trans_9 | The thing you should know is that everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you.

Crap, that's what Paco had! He only has time for his eyes to go wide and to pop up a blue energy shield--but it's not enough to disperse it.

The blast hits him square on, and breaks through the shield, shattering the armor more, chips of blue and black flying off, and sending him flying back through a statue.

And there he lays very still, skin still steaming.

Tim nods in satisfaction, and turns toward the only remaining threat--Terry. He's not going to need the Dracon beam for this. He returns it to his belt.

It's a lot more fun to use this body the way it was meant to be used--the way Tim has trained himself to use it.

Terry stared at Tim, trying to convince himself that whatever was happening wasn't real. There was no way Tim could be like this. This wasn't supposed to happen yet. For years.

Scorpius had been right. There were more important things then Sam. He carefully set him down on the ground, being sure not to turn his back to the boy wonder.

"Tim..." he spoke quietly, the slightest bit of fear creeping into his voice, "what have you done to him?"

Tim gives Terry a sharp smile and takes up his staff again. "You're supposed to be Batman, Terry. The world's greatest detective," he taunts. "Figure it out."

Terry glanced down at Sam, at his head. "The slugs. The one he was trying to force into Nathan's head, and the ones that came from his brain. There's one in Tim, isn't there? That's who I'm talking to right now, isn't it?"

Tim gave him his best, brightest smile. "Give the kid a cookie," he said, his tone still slightly mocking. "You got it on the first guess. Of course, it might have been more useful if you could have warned him." He nodded at where Jaime was still smoking on the ground. "Oh, well."

There was a slight twitch in Terry's hand. Like he wanted very, very much to make a fist and start punching things. Tim had hit a nerve.

"I could have saved him." Terry muttered. And if he was Batman, he would have. He would have been thinking clearer. He could have acted faster.

But wait... he was still Batman. He may not have the cowl, but he was still the Dark Knight. Something clicked in his head. Something changed in his voice.

"Tim. If you're in there - I'm sorry about this. I couldn't prevent this from happening, but I can still save you."

Tim snorts lightly, twirling his staff a little. "You think so?" he asks Terry mildly. "You can try. But I don't know how well that will work. The only way to save him--" he gestures at Sam, using him as an example, "--is to kill him, and I'm pretty sure you don't work that way."

He's counting on Terry not knowing his words for the lie that they are. And he doesn't like at all the way Tim's consciousness and his body responded to the change in Terry's voice.

The Batman/Robin dynamic can't be that deeply ingrained, can it?

A twisted, empty grin twitched at the corners of Terry's mouth. "You think you know me? Bruce may not have killed, but I'm not Bruce. I don't have the same rules."

Sure, in his early days as the Bat he'd had to kill. But he'd never liked it. And he prayed that he wouldn't have to kill Tim.

With just the slightest hesitation, Terry leaped forward, punching out towards Tim's neck.

Tim dodges the blow and swings his staff at Terry, hoping to knock him to the ground. "Kind of obvious you're not him," Tim says coldly. "Whatever your 'rules' are. You're nowhere near his league."

Energy slowly starts to come back to the Girl of Steel. It's clear that she's not entirely up to par yet, and she honestly won't be without a few hours of ~~nude~~ sunbathing ~~with Brainy~~, but she's still Supergirl. Unless she's under a red sun, she's still got some power.

But first things first.

Kara checks to make sure that both Brainy and Kon are okay.

Brainy's waking up. Sooner than Mia, due to how quickly his brain can reboot, and for a moment, his stare at her is ugly, and he slams her back to the floor with his shields, covering her mouth and nose so she can't breathe, as he gets out the lead box.

His expression is wild, furious, like some tortured animal breaking free from its cage. "You think you can stop me! You think you can control me! I'll break you, Coluan! I'll show you who controls who! She's a pretty little thing, isn't she? I'll have you turn her into a pretty little corpse and dissect her to study her anatomy to further the knowledge of the Yeerk empire--"

But he twitches, the box stays closed and his hand trembles as he fights for control of it, and the shields around her mouth disappear, though she's still pinned so she doesn't get scared and clock him, and Brainy grinds out, "Yes. I can control you, parasite."

He takes a deep breath, and then his voice is impeccably calm.

"You simply woke first. Don't assume that means you have actual control. Nothing has changed."

Terry and Robin are fighting, they're surrounded by the injured, and...and it appears Blue Beetle is dead. Yes, his scan confirms it. His eyes narrow.

"Kara, can you fly?"

She licks her dry lips and tosses her long, super-shiny golden locks over her shoulder. She eases herself up into the air, her feet not touching the ground. She lands down again, the soles of her boots softly touching the floor. "I can. What do you need, handsome?"

Taking advantage of the distracted Robin, he slams a forcefield into Kate, knocking her out, and with a twitch of his hand, it turns into a stretcher that carries her and wraps a shield around her. A similar stretcher is created for Mia, and for Sam, and he thanks his lucky stars that Robin gave his flight ring back after the Yeerk had infested him, so that he can just fly them out

"Carry Superboy. I'll carry Sam, Mia, and Kate. They all need to be brought to the Medlab immediately."

Sam...may not make it. Brainy can function as a neurosurgeon, but he's not one by trade, and the damage may be too much, it may have been left too long...

But he will not let him die here on the floor like an animal. If all he can do is ease his passing, that's what will be done.

Danny is unconscious, but Brainy'd tucked him in a little alcove to the side, so he's hidden by statues, until he comes to. They have to move fast, and he has to hope he's not found or comes to--he now regrets smacking him, but he hadn't known which side he was on, and he wanted to be sure that kryptonite was in the hands of someone immune to control--the only person he'd been sure had been himself.

"Leave Blue Beetle. I'm afraid he's...beyond medical aid now." His voice is deeply regretful. "My scans show no life signs."

Tim swallows down a snarl of frustration as Brainy makes it clear whose side he's really on. And he can't even stop him with the device he'd created to neutralize Brainy's force field. Despite Tim's taunts to the contrary, Terry is good enough that he requires his full attention.

Damn it.

Brainy gloats as he gathers up the injured, and only so long as it takes him to gather up the injured.

"I'm a twelfth-level intellect with complete mental control--did you really think a glorified gastrod could take control of my mind?"

And that's enough of that. He's taking to the air and motoring for the door, he and Kara and the people in his forcefields an odd little caravan of the injured.

"Terry, hold him off as long as you can. Once the injured are attended to, we'll be back to render assistance. Kara, fly!"

Oh Brainy. ~~I'm so hot for you right now.~~ ~~I love you.~~ ~~Marry me.~~

Kara takes off into the air, casting down a look at Beetle's body sprawled across the ground. One look in her eyes and it's clear she doesn't want to leave him. He might be a lowly human, and she might not have known him all that well, but he was teammate.

And sometimes, that counted for more than anything else.

He sees it, he knows the feeling.

He was a crew-mate. A team-mate.

Legionnaires never leave anyone behind.

But that's why they have to hurry. Sam is dying. Superboy, due to his hybrid physiology and it's inherent difficulties with processing sunlight, and kryptonite's tendency to flush yellow sunlight from Kryptonian cells, is not well. Mia and Kate are both severely injured.

"Kara, we have to concern ourselves with the living."

It is, after all, likely what he'd want them to do. He'd given his life trying to help them, even if he'd been fooled by their enemy--but their enemy operated through deception--they'd ALL been fooled by them.

He flies and looks to her to follow (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/23224.html?thread=2149816#t2149816), hoping desperately that Terry can indeed hold his own and that perhaps Danny can wake up in time to assist him.

Edited 2009-02-23 07:54 (UTC)

The staff hit Terry square in the chest. It stung. A lot. There was enough force behind it to knock him off balance, but it wasn't anything new. He'd gone up against Stalker and survived, after all. He used his change of weighting to tumble backwards, coming up in a crouch. He then swung his leg out, hoping to knock Tim off balance with a sweep.

"I'm not trying to be Bruce." He snarled, "I'm my own league."

Tim doesn't respond to this. His attention is more focused on jumping over Terry's leg, and not stumbling when one of his feet get caught.

It's not really helping that Tim--the real Tim--is gloating a little in the back of his mind.

I knew he wasn't going to rise to the bait. You're going to lose.

"Shut up."

No. You're going to lose, because Brainy was smarter than you gave him credit for, and that Andalite kid found you and make you tip your hand too soon. I don't know who he is, but I'm going to make sure to thank him when this is all over.

"What makes you think this is going to be over?" he snarled. "I'm not planning on giving this body up."

It will. Because Terry's good--I guess we'll find out if he can take me, but my guess is that if he's good enough for Bruce to say he can be Batman, then he's more than good enough to give me a run for my money. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. Sucker.

"Lets see how that theory holds up when you kill him, too." And Tim goes on the attack again, aiming several sharp strikes at Terry with his staff.

Tim seemed to be talking to himself. It was more then a bit unsettling. And then came the staff again. One strike managed to catch Terry in the ribs, and another right on the bullet graze he'd received so recently. That one managed to get a sharp intact of breath and a second of blinding pain from Terry. But it was enough to get his head cleared from everything but the fight.

Before too many more hits could land, he dodged out of the way, flipped up and over on a hand-stand to get some distance from the staff.

Think, Ter. You've fought Tim before. How did you win that fight?

The talking. Of course. It may have been the Joker's style, but the slugs in Tim's brain now seemed to like chatting. It brought about an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu, but it might just work.

"Kill him?" Terry said with a dark laugh. "Oh, come on. You might be in control, but that's still Tim Drake's body. Tim Drake, trained by Bruce Wayne, the coward. If the old Bat had had any sense, he would have trained the kids not to show mercy. If any of the Bat family was capable of killing, do you think The Joker would still be around? If any of them had enough balls to kill, Jason Todd would never have died."

It hurt to say that, it really did. He respected Bruce's choice to never kill. But maybe he could reach Tim with those words. Make Robin angry enough at him that he'd get some control back.

Tim's eyes narrow in real, honest fury. He stands down, gripping his staff in a half-ready stance. "That's bullshit," he hisses. "Unwillingness to kill doesn't make one a--"

His voice cuts off like someone threw a switch, and his grip on the staff goes to a better guard position. There's a different kind of anger on Tim's face, now. "Nice try," he snaps, glaring at Terry. "It won't work again."

There. That little spark of rage, that little bit of human. Terry had reached Tim, if only for a few seconds. It was a distraction, and a confirmation. It was all Terry needed.

Terry crouched, then sprung towards Tim, one arm flying up to block the staff, the other coming in for a punch to the solar plexus.

"Maybe that's what Bruce says." He hissed once he was close enough to Tim, "But can you trust his morals, when he didn't have a family to teach them? Maybe I just think this way because I still have family alive that I want to protect."

It was a low blow. He made a mental note to make it up some way to Tim. Hell, if letting him try out the future Batsuit was what it took, then he would happily turn the security functions off. But that was assuming they'd both make it out of this alive.

Tim feels the hit, and the breath rushes out of his lungs. He staggers backward, gasping a little to get his breath back.

He gives Terry a slight sneer. "That hit him pretty hard, Terry," he says in an almost conversational tone, a cold smile on his face. "You know his father only just died--because he didn't get there fast enough to stop it? So he's really feeling that jab right now.

"As for me? I don't care."

He uses the staff to vault him into the air, aiming a flying kick at Terry.

Even though he tried his best to dodge, the kick clipped Terry's chin. It was enough to knock him off balance, and send him sprawling on the floor. Not to mention it hurt, and he really didn't want to hit back too hard. Kicking Tim's ass had been a lot easier when he had the face of that bastard clown.

The fall had knocked the wind out of Terry, but he was still able to talk. "You really don't care, huh? Then could you tell Tim to stop pulling his punches?"

He shakily got to his feet, then swung around in a round-house kick.

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