I do not believe humanity is weak.
Indeed, I am well versed in the strengths of humanity. I know what human beings can do by instinct, what their deepest parts of their brains tell them to do.
Human muscles cannot lift vehicles, yet mothers have done so, moving several thousand pound cars to save their children trapped beneath. What they cannot do becomes irrelevant: all that matters is what they MUST do.
There is strength in that, but far more often, the true strength lies in the defiance of such primitive, outmoded urges.
The greatest human urge is to survive...yet there are soldiers who have sacrificed themselves by throwing their bodies on grenades so their fellows can survive. Giving up their lives so that others may live.
There were those who guarded Jewish people during the Holocaust, when doing so was certain death. And many did die when they were found out, but that does not change the fact of what led to their deaths.
And when firemen go into burning buildings, they are forcing themselves into a hostile environment, in order to preserve the lives of others.
There is strength in humanity.
And yet...in their strength, so much weakness blooms.
The strength of humanity has allowed them to dominate the world, to twist it to their will and their desire. Strength, it seems, often needs obstacles to emerge, to develop. In this world we live in, such obstacles seem to dwindle daily. And in that loss, weakness comes.
And in weakness comes waste. Such gifts we have, such strength we command, and yet we utilize it poorly, throw it away, abuse it. We are possibly the best of all life there is, and yet so many of us fail.
They do not have proper perspective.
There is a Latin expression, 'Memento Mori'. Roughly translated, it means 'Remember you will die'.
That is the core of such weakness. The prospect of death, and its brother pain, is so far away from so many of these misguided, wasteful fools that they never grasp it. How can people properly use and enjoy life if they does not understand death?
I am no exception. I was once weak as well. But when confronted with death, I challenged it and emerged enlightened.
Many have been my tests, of many who have wasted their life. Many of those have ended in death, as they would have eventually. I have seen many forms of human failing.
And in that I have been set to a task, to the most complicated game I have ever devised. Strange circumstances have brought it about, and it will be a grave test for all involved. Myself included.
I am prepared.
And in that fact, the game is mine...
Somewhere in a city, on its lesser walked streets, within a building battered down by neglect and the ages...
The lights were spartan, barely existent, as it illuminated the giant, corroded metal container. Those who have passed train yards have probably seen these constructs, of varying sizes and shapes. This one was not train car sized: it was about half that, its red paint long reduced to a dull ocher, its frame shot through and rampart with rust. But if one took a sledgehammer to its form, one would find that the damage seemed mostly cosmetic, and the construction of the container held up.
The container is not alone though: attached and placed on top of it are a variety of strange mechanical constructs. But what they do will have to wait, as we pass through into the container...
The inside was lit by one solitary, flickering bulb. Part of the wall of the container had been removed and a TV had been set into the carefully removed section, the appliance firmly wedged into the cutout. Another hole was visible in the ceiling, but no light came from it, suggesting an obstacle of some kind blocked its passage. Directly beneath the hole, a large metal key lay on the floor, unfettered by any restraint.
On the floor also lay four jars, scattered around the inside of the bunker container: they appeared to be made of glass, but in reality were made of a far firmer and more powerful plastic: you would have needed a jackhammer to properly crack and break the jars. The bottoms were covered with a potent adhesive that had long dried, sealing the jars to the metal ground. Inside each jar lay a small metal box, placed at the bottom of a dull orangish liquid.
There was a door on one end of the container, but the shadows made it hard to see.
But the shadows did not hide the female figure slumped against the wall, her limp posture suggesting unconsciousness or sleep, her dark hair laying in a tangled curtain over her face. She wore tattered blue pants and a dull black shirt, though she was shoeless, perhaps to allow the leg manacle that was shackled to her left ankle room to do so. The restraint and chain were of a thick, dirty but undamaged metal, a keylock placed into the side of the ankle cuff as the manacle ran into a thick chain that was pooled on the ground, the last link attached to a thick steel ring in the center of the room, the intertwined metals fused together for extra strength.
The TV was above and directly across from the female form.
And it abruptly turned on, loud static hissing into the room and startling the female awake, the hair falling away from her face to reveal the Hispanic features of a somewhat pretty girl, marred by confusion as she looked around.
"...what...what..." She stammered, as if trying to make sense of it all.
As the static cleared.
And it filled the screen, the head of a porcelain/plastic doll, a white face with receded black hair on its head, an overly large Roman nose, slightly puffed cheeks with a red spiral painted on them, and a segmented one-piece jaw with a dimpled chin. It wore a black suit with a red bow tie, its eyes as black as pitch save for blood-red pupils.
And it moved, its head slowly turning a touch as if looking at the girl, as she stared back in sheer horror as the reality of where she was came to her.
"No..." She whimpered.
And the doll spoke, in a deep tone that contained a strange mix of assurance and intended malice.
"Hello Marissa. Or am I addressing Zia? Either way, you have shown disregard for your gift of life."
"NO! NO!" Marissa screamed, as she grabbed the chain and yanked, trying to free herself and failing miserably on both getting it out of the ground and off her ankle. The doll, Billy, kept speaking, completely oblivious to her panic.
"Marissa...you created another to absorb and redirect all the pain and anger yourself rather than do anything to change your life, then when it didn't work, you tried to end it by blowing your brains out. As for Zia, you blamed your hardship on those around you who were unwilling to help. You both decided that your life was others' responsibility. Now, you must prove yourselves worthy of the life you were so willing to throw away."
And Marissa's yells were abruptly silenced as she heard the grating hum of a machine starting up, and she looked up, drawn by the noise...
As the hole in the ceiling began to pour a thick, black liquid into the room, Marissa feeling the heat of the concoction even several feet away. Her eyes spotted the key on the floor, just for a moment, before the liquid landed and covered it. Tar. It was tar. Fresh, hot tar. The thicker, denser kind that tended to be used on road construction.
And Billy, the doll, having paused as the tar started to pour in, spoke once more.
"The keys to your escape and the rest of your life are hidden somewhere in this bunker. Are you willing to accept your suffering and use it to live on...or will you choose to wallow and drown in it? Live or die. Make your choice."
And the TV cut out, leaving nothing but static.
"NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Marissa wailed, as she once again clawed at her leg chain, but it remained as firmly attached as before. She stared at it desperately for a second, and then her eyes snapped towards where the tar was continuing to pour in. The key. It must have been for her restraints. If she didn't...
Marissa got up and crawled across the room, stopping at the expanding puddle of thick, viscous blackness, as she groaned and utterly a wordless lament, and then plunged her hand in.
The mass seemed to suck her arm in, coating her hand and forearm in seething, burning blackness, a shower turned too hot made worse by added mass, as Marissa screamed and tried to find the key, but her fingers lost all comprehension in the painful, foreign material, unable to find anything except more pain, as the tar reached Marissa's knees and pressed against them, as she finally recoiled out of the mess, her arm coated in black, burning guck, the key remaining buried under the continually advancing rain.
Marissa backed up, shaking her arm with a cry, trying to get the heavy, sticky material off, even as it continued to sear her arm, as she finally got up and turned...and saw the door behind her.
She ran for it.
Somehow, she managed not to trip over the jars scattered around the floor between her and the door.
But she forgot the chain in her panic as it brought her up short, badly wrenching her ankle as she tumbled to the ground, thudding down painfully with another scream. She managed to avoid landing on one of the jars or smacking her head on the floor, but that was little comfort to Marissa as pain shot up her leg, her ankle throbbing from the yank she'd given it. Pulling herself up, she found the chain ended just at the edge of the door: she could reach out and touch it but she couldn't go through it.
Not that that really mattered, as Marissa staggered up. The door was chained shut, and heavily so, the whole exit covered in the thick, oily restraints, firmly closed with a giant, reinforced lock. If you didn't have the key, you'd probably need a Jaws of Life to get through it all.
Marissa didn't even have two good hands, but that didn't stop her as she screamed and yanked desperately on the setup, hoping for some miracle. But the chains remained in place, unheeding to her desperate pleas and screams. She wasn't getting out. And even as she futilely assaulted the chains, she realized she was even more trouble then she'd thought. The key the tar had covered...the video had said KEYS. Which meant there was more then one. Which one had the tar covered? The one to her leg chain or the one to the door chain? And where was the other one...
...oh no.
She whirled around, seeing the jars on the floor. With their small metal boxes inside, and uncovered tops. She could guess what that meant. And what it would entail, as she ran over to one and knelt down. She didn't know which was which, but she'd never find out if she didn't get one of them, as she braced herself and thrust her other hand into the unknown liquid.
She hadn't expected it to be hand soap, but even she was completely unprepared for the agony that bloomed in her hand as the acid began to tear into her flesh. The tar had been hot and painful, but this was utterly excruciating, like someone was stabbing every cell in her hand with a rusty razor, as she screamed in pure torment and pulled her hand out, blood blooming from the damage done to her appendage even as the remaining acid continue to eat into her flesh, as she frantically waved her hand and tried to get it off. In doing so she splattered herself with several more droplets, drawing new screams.
Marissa looked at the jar and then at her agonized hand, covered in blood and hissing, bubbling flesh...and then, left with no choice, she turned and thrust her other hand, still covered with cooling tar, into the jar.
The tar provided little shielding, as Marissa screamed again, trying frantically to get her hands on the box, but her tendons and muscles were overwhelmed with stimuli, virtually all of it in the bad category, as she thrashed and tried to grab the metal box...and finally pulled her hand back out, unable to take the pain any more, the box still remaining at the bottom of the now dirty-orange liquid, as Marissa wept from the sheer misery of it all, looking at her bloody, twitching hands.
As her perception briefly flew above the pain, as she turned and looked at the tar, still pouring down and filling the room...a fact that was brutally apparent as the encroaching puddle had almost reached her. She had at most a minute before it had covered the whole floor and left her no place to stand. Oh god her hands felt like they were falling apart and she couldn't even get one box and the door was locked and the key was in the tar and the tar would sear and tear at her feet and legs and eventually her muscles would give out and she'd fall and be lost under its burning mass as it filled her lungs and what had she done to deserve this she was going to die oh god OH GOD OH GOD WHY...
Marissa screamed, a wailing lament that echoed through the container and the warehouse, and fell on dear ears, as the tar kept filling the chamber, the screams echoing unheard as we pass through the container and leave the warehouse, the fading wails following us all the way.
Elsewhere. Elsewhen.
Maybe once it had been a proud example of its kind. Whatever it had once been, it was clear what the building before us now was: long left to waste and go to seed. Once a hotel, no paying residents had occupied it in at least a few decades. And all nonpaying residents had recently been...forcibly evicted.
And it had been transformed, as we pass through its neglected rooms and halls, the grime and filth left untouched by the modifications. We pass through it all...
And find a room with light, and with several scattered, unconscious forms. All dressed colorfully. All dressed familiar to us.
Most lay on the floor in that room. But in another one, darker and dreary, a blonde haired casually dressed teen was placed on a large, throne-like chair, his arms tied to the chair, his form not wholly covering the menacing holes the chair sported on its main body, holes that suggested nothing good could come from them. And in another adjacent room, a female lay, strapped harshly to a table, the plump, semi-mousy girl firmly tied across the body with powerful straps, over which metal wires laid for an unknown purpose.
And in the room with the group, the lights flickered on, providing little in the way of illumination but serving to begin the revivification process for several of the young people.
As a TV stood there...turning on.
As the same doll appeared.
And spoke.
"Hello Titans. I want to play a game."
That Feeling...You Can Only Say What It Is In Latin...
BOOGEYMEN IV: DOLORUM IPSUM QUIA
It's A Deadly Game
Chapter 1: Deadly Game
"There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself."
-Raymond Chandler
Revenge.
I know much of revenge. Some people constantly encounter pain in their daily lives. Others encounter malice and deviance. And some encounter a daily circle, perhaps hated, perhaps loved, perhaps simply accepted as a cycle.
We are of the rare breed that our lives involve all those things.
And revenge.
We have had it sought against us, many times. Some of us have sought it in turn. And there is much of it in our world. Indeed, one of the mightiest entities of the existence we know, a green cloaked wraith of nigh-limitless power, known to most as the Spectre, is tasked in the ways of vengeance and retribution. Beware if you find his eye. Beware even more if he finds you worthy.
Revenge.
For some...it's all they have left.
She was lost, consumed in pain and unbridled terror, her mind breaking down under it, shattering apart and condemning her to certain doom.
But while Marissa Mori was helpless in the grips of mortal fear, she was not alone, and the other would have none of it, as Marissa's eyes dulled and the scream faded from her lips.
And then returned as a snarling growl, as Zia became fully aware of the burning pain of the arms, her arms now, as she glared at them, as if expecting her rage to heal the wounds the tar and acid had inflicted.
"You stupid BITCH! You're going to get us both killed! If I could I'd stick your damn face in and FUCK!" Zia snarled as she leaned over and again tried to stick her hand into the jar of acid, and found that even if she was mad beyond belief and defiant in her pain and in the bastard that had stuck her here, it didn't change the fact that the caustic liquid still burned like the devil when she put it in. She screamed in wordless pain and rage as she retracted her hand. That stupid fucking Marissa! She'd fucked up her hands! How the hell was she going to get the boxes in the jars?
Revenge is cruel. It lies to you. It whispers of comforts and peace if you indulge it. But it is often wrong. Sometimes, it deceives even itself.
Much has been made of the poisonous nature of revenge. And they are not wrong. Revenge is toxic, often as dangerous to the seeker as it is to the victim.
At best, it can steel you to the harsh realities of the pain and loss you've suffered.
And at worse, it will prove worthless and empty.
In the face of what it has wrought.
If Zia's wrathful glare had any power, she probably could have burned through her chains and herself a way out sheerly through that. But all her gaze had was her eyes...but behind those eyes was a mind of great cunning and strength, not to mention a survival instinct her other side sorely lacked. Once again, she had to do all the work. And once again, her weak, whimpering other had screwed everything up, whether it was a sudden attack of "conscience" (Zia had everything in hand, Titans or no Titans, and then Marissa went and fucked it all up, turning the violence that should have been inflicted on others on herself in some kind of worthless, idiotic penance), or all that had come after that, and now, having badly damaged the hands that were needed to escape.
Well, if all you had was a hammer, everything did begin to take on the resemblance of nails, as Zia looked at the jars. Trying to reach inside them was a losing proposition, especially now, and Zia doubted she could break them in any fashion. That left one way to get the acid out: overturn the jar.
Of course, they were glued to the floor, but that was enough of a nail for her!
And so Zia pulled herself back a bit, her eyes flicking to the ever-expanding pool of tar, coming ever closer, as she laid down on the container's floor and lashed out with her leg, violently kicking the acid jar as hard as she could.
It didn't budge, so she kicked again, and again, and again, screaming the whole time, as she hammered on the side of the accursed container: glue was meant to patch, it wasn't meant to hold up to direct, constant stress, especially in the repeating blow sense, it would give, it would give, it would fucking give oh she was going to FUCKING KILL THAT BASTARD...!
The jar wrenched off the floor, as Zia's blows finally proved too much for the adhesive to overcome, the acid flowing out and spilling across the floor.
Zia snarled her rage once more as her burning hand reached inside the empty jar and yanked the box out, barely able to hold the box for a second before she dropped it, the residual acid traces sending more pain through her hand, pain she did her damnedest to ignore as she grabbed up the box and opened it.
Empty.
"MOTHERFUCK!" Zia bellowed, as she threw the empty box away. Her eyes turned back towards the tar. She had twenty seconds at most before said tar enveloped the area where the jars were, and then it wouldn't have much further to go before it hit the length of her chain.
And so Zia resumed kicking at another jar, picking at random, having no time to puzzle it out. She struck at the jar without any regard to life and limb, specifically limb, as despite her adrenaline flowing at maximum it couldn't quite keep pace with the stress she was putting her leg and foot under...
There is strength in revenge. There is power.
But in that power is often delusion, an inability or unwillingness to know where the line is.
Until it tangles you.
Zia was strangely unaware of her ankle when it initially sprained, as she kicked at the jar she'd picked several more times before it too was wrenched off the ground, spilling the acid out, as Zia shifted and tried to get to her feet in a kneeling position...
As a sheer bolt of agony slammed through her body as her ankle screamed in protest, slamming against Zia's mind like a blackjack against her temple, and before she realized it her control was evaporating, as her consciousness flew screaming back into the murk.
Marissa was dully aware of what had gone on, but her pain was so great she didn't realize what she was neglecting until her peripheral vision caught it: the tar was about to spill into the empty jar and block her access to the box within.
She barely beat it there, the tar searing her already badly damaged hand and drawing another shriek from her as she yanked the box out, as she recoiled away from the tar, the manacle yanking her entrapped ankle even as her free and injured one sent reports every two seconds on how unhappy it was, as Marissa tried to get her skinless dying fingers to work long enough to open the box...
Where a key lay inside.
The pain was too great for Marissa to enjoy her luck, as she fumbled it out and promptly dropped it. The tar had wrapped around the remaining jars now, the acid within beginning to bubble from the heat of the material, as Marissa frantically tried to retrieve the key and get it into the proper slot, her fine movement nearly nonexistent as she emitted a constant low keening whine, oh god what if it wasn't the right key, she had no more time, as she scrambled and the tar began to consume her length of chain...
And then the key was in, and with one quick snap the manacle popped open. The luck pendulum had finally swung her way. She was free.
Though barely better off: trying to stand with two badly injured hands and a terribly sprained ankle was harder then one would expect, but Marissa's brain hadn't run out of adrenaline yet, as she pawed against the side of the wall, leaving smears of blood and tar as she pushed herself up and stumbled away from the black death consuming the floor of her prison.
And Marissa was reminded of the prison aspect of her approaching doom as she slammed into the exit door and was brutally reminded it was locked.
And as Marissa stared in dull horror at the chains, she remembered what she'd seen when this ordeal had begun. The key on the floor.
The first thing the tar had buried.
There is a reason why revenge is a dish supposedly best served cold. The longer you spend with it, the more important it seems.
The more it decides who you are.
The more unending it becomes.
Until it does end.
With yours.
"NOOOOOOOOO...!" Marissa wailed, as she turned and yanked at the chains holding the door closed, lost in terror once more. "HELP! HELP ME!"
The chains had no answer for her, and no answer came from elsewhere, as she yanked on the metal lengths with all her strength. But her strength, even in her most desperate hour, was not enough. It never had been.
She was trapped, she was dead...
"LIKE FUCKING HELL!" Zia raged as she clawed her way back up. She wasn't dead yet! And she would be fucking damned if the fucking weakling brought her down!
Twisting around, Zia glared down at the tar. She had a few feet left before it engulfed her feet anyway, why wait?
The burning grip that encircled her foot and ankle as she stepped into the black mass gave a very good argument on that option, as Zia screamed and snarled, but she kept going, the pain in her sprained ankle subsumed by the pain of the burning tar as she shoved her other foot in it, as she dragged herself across the searing hot mass, the pain screaming up her legs as she forced herself through the tar, the morass not only burning her feet but clutching and sucking at it, as if the black guck was alive, like it actively wished her demise.
Zia added it to the list of things that wanted her dead, as she tried to force the pain down with rage, with her bottomless pools of hate, of the furious havoc she would wreck on the ones responsible for this, as she slogged through the burning quagmire towards the waterfall of tar, her only saving grace. It would have been impossible to locate the key otherwise.
Getting it might as well have been impossible anyway though, as Zia looked for a brief second at the challenge laid out before her. What if she couldn't get it? What then? Just lie down and die?
Unless...
But the flitting thought passed Zia, as she looked at where the key lay, the tar ever raining down on it.
In its darkness, she saw her final motivation.
And so her shrieks were of defiance as much as pain, as she thrust herself down onto one knee, the tar engulfing more of her leg as she thrust her tar-covered arm into the base of the waterfall, screaming to the heavens as her fingers tore through the hot, destroying mess, losing all sense of anything but pain, like her hand no longer existed, like the tar was a destroying void...
But sensation did not always match reality, as somehow in all the pain another sensation, that of firmness, reached her mind, as Zia, finding her mental grip falling apart again under the deluge of pain, seized down on it and yanked...
Marissa nearly fell over into the tar as she came back, as she screamed and tried to pull herself up from her semi kneeling position, as she looked down at the glob of black in her right hand...and the barely visible protrusion from it.
She had the key.
And her legs had just about had enough, as pain brutally imposed itself over Marissa's mind again, her muscles spasming. But she had the key! She could get out! Out of this hell! All she had to do was reach the door!
And so Marissa turned, her arms and legs on fire, but all she had to do was take several more steps. The tar was deeper now, reaching further up her legs, but she just had to go through it one last time, as she lurched towards the locked exit, barely catching herself as her injured ankle tried to buckle, the pain thrashing through her, but she had to get out, she had to escape, just a few more steps, just...
The jars.
She'd forgotten about the jars.
As her injured ankle slammed into them, and in one final explosive burst, her whole leg locked up in a cramp.
Even as she kept moving forward.
To Marissa, it almost seemed to happen in slow motion, as her balance shifted, and her gaze was pulled from her freedom down towards her death. In the back of her mind, she realized what had happened. She'd tripped and was falling. Face first.
So close...
She didn't even have time to scream.
Blackness.
Burning, suffocating blackness.
Revenge.
In the end, it will consume you.
Tim Drake loathed being caught flat footed.
He hated it even more when he thought he had a fair chance of preventing it. His mentor had always stressed caution and preparation, of anticipating your enemy's plans and actions and working to counteract them, if not stop them entirely in their tracks. Such learning even had a place in the world Tim Drake lived in, where the laws of physics and everything else were routinely tied in knots and then given a good kick in the rear. It had let his mentor survive dozens upon dozens of situations that would have killed 99.9 percent of any other people, and Tim Drake, aka Robin, had a pretty impressive track record himself.
And yet...
He had history on his side too. He thought he'd known what to look for. What to watch out for. He knew, and his team knew it. And everything had seemingly been fine.
And then Robin found himself on the other end of it anyway. Because that was life's greatest trick. It always found an angle you never expected. It always found something different.
It was always different. On the other end.
And so as Robin found his senses returning, he immediately tried to figure out what had happened, even as the dread possibility loomed in his head. Could it be? Once again...?
And then the TV had spoken, and Robin found himself looking at the doll face on it.
And though he didn't recognize it, he knew.
And in a tiny corner of his mind, he was reminded that in Japanese culture, four was often associated with death.
Robin did not recognize the doll on the television, but Garfield Logan did, and it chilled him to the bone. His realization was even worse then Robin's, because he knew for certain that somehow, despite their efforts, it had happened again.
And he knew what was coming.
"What in the fuck..." Came a voice. It sounded like Noel's. Oh he was going to hate this. Even more then usual.
"QUIET!" Beast Boy yelled, as his fellow Titans jerked their heads towards him. Most of them looked rather befuddled, but there was a time for talking later. Now, they had to listen.
"TV! LISTEN!" Beast Boy hissed. He picked his timing well. A second after he finished talking, the doll resumed doing so.
"Your team has gained a reputation for throwing yourselves into danger in order to save the innocent and the weak. It begs the question: are you willing to face such danger to save yourselves?" The doll said. It spoke in a deep rumbling tone, and a few Titans recognized the voice was being electronically altered to produce the exact effect.
"Are we stuck in..."
"QUIET!"
"Before you were brought here, you were all injected with a deadly poison. A potent nerve agent, to be precise." The doll said on the screen. The Titans' eyes went wide, save Beast Boy, who had expected something like that. "If you sit and wait, you will all be dead by morning. However, throughout this building, there are tests for each one of you with an antidote as your reward. You're welcome to try to help each other with these tests, but there is only one antidote for each of you, and these tests give no advantage to others... Follow the yellow brick road, and you'll see what I mean."
"Yellow brick road?" Said Tara Markov, who felt like she was dreaming. She was shushed like the rest.
"By now you've realized that several members are missing." The doll on the TV continued. In actuality only Robin had, and he'd done a head count, grimacing as he saw the fresh worry bloom on his teammates' faces as they realized friends and loved ones who they'd fought together with for years were absent, left to unknown fates. "Two are in the rooms adjacent to this one, and the other two are hidden in this hotel. They have their own tests to survive, but if you'd like to help, X marks the spot. These tests will show just how much you are willing to sacrifice to make it out of here alive."
"Sophie? SOPHIE! Can you hear me?!" Nigel Hastings called, his voice booming through the room, as Beast Boy waved frantically for him to be quiet. Fortunately, the doll on the TV didn't have much more to say.
"So Titans. Would you sacrifice your blood? A limb? How about a teammate? You'll have to answer for your choices, Titans. Be prepared. Let the games begin."
And the TV went to static.
And everyone looked to Robin, as he expected.
"...Robin? Has it happened again?" Kory Anders asked. Robin stared back at the green eyes of his long time love interest. She'd always hated these scenarios the most. And yet despite their efforts...
But first things first.
"...okay. Everyone." Robin said firmly. "Status. Can you use your powers?"
"Dude...!" Beast Boy began.
"Not now Gar. This first." Robin said tersely. He'd already done a body check while listening to the television. As he expected, his utility belt was gone. But so was the armored parts of his costume, and every single hidden tool he had in said costume and beyond, including a few simple ones he kept under a false layer of skin on his inner thigh. He tried not to let his irritation show: if the forces behind this were this thorough, then it was likely he already knew the answer to his question. "Powers. Do you still have them?"
"...damn." Beast Boy said, as he tried to turn into an animal and found he couldn't. Likewise, Starfire found her green energy blasts failed to appear when she tried to call them, and she was as grounded as her human lover, her strength also reduced to roughly his level. Terra's geokinesis was sealed off, rocks and dirt staying put no matter how much she willed it...
And when Savior tried to use his powers, he found pain exploding through his body, as he collapsed to his knees. Starfire gasped, and then ran to check on her teammate.
"Noel! Are you all right?"
"Ugh...damn...what the...fuck." Savior hissed. "The poison. A potent NERVE agent. Fuck. Forget sealed powers, even TESTING them hurts like a mother...ugh. I'm fine Star. And real names in the field." Savior said, a little more vicious then Robin would have preferred. But he let it pass: considering how Savior's nervous system based energy powers were apparently reacting to both the sealing and the poison the doll claimed had been injected into them, Robin would probably be cranky too. With Savior as powerless as the rest, Robin turned to the final Titan in the room: the alien Blacktrinian Nigel Hastings, aka Scalpel. Unlike Starfire, Nigel's alien body was naturally very dense: his normal superhuman strength was partly needed to let him move around. The first time this incident had happened, Scalpel's powers being sealed had left him prone and virtually helpless, unable to move his own weight. Not this time: the alien was stalking around without apparent strain, looking for his own lover, the Titan Sophie Matthews, who was not in the room. Robin doubted the fact he could move meant that Scalpel would retain any more of his incredible might. If this occurrence was precise enough to leave him naked (in a sense), then it was precise enough to do that.
"Scalpel..." Robin began.
"I'm fine! SOPHIE!" Scalpel said, as he jerked around...and his eyes seized on the door on the left side of the room. "SOPHIE!"
And as the Titans' watched, Scalpel charged the door, as Beast Boy's eyes went as wide as saucers.
"SCALPEL DON-"
Too late.
The door snapped open at Scalpel's blow...as a low snapping twang hummed in Scalpel's ears, the wire stretched across the doorframe pulling free from the motion, as the trigger it had been holding closed snapped on. A few lights lit up the room, as Sophie Matthews blinked herself wake.
"Wuh..."
And a low rumble sounded beneath her as engines, placed beneath the table she was strapped to and kept out of reach behind dense gridwork cages, sputtered to life, as Scalpel stared in shock at what he had done in his haste, and Sophie became aware of her state of bondage.
And that she could already feel the straps that were laid over her beginning to tighten, as the metal wires laid over the straps began to slowly be drawn into the cages beneath the table, the wires slowly being spooled around a crank, as the machines beneath hummed and went about their task: retract the wires until there was no give left. And anything that was between the wires and that state...
"...you know, it probably doesn't need to be said, and I suspect I'm going to hate the answer even more then I think I will, but I'll say it anyway." Savior said in dull resignation. "NOW WHAT?"
Revenge...has it come for us once more?
The chaos. Formed in fiction. It has challenged us before. We have turned it back. We have tried to prevent it from coming again.
...yet we failed.
Does the chaos possess a mind, a mind so vexed it has purposely sought our end?
I am Raven. I should know these things.
And yet I am uncertain.
Of all but one thing. And I fear that.
That in the end, this might be the game we finally lose.
"We shall not come again. We shall never come back again."
-Thomas Wolfe