Disclaimer: Not mine, never were.

A/N: Written for Shadow Diva as part of the Boiz and Gurlz ficlet-request meme on LiveJournal. She requested Bumblebee, Pantha and the prompt 'not damsels'. Please do NOT tell me this is not long enough or not a real fic. It is a ONE SHOT and intended to be only a snippet of a possible scenario in the TT universe. Also, all Spanish is courtesy of Babelfish.

No Damsel in Distress

© Scribbler, January 2008.

I am not a pretty girl,
that is not what I do;
I ain't no damsel in distress
and I don't need to be rescued.

-- From Not a Pretty Girl by Ani Difranco.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight on Winter Solstice, the longest nght of the year, and everywhere is covered with snow – except the apace within in a small circle atop the slope outside Jump City.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight and a group of demon-worshippers are dancing around their fire like the biggest cliché since the giant robot.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight and Bumblebee can just see three figures against the horizon, tied to a wooden frame covered in signs and sigils daubed in blood.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight and the trees are all gone, scorched to bare earth in the detonation of magic that caught everything and everyone in its path and blasted them into other worlds – other dimensions.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight and Pantha's bleeding out on the floor.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight and Bumblebee's left wrist is a pulpy mass of broken bone, her left elbow scraped down to the joint.

It's fifteen minutes to midnight, and in fifteen minutes the world's going to end if they don't do something.

"Pantha." Bumblebee's voice is scratchy from screaming. She hasn't cried in pain (no point since the intense heat would evaporate her tears before they have time to reach her cheeks), but she sure as hell screamed when the Trigonites' summoned pets tore her wings to pieces. "Hey, Pantha, you awake?"

A grunt, a judder across the older girl's shoulders and a rumble of Spanish. "¿Qué me golpeó? Did anyone get the licence plate number of that truck?"

"That weren't no truck, that was a bunch of freaking flying monkeys, I think." Bumblebee stumbled to her feet. "C'mon. We gotta – nggh – we gotta move before they come back." She didn't actually think they'd come back. The Trigonites had far bigger fish to fry now than two injured Titans their magic had missed. She did think they had to move, though. They had to get up, get back into action, do what they'd trained and sworn to do the day they took the oath to become Titans.

"Usted es un idiota. We are only two and feeble. They are many and strong."

"So?"

Pantha turned her face towards her. One half of her mask was torn, the face beneath burned red but the eye still a perfect, delicate shade of yellow. Her fur was gone but she was smiling. "I would expect no less of an answer from you."

Bumblebee extended a hand and awkwardly they got up and leaned against each other for support. "I'm so predictable?"

"You are a good Titan, un ejemplo perfecto de cuál es bueno sobre esta gente," Pantha said through fangs clenched tighter than a politician's lips about election promises. "Your team would be proud of you."

Bumblebee resisted the urge to break down then. She hadn't up to that point, keeping herself focused on the goal they'd all shared – save Raven from her father's worshippers so they couldn't sacrifice her and use her blood to resurrect him to lay waste to this world. Save Jinx and Argent from also being sacrificed so their raw magical powers couldn't sustain the portal for Trigon's minions to also come through. Get back Herald's bugle so Trigon couldn't move on from this world to the next, and the next, and the next …

That target, that purpose kept Bumblebee going even after she saw her friends and teammates snatched away like flotsam dragged out to sea. The mission stayed uppermost in her brain, providing a buffer between her and the stack of traitorous emotions clawing to reduce her to a quivering wreck in the dust.

When Pantha mentioned her team a burst of random memories flooded her mind before she could push them away – Mas and Menos eating toasted candy bar sandwiches; Aqualad swimming backstroke in his pool; Speedy on the practise range showing off as usual. And then … then the wicked javelin of white-hot energy surging from the worshippers' circle, searing through her boys on the ground and ripping them away as Bumblebee herself tumbled to earth covered in whooping imps.

"Usted tiene razón." Pantha swallowed her own obvious pain. Titans South had followed the Trigonites after they kidnapped Argent, but Pantha was as honourable as she was strong. She would've come even if her team didn't also have a teammate at stake out here. "You are right. We cannot betray their sacrifice. We must do what we can."

"Damn straight." Bumblebee distanced herself from the memories of losing the other Titans – Robin plucked from the air mid-flip, Starfire rushing right into the energy to save him, Herald's discarded body tossed out of the circle, Kid Flash dissolving into a flurry of over-vibrating molecules as he tried to reach Jinx … "Ain't no prince on his white charger gonna save this fairytale. Just two very pissed-off princesses."

Pantha laughed, a resonant sound that started far down in her chest and rippled outward like bubbles frothing up the neck of a champagne bottle. "As you say – damn straight. They shall see that we are not weak damsels. We are fearsome warriors, and we shall be victorious this night!"

They didn't know how, just that they had to try. They didn't even know how they were going to get their thrashed and failing bodies across the battlefield in time to do anything, much less save the day. They might die before they made it halfway. Trigon might return before they took five steps. There might be other Titans who'd escaped the blast like them, who were less injured and better able to perform the daring rescue they needed. Teen Titans were great at pulling a deus ex machina. They'd done it before and, damn it, they were going to get the chance to do it again someday.

Maybe.

Pain radiated from Bumblebee's left arm and kidneys. For all she knew she had internal bleeding. Still, they had to at least try. For all their missing friends and the one they could see on the hillside, they could do no less.

Bumblebee's smile was diamond-hard. "You go, girlfriend."

Fin.

A/N - The phrase deus ex machina (literally 'god out of a machine') describes an artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation, untangle a plot or solve an impossible crisis (e.g. an angel suddenly appearing to solve problems, or characters previously thought dead coming in to save the day).