The Demon, The Witch, And The Ghost--Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One
"I don't believe this…" Voltaire chuckled arrogantly. "We've got to fight them? Almost makes me feel sorry for the poor idiotas."
"Do not underestimate your opponent." Argent said coolly. "You may be the idiota before the day's over with."
Voltaire shot her a nasty look, but didn't respond. He turned his yellowish eyes towards the people on the opposite end of the enclosed chamber.
The first was a girl. Very small, very thin, with a good volume of fluffy pink hair upon her head, two long locks of which were fixed into antennae shapes, jutting upwards and outwards in such a way that was both bizarre and oddly becoming at the same time. Her clothes' short white skirt was only marginally lighter than her fair, porcelain-like skin, and this delicateness was only enhanced by her sleeves, which were long, poofy and blue, ending in wide, lacey frills around the wrists.
She seemed to be all smiles, talking cheerfully to a large, slouching figure beside her—an enormous, muscular fellow with a shock of ragged, dark hair and short, uneven beard stubble. He wore only a spotted loincloth that came down to his knees, and concealed half his chest. Strapped to his back with strips of leather was an enormous, spiked club constructed out of what seemed like a combination of stone and wood.
The third and last of them was dressed in a thick white uniform with matching pants, probably made of some sort of thick linen, with a belt of black cloth tied in the front like a sash. The collar rose up high behind his neck in an almost V-shaped fashion. He wore simple sandals, and had distinctly Asian features complete with oiled black hair in a long topknot, and thin, angular black eyes. On his left hip were a katana and a wakizashi, blades of slightly differing lengths—the katana being longer—but identical black sheaths and silver blades; both the sheaths were strapped horizontally at a slight tilt… on his right hip, however, a pair of small sheaths hung vertically concealed a pair of tantos—a knife-sized katana blade.
Abruptly, Voltaire was shaken out of his thoughts by Red Star's deep voice. "I vould be most concerned vith the swordsman."
Argent shook her head. "Are you kidding? He's nothing compared to the guy with the club. … Though I can't say much for his friend, there…" She added disdainfully—disdain which seemed to be directed more at her coiffure than anything.
Voltaire started to retort by saying he wasn't intimidated by any of them—until Speedy's voice rang out on the PA system.
"Right. Now that you're all here, it's time for melee testing. I've you've got any last words, write them down now."—A pause where crickets chirped.—"I was just kidding! Sheesh."
Aqualad's voice echoed from a speaker on the opposite side of the chamber: "You and your stupid jokes. This is serious business, you know! If we—"
"Alright, alright! Sheesh. Spoilsport." He cleared his throat here, popping the speaker a little and producing a highpitched whine. "Ok, then. It's team one against team 2… remember! This is for evaluative purposes only. No excessive force allowed."
"He means, 'don't kill anyone'." Aqualad sighed, exasperated, from his speaker again. "And remember: There's a reason none of you have been introduced; we want to see how you can adapt to unfamiliar situations."
And with that, the buzzer overhead rang shrilly.
"LET HIM GO!" Blackfire screamed, clawing at the slimy lips of the beast, trying to pry its toothy mouth open long enough to wrench her lover away from its maw.
"Yeah! Let him—OW!—go! Geeze!" Smoke yelped, gritting his teeth and bowing up as best he could against the pain of Leviathan's huge incisors. They had managed to make themselves felt even through the tough leather, denim, and cotton he had on. He attempted several times to electrocute the monster, sending arcs of lightning over its mouth and between its teeth, but the beast seemed resistant to the shock.
"LET GO! YOU FREAK!" Blackfire screeched, drawing her fist back. It cracked briefly with violet energy like an electrical blowtorch, and she swung it viciously at the monster's snout, leaving a glittering trail of purple sparks in its wake.
The blow connected and immediately snapped the creature's head back, knocking its mouth open and allowing Smoke to tumble out into midair, clutching at his gut. Blackfire managed to swoop downwards and catch him in her slender arms, looping one arm under his knees and the other behind his neck. She bolted through the air in order to get him a safe distance away while the monster recovered.
"Get it while it's stunned!" Robin called, motioning towards the creature's writhing form.
Immediately, as though Leviathan understood human speech perfectly, he glared down at Robin, his serpentine body coiling and uncoiling as his fins fanned out and his forked tongue flickered. All of the sudden, its eyes flashed red, like crimson headlights on an enormous truck, staring right into The Boy Wonder's mask…
… And Robin abruptly felt his muscles begin to spasm and tighten uncontrollably, like a thousand small cramps simultaneously hitting his whole form. He cried out and fell down, unable to even move properly.
Leviathan lowered its ugly head, its numerous glittering fangs twisting into an abhorrent sneer as gaudy fins fanned out on both sides of its serpent head, and its oily gills quivered excitedly. It licked its scaly chops with its tongue, flickering and dripping with some awful, sizzling poison. Its mouth opened and unhinged itself like a snake's, widening enough to swallow a small vehicle; its breath rushed out in a torrent of hot, gaseous fumes that smelt of rotten meat and stagnant water.
Its appetite, however, was abruptly shaken as it was fed, not a stunned superhero, but a mouthful of crackling green solarbeam. Bolts of Starfire's potent energy hurtled out of the blue and singed the inside of the archdemon's mouth. As it yanked its head back and snapped its huge jaws shut, Starfire landed and grabbed Robin, whose pain seemed to have been ceased with the breaking of Leviathan's power.
"You will leave him alone!" Starfire shouted. She fired a blinding eye-beam that exploded into emerald flames upon contact, scorching the writhing monster and causing it to lose its hold on the upper stalactites and fall downwards, shaking the entire cavern; it was only sheer luck that prevented anyone from being crushed by the monsters undulating body.
"Hey, look out! The ceiling!" Smoke managed to groan loud enough to warn the others from his position in the far-side of the cavern, his head in Blackfire's lap while she tried to put enough pressure on him to stop any bleeding that might be happening. She was pointing, too, at the ceiling…
Several enormous stalactites were wavering dangerously, loosened by the impact of Leviathan's plunge. Then, with a loud and grating crunch, they snapped and tumbled downwards point-first.
Cyborg, thinking quickly, took aim and began pumping out spheres of supersonic power, blowing apart the rocks and reducing most of them to harmless pea-gravel. However, fast as he was, there was one he didn't quite get to in time; it came downward straight toward him. Instinctively, he brought his huge metal arms up in front in an attempt to shield himself and avoid being skewered.
There was a flash of golden light, and the stalactite froze in midair.
For a moment, Cyborg was baffled, but he grinned when he looked to his immediate left and saw Terra at a fair distance, twisting her hands in front of her in a grabbing motion. Her eyes shone with the same golden light that now surrounded the stone spire.
Leviathan was up again and was now snarling angrily, slithering forward with a menacing look in its slit eyes.
Terra's face hardened in concentration, and she reared back, 'winding up' for a pitch like a baseball player—then, with a fling of her wiry arm, the stalactite shot itself forward on a missile trajectory, that golden glow propelling it forward from the back like a rocket.
The plan was foiled, however: Leviathan inhaled with a rattling hiss, and then, his eyes shone red as he exhaled a plume of noxious flames, like toxic napalm, that sprayed the immediate area in front of its mouth. Instantly, the stone projectile was vaporized into smoldering black ashes that faded into nothing.
"Wait a second…" Smoke groaned, prying himself from his comfortable spot in Blackfire's lap. "… How the Hell does a sea monster breathe fire?"
"I don't know! But lie back down; you're hurt!" Blackfire snapped with a wince. Although, the wound in question was already starting to shrink and the bleeding was reduced to an occasional droplet.
While Blackfire tried to restrain the overzealous gunman, Raven took advantage of Leviathan's pause—apparently to catch its foul breath after its flame attack—by chanting a quick phrase, and materializing ethereal dark wings from her cloak: black and spectral, and glittering with silvery light. They were obviously a product of magic, but still very convincing. She took flight, much faster than her usual levitation, and hurled herself headlong at the Leviathan.
She gave the ghostly wings a vicious flap, striking them together like cymbals, and a swarm of sizzling, black spirit feathers sprayed forth and stuck into Leviathan's reptilian face like needles in a pincushion. Then, just as it opened its mouth to roar, they burst into obsidian flames, torching its head with black magic and producing a hissing geyser of dark mist.
Ignoring the attack with surprising tenacity, the beast slithered forward with enough force to cause the weathered stone floor the rumble, and the deep pits of water in the area to slosh colossally, almost flooding over. Charred, but far from vanquished, The Leviathan opened it's ancient maw wide, and its bottom jaw began to unhinge like a massive snake's mouth. With the striking speed of an enormous basilisk, it lunged forward with murder in its glowing yellow-red eyes, orbs of poison in gaunt, oily sockets.
There was a horrific snap, like a thousand bear traps slamming shut in tandem, and a split-second's startled cry, and Raven was gone.
Sub-Zero, having been on the alert since the creature first appeared, saw his opportunity to act, knowing that any attempt by Cyborg to blow open the creature's jaws or Terra to crush it's mouth with a boulder… would probably hurt Raven. Yet, something had to be done before…
He took aim in an infinitely brief second, and hurled his shield, letting it whirl through the air like an ancient Greek discus. Seemingly of its own accord, the frozen, circular projectile swerved in midair a few times, curving almost gracefully into a broad arc and impacting powerfully with Leviathan's fangs in a shower of snowflakes and frost. In that moment, the large right-side fang that was struck crystallized and shattered, the shards quickly dissolving into small mounds of snow—and lo and behold, Raven, gasping and wretching from her exposure to the putrid fog of Leviathan's breath, tumbled out and landed, quivering, on the rough rocky ground.
In a moment, Sub-Zero was on one knee, with his cape slung around the addled Raven. "I don't mean to give Ghost competition…" He stated. "But you don't look so well." He smiled simply and brushed a bit off stinging goo off of her face. Raven could only smile wryly.
They were interrupted by an enormous rumble from behind…
Reflexively, Sub-Zero turned and drew his icy rapier, but realized as he stared up at the angry monstrosity that his sword, no matter how sharp, would be of little use against something so massive and close… it lunged at them again, and both Raven and Zero tensed, the knight bringing his retrieved shield up rather futilely as though to protect them…
… But the giant bite never came.
Without warning, a shadowy streak bolted in a straight line through the air, its dark black coloration curiously standing out against the dim background of the undersea cave. It collided like a Hellish comet into the side of Leviathan's head, knocking the giant monster over to the side with a crash, its writhing body sliding slowly off the cold stone walls…
Raven and Sub-Zero stared, stunned, as did the others… but only Raven spoke.
She blinked. "… Ghost…?"
"This sucks." Jinx said miserably as she popped a couple Tylenol capsules into her mouth and washed it down with some tea she'd got from the fridge. "Someone's apparently broke in, every one else is nowhere to be found, Mammoth and Gizmo ditched us to go look around…" A patter against a nearby windowpane. "… and this rain is only JUST starting to let up!" She wrinkled her gray nose. "I can't believe this… wherever they are, I hope Zero's all right. He's no pushover, but still…."
Shimmer glared, leaning against a pillar. "…… What do you see in him? He looks like some kind of zombie wannabe."
Jinx sighed. "He's only white like that because that's what his kind looks like. White hair, too. Same with his eyes…"
"… His…… kind…?" Shimmer said slowly, with a tone of subdued revulsion. "What do you mean?"
"Long story…" She saw Shimmer's bemused stare. "Look, he's human, OK? But anyway, it's not his looks, it's—" She stopped.
"It's what?" Shimmer simpered, almost mockingly. "He's sweet? He treats poor 'ittle Jinx like a porcelain doll that might break?"
"No!" Jinx said hotly, though she didn't admit that Zero was somewhat overprotective or accommodating sometimes… "Look, I love him. That's all that matters."
"Is it because he saved your life?" Shimmer asked, raising an eyebrow. "Or let me guess…" A wicked grin here. "… He's just very well made, if you catch my drift?"
Jinx went stark white, then reddened; she protested with a scowl: "… No! Stop it. Just…. Quit. There are more important things to be worrying about…"
TO BE CONTINUED…