The Darkest of Knights

"That's what I'm talking about!" Batgirl smiled focusing on the course of one rocket in particular, she was really under the gun now, if she was going to defeat him, she was going to need some help, or a perk. After all, she's just a normal human, she wasn't blasted from another planet, a batring didn't fall out of the sky, and she wasn't struck with a lightning bat bolt that made her Batgirl. Still, she was trained by the best. She kicked the rocket that was coming at her and backflipped with the momentum, the rocket spun out of course and hit blew up in front of the other incoming rockets. Explosions in the Sky. It was best to hide for now...

The Batship began to land on Titan Tower's rood where Red Robin was still training with Robin. Batman stepped out to see the two playing around, Rose observing. "Hey we're back." Batman said lightly hitting the roof with his soles. "Hey! Did you guys finish your mission?" Red Robin asked letting go of Robin's cape. "Why don't you ask Zero?"

Alice was crying at the bar and Cyborg was trying his best to cheer her up. They both heard something above the roof. "Sh*t! They're back already!" Alice sprung up. "What do we do?"She asked Cyborg, "Uhh, I assume we go greet them." "Oh sh*t."

Crimson stepped out of the batship and sat down on the ledge overlooking the shoreline in jump city."Well, it was fun and all but....what do i do now?" he said to himself.

Crimson continued to stare at the shoreline a bit more before he asked Zero his question: "hey, do you think its okay if i stay at the Titans tower now? i really dont have much of a home to go to anymore."

First off, Zero raised an eyebrow at crimson. "Not my place to call the shots, I'm afraid. That's up to bossman." He said, pointing to Batman.

But Zero felt like a million bucks right now, he couldn't deny that. He felt like he could take on the world in his heightened condition- and he knew he was going to need that boosted condition for the EQ later. No rest for them, not yet.

Metallo grunted in his frustration. "You drag me out here, talk a big game, then you keep squirreling about? Get out here you little rodent!" Metallo said angrily, getting more pissed by the moment. When you drag someone out to kill them, you usually try to kill them or at least have some kind of game plan. But this rat-tag attempt was just insulting to him.

[Okay, are we on the roof or inside?]

"Hey Kiddo!" Batman smiled happily wrapping his arm around Nicole in a hug. "Whoa.. Zero! Man you look good!" Cyborg said walking up to Zero. "Man! You look better than you looked when you were with the Titans!" He said in disbelief. Alice crept up to Batman who was smiling and laughing with Nicole and Tim, who had slipped his mask off. They were talking about the action that occurred while he was away. "Batman." Alice shivered over to him. "Alice! What's up?" he smiled hugging her lightly. Looking at Alice again, he knew something was wrong. "Alice, what happened?" he asked in a more concerned tone. "I don't know.. where Barbara left to and... Karmy yelled at me. She ran away too." Alice said burying her head into Batman's chest. "Whoa, whoa, what?!"

Batgirl—though she had been dodging most of his attacks, didn't mean she wasn't getting hurt—held onto her knee tightly, cursing under her breath, she moved her leg around to see the limits she could push with it. Her ribs were burnt by the blast that past her. Had she been any less careful her life expectancy would have been thrown out the window. She held her breath when she felt like Metallo was directing his attention in her vicinity. She had to come up with a plan. She checked her compartments in her belt for anything useful and found a fist full of Compound 4. Maybe that could do the trick, rig it up with some remote detonation, lead Metallo to a trap, and set it off. He sounded angry. Good.

"Okay, thanks." Crimson replied. He then walked over to batman. "Ummm...Batman, sir? if its okay with you, i'd be really grateful if you would let me stay at titans tower. I really dont have much of a home to go to anymore.

Roxie managed to duck out of the way, though her car wasn't so lucky. The blue sports mobile was quickly turned from an expression of her inner self into a pile of twisted scrap metal. The dark haired mob woman wasn't exactly pleased with that, and restored to simply dumping her purse out to find the trigger. It took half a second, but she found the switch Thorne had given her, and once she had vengeance for her car was to be had. She pressed that button like Metallo was going to explode the moment she did. Of course he didn't, all that really happened was a loud buzzing began to echo from the rolled cab of the would be escape vehicle. Though beyond the reaches of human sight the machine on its side in the back of the cab exploded with a sphere of electromagnetic energy, without any additional technology to focus the field, the generator wrapped the entire air field in a thick blanket of E.M. energy and every piece of technology within the field, including Roxie's cellphone, sputtered and died quiet unspectacularly.

Metallo was about to lunge for where Batgirl was and squash her iwht all his might, but he suddenly writhed in place. "Augh! Wh.....wh.... WHaT the HeLL iS thIS?!?" He aske,d his voice sputtering and dropping the extra parts he ahd absorbed. He dropped to his knees, sparking violently as his internal systems tried vainly to fight back. "GOd....dAmN... You....." He cursed as he tried to get away. Defenseles, he knew Batgirl wouldn't hesitate to take him out like this.

He came up with a new motto right then: Life is sh*t.

"Thanks, Cyborg." Zero said, not hesitating to divulge in showing off his condition. It wasn't everyday you dipped in a lazarus pit, and he wanted to live it up. He began to edge away when he saw Batman find out about Barbara taking off......

Karmy had been hiding in the towers airducts, cooling down from the incident earlier with Alice when she heard the tell tale voices of everyone who had come back. Their voices echoed around her, though she couldn't catch all of what they were saying, she got the gist of it. "Zero... Is... All.... Better." that was all she needed to hear. "And they didn't need me at all.." Karmy whispered painfully to herself.

Batgirl was surprised she didn't spot Metallo before, and more surprised what was happening to him. She kicked his chest and punched his mouth with the C4 still in hand. Retracting her hand as fast as she could she jumped out of the way and detonated the C4. The firey explosion pushed Batgirl away and through a wall. Coughing she staggered up and looked around. Her vision was mixed up. God... I feel like a poloroid photo. Then it hit her. Did.. did I kill Metallo? "Sh*t!" She stumbled out of wall she blew into to examine the damage. "Oh god.. oh god did I ... oh my god." She muttered walking out. "What the hell was that? An EMP?" She asked bewildered not particularly to anyone.

"Hold on. I gotta find Barbara.. and I gotta find Karmy, no one knows where they are." Batman mumbled turning on his sonar vision. He looked around, "Gotta find her recent places. See if she left any trail behind." Batman mumbled. He walked off still mumbling to himself pulling out a detective set from his belt.

"EMF... Actually." Roxie walked cautiously toward the red haired woman, discarding the generator trigger as she walked, let the thing run its batteries down it had served its purpose anyway. "A gift from Thorne... it was supposed to help bring Metallo in... but I guess this way saves the GPD some paper work." She was still adjusting her purse, trying to get everything back where it was supposed to be. Her car was totaled, and it would take a dozen men, or one meta-human to right the truck Metallo had rode in on. Hopefully Batgirl's bike worked inside an electromagnetic field, no real reason it shouldn't EM disrupted electrical impulse, might screw up a nav computer but a combustion engine ought to be fine.

Metallo is dog food- all but his head and a trace bit of his torso remained. The last words he said before he black out for nearly sixteen years: "God dammit..............." He then sparked violently and got very quiet, his Kryptonite core blown to smithereens and his body little more then scrapmetal.......

(She got rid of that a lil while ago, Red o_o)

[..................crap. I'll just edit that.]

Batgirl swayed back and forth. "Thorne. I... wow.. EMF." She was delirious, Batgirl knelt on the floor. The Bike was trashed from the start, several pieces were even absorbed in Metallo's body. Her communicator was screwed, cell phone, anything on her person was basically destroyed. And to make it worse, she passed out on the floor.

Karmy had been wandering aimlessly around the tower for hours, staying way out of sight,, after she had heard the news of Zero’s recovery. Don’t get the wrong idea, she was very happy that Zero was doing much better and had regained his sight, but, she couldn’t help but feel down about the whole deal. She had wanted to go so she could help Zero and, in a sense, help herself. But no, she couldn’t go because she was, “too high maintenance as it is” as Dick had put it. Of course he was right, but Karmy wouldn’t ever think of admitting that, she was just that stubborn.

All of Nicole’s clothes that Alice had given Karmy were burnt to ash on the shores of the tower. Karmy wanted nothing to do with the Bats even near her. Too bad she misplaced the journal, or she would have destroyed that too. She was now wearing a white shirt and a pair of shorts she found in the lantern bag and slipped on. There were streaks of dust standing out on the shirt from when she crawled through another air duct to avoid Red Robin, who had been in a hall she had been down. Eventually, she found herself standing in the dank, dark recesses of the towers basement. She had been in such deep thought, that she hadn’t even noticed where she had been going. “Like anyone cares..” she muttered as she walked around the basement.

Stumbling around the vast area, she caught sight of a dusty mirror. She approached the mirror and wiped away the dust, revealing her own image. The little light that spread across the room created a sunken look on Karmy’s face, almost as if she were an inch from death. Her eye’s still changed color, but there was no twinkle to them, they were glassy and dull. She looked at her pathetic figure; her bones were sticking out a bit more from her skin because of the lack of food and exercise.

“You look like crap.” Alice’s voice echoed in her head. “That’s not something a best friend should say..” she muttered to herself. She stood there for what seemed like forever, staring at practically a lifeless figure. “Stop mocking me..” she told her image. “I am the boss of you.” the voice of Dick said in her head. “No you’re not... I’m no ones pawn.” Her fists clenched as tears spilled from her eyes. "That's the type of attitude I'm talking about.” She shut her eyes but the voices continued. “Reckless.” She was shaking now. “STOP IT!” she shouted as she fell to her knees. “Rebellious.” She covered her ears. “You don’t know me!!” she cried. “Dangerous.”

Karmy’s fist smashed into the mirror, causing it to shatter, the broken pieces falling to the ground. Panting heavily, she was on her hands and knees on the broken mirror. Cuts and lacerations were all over her palms and knee caps and she was shaking, not from pain, but from a strange euphoria that had overcome her. Her hands shook as she looked at them, they were glistening slightly from the blood and micro shards of glass that stuck to them. “You hate us all.” Karmy reached over and picked up a large, jagged piece of the broken mirror. “I don’t hate you..” the blade hovered above her arm. “I don’t want to hate you..” she touched the blade to her pale skin. “But she hates you.” Her own voice said in her head as she dragged the glass over her skin, slicing her arm open. Karmy didn’t even flinch.

Blood spilled from the wound. “They all hate you, especially him.” Salty tears rained down onto her arm, mixing with the blood. “You’ve lost her to him.” More blood spilled with another cut. “He doesn’t care.” Blood stained her white shirt. “No one trusts you.” She could feel nerves tearing with each slice. “You’re useless.” Her arm was shaking severely, but she held the shard tight. “I let everyone down..” she whimpered. “You failed..” she held the blade over her wrist. “I..” she stuttered. “Casey’s gone, you know you should.” Karmy nodded. “I give up.”

Karmy thought of ending it right there. Taking her time before she did the deed, she examined the shard of glass more and she saw the image of a bat.


"Karmy." He said his arms raised, "What have you done?" The Shadow continued to walk forward, inching closer to Karmy. The Dark Knight looked more sinister in the low light, and as he approached her, he knelt. "Took me a while to get a trail, but I finally found you." He said softly.

"You!" Karmy stumbled back until she hit the wall. "G-g-get away." she held up the shard defensively with her good arm, though it still shook like crazy. The only reason she was doing that was for her own sense of protection. She held her bloodied arm close to her chest, just now feeling the terrible pain coursing through it. Her skin was pale from blood loss and all the scars over Karmy's body were dark on her body. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" she whimpered, tears still spilling down her cheeks. "Haven't you done enough to me?!"

"Oh my god." Batman mused taking off his mask, he pulled a roll of gauze out. "Let me see your arm." He ordered unraveling the knitted fabric. "Give me your arm! You're going to die of blood loss!" He panicked trying to grab Karmy's bad arm. He knew the risks in doing this. He just prayed he wouldn't end up looking like Slade.

"No!" Karmy curled up tighter. "Stop ordering me around like a child!" she said, even though she really was acting like one. A very depressed child. "I haven't been a kid since I was 8 so don't you be treating me like one! You cant." her face was wet with tears. "You are not better than me!"

Dick took a step back. She would rather die than submit to him for even a second. He shook his head and sighed. "Life changing choices are something we all have to make Karmy." He said to her as more blood ran down her arm. "This is just one of those choices." He cut the gauze with his hands. "Let me help you."

Karmy was reminded of Caspian for a second, he was the only one she would ever listen to. There was a connection between her and him and the Insomnio's that she couldn't really explain, and probably never could. Slowly, she pulled her arm away from her blood soaked stomach and held it out to Dick. "W-why are you doing this?" she choked out.

Dick wasted no time, Karmy already knew it was going to hurt, but he began to wrap her arm in the gauze. "Despite what you may think, I'm doing it because I care about you." Dick said plainly. "Plus, Alice came to me in tears, I frankly don't want her to see you like this." Dick said not beginning to create pressure in Karmy's arm. He sighed after finish up Karmy's arm. "Any other injuries?" He asked inspecting her.

Karmy shook her head silently, not looking at Dick. "You shouldn't care about me.." she said. "De skyldige får altid deres straf." she stated. In her travels around the world, Karmy had picked up various languages, not knowing them fully, but just a little bit. A little's enough.

Working with a man bent on justice for the death of his parents, he knew that all too well. "Yeah, heard you did a lot of killing back in the day." Dick said taking a seat. "But to be fair, you had no choice in the matter. I don't care about your actions and you've been nothing but a perfect ass to me, and I don't care about that." He told her rather frankly. "You're too special for that to get in the way of helping you."

(For those who don't get it, Karmy said: "The guilty always get their punishment")

"I am not special." Karmy admitted blatantly as she lay a hand over her bandaged arm. Only a little bit of blood was seeping through, Dick had wrapped it up tight enough. "I'm dangerous, right?" she muttered. "Alice.. Shot me.."