Only five remained, Simmons, three patrol men, and a young intern dispatcher. The others were either off duty, out somewhere else, or… dead
"Get the door unlocked," Cyborg yelled.
"Chief has the key," Simmons said. "I was hoping you could open it."
Cyborg glanced at Beast Boy, who turned into a rat and darted towards the door. Just as he got there, he leapt, transforming into a gnat and flying through the crack beneath the door. Seconds later, the door unlocked and Beast Boy kicked it open.
The officers ran in, opening boxes and shoving clips into their guns. Cyborg stayed outside, transforming his left arm into his emergency Autocannon, like a miniaturized minigun that he began using to hold off the vampires.
They kept swarming in, however, and Cyborg wouldn't be able to hold them off much longer.
Just as he thought that, he felt a push at his back, and the officers came storming out, unloading clip after clip into the vampire hordes, black blood falling on the pavement as vampires fell to the ground in too much pain to keep going.
Simmons came out, carrying a small assault rifle, and began tearing through the nearby vampires. A symphony of gun reports and the sound of bullets rending flesh ensued, bones breaking in the hail of lead.
Beast Boy kept carting out extra ammunition, but no matter how fast the cops fired, no matter how many Ferals dropped, more seemed to come through to take their places.
"The're like freaking Zombies, man!" Beast Boy said, firing his own gun into the horde uselessly. They were now climbing over their wounded at this point, the injured were piling so high.
"Death!" one of the Ferals cried. "Death outside from the sun, death in here from the hail of lead. We cannot escape it."
He was promptly staked through the heart by one of his nearby allies.
"I guess that's why they're called Ferals," Regina Simmons said dryly.
"Wait, did he say the sun was killing them?" Beast Boy asked. "But that's not possible… unless."
Cyborg goggled, playing back through is memories, the sound he'd heard—the big explosion that rocked the building. He suddenly realized that after that, all the explosions outside had ceased. What he'd heard was the sky catching fire.
"That means someone fixed the kill switch," Cyborg shouted, his face betraying his excitement.
"What?"
Another hail of bullets drowned out the conversation.
Beast Boy turned into a bird and rocketed up towards the ceiling, some of the vampires taking potshots at him. He weaved in and out of bullets and reached the sealing, then transformed again, this time into a Tyrannosaurs Rex. "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" it growled, despite the bullets tearing into its side.
His feet fell, crushing several Ferals and shaking the whole building, but his head went through the roof, literally, breaking the ceiling and letting the light in.
"Into the store room!" Cyborg called. All the officers ran back, diving into the tiny room as the ceiling crumbled down around Beast Boy.
Cyborg watched as the sunlight beamed in, the Ferals inside exploding into a pile of ash. Some of them hit the wall to stay in the shadows, but Beast Boy grabbed them wit his mouth and threw them into the sunlight.
He transformed back into a green human, staggering into the Store room holding his side. Most of the wounds were just bruises, but one of the bullets had grazed him, slicing his flesh open.
"Yeah, let's never do this again," said Beast Boy.
Just then, Cy's communicator began buzzing, and he opened it. "Get back to the park now," Rag said. "Robin's AWOL and there's a rather large problem."
"What problem?"
"Firstborn is now a giant scorpion monster."
Somehow, this didn't surprise anyone present.
He pulled on his gloves and goggles and turned and began storming out of the house.
"Where are you going?" asked Helen Parsons' hair as Davis reached the front door—the blond locks covered her face as she was stuffing her travel bags full of the things they were taking to Kentucky.
"Out. Robin needs me," Davis lied.
"Davis, we're leaving for the airport in just a few minutes. Our plane leaves at—"
"Go without me," Davis said. "I'm staying here. The Titans are in trouble."
Thinking quickly, Davis stretched across the room and clicked on the television. A news helicopter was showing footage of some massive scorpion-like creature in the middle of Haney Park, and Davis saw Ragnarök and one of the Honorary Titans crouched at a corner near it. Rag seemed to be going through some book lying on the asphalt. Davis wanted to know why he wasn't doing something about it.
"Idiot." Yin glared. "He's all show and no substance. No surprise he's a Democrat."
"Davis, watch your mouth," his mother said. "You know your uncle Micah is a—"
Davis turned and glared at his mother. "I don't care!" he shouted, perhaps more with more vitriol than he had intended. "Uncle Micah in Kentucky can vote for whoever he wants, mom. I just need to go. I don't want to go to Kentucky. I want to help the Titans."
"Davis, you.."
His mother must have looked up from her packing at this point, because she stopped mid-sentence and walked over to the TV screen. "W-what is that thing?" she asked.
"Vampire demon, I think," Yin said. He quickly moved towards the door and slipped out while his mother stared entranced at the television. As the door started to shut, he heard his mother scream after him, but Davis ignored her. There were people in danger, and Davis had super powers.
Davis just hoped Stan Lee was right about what came with them.
Starfire felt her heart aching for the innocents that had died, but knew there was nothing that could be done. Kid Devil immediately ran and held the building up. Starfire marveled at his strength, for it was exceedingly rare among even Earth's super-humans.
Unfortunately, not long after the column crumbled, a fire broke out in the building. Starfire flew from window to window, pulling people out of the building and flying them down to safety.
"Hurry up, Star!" Kid Devil cried. "I can't hold this pillar up much longer!"
"I am making the haste," she said, "but I do not have the ability to move as fast as ones such as Mas y Menos and the Kid Flash."
"It's okay," Eddie sighed. "I'll only need a few hundred hours of chiropractic therapy when this is over."
Suddenly, a powerful force slammed into Eddie and knocked him out from underneath the pillar. He turned to shout an exclamation of disapproval, but was surprised to see Starfire in the spot where he had been standing.
"Go," she said. "My race is stronger than even what your powers make you, and you can tolerate the fire better than I."
"I'm on it!" Kid Devil said, rushing into the burning building like it was an afterthought. As long as the temperatures didn't get much above 900 degrees, he was safe.
Soon after he came out with the last person he could find alive, Starfire pointed with one of her hands to his communicator. It had somehow miraculously survived the heat. Robin and Cyborg's craftsmanship was impressive. Then again, Robin said his had literally endured a trip to hell and back.
"Mine was lost in the fight earlier," she said. "Answer it."
Eddie removed it from his belt. "Kid Devil here."
"KD, it's Ragnarök. I need you and Starfire back at the park now. We've got a big problem."
He breathed heavily as he backed away from the hunter, keeping Blight in his field of vision. He was growing tired much faster, and probably had bruises all over his body underneath the black fabric of his armor. Worst of all, his forearm throbbed with pain from the strain of continued use despite its injuries.
Robin grimaced, and dropped to his knees. The fight had gone on far too long already. "I give up," Robin said with an exasperated sigh. "You win."
He removed the sliver-and-black R-Emblem from his chest and tossed it at Blight's feet, then put his hands on the ground and started breathing heavily.
Blight stooped and reached down, picking up the logo. "You have a reputation of not giving up easily," Blight said. "It's an honor to be the first to actually beat you into submission. Unless of course, this is some sort of trick."
Blight glanced around. "Maybe one of your friends expects to pop up behind me and surprise me. That's not possible right now, not while I'm jacked into The System."
"Is that what you call it?" Robin asked. "I assure you, regardless, my friends are nowhere nearby."
"We'll see," Blight said, flicking the logo over in his hand.
"Actually, the logo itself is the attack," Robin said.
Blight's eyes widened and he looked down just long enough before the emblem exploded into a burst of light and smoke, a mixture of knock-out gas and garlic powder. The garlic had no effect on Blight, but surprise of the blast staggered him, and Robin jumped forward with his breath held through the cloud of gas, and delivered a powerful flying kick into Blight's chest. The collision rocked Robin, and Blight's hand struck him in the side.
Blight took the brunt of it, though, staggering back towards the edge of the roof. Robin heard a second explosion just as Blight went over the edge of the building, and his eyes widened when a grappling hook shot out of the quickly-dispersing cloud and nearly slammed into his chest. He glanced back just to see it reel back in, grabbing him by the shoulder where his cape would usually be and jerking him forward; before he could get it off of his shoulder, Robin went over the roof too, realizing then that Blight had stolen his grapple gun. He heard the hook clatter to the rooftop and latch onto something, the rope going taut.
More wind rushed up at him, then he slammed into Blight, and grabbed a hold, punching Blight in the stomach as Blight clinged the grappling hook and kneed Robin in the chest and legs. Robin struggled to climb up the hunter, getting elbowed in the face repeatedly as he grabbed the gun and flicked a switch on it. Suddenly the cord began to loosen again, and Blight and Robin fell, Robin clinging on to the vampire hunter for his life.
They jerked hard when the gun ran out of rope and swung towards the side of the building, slamming into it with enough force to make Blight's grip slip. Robin glanced down and felt his vision narrow. They had to be at least a good sixty stories up yet.
Robin was out of grapple guns.
Abruptly, something gave away and they free-fell, at the mercy of gravity for a few perilous seconds. The grapple caught something else, and the jerked to a halt. But whatever it caught was far from their own center of gravity, and the swung around the side of the building like a pendulum undulating back and forth.
Robin eyed something on the perpendicular side of the building and shifted his weight that way. It was a scaffold. They span around in mid air, letting Blight see it as well, and used his own weight to build enough momentum. He let go, and Robin and Blight crashed onto the scaffold, causing it to shake wildly. Robin forced his inner ear to clam down and began attacking Blight as fast as he could with all of his natural weapons.
But Blight had armor, and thumped Robin in the spine. Robin broke contact and reached the other side of the scaffold, which was very narrow but ran most of the length of the building.
He slammed two birdarang together and drew up the sword, but when he looked up he saw Illumina flying into Blight's hands. Robin growled and sliced at Blight, inadvertently severing one of the chords holding the scaffold up. Blight's blade clashed with his, and Robin and the hunter traded blows. Robin's blade parried, but Blight backed away before a counterstrike could come, the System enhancing his reflexes. Illumina sliced into the other middle cord, and Robin felt the scaffold's middle dip slightly from the weight of Blight and himself. Robin hacked at Blight again, but this time Blight parried and Robin's weakened body couldn't hold on to the sword. His blade went flying out of his hands and fell towards the street below.
Robin grabbed Blight's wrists before he could slice again with Illumina and forced him back with a shoulder rush. He dug one of the prongs on his glove into a pressure point on Blight's wrist, and Illumina clattered the metal surface. Robin kicked it off the scaffold with a growl. "If I don't get one neither do you."
A fist across the face from Blight's free hand made Robin see stars, and Blight kicked back towards the middle of the scaffold. Robin glanced up in time to see Blight raise a hand. But before he could, Robin extended his own hand and shouted. "ILLUMINA!"
The sword whirled up, slashing through the support cord of the scaffold on Blight's side, nearest the building. The whole thing began to list towards Blight, and Robin barely caught Illumina as it sailed into his hand.
"You would think something like this would be voice-encoded," Robin said. "Very sloppy of this Order you work for." Robin walked forward, careful not to make the scaffold list any more than it already was. "Tell me about them while you're at it."
Blight glared at Robin with hatred, then reached to his belt and began tapping a button. Several tiles on the shoulders of his cybernetic armor that had previously been dark green lit up and glowed, and Blight's face elongated, his brow furrowing and his eyes widening with rage.
Robin began to worry.
"It's called the Order of Saint Dumas," Blight said. Robin began to grow worried as an edge crawled into Blight's voice, and it began to become gravely. The pitch increased also, lending the impression of madness. "We train for years under the hot sun and in the freezing cold to become the greatest fighters in the world. And then we purge towns of evil."
"From what I've seen," Robin said carefully, "your methods are lacking."
Blight chuckled bitterly. "I was never a good fighter as a child. I have little natural aptitude and learned what I learned slowly. I would never have been considered by the order if not for my… gift." A faint glow flashed from Blight's skin to let Robin know what he was talking about.
Blight stepped forward, and Robin watched the scaffold to make sure it wasn't going to fall.
The vampire hunter smiled. "Illumina was forged to destroy the vampires. When they found that I shared the sword's ability to absorb the rays of the sun and use them against the vampires, they began immediately to train me to defeat the Order's most troublesome and persistent foe. Previous hunters of the night-dwellers were always killed, or worse, turned into one of them. I was different. I couldn't be turned. My very blood is poison to a vampire. They saw me as a Godsend. Saint Eldritch, the heir of Saint Dumas himself, blessed me. They gave me access to all their recourses. Including this." He tapped the armor. "TheSystem."
"Just technology," Robin said, allowing a smirk. "The real measure of a fighter is what he can do without it." Robin lunged forward, slamming a shoulder into Blight's chest. Blight seemed not to feel it at all, and lifted Robin by the scruff of his tunic.
"The Order is willing to accept dishonor in the fight against evil."
"I hope you're willing to accept property damage," Robin spat, and then pressed the button of a small blue-and-white device in his hand. Immediately an electro-magnetic pulse flashed out, tearing into the circuitry of Blight's cybernetic armor and the not-so-cybernetic armor Robin was wearing. Blight spasmed as his advantage became nothing more than a heavy jumpsuit.
Robin cursed himself, however. Because a split second before he'd activated the EMP, Blight had jumped.
The two slammed into the far end of the scaffolding where the only cord left on that in broke with a muffled pop and the whole platform began to fall. Gravity took hold of Robin and Blight yet again and the two sailed downwards. Robin forced his stiffened armor to move, and pressed two buttons simultaneously on both sides of his belt. The armor popped off—a mechanical failsafe Robin had installed in case the armor failed electronically—and Robin's standard colors were revealed underneath. He twisted, reaching out and grabbing the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be one end of the scaffold cord, falling at the same rate as he was. Robin realized that it had broken at the top instead of at the scaffold itself.
The two remaining cords held, and Robin swung across the sky above the city street, his gloves sliding—despite his vice-like grip—towards the end of the rope—despite most of it being much higher than he was.
As he reached the end of his arc and began to slide down the metal cord faster than he could think, Blight's immobile body slammed into the roof of a bus, crashing through into the seats below. Pain shot through Robin's arms as he did his best not to slice his own arms off with the cord. Finally he let go from the pain, falling two stories and landing on the same bus as softly as he could, then falling off the bus into a bush in front of the building.
Robin lay there for a moment, absolutely amazed that he was even alive. Excruciating pain ate away at every inch of his body, but that could be fixed. He wasn't dead.
Blight probably wasn't so lucky.
"She's feeding," he realized. He guessed that was why she hadn't started tearing up the town yet. Robin glanced to the side, and saw Ragnarok and Hotspot on a corner near the park, peering out from behind a building. Robin realized it was just across the street from where he had left Mihaela.
Robin staggered over to Rag and Hotspot, falling to his knees. He noticed the books and black spyglass and narrowed his eyes.
"How did you get those?"
The question seemed to startle Rag out of his reverie of staring at Firstborn through the spyglass, and Robin glared at him. "Those are Raven's," Robin said.
"I used the Dark Catalyst to get inside her room." Rag looked away from the monster. "Glomp, Robin, you look like hell."
"I feel like it."
Ragnarök grimaced and reached into his pocket, removing a small white mechanical sphere that looked similar to the Dark Catalyst. "I can fix that," he said.
The White Catalyst flashed, briefly blinding the Boy Wonder, and then materialized in the back of Rag's glove. He extended that hand and a white energy washed over Robin; Robin felt the pain ease, the wounds on his arms, especially the one Blight had inflicted with the whip, sealing up. Robin stood up, but was suddenly overcome with fatigue. He wished he had a bed, but knew there was no time to rest.
"Sorry," Rag said, apparently sensing Robin's drowsiness. "The WC does that to you."
Hotspot stifled a chuckle. "Heh. If you'd said that in Europe it would have meant something else entirely."
Firstborn moved, crouching low and sending a rumble through the ground as it moved its gargantuan legs. A new rush of adrenaline hit Robin's brain and the fatigue began to melt away. He pulled his back-up communicator from his belt and set it to call all the Titans in the area except Davis. "Titans," he said. "I need everyone back at the park, now."
"Already on our way, Fearless," came Cyborg's voice.
"No way," Cyborg said. "Even you're more original than that… thing."
By this point, Firstborn was no longer feeding; it had begun moving, smashing through buildings near the park as if to make a point, and then walking into the bay, making a line towards Titans Tower.
"That's not good," Cyborg said, even as waves crashed down on the ruined skeleton of the park.
"That's… Yin!" Beast Boy said. Cyborg had the car auto navigate as he jerked his head to the direction Beast Boy pointed. Sure enough, the kid was bouncing along the street like a human slinky. Suddenly he left their field of vision; a split second later, a thump sounded on the T-Car roof.
Davis' face appeared against the windshield on the passenger's side, smushed flat and slightly concave. "Mind if I hitch a ride?" he asked.
"Yes!" Cyborg shouted. "But since I can't shock your scrawny rubber butt off my car, just hang on tight."
Yin's head vanished back to the top of the car, and Cyborg steered the car through a sharp curve in the road; then Haney Park was dead ahead. Firstborn was already nearing the midway point between the coast and Titans Island.
Suddenly, a tiny orange-and-purple speck streaked across the sky, a green trail following; it flew out over the tower and then turned, flying back towards Firstborn. Cyborg realized that there was a red speck dangling from the flying speck, and then both began whirling through the air.
The red speck—Kid Devil—went flying off towards Firstborn, slamming into its face and sending her careening back onto its hind legs. Its massive stinger'd tail slammed into a warehouse on the coast as it tried to balance itself.
The balancing act was short lived, as the other speck—Starfire—slammed into the bloated underside of the monster Firstborn had become, launching it backwards and onto the mainland; the ground rumbled with the impact, and several of the older buildings nearby crumbled.
"Titans, GO!" Robin's voice cracked over the speaker of the T-Car.
Fire blasted out from two specks, which were quickly growing into Hotspot and Kid Devil. Starfire peppered Firstborn with Starbolts. Only Ragnarök and Robin seemed not to be attacking.
The T-Car slid into the center of Haney Park, skidding to a halt where the fountain used to be and now lay as a pile of damp blackened stones.
Cyborg jumped out and ran towards the others, not noticing the hesitation of Beast Boy and Yin until he was well ahead of them.
"What's wrong with you?" Beast Boy shouted. "I thought you were leaving for Kentucky anyway."
"Robin told me to stay at home, so I turned on the TV and decided you could use my help."
Beast Boy sweatdropped. "Dude, Robin is usually smarter than all of us. He is trying to protect you."
"He's trying to get me sent off to Kentucky," Yin said. "I don't want to go out there. I don't want to join the Titans South and have everyone think I'm a useless hillbilly superhero protecting corn farms from metahuman rednecks."
Beast Boy frowned, then glanced down at Firstborn. There was something wrong with way she was fighting, he thought. She seemed to be moving defensively when Cyborg's readings from the T-Car showed she had enough energy to waste them in an instant. It was almost like she was protecting something.
The other thing was, she was falling back, moving towards the center of the park—where he and Yin were standing—as if it had some significance. Or maybe she was just looking for an open area in a city full of buildings and steep hills. Dude.. Beast Boy didn't like all this strategic thinking.
One thing was clear, though: Firstborn was distracted, which meant…
"Yin," He said. "Remember what we tried against squid face on Sunday?"
"You mean launching the manhole-cover at him before he made me crazy?" Yin glanced over and saw Robin run up a tentacle that shot out of Firstborn's side and slash at her with his sword.
"Yeah, that!" Beast Boy thumbed to a pair of metal street-lamp poles at the edge of the park, and a nearby fallen tree. "I think we should give it another shot—this time against an enemy that's actually a solid object."
"What if we hit one of the Titans?" he asked.
"Dude, I can aim way better than that. You should have seen me with that GLOCK earlier."
"Hah!" Yin laughed a bit. "The day you shoot a handgun is the day Charlton Heston resigns from the NRA."
"Will a tree even work?" he asked.
"Hey, she's a vampire," Beast Boy said. "And trees need sunlight to grow. So it's like wooden stake with a bonus shine damage."
"If life gives you fantasy creatures, make an RPG," Yin thought aloud.
He stretched his arms out, wrapping both around the two streetlights on opposite sides the street, and then twisting end-over-head until there was plenty of tension in his body. Beast Boy pulled the tree back, carefully aiming the shot. Yin cringed as pain shot up his arms and legs into his shoulders and lower back.
"Ready yet?" he asked.
Beast Boy made a bit of a growl and kept pulling until Yin thought he couldn't take it anymore.
Finally, the pressure vanished and Yin snapped forward, spinning all the twists out as he launched the tree. It sailed in a huge parabola over the park, and the Titans scattered as Firstborn followed their retreating. She—if it could still be called female—goggled in fear as she saw the projectile. The massive stake tore through her carapace with a sickening tearing noise that Yin could hear from all the way over where he was. Black blood began spewing out of the wound, and Firstborn cried loudly.
Its eyes flared, and beams lashed out, tearing up the pavement in front of them. Beast Boy and Yin scattered left and right as the beam tore down the street. They looked back up as Firstborn's eyes flared yellow. Yin felt a familiar buzzing in the back of his head, but couldn't place it.
"Dude, what the heck?" Beast Boy rubbed his head as he crawled over. Yin noticed he had a cut across his face. "She's using that same mind-warping stare that Cthulhu did."
"Really?" Yin stared at it. "Why isn't it making me go crazy again?"
Beast Boy grinned again, and Yin arched an eyebrow. "What?"
"I was just thinking, maybe the reason it doesn't work on us is that we're all really insane like in that episode of Extreme Twilight Zone 2019. And if you're insane now, I guess that officially makes you a Titan."
"Um. Joy?" Yin asked dryly, not feeling any at all.
Robin stared up, avoiding the spray of blood as he tried to assess how badly the creature had been damaged. He shot a glance in the direct the projectile had come from and saw Beast Boy and Yin running his way.
Firstborn drew up, arching its back like a cornered feline. It breathed in a lot of air, enough to cause a wind to wash over Robin and the other ground-based Titans. Then Firstborn exhaled, a swarm of bats rushing out, glaring from behind red eyes. They tried to sink sharp teeth into Robin's flesh, and he began batting them away with his bo-staff. Starfire flew by, blasting others out of the air, and torrents of fire from Kid Devil and Hotspot burned more away.
Yin and Beast Boy got there, the latter transforming into an animal they had encountered on one of the planets in Tamaran's star-system months earlier, a large bear-like creature with tentacles protruding from its back and a mouth on its belly. Beast Boy just used the tentacles, lashing them out to tear the bats apart.
Yin just dove for cover, swatting at any bat that got near him. He ran by Robin, apparently trying to get behind Cyborg.
"I thought I told you to stay at home," said Robin.
Yin shot a glance over his shoulder. "Did you really think I'd miss a giant vampire demon monster? Besides, me and Beast Boy were the first to do any real damage to it."
Shaking his head, Robin joined Yin behind Cyborg, just as Firstborn spat some caustic blue substance onto the road. Cyborg used a sonic wave to knock it away from them.
"Only because we were distracting it," Robin said.
"Will you two stop arguing for a minute and help out?" Cyborg growled, blasting missiles from his shoulders at their gigantic foe.
"What I wouldn't give for a Mary Sue to show up and rescue us right about now," Kid Devil said, slicing through the last of the bats with his claws. "Or even a Gary Stu." He waited for a moment as if his words were supposed to be a cue, but nothing happened.
Kid Devil launched himself towards Firstborn's legs, his tail fluttering in the air.
Nearby, the Fourth Wall crumbled, and Blight staggered out from behind the wreckage, clutching his side with an arm that was clearly broken. The other arm was hanging loosely at his side, out of socket.
"You're alive," Robin said, his eyes widening slightly despite his attempt to avoid betraying his shock.
"No thanks to you, Boy Wonder."
"What do you want?"
Blight tilted his head and laughed. "Set my arm and get whoever healed you to do the same to me."
Robin glanced across the street to Ragnarök, who was trying to stop Yin from cowering behind him. Apparently proximity to the beast had decimated the courage that had made Yin ignore his orders.
"Get off me!" Rag shouted.
Yin just shivered. "What is that thing!"
"The result of Firstborn eating Cthulhu." Rag grabbed Yin's head and started pulling, but only ended up stretching Yin's neck. "Now get off of me so I can fight."
"Eating Cthulhu!"
"So," Blight said, jarring Robin back to the situation. "The green-armored one is the healer. You're short Raven, I take it."
"I'm not helping you," Robin said firmly, just as Kid Devil whizzed by, airborne and not in control of his momentum. He slammed into a car that had been abandoned in the middle of the street and groaned something about a hot bath.
"Yo!" Rag called. "Robin, something's going on."
Robin turned his attention back to Firstborn, who seemed to be on the verge of keeling over dead. Instead, her tail shot straight up into the air. "Offspring," it said, a gravely female voice. "Off—spring."
Suddenly, the bulge that had developed in Firstborn's lower abdomen contracted, and the tail launched four objects in rapid succession up into the air, sending them flying in the four cardinal compass directions.
"What the snorkel is going on?" Rag shouted. "Her energy levels just dropped drastically, but those things have enough to tear the city apart. Whatever they were." He tapped on the side of his visor.
"She's reproduced," Blight said. "I've been expecting this. I was so stupid!" he fell to his knees and gritted his teeth. "She was manipulating us from the start. She wanted as many vampires to die as possible…"
"Why?" Robin demanded. "What good would all that death do her?"
"Any time a night-dweller is destroyed, the magic that bound the virus together is released. She used the coded magic to absorb a much greater source of magic—the very Elder God that you killed five days ago. She probably was the one who released it."
Robin narrowed his eyes. "What do we have to do to destroy them?"
"Take their heads," Blight said. "Nothing can survive destruction of the brain."
Robin saw a flash of an orange-and black mask in his mind. "Not necessarily," he said.
"It will work!" Blight growled, then clutched his side and hissed in pain. "Heal me now or I willdie."
"We'll handle things."
"You don't get it!" Blight coughed, blood trickling down his mouth. "Illumina, my sword, was forged to kill vampires—all vampires. It doesn't just absorb sunlight, though. It was imbued with the magic to banish Firstborn's consciousness—forever. You send your friends to take out the Offspring, and I'll destroy this beast once and for all. You have my word I'll leave Jump City after this. Please…"
"I don't trust you."
Blight's face read hatred. "Then you'll all likely burn in hell by nightfall."
Robin hesitated, taking a deep breath. He saw the intensity in Blight's eyes, and sighed. It was no longer the intensity of a zealot on a misguided cause, but the desperation of a man who knows what needs to be done but can't convince anyone else.
"Alright," Robin said. "Ragnarök, heal Blight. Then come with me. We're going to split up and go after those Offspring."
Robin turned to Starfire. "One of them landed on Titans Island," he said, thumbing out over the bay towards their home. "Take Hotspot with you."
He turned to Cyborg. "Go after the other one, on the South end near Westron Mall. Vic. Blight says if you take out the head, it will die. As for the last one…" The R-Cycle roared beside the Boy Wonder, and he hopped on and drove over towards Ragnarok. "Rag, use the Dark Catalyst to fly and follow me."
"Wait, what about me!" Yin demanded.
"Go home," Robin growled. "I don't want you to get yourself killed."
Robin whirled away on the chopper, leaving Rag standing there in the fumes from the tail pipe. "Oh, right, easy for him to say. Doesn't he realize that Dark Catalyst flight requires me to bend the fabric of space and time itself? I mean that's not something you can do lightly."
Ragnarök casually flicked his wrist and a bubble of space-time opened around Ragnarök. He jetted off, following closely behind the R-Cycle. Absently, he noticed that the ruined 'System' armor that Robin had cut off Blight was bound tightly to the rear of the motorcycle.
Firstborn stopped looking dazed. She reared back, snarling in rage and spitting a stream of caustic blue liquid all over the park, but especially towards Blight. Tentacles and insect arms lashed out of random places on her body, and Blight backflipped away, deflecting them with the now-blood-soaked Illumina. She released another swarm of demon bats from her mouth, which shrieked as they flew towards Blight had tore into his newly healed flesh.
He sliced them with the sword, and that seemed to take them down. It troubled him, though… these bats didn't seem to have any trouble digesting his ultraviolet blood.
"Collin," Robin said. "Earlier, did you get a reading on where the beam that set the sky on fire came from?"
"A bit farther north," Rag said. "I think there's a clock tower up there from the 1890s, but it's been out of use for—"
"Two years," Robin said, knowing Rag was going to say thirty. "Historical records don't always tell you everything."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It was Slade's first hideout. If my hunch is right, what we need to kill the vampire is up there."
"But what good does that do us. The bodies are here, but maybe it moved on." Rag looked over the area again, cycling through visor modes. "I'm not detecting any peculiar life readings in the area. There are still people holed up in their homes over there, though."
"Thank you for that information." The voice was new, and Robin and Ragnarök whirled around to see an incredibly tall man standing behind them. His hair was slicked back like the wickedest early-20th century attorney the world had ever seen, but his clothing was from a far earlier era.
"The suave count," Robin said. "You have a name, or should I just call you Dracula?"
The Offspring smiled in amusement, but pointed to Ragnarök. "Flesh!" he barked. "You are not from this world. You hide here like a coward when you could use that Dark Power you posses and rule the world. This confounds me."
"I've seen what that sort of power can do to a guy," Ragnarök said. "By the way, how the heck do you know about it?"
"The flesh of mortals is flimsy, their souls easy to read."
"Yeah, I bet your soul is a load of laughs," Rag said.
"Flesh, I do not have a soul," the Offspring spat, the smirk vanishing from his face. Robin's heart skipped a beat. The vanishing grin reminded him of someone—someone who was deadly when he smiled—and evil personified when he frowned. Robin didn't think that guy had a soul either.
"Keep him here," Robin said, jumping on the R-Cycle and roaring away. "Help will come."
Ragnarök watched Robin go and glanced nervously over his shoulder at the Offspring. Oh boy. I get to go toe-to-toe with a magical count-vampire thing on my own with absolutely nothing at my disposal except an ancient armor, the ability to heal myself, and a machine that can alter reality on my wrist.
"I'm glomped," he said with a gulp.
Robin ran towards the entrance and up through the bowels of the clock mechanism and finally to Slade's former control room. Robin gasped. There were human bodies everywhere—but not corpses. They were alive, or at least had some form of life in them. Several of them got up, looking at Robin through dead eyes. All of them had a set of four marks on their, like two pairs of fangs sinking in simultaneously. A flier lay on the ground, and Robin picked it up
Come One, Come All
World Renowned Magician Greta Lis
Tickets: $52 Dollars for Adults, $42 Dollars for Seniors and Children
321 North Hills Drive, Jump City—the Old Clocktower
Robin vaguely remembered earlier in the week that a large group of people had reported strange bouts of memory loss after going to see a magic show, and finally Robin understood why. She'd bated them in with the promise of entertainment and turned them into pawns. All of them were exhaling some strange orange-yellow fume that Robin had seen before… Of course: That's how she spread the chemical, he thought. She turned civilians into human biological weapons.
On the other side of the command room, Robin eyed the laser canon over the makeshift window—basically a big hole in the wall that hadn't been there during the Titans first real fight with Slade.
He could see the whole city from up there, including Firstborn down in the park, flailing wildly at the little ant that was Blight.
Robin walked towards the laser, and the humans in the room looked up and began hissing at him, bearing fangs. Robin heard a shriek from out of the window, and saw Firstborn staring towards his way, her eyes flaring red, the light visible from all these miles. Immediately, the people in the room began to rise, and ran towards Robin snarling. He cursed and withdrew his bo-staff, vaulting over them and fending them off as gently as he could.
A strong male wrapped Robin in a bear hug from behind, and bared fangs that he was about to sink into Robin's flesh. Robin pulled a flash grenade from his belt and tossed into the air in front of him; then he closed his eyes.
The grenade went off, and Robin smacked the slaves away with his staff, then darted towards the laser. He flipped over the remains of Slade's old throne and ran down the stairs towards the screens that had once displayed the Titans' vital readings. He turned and hurled a set of grenades at those steps and the ground in front of it. A few booms sounded, and the stairs and floor crumbled away. The humans all stopped in front of the hole. It wasn't a terribly long jump, and some of them probably could make it, so Robin turned and powered up the stolen particle cannon as fast as he could.
Robin whirled it towards the city streets below and saw Ragnarök and the Count Offspring through the image-enlarging viewfinder. They were still fighting. It looked like Ragnarök wasn't doing very well, though, as he was mostly dodging and not attacking. Robin had no idea anyone could manage not to win using a machine that could manipulate reality itself.
"Foolish, flesh. You have no creativity."
"How's this?" Rag asked. He focused extended both hands straight forward and then splitting them like parting the Red Sea. The Offspring glowed red and split in two, right down the middle.
Rag sighed.
"Pathetic." The Offspring said, its two halves snapping back together with a sickening splat. It broke into a flurry of bats that came lunging at Ragnarök. He dived backwards, using the Dark Catalyst to alter his weight and flip off one hand to a standing position. He focused his mind and tried to think of what Delirium, his evil doppelganger from Earth-312 would do.
Normally, Rag would do exactly the opposite of whatever he came up with, but this time he reached out and used the Catalyst to make space-time bubbles around all the Bats that made up the Count Offspring, one by one until they were all in separate pockets of space time.
Then he flicked his wrist and all the bubbles began to scatter, one by one vanishing into the eighth dimension.
Ragnarök sat back and sighed. "Robin, it's gone," he said into his communicator. "I sent it to another plane of reality."
Suddenly, a flash of light knocked Rag on his butt, and a pair of hands leapt out of the light and grabbed him by the neck, followed by more and more pieces until the merged together and reassembled into the Offspring. "Better, flesh. But you fail to comprehend the extent of our Mother's knowledge and power."
"Your mother's so fat," Ragnarök gurgled thought he chokehold, "when asked whether she wanted her steak medium or well done, she ordered it Cthulhu."
"Your attempts at levity are infantile."
"Funny you call it infantile, coming from a guy who is just a few minutes old. Kaff Kaff." The pressure on his neck tightened. "Yeah, come on. Crush my trachea you glomping piece of-"
"Quit delaying your demise," he interrupted.
"I'm not stalling my death," he said. "I'm just thinking of a way—Kaff—out of this."
"There is none," said the Offspring. "Even that foolish boy and the laser he is attempting to commandeer will fail to save you. Yes, I know all about that. My mother tells me things. I can dodge it in a split second if I have to." He tightened the pressure on Ragnarök's throat.
"Did she tell you—kaff—that I can breathe just fine because I used the Dark Catalyst to make my trachea bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?"
"WHAT?" the Offspring's eyes widened in surprise and rage, but before he could react further, a burst of light exploded around Ragnarök and he pulled his hands close together, the waves of reality-warping energy surrounded the Offspring, converging on him and locking him in a bubble of altered time, time that traveled much slower on the inside than it did on the outside.
"ROBIN, NOW!" Rag shouted. A beam of exploded from the particle cannon—a beam of energy traveling at 93,000 miles per second and heating the air it touched to over 6000 degrees Fahrenheit. It slammed into the altered time bubble, and Ragnarök dispersed the field. Six inches plus half the speed of light equals no time to react.
The beam seared through the head of the Count, tearing it off and sending the melting flesh and boiling black blood spraying all over the street.
The men and women the Offspring had drunk from sat up, dazed and rubbing their heads. The Count fell to his knees and burst into flames.
Fire crackled from nearby, and he looked up to see Kid Devil sailing overhead, a stream of fire spewing from his mouth at the beast.
This monster wasn't like any vampire Beast Boy had ever seen, other than the fact that it had pail skin. Its eyes were jet black, eyeball and all, and instead of a pair of sharp fangs where the canine teeth would be on a human, the creature's entire mouth was a mess of jagged yellow teeth, dripping with the blood of the man it had just killed. It was naked, with no visible reproductive organs nor hair anywhere on its body. Like some sort of genetics experiment gone awry.
"Hot damn, this thing is ugly," Kid Devil cried as the flames washed over the creature but didn't seem to burn it. Beast Boy transformed into a mammoth and slammed into it, sending it careening back into the side of the cliff.
Rocks fell from above due to the impact, and Beast Boy's shoulders ached; his skull outright throbbed. Whatever that thing was, it was far denser than it appeared.
"What now?" Kid Devil asked as it got back up and crawled towards them on all fours, slobbering as it moved.
Beast Boy looked up and saw Precipice Rock high overhead, then eyed a small red dot on the ground in front of the beast. "Hold it here," he said. Beast Boy transformed into a cougar and ran towards the rocky cliff.
Predictably, the creature turned to try and chase him, and Kid Devil threw himself across the grass lot and landed in front of the Offspring. "Before you do the chase-the-green-leopard thing, I've got a message for you." Kid Devil used his fists to hammer smash the creature backwards. "STOP EATING PEOPLE!"
The monster snarled, wrestling Kid Devil to the ground. "Flesh!" the creature snarled. "I see into your core, demon child. You were human. You gave your soul to a demon and became what you are, yet you use your powers for the sake of others in spite of it all. You could feast on their flesh and pick your teeth with their bones, yet you risk your life to rescue them. This… confounds me."
A shadow began to grow over them, and Kid Devil's glowing golden eyes widened. Then he grinned. He sank his teeth into the creature's face, his mouth covering the jet-black eye. He found himself gagging at the foul taste, wanting to wretch. Instead he burned the taste out—and the monster's eye, breathing the hottest fire he could muster.
The creature broke its grip on Kid Devil. "I guess it's because I get to do things like…"
He jumped away…
"-THIS!"
And a massive chunk of Precipice Rock granite slammed into the Offspring, crushing its upper torso and driving its crushed head into the ground. Fire erupted from within and consumed the Offspring. Kid Devil stared for a moment with a big giddy smile on his face before Beast Boy glided down as a dove and resumed human shape.
"Hot damn, that was incredible!" Kid Devil cried. "How did you know that's where the rock would land?"
Beast Boy smiled and pointed to the red laser light dot, which was now hitting the slope of granite. "They put that laser aimed at the ground on the backs of all the potentially dangerous rocks. That way if one of them falls, you'll know where not to stand."
"Good thing the freak didn't live long enough to figure that out," Kid Devil said. "You do realize we basically just committed infanticide, right?"
"Good grief, that thing is ugly," Hotspot said.
Starfire cringed. This thing wasn't naked as one would expect (not that nudity was a Tamaranean taboo to begin with), but it was a hideous decaying thing, like a zombie with a pair of long fangs. Instead of the stylish black outfits that doubled as armor typical of normal vampires, this Offspring wore only decaying threadbare clothes. It shambled towards Starfire and Hotspot slowly, holding one of Cyborg's experimental rats in one hand and the remains of one it had eaten the other.
"If you have harmed Silkie, I shall tear your limbs off and feed them to you one at a time," Starfire said, her eyes burning with green energy.
"What's a Silkie?" Hotspot asked, blasting a wave of fire at the creature.
To both his and Starfire's surprise, the creature fell limp as the blast curled towards him, then snapped back into place violently, practically a bag of bones. It threw its body across the rooftop and slammed into Hotspot, knocking him back towards the water tank.
Starfire fired at with eyebeams, but the creature displayed an incredibly ability to weave in and out of the attacks, its limbs sometimes falling off to avoid getting hit with the laser. They always attached and mended right back where they had been.
"Flesh," said the creature. "You come from a different world where you could be queen. Yet you linger her on this planet and serve instead of rule. You confound me."
"Mace Windu's ghost, it can talk!" Hotspot blurted.
"You, flesh," the creature said. "Your flesh is the fire itself, but you cannot strike me down. I have evolved beyond that weakness."
Hotspot told the Offspring where he could shove it, and Starfire bashed him so hard it fell off the Tower. "Did that do it?" Hotspot asked.
"I do not believe—"
A bony hand reached over the edge of the tower, then another. The Offspring pulled itself back up onto the roof and began shambling towards them again.
Hotspot snarled and placed his hands against the water tank on the Tower's roof. Fire coursed around the tank, and the metal began to glow red-hot, then white-hot.
"Starfire!" Hotspot shouted. "You know how.. um… Billiards, works?" he asked, using the technical term for the game to avoid Starfire confusing the term 'pool' with swimming pool.
"Of course," she said. "I have been educated in the ways of many Earth-Games thanks to the efforts of Beast B—"
"That's great!" Hotspot said. "You're the stick, the water tank is the cue ball, and the Offspring is the 8-Ball."
Starfire looked at their orientation perplexed; her eyes lit up, and she nodded, then blasted off towards the south. She made it several hundred yards out over the bay before turning back around. Hotspot continued to heat the tank until just seconds before she got there. He drew heat out, just as she slammed into it, and sent it careening across the roof, sheered from its metal fasteners.
"Blow it up!" he shouted; Starfire hurled a brilliant green blast at the tank.
KRAKA-BLAM!
An explosion of steam and metal shards tore over the Tower roof, and the vapor began to cool as it washed over Hotspot. He turned off his flame so he could see more clearly.
"Did that do the getting of it?" Star asked.
"I'm not sure."
As the smoke cleared the body of the Offspring lay sprawled on the ground, its flesh seared bright red and its clothing dry-cleaned by the blast of steam. Starfire sighed in relief. "I must go find Silkie," she said, hovering off towards the entrance to the Tower. Hotspot turned to follow her, and then felt a horrible stabbing pain tear through his left calf muscle. He fell forward and rolled over with a scream, kicking at the attacker even as he turned his flame back on.
The Offspring, reddened flesh cracking and peeling as it crawled towards him, glared at him with soulless eyes. "Flesh!" it cried. "Isaiah Crockett!"
Suddenly a high-pitched trill caught his ears, and a white-ish blur streaked overhead—it was some sort of gigantic insect larva. It chomped down on the creature's head, rolling off and severing the head from the neck. It seemed to be chewing with its tiny teeth for a moment, and finally it swallowed. A swollen lump formed in its belly, and the creature burped. Hotspot almost thought it was smiling.
The remainder of the Offspring's body burst into flames and disintegrated.
"Whoa…"
"Silkie!" came Starfire's voice overhead, and she launched over and grabbed the creature into a hug as it leapt off the ground. "You have saved Friend Hotspot from the mean zombie vampire! Good mutant larva!"
It trilled happily.
"That is Silkie?" Hotspot gaped. "I… guess it's kind of cute."
The pain from the earlier stab flared up and Hotspot turned his leg over to see a metal shard of the water tank sticking out of it. He pulled it out and cringed. "Ouch, jeez," he said. "Think you could cauterize that for me, Star?"
He thought a moment, then shook his head. "Never mind." He blasted the wound with a burst of fire, using his powers to deaden the effects to the skin around the wound and only cauterize it. "So… Can I pet the silk worm that saved my life?"
Cyborg kicked out a window when the T-Car landed upside down and crawled out. He heard something move behind him, and glanced back to see Yin slink through one of the windows.
"How did you get in there?" he asked.
"Same way I just got—LOOK OUT!"
Cyborg glanced to his side a split second after he began falling, and saw a stop sign hurtling towards him. It passed over their heads and Cyborg turned towards the monster. He transformed his left arm into his Autocannon. "Say hello to my little friend!" Cyborg shouted, blasting at the Offspring with a flurry of bullets.
The bullets arced out at 100 rounds a minute—and all fell to the ground worthlessly as they sank into the creature's muscles and lost all their momentum.
"Holy spit, that thing is tough," Yin said. "What do we do now?"
Cyborg growled, and leveled his Autocannon at the Offspring's head, then fired all his remaining missiles as well, arching out and slamming into the Offspring. A cacophony of explosions and ricochets resounded, and a cloud of smoke began to clear..
Until the creature dashed out of it, running towards Cyborg and Yin without so much as a scratch.
Cyborg turned and grabbed Yin, hurling him as far as he could, before grabbing the T-Car and using it to smack the Offspring across the street and into a jewelry store. Or that was the plan, at least. Instead the T-Car just sort of bent around the creature, knocking him over. Cyborg let go of the car and ran, firing sonic shots over his shoulder. Then the T-Car landed hard in front of him and bounced several times, and Cyborg turned back.
The Offspring was running at him now, far faster than anyone that dense had a right to be moving. (Well, except Superman.) Cyborg held his ground, judging that the density of the creature also meant that inertia would come back to bite him. Cyborg was right, and he dove out of the way, causing the creature to tear through the T-Car and slam into a light pole. It turned, seemingly not bothered.
"You have anything else in that bag of tricks?" Yin asked, appearing beside Cyborg.
"Now that you mention it." Cyborg tapped a button on his leg and pulled out a small golden device that looked vaguely like a gauntlet, only very high-tech.
"What's that?"
"An Ion Amplifier," Cyborg said. "Something Bother Blood created a while back. It beefs up the power of any electrical system, and I've just over-clocked it to about twice what it is supposed to do. If this doesn't kill him…"
"Then this looks like a job for Superman," Yin said.
"Bingo."
Cyborg latched the Amplifier onto his right wrist and transformed the arm into the sonic cannon. "Hey, tall, blue, and overbite-afflicted—!" Cyborg shouted, aiming the cannon. "SEE HOW YOU LIKE THIS!"
An enormous blue-white beam of sonic energy lashed out of his weapon and tore through the city street, shattering windows nearby through sheer force and windows for blocks around due to resonance.
The wave washed over the Offspring and continued on out into the bay. Cyborg felt electricity crackle along his arm and performed an emergency shutdown of all circuits to his sonic cannon. The arm fell limp at his side, and Cyborg reactivated the systems only to realize that most of them were fried. The Ion Amplifier was dead and he had maybe thirteen percent juice left in his sonic cannon. He couldn't even revert it to his normal arm.
The Offspring still stood.
Granted, it would be an outright lie to say he was unfazed this time. In fact, he had been almost entirely obliterated—only a black skeleton remained, glaring out at the two Titans with burning fire in the eye sockets of his skull.
But it kept coming, now staggering forward. Cyborg stared, his jaw hanging loose as he tried to process how it could keep moving. Slade lasted months as a skeleton under Trigon's magic, he reminded himself.
"It should be weak now," Yin said. "Smash it!"
Cyborg glared at the kid's cheerleading, but ran forward, grabbing his sonic cannon in his left fist and smashing the Offspring in the head. The skull recoiled, but the rest of the creature didn't move. Cyborg's biological eye widened when he realized that the bones weren't even attached together—no glue, no ligaments to hold them. They just floated there as if suspended in some invisible matrix.
Fire blasted from the Offspring's eyes, and Cyborg leap t away, the flames searing his free hand. He took a few steps back, shaking the fire off, even as the Offspring walked forward, bones shaking as it glared. It's right arm extended, and the bones shot forward, extending well beyond their normal grasp. Cyborg and Yin dove out of the way, but the bones shot flew on for a long ways and when they flew back, they held—someone.
A civilian, probably a tourist judging by his manner of dress. "NO!" Cyborg cried, trying to transform his arm into the Autocannon but finding it inoperable due to damage from the fire.
Probably would not have done any good; the fangs of the skeleton immediately sank into the man's neck, drawing blood out and into the skeletons throat. Cyborg watched as the liquid flowed down the vertebrae of the Offspring's neck and turned black. Cyborg wanted to tear the creature limb from limb.
The blood flowed into the chest cavity, inside the ribs, and then transformed, coalescing into a beating heart. It just floated there in the air, like the bones, but the more blood the Offspring drank the more the offspring's organs began to return.
"NO!" Yin cried, diving forward in between the man and the skeleton and wrenching the man out of his grip. He didn't actually break the grip, though—rather he tore gashes into the dead tourists' flesh. Yin stared in horror at the corpse and then snarled. "YOU FREAK!"
He lashed out, throwing his arms towards the Skeleton and grabbing it by the skull, pressing as hard as he could. Nothing happened.
"Davis, get your hands off that thing, or it'll kill you!" Cyborg shouted into Davis' ear.
"NO!" he said. "Put your sonic cannon in my back. You don't have enough energy to waste it on flashy light shows. Sound travels better through solids than it does through air, right?" Davis quietly thanked God he'd paid attention in Physical Science the day they'd gone over that.
Cyborg nodded, jamming the canon arm into Yin's back. Cyborg began adjusting the frequencies, while Yin twisted his arms into a twizzler trying to increase the tension.
The Offspring seemed to grin. "Flesh. Your flesh is soft, weak. You have a unique ability, but in its uniqueness it makes you worse than the average man. What makes you think you can be a hero? You have nothing; you know nothing. It.. confounds me."
Davis looked at the ground. "I don't care, honestly," he said. The vibrations ran up his arms, and he could feel them in the palms of his hands, transferring into the head of the beast. "Cyborg—!"
"I'm TRYING!" Cyborg burned more power, upping the energy and switching through frequencies faster.
Finally, Yin felt the creature's skull began to vibrate at the same pulse as his hands. "THERE!" Yin said. "Keep it there." For the first time, the Offspring's eyes altered. The flame seemed to grow, but in worry, not amusement.
"What devilry is this, flesh?"
"The sin of improvising," Yin answered with a smirk.
The Offspring snarled and fire flew from its eye sockets, covering Yin's arms. Yin gritted his teeth even as he felt his limbs begin to melt, and Cyborg upped the energy one last time. Yin cried out, but the skull of the Offspring shattered, and Cyborg aimed one perfectly timed shot, blasting the crackling ball of fire inside to oblivion with one last sonic cannon shot.
The bones of the final Offspring burnt up, even as Yin and Cyborg began beating out the fire on Yin's arms.
Firstborn smashed the ground in front of him with her front legs, and Blight jumped out of the way and sprinted around her in a circular arc. He'd seen some flashes of light on the roof of Titans Tower a minute ago, and hoped the last of the offspring would be dead soon. That should give him a suitable distraction.
He rolled out of the way of a caustic blast and chopped at Firstborn's legs, getting hit only once. It was a glancing blow. He drove the sword into her side, but only for an inch or two before she jerked away and nearly pulled the blade out of his hands.
The leg bent, Firstborn going down on that knee, and Blight had to dive out of the way to avoid getting crushed. But before could get back up, pain and pressure enveloped his back, and he felt the Firstborns leg press down against him, crushing him against the barren dirt.
"You've been a big help," Firstbor's gravelly voice trilled. "But now you've become a nuisance."
The pressure increased and Blight felt his heart began to race. Help? How did I help you? Blight thought.
"You started this war. Rather, by destroying House Kensington, you made it a simple matter for me to provoke the Feral to wrath. Now they all lie broken, every house with irreparable losses, and myself with the power to begin anew."
"You're a bit more intelligent than I'd thought," Blight hissed. He didn't think Firstborn could hear him as he'd practically whispered. He didn't have the air for anything else, and the pressure was getting worse.
"I planned everything," Firstborn said, again seemingly answering a question she couldn't possibly have heard. "I can see inside your mind, Daniel."
"That's not my name anymore," Blight spat.
"No matter. You'll soon join your victims in—" Suddenly, the pressure lightened and Blight squeezed out from under her leg and grabbed his sword. He rolled over to see Firstborn's face a mask of horror. "No!" she cried, turning to the four cardinal directions. "My Offspring! They have been murdered."
"You were foolish to place so much hope in a bunch of mongrel children!" Blight drove Illumina into her chest and putting his full weight on the hilt. He fell, sliding down her body and slicing a gouge in her torso.
Firstborn snarled, spewing more of the blue acid that Blight hated so much. He dodged out of the way and hurled a tracking device—one that had been encased in a lead-lined belt pouch when Robin's EMP went off.
The device went active, and seconds later a massive bomb slammed into Firstborn, Blight shielding himself behind a car. He stood up to see the napalm-covered Firstborn writhing in pain, and he took the opportunity to strike leaping from her leg to her back and climbing the burning creature up to her shoulders. The napalm had burned both wings clean off. "The end," Blight said, driving Illumina into Firstborn's head.
The shine faded from Firstborn's eyes, and she collapsed to the ground, bursting into a cloud of black mist, swirling around Blight as he charged up one final blast of Ultraviolet energy, inhaling a breath as he charged his energy.. Then he released both, and Firstborn was no more.
He glanced to the north side of the park to see Robin pulling up on the R-Cycle.
"Where's your miracle working friend?" Blight asked. "Did he perish in the fight?"
"I sent him to take care of civilians afflicted by Firstborn and that Offspring. He's taking them home."
"And you returned here because?" Blight asked, sheathing Illumina despite the fact he knew what was coming.
"You're under arrest," Robin said. "I don't care what you did today, you murdered at least three people that weren't even vampires."
"So predictable," Blight said with a bitter laugh. "Funny they call you a hero when you go back on a deal so easily."
Robin threw down his bo-staff and did a spinning leap kick at Blight, but Blight blocked it and dove forward, his victory over Firstborn fueling a surge of adrenaline. He jabbed into Robin's neck with his fingers, causing him to reel. A kick to the chest sent Robin down, and he slammed his head against the pavement and didn't get back up.
"That was easier without the armor," Blight thought aloud. "I'll have to bring that little detail up with Saint Eldritch."
Robin and the Titans had decided to pitch in and help out as they could; Ragnarök was especially useful, but warned that overuse of the White Catalyst to heal was a bad idea. If the Dark Catalyst recharged by slowly consuming the fabric of the universe, he'd explained, the White Catalyst may restore life by slowly consuming the life force of others—or, for all he knew, the people it was healing. He had at least managed to repair the damage to Davis' hands, though.
Yin was the only Titan who didn't help. Robin found him leaning against a wall of a half-wrecked building staring blankly at the bay. "Davis," he said. "You need to head home."
"My mom already called," he said. "She was about to board the plane to Kentucky, and said that, if you all couldn't bring me out, she would send me a plane ticket."
"What about your father?" Robin asked.
"He's decided to go through with the divorce," Davis said, slinking so low that Robin almost thought he was melting."
"I can't believe it."
"When asked about why he was resigning, Heston declined to comment, but stated that it had nothing to do with the carnage in Jump City, California this afternoon. The meaning of this statement, which he said with a wink, is unclear."
"I just can't believe it."
"Maybe you could believe this," Robin said. "I just got off the phone with your mother and DHS."
"Huh?" Yin asked, turning to see Robin standing in the doorway to the elevator. He held a small leather bag. "The rest of the Titans are still out on clean up," he said. It was a bit of a jab, Davis thought. He hadn't been able to do anything other than sit around and sulk, so Robin had sent him back to the Tower.
"Your mother has agreed to let you stay here," Robin said. "For now, at least."
"You're serious?" Yin asked, his eyes widening. "You mean I can stay, here, be a full time Titan?"
"You've finished school this semester, right?" Robin asked. "You'll start next semester via a home school service. It's not going to be a vacation, and it's not going to be easy. You'll have to train a lot harder than you ever have before."
"I understand," Davis said.
"Oh, one more thing," Robin said with a smirk. "I think you've earned this."
Robin tossed the leather bag across the room, and Yin caught it and pulled it into his lap. "What is this?"
"Open it."
Yin unzipped the bag and reached inside, then goggled as he pulled out a folded up piece of a black and white fabric, made from a material he wasn't familiar with. He forgot to breathe for a moment as he stood up and unfurled the material, a smile forming on his face. It was a white jumpsuit with a black stripe down the torso, and in the middle of the black, the Yin half of the Yin-Yang symbol was emblazoned. There were black bands at the knee and elbow joints. Davis felt more weight in the bag, and reached in and pulled out a pair of heavy-duty green goggles, a belt with a communicator buckle, and a pair of gloves and boots that matched the costume's color scheme and materials.
"How on earth—?"
"I found your sketchbook in your room," Robin said. "You left it out here the first week and I thought I'd surprise you—and hopefully help keep you from getting killed. But honestly, after all you did today, you earned this suit. Welcome to the team, Yin."
Despite noticing that Robin stopped short of admitting he was wrong, Davis felt his eyes began to water, and he smiled more broadly than any normal human could.
"Davis, are you alright?"
"Yeah... Just let me have a happy moment."
0000
The next morning, the Titans gathered around the table in Ops for breakfast, with Kid Devil, Hotspot, and Yin as honorary guests.
Robin extended a hand and, for the first time all week, smiled. "We couldn't have done this yesterday without you guys, you know."
"Thanks," Kid Devil beamed, shaking his hand. "It was awesome that we could help you out. Stuff like this never happens back down in Los Angeles."
"Yeah, it was exciting at least," Hotspot said. "But my leg is gonna be killing me for weeks."
"I know what will make it better!" Cyborg called, walking into the room with a huge metal plate with a dome covering. He pulled the lid off. "WAFFLES!"
A crackle of energy nearby caused heads to jerk that direction, and a portal appeared in the middle of the kitchen. A female figure stepped out, clad from head to toe in dark-colored hiking gear and carrying a bag over her shoulder. Kid Devil briefly thought his request for a Mary Sue was arriving a day late and a dollar short.
Then the figure removed her hat.
"RAVEN!" Robin gasped. "What are you wearing."
Raven sweatdropped, and put down all her stuff, hiding the hat behind her back. "Um, oh, nothing. Just things I picked up along the way."
"You certainly appear as though you have been busy," Starfire said, wrapping the grey-skinned Titan in a hug. "And smell as though you have not bathed in a week."
"Thanks Star," Raven muttered. "I really need thatbroadcast to everyone."
Raven looked around and saw one kid who was blushing blood red and stifling laughter. Then she realized he was Kid Devil and that his skin was just that way naturally. But why was Kid Devil here? And Hotspot too?
Raven scratched her head. "So," she began. "Did I miss anything big?"
The Titans just stared at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.
Mihaela stopped, and tilted her head back and sniffed the air.
"Who is there?"
A figure in a black cape dropped from a nearby fire escape, flipping from upside down to right side up in the air. The Boy Wonder stepped out of the shadows.
"Robin!" Mihaela said. "That is a good way to get yourself killed."
Robin studied Mihaela up and down. Her hands and much of her head was wrapped in white bandages, and red marks were visible on her face. So were the claw-marks from the gashes made by Firstborn. They had partially healed, but were still very visible. Robin saw no use in asking Mihaela how she was doing.
"I just wanted to know what happens now." Robin closed his eyes for a moment. "How many died?"
"We still don't know," she said. "So few bodies. We have to count up the living and match them with medical records. But we lost allof House Kensington before the war even began."
"I heard that most of House Carpathia was taken out as well," Robin said. "After the sun started burning again. How is the balance of power?"
"That is none of your business," Mihaela snapped. "Not an outsider. We already have the Grant Mansion crawling with amateur vampire hunters and the occasional FBI agent. My mother had to pay an enchantress to make our home less suspicious."
"It's my business because this is my city," Robin said evenly. Absently he thought how much he sounded like Bruce when he said that. Gotham is MY CITY.
"Your city?"
Robin shook his head. "No, it's not," he admitted. "My real city is three thousand miles away. But I need to know whether this city will see another war. I need to be sure something like this can't happen again. I'm still kicking myself for letting Blight get away."
"There are no guarantees," she replied, choosing her words cautiously, "But for now, we are too busy recovering from our losses to think about another war. Some of us believe the Firstborn's destruction is the dawn of a new era, but others believe politics as usual will continue."
Robin nodded. "Keep your eyes open, then. And when there's trouble… well, you know who to call."
To disclaim something that may not be obvious, the Order of Saint Dumas is owned by DC Comics. In the comics, it was a fanatical splinter of the Knights Templar and the group that trained the troubled hero Jean-Paul Valley, AKA Azrael. The 'System' in the comics is actually an extensive regiment of psychological conditioning that caused Azrael to become psychotically violent when fighting evil. The four vampire Offspring are patterned after specific vampire interpretations. The Count is obviously Dracula; the one crushed by the rock is based on 30 Days of Night, the one Silkie ate is based on the old vampire folklore, and the Supervampire was based on the Vampire/Werewolf hybrids in Underworld.
Next up: Kidnapped! Part One
