Chapter Text
Go!
“Grue!” I yelled out before running to him. I had thought he’d died in one of Bakuda’s bombs.
“Hey,” Grue assured me, “I’m alright. Fooled her, huh?”
“Fooled me. You scared the shit out of me,” I shook my head as I answered, “You prick.”
“Nice to know you care,” Grue laughed, “Come on. We should grab Bakuda and get out of here, we need to find out what happened to Bitch and the money.”
“Sounds like a-” I had started before everything went white. Every inch of my body burned in agony. Nothing in my life even came close to comparing to the pain that enveloped me.
I tried to see past the white in my eyes but only received a flash of pain behind my lids. Each time I opened an eye the blinding light faded a little.
I tried to stand but my movement was limited by my pain. My thoughts were still jumbled around about as bad as the rest of me.
There was a muffled sound of people talking not too far from me. Some of the voices were making their way through. I just needed to focus on them and draw myself out.
“What on Earth was that?” A male voice asked from afar.
“Something crashed and exploded.” A woman said.
Then a third, “It was a comet or something, it was green and streaked through the sky.”
“Listen! Someone’s screaming!” It did sound like someone was screaming, oh wait. That was me, Bakuda’s bomb must have done something to my head. Also what was that about a green streak? Was that the color of her bomb, was the streak me being launched across the sky?
Then just a few feet away from me a girl's voice was yelling, “Slopforn ivortmat!” Either the words didn’t make sense or I was heavily concussed. Possibly both.
I saw a blotch of red and two shiny green orbs below. She repeated herself and then the red thing moved toward me. I was able to make features out at that point.
The red was her hair and the green glowing things, her eyes. For some reason she had orange skin. My brain tried to process what was going on and what she might have been trying to say.
“Gokta buhovna!” She was inches from my face, and from the looks of things she seems a bit worried. Around her face was some kind of face framing crown. Then she got closer and I felt something touch against my lips.
It wasn’t exactly a bad feeling, I think? Something about it was important though, but I couldn't bring myself to think of why. Was this some cape that had come to save me?
“Are you okay?” I could finally understand her.
“Bakuda...bomb. Cape, pretty.” My voice sounded thin and rough to my own ears.
“I do not understand. I believe that I have crashed on top of you? I am the sorry. Please, I do not wish to cause further harm. Do you have a location I may take you, so that you do not suffer any more harm?”
“What’s going on here?” A guy's voice asked from above, he sounded around my age, maybe a bit younger if I was forced to guess, “Is she okay?”
“I have landed on her, please I must go! Take care of this one, you will be destroyed if you follow me.” With that the girl seemingly disappeared upward from my view.
“Wait!” The guy yelled after the girl, “Guess she can fly. Are you okay?” He walked over to me and I saw a young caucasian kid with spiky black hair wearing a domino mask. I tried to speak but all that came out was a drawn out moan, “Suppose not.”
A high pitched voice then spoke from behind me, “I came when I saw the meteor hit! Ex-Doom Patrol member Beast Boy reporting in! How can I help? Woah, you’re Robin!”
“Yeah, I am. Can you take this girl to someplace safe? I need to go after the other one.” Robin told Beastboy. My vision came back slowly. I was finally able to focus on both of them.
Robin was wearing a red armored vest with a yellow letter ‘R’ inside a black circle over the left side of his chest. Green sleeves poked out from underneath only stopping right before his elbows. Around his hand and forearms were green gloves.
Matching both his undershirt and gloves were green tights with black ankle high steel toed boots. Around his waist he wore a yellow utility belt. Starting at his neck was a black cape with a yellow interior.
The other person, Beast Boy’s most noticeable feature was his green skin, what little of it I could see. He wore a purple and gray mask that accommodated enormous looking ears.
For his costume he had a one piece bodysuit that was black on either side with purple down the middle that ended when it got around his thighs swapping back to black. Around his waist was a simple gray utility belt, and on his feet were black boots.
“Yeah I totally saw all that, she seemed kinda scared,” Beast Boy rubbed the back of his head, “Well she also seemed pretty concerned for this girl too, plus there was that kiss…”
“Yeah,” Robin turned away from the green boy, “The glowing girl didn’t seem bad, but what made her crash here?”
“Glowing girl? Is that who was messin’ up my neighborhood?” A deeper voice drew my eyes to a very tall person in a grey hoodie.
“She crashed here and landed on this girl. She’s wearing a costume, let me just ask,” Robin looked back down at me, “Are you a hero?”
I did my best to nod through the pain, I had been with the Undersiders even if I was undercover. I just hoped no one figured out who I had just been with.
“That is one intimidating costume,” Beast Boy whistled, “Even with parts of it damaged she still looks pretty badass!” Damaged?
“Are you going to help her or not?” A deep gravelly girl’s voice made itself known. I watched as a girl in a hooded navy blue cloak walked towards the group. Keeping the cloak shut was a round red jewel with gold underneath.
Despite wearing a hood I could make out some features on the girl now standing above me in the crater I found myself in. She had violet eyes with a small nose and a slightly frowning mouth.
She stepped into the crater before putting her arms out through the cloak, “Azarath Metrion Zinthos.” Her hands started to glow and slowly the pain in my body subsided.
With her arm out of the cloak it opened enough for me to be able to see the rest of her, and her costume. She had pale gray skin. Around her hands were fingerless dark navy blue gloves.
They led into cuffs the same navy blue as her cloak into dark navy blue sleeves that connected into a leotard. Around her waist was a thin gold belt decorated with several of the same jewels on the clasp of her cloak.
“Healer?” I asked. I could only think of one healer in Brockton and it was Panacea. Hell I could count the number of healing capes I knew on one hand. None of them had a description that matched this girl.
“And a few other things,” The girl rasped with a voice that made me shiver a bit.
“Nice to meet you all, I’m Beast Boy,” The green teen introduced himself to us, “Who are you guys?”
“The name is Cyborg,” The tall guy from before took off his hood to reveal the left half of his face was metal filled with blue circuits and other cybernetics.
His left eye was glowing red and seemed to have the same range of movement as a regular one. He was black and looked to be in his late teens.
“Robin,” Robin introduced himself.
“My name is Raven,” The girl said with no shift in tone. Then they all turned to look at me.
“Uh...Weaver?” I shrugged, I had to come up with something. Bug sounded way too cutesy and everything else I thought of was too intimidating for a bug cape. The first thing I felt in my range was an ant, that’s when the name came to me.
After a few minutes of healing I was feeling like myself. I was able to stand and the fuzziness in my head was gone. I looked around and saw that I was in front of some kind of pizza place.
It didn’t look like Brockton at all. For one thing it was too clean. The air was much cleaner and the buildings were all in one piece, and the people that had gathered to look at us didn’t seem like Brocktonites.
Unless Bakuda had somehow chased us somewhere to one of the better parts of Brockton it was safe to say I was somewhere else. The problem was where.
I caught my own reflection in one of the car windows next to me. The bottom half of my mask was damaged along with one of my sleeves. Blood had stained the middle of my costume and seeing the amount, I was glad Raven had healed me.
“Where exactly are we?” I asked the group.
“We’re in Jump City,” Cyborg explained.
“Jump City?” I couldn't remember such a place.
“You were pretty badly hurt and had a major concussion, but I healed that first. You seem to remember your name. What day is it?” Raven asked.
“Uh, April something 2011.” I couldn't exactly remember the date off the top of my head but I knew we were about one or two weeks into April.
“2011?” Robin looked surprised behind his mask, “You’re a few years off, it’s 2003.”
“What!?” I yelled. What happened? There was no way it was 2003, it just didn’t make sense. It just wasn’t possible that I somehow made it to some city I had never heard of, at least near Brockton in 2003.
“Time travel maybe?” Beast Boy rubbed his chin.
Robin nodded slightly, “Possible.”
No it wasn’t, unless somehow Bakuda had bombed me through time? No, there was no way she had bombs like that. Sure she had that crazy bomb that melted that one ABB. But a time travel bomb? That was pushing some of the Tinker magic BS.
“What’s the world's most famous hero?” Beast Boy asked me.
“Alexandria, or Eidolon.” Maybe Legend but I felt the other two out shined him just a little bit.
“Multiverse?” Cyborg guessed.
“I’m from Earth Bet, I guess it’s possible I was blown up here?” I gestured to the city.
“Blown through the multiverse, I think that’s a first?” Cyborg looked around at the group. The rest shrugged.
“I’m sorry, but now that you’re healed and safe, I need to go after that girl,” Robin spoke, drawing everyone’s attention, “Once that’s solved I can see about getting you in contact with someone from the League.”
“You’re going after the alien?” Raven asked.
“Alien?” I muttered under my breath.
“They're actually pretty common here, if they aren’t from where you’re from,” Beast Boy whispered to me.
“I have to find out if she's a threat,” Robin answered Raven.
“She was scared, angry, and confused. A bad combination, even if she was normally nice, sometimes things can go wrong with those combinations of emotions,” Raven explained.
“Emotion reader too?” I raised a brow under my mask. She looked back nonplussed and raised a brow of her own dryly.
“We should work together, we can cover more ground,” Beast Boy reasoned, “We should bring Weaver too, she clearly liked her enough to well, you know,” He trailed off.
My face started to heat up. That’s when I remembered the first thing that happened when I exploded here. The alien girl who I’d been next to kissed me. What the hell was up with that? Some kind of alien custom?
“I just went solo, I don’t exactly want to join another team. However, for this situation it might benefit to work together for a short time,” Robin looked thoughtful, “Anything we might need to know about one another?”
“I can transform into any animal!” Beast Boy shouted out in excitement.
“Versatile,” I commented.
“I have a few weapons built into my body, along with a few other gadgets.” Cyborg shrugged.
“I do Magic,” Raven crossed her arms and spoke in the same voice as usual.
“Like real magic? Is that a thing here?” I asked, looking around.
“Yep!” Beast Boy nodded, “Though I can’t say I know that much as far as details.”
“And you?” Robin had turned to me.
“I control bugs, including spiders, and some crustaceans for some reason,” I explained.
Beast Boy snapped his fingers, “Oh! Your name is Weaver like the ant! Those eyes on your mask are like bug’s eyes. Nice!”
“My costume is also made from spider silk.” Beast Boy looked it over then flashed me a thumbs up.
“Alright now that we’ve gotten some basic information we can track her,” Robin started.
“Uh, what about you?” I asked, raising a finger.
“What about me?” Robin crossed his arms.
“What are your powers?”
“I don’t have any.”
“You’re a hero, but you don’t have powers?” That seemed dumb, how had he not died yet? Aliens, magic, and I assume a bunch of other people with powers. Had he only just gotten started?
“Dude, he was trained by Batman!” Beast Boy jumped in, “You might not know him, but he’s like one of the most famous heroes. I’m pretty sure if he wanted he could take down any villain if he needed to.”
“That’s…not even Tinker powers?” I asked again.
“I’ve built a few gadgets, but that’s just from learning how to. I have no intelligence or building powers.”
I shook my head, no sense in arguing, “Fine, you can hold your own.” Suddenly I felt all the bugs around the area scattering around, “Something’s coming.”
I looked up into the sky and saw a gigantic red ship flying overhead, it was round in the back and pointed outward in two sharp points. A hatch underneath the ship opened up before dropping some kind of pod. Which landed on an island in the middle of the bay.
“Space girl’s friends maybe?” Cyborg guessed.
“Or enemies,” Robin pointed out.
A blue beam shot into the sky from the pod and an enormous hologram appeared. The hologram was of some kind of green scaled alien with a tail. It had a yellow chest plate and fins over parts of its body.
Then it started talking, “People of Earth! We come to your planet hunting a very dangerous escaped prisoner. Do not interfere, and we will leave your city with only minimal damage. But if you attempt to assist her your destruction will be absolute.”
With the message done the hologram vanished. The middle of the pod opened in the middle revealing hundreds of aliens that looked like the one in the hologram. Then they unfurled their wings before taking off towards the city.
“So they threatened to damage the city no matter what, then just said they would destroy Earth if we helped what I assume is the orange girl.” I hoped my voice conveyed the proper emotion.
“Sounds to me like they don’t know how things work around here,” Cyborg punched into his own palm.
“Let’s find her first, then go from there,” Robin said.
“I’ll look for her scent,” Beast Boy turned into a bloodhound and started sniffing. I sent out bugs to search for the alien girl and made sure to keep track of the other aliens as well.
“She’s still around here,” Raven said, “I can sense her.”
“Can you give me a general direction?” I asked. After she pointed I sent a wave of bugs in that direction. My bugs found the familiar figure from the crater due north of us, “I got her.”
I started moving where she was and the rest of the group followed. The entire way I made sure we avoided running into any of the green aliens.
After a good distance we were in front of a video store with a giant hole in the front of it. She gave no indication she knew we were there.
I watched as she consumed boxes of candy and tubs of popcorn all displayed around the counter of the store. “Uh, those taste better without the wrapper,” Beast Boy’s voice broke through the loud eating. I wanted to hit him.
She turned around and I was able to see her for the first time while being fully recovered. She had armored undergarments over which she wore a black top and skirt.
“I told you, you would be destroyed if you followed me.” The girl was looking at Robin, “The Gordanians are a brutal race. If they find you with me, you will die.”
“Is this race of aliens normally this intense when it comes to prisoners? ” I asked.
“Have you recovered?” She looked at me, “That is good, however you are doing the misunderstanding I am no prisoner. They wish to recapture me as their prize, I would be made a slave to them for the rest of my days.”
“Well then, it looks like you won’t be going with them,” Robin stepped forward, “We’ll do our best to help you.”
“Yeah, slavery is something we put down with prejudice around these parts,” Cyborg agreed.
“Incoming!” I yelled, right before a Gordanian fired at us Raven reached out and a wall of darkness blocked the blast. The orange girl’s fists glowed green and she hurled the glowing green bolts at the aliens.
The first wave went down as I told every bug in my control that could attack to do so. Beast Boy charged in as a Rhino and started clearing the aliens. Orange girl flew in and started whaling on some Gordanians standing against her.
Cyborg threw a few punches of his own at the group. Robin pulled out a telescopic staff before running in with a few flips and beating any of the Gordanians that got close. Raven threw a few of them around while I stayed in the back.
Much to my surprise they all went down pretty easy. Guess they weren’t that powerful, outside of the video store there was a pile of Gordanians with the rest of them leaving the fight.
“I must thank you all,” The orange girl spoke to us.
“We’re just doing what’s right,” Robin waved her off.
Cyborg’s voice then shouted out over the rest of us, “Aw man, my disguise!”
I turned to look and saw that he was now missing most of his clothes, the rest of it just becoming rags and threads wrapped around his metal body.
It seemed the only parts of him that weren’t robotic were the upper parts of his arm just below his shoulder on either arm and the right side of his face.
I had no idea if he did it to himself, it was his power, or someone else had done it to him, but he looked like he’d be hard to take down.
“So? You look way cooler without it,” Beast Boy tried to placate Cyborg’s worries.
“Yeah. Like I'm taking fashion advice from the guy in the stupid lookin’ mask.”
“Stupid!?” Beast Boy quickly turned to the rest of us, “My mask isn’t stupid is it?”
“No comment,” I raised my hand palm forward.
“But...what about my secret identity?” He tugged on the bottom of his mask.
“You're green. What secret identity?” Raven asked blankly.
“Oh, then I guess it doesn’t really matter then?” Beast Boy asked before pulling off his mask and tossing it to the side. He had short hair and his ears were pointed and just as green as his face.
“Fools! You Earth scum were warned. Your insolence will be punished.” We heard the voice of the hologram before speaking. We all rushed outside to see the pod had reactivated.
“Trogaar!” Orange girl identified the alien.
“Your city shall be destroyed!” Trogaar yelled as a projection.
The projection went out again. The ship above the pod started to open up from below and a cannon popped out before it looked like it started to charge.
“Crap,” Raven sighed still without a hint of emotion behind her words.
“So, after trashing the street and a video store, now we've managed to make a space gecko mad enough to vaporize our entire town?” Beast Boy looked at us.
“Go team…” Cyborg raised a single fist half way.
“I had warned you all leave me alone, but you insisted upon the helping.” Orange girl looked upset.
“We made our bed, now we have to deal with it,” I then remembered something, “Before we get any further I’d like to ask your name. If we need your attention I don’t want to just yell, ‘Hey you!’”
“Oh, yes. I am Koriand'r, and my species is Tamaranean,” Said girl told us. We all introduced ourselves to her from there.
“Alright, now that we have that settled, what do we do about the giant laser pointing at the city?” I looked at the rest of them, “Does anyone have anything that can do any damage on that scale? Cyborg maybe?”
“Nothing like that, no,” Cyborg shook his head.
“If we could get inside we might be able to turn it off,” Robin suggested, “The three of you can fly us up there-”
“Or I can just teleport us,” Raven interrupted.
“That’d work, but can you teleport somewhere you can’t see? What are the hard limits on something like that?” I asked the pale girl.
“There are none.”
“Oh, okay then.”
We all gathered around her, and darkness from her power surrounded us. Her hands glowed then instantly my body felt a slight chill. Then we were in a different place.
The darkness uncircled us and we were on some kind of catwalk. The walls were brick red and made up of metal and along the walls there was some advanced tech.
“That dark energy stuff gives me the-” Beast Boy was shivering as he spoke before Raven stared at him, “I mean, it’s awesome.”
“I don’t have that many bugs up here, I still might be able to scout a few places but we’re pretty high up and out of my range from most of the bugs,” I told the group.
“Let’s get to the firing controls, we don’t want to alert them,” Robin spoke before moving out ahead first. I stuck the few bugs I had on the group so that none of us got too split up. Then followed.
After following the group for a little bit we ran into a group of Gordanians looking to ambush us, “Guess they already knew we were here,” I said.
“Probably have cameras everywhere,” Robin nodded, “No use wasting time, let’s push through.”
Push through we did, it seemed that despite even having an advantage on their own ship most of these clearly advanced aliens were pushovers. At the end of the hall there was a large door that led to the bridge.
“On three, one, two, three!” Robin yelled before Koriand'r and Cyborg blasted through the metal door letting us through. Inside was Trogaar from the hologram, and he was taller than the rest of them. Some kind of alien alpha was my guess.
He growled at us and every other alien on the deck charged our group. I pulled my bugs back to my body and used them to help me dodge each strike that came my way.
If I put my bugs on the ends of their weapons I was able to track where the weapon was in space. All I really had in terms of offense was my knife, so each time one would strike out at me I would cut their hand making them drop their weapon.
Then the others would take out the scaps I left. After a bit we were down to just Trogaar. Beast Boy turned into a kangaroo and jumped at the tall alien before being batted away into a nearby wall.
Trogaar leapt into the air to smash down on top of Beast Boy but Raven came up from the floor to block each strike with her magic. Robin leapt onto his shoulders and started pounding away at the top of the Gordanian Alpha’s head.
I pulled every bug in the room and pushed them into the face, nose, and mouth of Trogaar. He flailed wildly, unable to breathe or fight back against the rest of the team.
Cyborg ran at Trogaar and delivered a punch into the chest of the big alien, just as Robin flipped away smashing Trogaar into the wall like he had done to Beast Boy.
Koriand’r flew forward and delivered one final blow to the head of Trogaar knocking him unconscious, and killing my bugs in the process. A little annoying but if the job was done whatever.
“Now to disable the laser!” Robin yelled. We all turned to look at the deck and saw control panels all over. Outside the window, the laser was reaching a high pitch. It was going to fire and soon, “New plan, take down the ship so we can get out of here.”
While the rest of them started smashing up the place I moved next to Raven to be teleported when it was time. I’d leave the smashing to them. I watched as Cyborg messed around with his arm before it turned into some kind of cannon.
He fired it into one of the panels and I felt the ship start to tilt, down into the bay the ship fell. Everyone gathered around me and Raven and she teleported us to the island the Gordanians had put their pod on.
We all watched in the distance as the ship smashed into the water down for the count. “All right, I'm only gonna say this one time but, Boo Yah!” Cyborg cheered.
“I have to make some calls, so stay settled everyone,” Robin spoke before reaching for his belt and pulling out some kind of device.
Koriand’r then spoke to us, “I must thank and apologize to you all. You have saved me from the Gordanians but because of my escape they attacked your city.”
“You did the right thing, a little damage to this city is a small thing compared to slavers.” Cyborg assured her, “We’d probably have to deal with these guys sometime anyway. They didn’t seem to be the nicest guys in the universe.”
“Nicest? We do not have a word for that on my planet,” Koriand’r put a single finger to her chin, “Closest we have is rutha, which means weak to you all.”
“There isn’t anything weak about being nice, sometimes it’s much stronger to be nice even in the face of adversity,” Cyborg smiled.
“Then I find all of you to be the very nicest!” Koriand’r cheered.
“Weaver, I need you to talk to someone for me,” Robin came back and tossed me the same device he was speaking to seconds ago.
I looked at it and saw a face on the other side, a man with a black cowl that had pointed ears. It covered the top of his head but not the lower half of his face. “Weaver, I hear you have a bit of a multiverse problem. For now let’s get some paperwork started…”
I answered a few questions and while that happened robots came down from the sky to pick up the Gordanian ship that had crashed into the bay. Not seconds later as the ship was lifted out of the water the sun started to rise on the city and shined off the bay.
“That's quite a view,” Raven said from my right, I found myself nodding in agreement.
Cyborg whistled, “Somebody oughta build a house out here.”
“Please Weaver, do I still I look, cape pretty?” I heard Koriand'r voice and turned around to see her wearing a purple armorless version of the outfit she had on before. A purple crop top, framed her orange skinned stomach leading into a silver belt that held up a matching miniskirt.
Thigh high purple boots with silver soles and bands at the top wrapped around her calves and feet. Around her neck was a silver gorget with a round green gem embedded into it.
Her arms were braced with silver gauntlets with the same green gems over the backs of her hands, and a single silver armband on her upper right arm.
“Uh, yeah,” I was glad to be wearing a mask to hide whatever face I was making underneath. Still with the bottom missing I’m sure they could see my unnerved grin. “You are still...cape pretty, Koriand’r.”
“In your language my name translates to Starfire if you would be more comfortable with that,” She put her right arm around the inside of the crook of her left elbow.
“Well, welcome to Earth Starfire,” Robin nodded at her.
“Would it be alright if I called you Kori too?”
“Yes! I would very much enjoy that,” She had a big smile on her face and waved her arms up and down in excitement, “I do not know how your Earth customs work, but I wish to remain here. You are all so nice.”
“I can set something up for you like I did Weaver, but it will have to be through different channels. Multiverse travel is a bit more complex than just citizenship,” Robin told her.
“That’s not something I’d ever expect to hear,” I commented aloud.
“So Robin,” Beast Boy drew the other boy's attention, “Are you still planning on going solo?”
“Maybe for a little bit, but down the road I don’t see why the six of us couldn't become a team. In fact,” Robin reached into his belt and pulled out six disks, “Cyborg, you think you can make some communicators for all of us.”
“It’ll be a piece of cake,” Cyborg smiled and got to work. Soon enough we were each handed a communicator. One by one each of them left the island until it was just Robin, Starfire, and I.
“Weaver the League will send a ship down to collect you. As you have nowhere to go, they have chosen to invite you to the Watchtower. Once all the paperwork goes through they will set you up with a bank account with enough money to keep you settled for a while,” Robin explained. He and Starfire then flew off into the city to get Starfire citizenship.
Just as he said minutes later a ship came for me and took me to what looked like a giant satellite floating just outside Earth’s atmosphere. Outside of everything else it really sealed in the fact that I wasn’t on Earth Bet anymore.
I felt a sudden sense of guilt at never being able to see my father or any of the Undersiders again. I might have gone undercover to turn in the Undersiders.
But for as short of a time that we spent together I truly felt a connection. Now I’d never see them or anyone from my home world again. Then my guilt seemed to dissipate as the bugs in my hair shivered around me. Wonder what that was about.