The titans were doing their daily training regimen, ever since they had recently beat brother blood, they realized that they needed to do more training to be able to become stronger so that no more of their friends had to die as terra did. The training was a sparring match of 2vs2 with it being Beast boy and Robin vs Raven and Beetle with Starfire as the spectator.
"Haha, you better keep up beetle, what's the score now, 30-10?"
Beast boy said smiling at his adversary.
"I'd say its about 20-30, besides me and the bug are deciding to take it easy on you, ya know. Don't wanna hurt you too bad, but I guess we can try a bit harder"
Blue beetle looked over his shoulder.
"Right hermano?" Blue beetle said to the scarab on his back in a questioning tone as if he was trying to get clarification.
Blue beetle then had a shocked looked on his face as the scarab responded.
"No, not enough to obliterate the guy, just enough power to give us the edge". Beetle said responding to the scarab.
Blue beetle had fired a beam at beast boy, turning into an eagle and doing a barrel roll he was able to avoid the blast, he then started to fly straight towards blue beetle with great speed and then transformed into a baby rhinoceros.
"Don't worry, this won't hurt you too much beetle." Beast boy said in an exhilarating tone.
"Heh, that's if you can even get to me." Blue beetle said in a whispering tone as he shot another beam past beast boy.
The beam hit the ceiling in a diagonal direction and ricochet off it towards the wall behind beast boy, the ricocheting off the wall behind him, it was then in a straight path towards beast boy preparing to collide itself with him giving him a critical hit at any given moment. Robin noticing this, throws a shuriken at his companion feet, remotely exploding it at the right moment. This causes Beast boy to twirl in the air out of the way of the blast and colliding with the wall.
"Beast boy watch your surroundings, an attack can come from all directions, the man-bug almost took you out with his beam that you didn't even notice."
"huh" Beast boy said with a confused look on his face.
Then noticing a beam incinerating into the ground, he gulped.
"Thanks rob"
Damian sighed
"Simpleton" he said to himself.
Beast boy and beetle continued battling one another while robin was scanning the area.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" a voice could be heard in the distance.
Robin looked around checking all his surrounding directions, then as a black shadow rises from his feet, he quickly jumps into the air back flipping a great distance from his previous area.
"Heh, maybe you should take your own advice Damian, almost got you with that one" Raven said with a smirked look.
Robin smirked back.
"Please I could feel that attack coming, you're a couple years to early to take on the demon head's grandson." He said as he gave a confident look.
Raven raised an eyebrow.
"Demon's head huh" she said. "Well then how about facing a real demon" she said with a strong look as her eyes started to glow red.
The two began to dash towards each other ready to settle their dispute when an alarm went off signaling the end of their training.
"Okay that's it everybody" Starfire said waving to get everyone's attention.
"what is this about, we were still training." Damian said with now a confused look.
"I know I know, but Nightwing needs to brief you on something important. "Stated Starfire with a saddened look.
Nightwing, now walking into the room.
"Grayson, I knew it had something to do with you" Damian said with now an angry look on his face.
Nightwing pushing his hands out to show signs of an apology.
"I know I know, my bad but you guys are getting a new teammate" Nightwing he said in a happily tone.
Beast boy and blue beetle showed excitement at the news while raven and robin gave a vague smile to show their happiness at this. They all started to exit the training room and into the briefing room.
"Uhm, what gives, where's the newbie?" beast boy asked the question that was moving through the rest of his team mind.
"This teammate is kind of different what you normally deal with" Nightwing said. "This time you'll have to find him.
"Is the person missing?" Raven asked.
Nightwing shook his head with disagreement.
"maybe undercover or training with a lethal assassin group?" he asked.
The rest of the team looked at him with confusion.
"what?" he said with a confused look. "its how batman found me". He stated.
"No" Nightwing said.
"I'll explain but first watch this footage." he said with a suspenseful tone.
Nightwing turned on the video showing a young boy who looked about 7 or 8 at the time, he had short black hair and looked a bit like Dick Grayson when he was a child. He was strapped in a chair with his mouth taped and two adults tied on the floor with two gunmen standing above them.
Nightwing paused the footage.
"The two adults tied up on the floor are Mr. and Mrs. Celestin." Nightwing said. "They were scientists working on a project known as Astral. The boy you see there is their son Saturn." He stated.
"Okay, but what exactly is this project Astral?" Damian asked.
Nightwing let out a sigh before explaining.
"The Astral project was an experiment of an exobyte called Xereith that could give a person exponential powers that is said to be non human and could even destroy the whole world if fallen into the wrong hands." He said.
He took a pause before explaining the second half.
"However there's a catch, before the person is able to unlock said powers they would first have to experience pain like no other, both physical and mental to the point of near death until they reached the Astral plane only then could the new exobyte work its magic as bestow upon them its power." He said with a concerned look on his face.
"Wait what exactly is this astral plane thing?" beast boy said with a questioning look on his face.
"The astral plane is a dimensional space that exist between this world and the one of the dead, this plane shows all the truths of the universe and what it holds. It even allows one to see the dead. However, to get to this plane, one has to perform astral projection where their subconscious or their soul if you will, leaves their physical body" Raven said.
"I thought out of body experiences like astral projection was confirmed to be just lies and hoax made up by different people who just wanted to believe there was more than just their simple lives." Damian said in a stern tone as he raised an eyebrow.
"Its real, I can assure you and some people have actually achieved it, however I never heard of being able to take the energy and knowledge out of the astral plane itself." Raven said with a convincing tone as she looked at Nightwing.
Nightwing looked at her and nodded.
"It's possible alright. You'll see it soon enough." Nightwing said as he played the rest of the video.
-The video Continues to play-
"So doctors our employers tell us that you're planning on hiding the exobyte or whatever and our sources tells us that the item were lookin for is here." Said one of the gunmen.
The gunmen to the left, who had just finished asking the question bent down and aimed the gun and the husband of the Celestin family.
You bastards, like hell we'll give the light the Xereith, do you know what they can do with something so powerful." Said the husband.
"I don't care if it can wipe all of us from the face of the earth as long as I'm getting paid then its all fine with me, luckily since you don't want to tell us, the light gave us a special device that can track the energy that the little thing gives off." Said the gunmen pointing the gun.
The gunmen who was talking made a hand gesture at his partner to signal the next step, his partner then got out a scanning device that scanned the whole room for signs of any astral energy and as the scan was coming to an end, it let off a beeping sound when it came across the child.
"no way, I can't believe it, you actually put the dam thing in your son." The gunmen pointing the said as he started to laugh.
"well then, good thing the light prepared for this too." He said as he let out a big grin.
The wife started to yell and she said
"wait please don't hurt our boy, he's just a child, I'm begging you please!" she said as she was crying and screaming begging them to stop.
"ohhhhh, were gonna do more than just hurt him, but unfortunately you won't be alive to witness it, its gonna go down in history as the best torture alive." The gunmen whispered into their ears as he made another hand signal to his partner.
His partner had shot both the husband and wife in the head, with his parents dead, the boy screamed muffled sounds into the tape that was covering his mouth as tears began to fall down his face.
"tsk the bastards really put the shit inside ya, huh kid, well good thing the light had a back up plan." The gunmen said as he started to cut open both of the parent's stomachs. "ya see the plan was that if supposedly they injected the Xereith into someone, that person had to experience pain mentally and physically like no other on the spot and guess who's the lucky contestant." He said as he looked towards the young boy.
The boy shook his head in distraught shaking aggressively moving the chair side to side.
"That's right, its you!" the gunmen said as he stuffed the entrails of the dead parents into the boy's mouth force feeding him his own parents intestines. Moments later, after basically feeding the boy all the organs of his parents including their hearts and brains, the gunmen looked into the mind-broken boy eyes, and whispered
"since we already broke your mind, now its time to deal some, physical damage." the gunmen said as he slowly stuck a knife through the boy stomach carefully avoiding any critical organs. "Now let's do it all over." After saying this, the gunmen had slid open a whole through the boy stomach and puling out all the organs, they had just forced the boy to eaten. "Open wide." The gunmen said as he pushed the organs he just took out back into the boy's mouth.
After hours of this passing, the gunmen looked at one another and called their employer Vandal Savage. A few minutes later, Vandal savage arrived, upon arriving he saw the boy full of holes and entrails sticking out his mouth, he smiled as he signaled the gunmen to carry the boy to the helicopter that he had just arrived in,
"All according to plan" Vandal savage said to himself as he followed behind them.
-the footage ends-
The whole team had a surprised look on their face as they just witnessed the gruesomeness thing that they have ever seen.
End of Chapter 1
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