Oh, you know it, EP, and an interesting scene it is, if I say so myself.
There's a question, MM2002: IS Metal Mario working for Slade?
You'll have to find out yourself, now, won't you?
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Upon catching word of the news, Sonic had quickly zipped downstairs to the large room where the suit was being held. The trip wires were still in place around the armor, and it remained safe and sound, while Mario and Luigi stood near the entrance of the room, conversing solemnly to each other.
“Of course I haven’t told them yet,” Mario spat at his brother. “They’ve got enough things to worry about right now, like this crap here. Our situation can wait until everything’s stable, ya know?”
“Guess you’re right, Bro…But don’t you think—”
“Hey, Waddle-Dee and Waddle-Dum!” Sonic growled at them as he skidded to a halt before them. “What the **** are you doin’? Didn’t you hear? Somebody’s broken in! Keep your eyes on the merchandise, huh?”
Luigi practically jumped at Sonic’s words, while Mario casually shrugged them off, glancing effortlessly at the technology.
“Seems OK to me,” he muttered apathetically. “What are we up against?” he wondered, his interest piqued at the matter of opposition.
“I…I dunno,” Sonic fumbled out. “Robin’s spazzin’, so be ready for that.”
“What else is new?” Mario chuckled. “That guy’s string tighter than your shoe laces, Sonic,” he joked, nodding his head to the taught threads on Sonic’s stylish red footwear.
“Is he always like that?” Luigi wondered, his eyes glued to the armor and the room surrounding it. It rested within a plexiglas class, and red lasers surrounded it in a complex web, acting as its security.
“Not all the time,” Sonic shrugged. “But lately, he’s been pissed all the time.”
“Bah,” Mario dismissed. “He’s just upset because we haven’t been doin’ so hot, and with him, everything needs to be done perfect. He takes his job a little too seriously,” he explained to Luigi, who nodded pensively.
“Oh, he’s just all wound up because him and his girlfriend aren’t gettin’ along,” Sonic put in, rolling his eyes.
Mario stared at him doubtfully. “You know it’s more than that, Sonic. Besides, you’re one to talk,” he added, tipping his cap over his eyes as he awaited the group that was storming their way like a tidal wave.
“Wh--? What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sonic snapped irritably.
“Have you guys seen anything yet?” Link asked with dire expectation, cutting past Sonic into the room.
“Nah, we’re all good—for now,” Mario casually told him. “I’ve got a feeling things’ll heat up real quick, though.”
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“I fear we shall be roasted like Bargolean Wurtpelts…”
“Starfire, stop your complaining! We’re almost there…”
“But Sister, the ventilation is unbearable…”
The two suited thieves had been sneaking through the vents of the building with great care, but the heat had automatically turned on—it was autumn, and could get fairly chilly. The heat that blasted over their bodies was quite unbearable, indeed, though their stealth suits deterred it somewhat from broiling them. However, the noise—the consistent humming—provided ample cover for them as they neared their destination, where a congregation of Titans had congealed.
“We’re fine,” Blackfire said quietly, signaling her sibling to stop crawling with an upright palm. “Shh. Our ‘friend’ should be arriving any second to give us some time.” They had stopped near an opening in the very room they were planning on raiding. The rushing air that blew them by preventing them from hearing the Titans words in the room, and they weren’t at an angle where they could see them, either. But after about five minutes sitting quietly, they knew that something was going on.
During those five minutes of waiting, Starfire slowly slipped into a brief spell of depression. The faces of the Titans who were mere yards away pounded at her brain. They were all better off without her…Thirteen people were dead because of her selfish wishes, her jealousy…
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Such a debt to owe to the great beyond. Thirteen lives, compared to her one. Thirteen souls lost and gone. She had paid some price, perhaps, but one not nearly enough to cover the amount she felt she owed.
CLANG!
The ducts reverberated with the sickening sound of a body colliding with an adjacent wall, and Starfire was brought back to the situation she was stuck in. Blackfire tugged on Starfire’s shoulder and roughly dragged her sister toward her.
“Are you ready?” she asked solemnly.
Starire nodded, and though Blackfire couldn’t see the worry in her eyes from beneath the green visor, she could feel it coming from her sister’s demeanor.
“We’ll both go out, and I’ll break the casing it’s in, then you swipe it, and we’ll head out the way we came in.” Starfire was trembling now, like a small forest animal in a cage. “Don’t worry so much,” Blackfire eased. “If anything happens, don’t worry about me—I’ll be fine. I’ll meet you outside at the roof. Got it?”
Starfire, or, ‘Red Comet,’ nodded shakily. “…Y-yes, of course,” she squeaked, doubt dripping from her lips as a grimace crawled across her face. Blackfire could see that grimace by only the tone of her voice and sighed.
“This should be a breeze, Sister,” the Black Comet assured her sister with unbridled confidence. She rubbed Starfire’s shoulder quickly for encouragement and gave her a couple of pats for good measure. “Focus,” she insisted. “It’s like arresting a robber…except…you ARE the robber…” She snickered a mischievous, sneaky snicker, and it only tightened the knot in Starfire’s intestines.
“B-but…”
“All right, here we go!” Blackfire shouted as she charged energy from her palms into the cannon around her wrist. She fired after a few seconds, and a blast of intense, red energy shot forward, zipping through the air and melting the vent instantly. As it exploded in the distance, Blackfire zipped through the new entrance to the storage room, and Starfire carefully dropped out and landed on the metal floor.
Starfire was paralyzed for a moment as she watched Robin exchange fierce blows with the metallic Mario. Using his bo, he swiped at the being with quick, clean attacks and mind-numbing variety. The foot, the pelvis, the shoulder, the eye, the pinky…But no matter where he aimed his blows, the stealthy steel being ducked, weaved, jumped, flipped, or blocked. He made it look as he could go on forever. The other Titans present were either recovering from a daze or waiting for the right time to strike.
Jolted to her senses, Starfire’s brain was bent like a pretzel when she saw ANOTHER Mario—the one she knew well—standing before the durable casing in the middle of the room, his arms spread out at his sides like a cowboy preparing to draw. Starfire could see his palms trembling as flame engulfed his fingers. As his eyes twinkled and a smirk—that classic smirk—slinked its way onto his face, Starfire suddenly realized that her sister was about to get ‘a can of the whup-***.’
During precisely the same moment this concept slapped her, she was sent to the ground with a brutally swift kick in her left ribs. She stumbled back to her feet and came to the conclusion that Sonic had just assaulted her while she wasn’t paying attention—she had left herself as a blatantly easy target to practice upon, for sure. It was like a deer walking across the lawn of a decrepit, shot-gun toting man in a rocking chair with a can of beer at his side, and just standing in front of his rickety, old porch.
Having clambered to her feet, she was faced with a decision—to fire at Sonic before he attacked her sister, or to simply let Blackfire fend for herself. Either way, someone was going to get hurt. After a second of pondering the decision, Sonic was sent tumbling to the ground when Robin’s body collided with his, and she heard her sister’s voice speak through their radio link, unheard by anyone else.
“Sister, what are you doing? Break the glass with your cannon and steal it while we keep them distracted!”
“Y-yes! Of course!” Starfire squeaked, pointing her right arm—a shaking appendage—at the casing, which housed a series of security lasers and a mysterious set of armor. It was silver, made of strips of metal plating. Starfire stood cautiously for a few moments, struggling to keep her energy under control as it built up within the device strapped to her arm. After a few seconds, she felt like her hand was going to explode from the pressure. Constantly checking to make sure no one was approaching her and keeping her quivering arm in place, she held it with the opposite hand and flicked a small switch near the gadget’s base from ‘1’ to ‘2.’ As she finally released the mighty shot, it erupted from the barrel with tremendous force, and she had to use all of her upper body strength to keep it aligned with the target. A highly concentrated beam of green energy, no thicker than a few centimeters in diameter, whizzed through the cold, musty air and into the casing. After a couple of seconds, the glass began to crack from the intense force and shattered. Glass sprayed everywhere in an explosion, leaving many to take cover. Link shielded himself with the special equipment Cyborg had helped him produce, Tikal protected herself with her mysterious abilities in a fashion similar to Raven, and Tenochtitlan twirled her bo in rapid circles and propelled the glass shards. Mario and the Black Comet ignored the impact, letting it wash over them as they had a fist fight.
Taking the spare time she had, Starfire made a dash for the target, rushing right past Mario and Blackfire as they dueled. She could feel a fireball smash into her shoulder, leaving little damage on her armor, and she snatched the armor with both arms, much to the dismay of the Titans.
“Don’t let them get away!” she could Robin scream from the other half of the room. Her heart racing, she held the armor, which was surprisingly light, to her side, hugging it like a football. She charged through the room and readied her jetpack, praying she could maneuver herself well enough to escape. As she drew closer to her exit, she grew concerned about her sister, whose clash with Mario was proving futile.
Starfire’s eyes stayed glued to her means of escape: the vent near the ceiling in the back of the room. She heard Tikal shriek in agony, followed by a sickening ‘clang.’ She heard Luigi let loose a battle cry, and a brief explosion could be heard thereafter. She could hear Amy grunting in unison with a series of ‘twangs’ and ‘shings,’ matching the metal man’s steel body with her sword skills, no doubt. She could hear a sickening crack, followed by an unidentified groan, which was shortly followed by the sound of yet another body colliding with the wall. Starfire was horrified by the sounds, but dared not to look back and see her friends in pain. In some sick way, part of her, deep inside, felt that she should turn and watch, if only to be more disheartened by the sights, because she deserved it.
Sonic was hot on her trail as she drew seconds away to her destination, and Mario had let Blackfire go to pursue her as well. She turned her head to steal a glance at Sonic’s bruised face rushing at her, and he roared, “Get back here, Rhino-girl!” as he tackled her from behind in a dive, sending her to her stomach. As he prepared to assault her with a barrage of punches, his body was swept off by a chunk of energy from Blackfire, leaving him legs-up against the wall feet away. As Blackfire advanced to help her sister escape, Mario was blocked off when his metallic self came sliding in front of him.
“’Bout time,” Mario slyly muttered as he came to a stop. He shifted his stance to that of a street-fighter and wiped sweat from underneath his nose as his body bobbed a bit, his fists at the ready.
“I like to save my favorite for last,” Metal Mario replied with sadistic glee. “Though, that hedgehog girl’s swordsmanship was a pleasant treat.”
Overhearing such dialogue gave Starfire’s brain a terrible cramp, so she ignored it and made sure the package she had been carrying was tightly secured within her hands.
“You got it?” Blackfire checked doubtfully as she sprinted onward.
“Yes,” Starfire insisted, pressing a small button on her hip to activate her jetpack. She braced herself for flight, and was rocketed into the air with tremendous stress for a second until she made a sharp turn and skidded into the air duct, scraping against the walls before turning off the device. Fortunately, she was unharmed, and the neural armor was perfectly fine.
“Get out,” Blackfire instructed calmly, her breathing slightly heavy from her running. “Don’t worry about me—just get out, I’ll be fine.” Starfire began to claw her way through the ducts, heeding her sister’s decree.
Meanwhile, Metal Mario and Mario were walking around each other in cautious circles, their arms at the draw, their stares and stances like two gunners from the old west waiting to have a shootout. Their hands glowed red as they both compressed fiery forces into their hands. The various Titans around them were either too dazed or too scared to interfere, except for Robin, who ran clear past them and flung a blue disc at the Black Comet from behind as she took to the air. It flew with ninja-like speed and accuracy, and encapsulated Blackfire’s body in ice, sending her to the ground. Robin, running at a comfortable speed, launched his grappling hook into the ceiling before him, and took off with a swing to the vent. As he soared over the Black Comet, who shattered to the ground, he pulled a few small smoke bombs from his belt and flicked them downward, drowning Blackfire in a thick, gray fog as he ascended. Rolling into the shaft, Robin doggedly followed the traces of the Red Comet. The condense chase lasted about a minute or two, until Robin came clambering out of the large vent on the rooftop. He didn’t stop to watch the frightened thief flee—with steadfast agility, he made a mad sprint for her and unleashed an outbreak of yellow frisbees that zipped through the air. One of them jolted Starfire’s right leg, while another connected with the pack on her back. Both exploded upon impact, sending the thief careening to the ground below, hundreds of feet away.
As the other bombs were set off in midair, Robin readied his grappling hook and dove from the roof to the streets below, headfirst. The vertigo he felt was an invigorating rush, his hair flapping in all directions, the only sounds heard those of air whistling by his ears and his cape rustling. He carefully aimed his hook at the corner of an apartment building nearby and fired, halfway down the building. After pulling the trigger, it gracefully flew, sinking into the stone wall with a rough bite. Robin let the directory he had set himself up for take course, swinging around the building and to the sidewalk below like a human spider might. Retracting his hook in, Robin let his feet skim the cement below, and broke into a run as soon as he had been placed on the ground. Immediately bolting for the crash site, Robin was eager and willing to send the masked culprit to jail.
A few blocks away, Starfire was moaning in pain, having just forced herself to her feet. Her head was throbbing, and she could feel pressure on her skull with every heartbeat. Holding her head in a nauseated state, she wobbled around a bit in a confused state of agony, groaning all the while. As she gradually came to, she remembered what she was doing and began to search for the item she had worked so hard to escape with. She found it on the ground a few feet away, thankfully, along with a few shattered pieces of metal of red and black. They twinkled in the light of the streetlamp above her, and they seemed familiar, but her mind was too clouded to piece it together correctly. She was blinded by a bright flash of white light—brief and intense, amplifying her headache. Shielding her face and squinting her eyes, she bent over, almost fell to her side from her dizziness, and scooped up the device that Slade had asked for. All the while, the flashes continued, and she cried out, “Please, stop,” with a whimper. Much to her relief, the bright light did, in fact, stop, for a few seconds, giving her time to limp away a few feet. Her right leg made her wince with each step, and it took a few seconds for her to remember what had happened to it. She suddenly noticed that the green veil that had once drowned every sight before her was gone, and that the growth on her forehead was a separate pain in and of itself. Different parts of her body hurt in different ways as she staggered toward an alleyway, dejected beyond belief.
It was at that very moment that Starfire wondered to herself, (Does every criminal feel this way? So desperate…so alone…so hated…?)
Tears were streaming down Starfire’s face, and she longed for the warmth of her home and the embrace of her friends. As she stood in the middle of the street, a quivering, crying, pathetic excuse for a thief, her head was about ready to explode with regret. If it had, it would’ve been a great relief, but a horrible mess. Starfire was determined to not let herself be caught by her ex-friend. No. That was not acceptable. She tripped on the curb of the sidewalk, and wasn’t quite able to catch herself on the way down. With a hopeless snivel, she pulled herself to her knees, her eyes tightly shut as she concentrated hard to block the pain out. Her hands squeezed the metallic abdomen fiercely and instinctively as her brain locked up.
She remembered the last time she had been embraced by Raven. She remembered sitting on a Ferris wheel with Robin at her side. She remembered all of her friends, their grinning faces, and how things were a week before. She kept spraying her mind with thoughts of her recent past and peppering it all with Raven’s face, hoping to dilute the anger, confusion, and self-hatred.
Slowly, the pain seemed to disappear, and she felt as if she was gently soaring through the clouds. However, unlike most people, Starfire actually knew what this physically felt like, and as she opened her eyes, she realized that it was true—she was far, far above Jump City, unable to pinpoint exactly where she had been before. The bitter-cold mist of the clouds she drifted too ensured that her trembling continued, but she’d rather be chilled than be spotted. She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going, nor did she care.
(I hope my sister…and my friends…are all right…)
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Heheh...Um, one word, EP: college.
