Chaotic Worlds: Chronicles DC

Chapter 1: Prologue

Universe 3576

The tree by the lake had stood tall for almost 90 years now, weathering relentless storms and harsh winters. As the years had gone by, the great oak had seen the small family of rabbits nestling underground among its roots multiply rapidly; it had seen generation after generation of hawks take flight from its branches. Throughout its 90 years of life, the tree had grown and grown. And now, at the prime of its life, it stood and watched as it remembered how a water table deep underground had suddenly sprung up from below, the water that pooled at the surface expanding from a simple puddle into a pond before finally becoming the lake that stood before the tree. Many a travelling visitor, both man and animal, had sought shelter under the tree's branches, partaking of the cool and sweet water of the lake.

That would all change when a being out of this world would hurtle a young man in red through the bushes that dotted the forest landscape and into the lake's edge. Managing to combine both a splutter and a growl, the young man marched out of the lake while reaching behind him for his weapon, his cape trailing water as he did so. The young man flicked his wrist and the collapsible bo staff that he was holding extended to its full length. He twirled it thoughtfully as he regarded this new enemy. Tim Drake, the former apprentice of Batman now known as Red Robin, had expected the welcoming committee from the League of Assassins, no doubt sent by their master Ra's al Ghul after his efforts to bring them down from the inside. An assortment of assassins, each specialising in different killing techniques, stood around him in a lazy half-circle. Dotted amongst them were the new enemies.

They were not human, although they certainly looked it. This, at the very least, was obvious. All of them were identical copies of each other, suited in black and sporting slicked-back hair and sunglasses that altogether, resulted in a complete lack of identity. They did not utter a single word. They did not move like human assassins who tripped slightly from over-anxiety at cornering their targets, or who adjusted their footing on the wet ground, carefully digging a proper foothold into the soil. These creatures simply…moved to their target. Tim Drake had no wish to find out what would happen when they had finished moving towards him.

The first one leapt at him. He dodged it easily, rising above it and whacking it solidly on the head with his staff before turning quickly to face the next two. These he dispatched just as easily, before sidestepping away from both groups and throwing an explosive disc at the first three. He leapt away from the explosion, using it as a distraction to seek the cover of the foliage. Here, he moved silently from branch to branch, never staying in the same spot, all the while planning his next move.

Three kilometres away, twin warp portals, identical oval discs of black void ringed with gold, materialised inside a small clearing of forest, attracting the attention of a local wolf who considered the intrusion a claim on his territory. Said wolf was therefore understandably taken back when two figures burst out of each portal sprinting towards the commotion in the distance. Captain Van Fanell and his younger brother Lieutenant Ken Fanell raced swiftly towards the conflict, with Ken masking their respective auras to avoid detection from their enemies. Both were members of Mithril's Preventer Unit, Van being its commanding officer. The Unit itself comprised of Mithril's best field agents, all of whom either possessed metahuman abilities or had been chosen after a rigorous selection to be trained in advanced combat techniques that would put them on par with the average metahuman.

Both brothers were two of the best, but even being the best would not help anything if they didn't get there in time.

"Signal's getting weaker," Van muttered as he glanced at the indicator on the small PDA he held. "What kind of tracer did you put on him anyway? Distance or life-force?"

"Both actually. Red Robin keeps going from place to place, never in one place for more than three days. I slipped the distance tracker on his bo staff, the life-force one on the inside of his uniform, both during two different occasions. Tricky business, this; he was trained by Batman after all.

Van frowned thoughtfully. "Which one did you put in first?"

"The distance tracker on the bo staff. It's his standard and favourite weapon, and the first that he uses in battle. I slipped in the other one the next day, the life-force tracker on the inside of his uniform. Both times I attached the respective trackers while he was out of uniform, at super-speed."

"Quite a lot of precaution for something normally so simple," said Van as he vaulted from one tree to the next.

Ken snorted. "He was trained by Batman. I wasn't going to take any chances."

"You think he found them?"

The younger Fanell smiled wryly. "Who knows? I gave it 5 days max before he found them. Nothing whatsoever. In any case, we won't know for sure until we find him. Are the signals showing?"

Van keyed in a few commands into the PDA. "Yeah. But the signal that's getting weaker isn't the distance tracker's."

Both looked at each other grimly before putting on a burst of their speed. If that signal was anything to go by, the battle might just be over by the time they got there, and the young man they were supposed to be rescue might not be able to be rescued anymore.

Tim Drake, his cowl now torn off during the course of the battle, looked on with undisguised horror as the black suits fused with each other in a disgusting mash of flesh and black goo. Arms sprouted out of misshapen bodies, and spindly spider legs rose up from the massive pile-up. The resulting Cursed Demon was a Frankenstein's monster with the lower body of a lab-grown spider monster, a pair of spider's pincers where its abdomen should be.

"Well. Thanks for the year's worth of nightmares you've just given me," he said as he held out his weapon in front of him in a defensive stance. He noticed that the assassins sent by Ra's al Ghul were themselves hanging back behind this freak of nature, despite being battle-hardened veterans of dozens of conflicts. Whatever this thing was, it freaked out the living daylights out of all of them. The pincers clicked rapidly as the Demon advanced towards Red Robin. He shook off his fear and horror and anxiety and stood his ground.

It moved towards him, too fast for something that huge, and leapt up at him. The face of the Frankenstein's monster was twisted in a grimacing grin, the pincers on its abdomen clicking faster than ever as toxic liquids dribbled on them from the mouth opening. Tim leapt up and over the Demon, throwing a few smoke bombs on the ground to mask his movement. The monster responded by suddenly extending its arm like a whip, wrapping it around the young man and whipping him all over.

"If that's how you want to play it..."

Tim flung his remaining smoke bombs straight into the monster's pincer mouth, the satisfied grin he allowed himself growing slightly as smoke flooded the mouth and the monster writhed uselessly on the ground, temporarily incapacitated. But the battle was far from over, Tim realized as he narrowly avoided a downward slash from one of Ra's ninjas, swinging his staff straight into his opponent's stomach. Five of them remained, including the one he had just attacked, all surrounding him. While the monster was still winded from Tim's attack, the League's assassins leapt straight at him.

All of a sudden a wall of lightning sprouted between the fighters, throwing the stunned assassins back. Gunshots rang out, clear and precise barks of authoritative sound, and the assassins cried out in pain as the bullets tore cleanly through the four limbs of each man, incapacitating them. The unseen shooter then immediately turned his attention to the monster, easily placing his shots in a tight circumference on its face, driving the creature back from its intended victim in pain. Tim looked up to see the silhouettes of two young men, the first aiming a gun in his general direction, a thin wisp of smoke from its muzzle. He then twirled the gun once, slipping it back easily into his holster with a confidence that somehow reminded Tim of his adopted elder brother Dick. Tim noted that he was about Dick's age as well, maybe older by a year or so. The second, closer in age to Tim himself, was standing in a defensive stance, his hands and arms crackling with blue electricity. He noticed that the monster that he had been fighting was quiet; it was nowhere in sight. So either it had been neutralized, which he doubted, or it was preparing a surprise entrance of its own.

The two newcomers walked over briskly but cautiously to Tim, both having got on the same train of thought as him, scanning the surroundings for the whereabouts of the spider creature. The younger of the two offered a helping hand. "You alright, Mr Red Robin? Or should we be addressing you as Mr Tim Drake?"

"Either one is fine," Tim said as he glanced at the outstretched hand, ready to pull him up. He was quiet for a while before accepting it. "Which one of you slipped the tracers in?"

Ken's face broke out into a wide grin as he pulled Tim up, resisting the urge to punch the air in triumph. "I knew it."

"The one on the stick was tougher to find than the one in the suit; it's not every day I dismantle my telescopic staff for cleaning and maintenance."

Van gave his brother an incredulous look. "You stuck the tracer on the inside of the staff?"

"Like I said, playing it safe," replied his younger brother coolly as all three stood back to back, waiting for the Demon to make its move. They did not have to wait long. Three strands of web shot out towards the three, wrapping around their torsos. The Demon however did not seem to realize that its opponents were consummate professionals, each with sufficient combat experience, and neglected to restrain their arms as well. Tim had managed to reach inside his utility belt for a batarang and cut himself loose. Van snapped his fingers once, muttering a single word, and fire manifested in his right hand. Quickly burning off the web, the young man leapt skyward, his left hand flicking out his gun from its holster. Another uttered command, and a sword materialized in his right hand, the flame that had been pooling in it immediately rushing up the length of the blade, setting it aflame.

This left Ken all by himself, still within the grasp of the Demon. Tim noticed however that the newcomer seemed in no rush to free himself from his current situation. His face had the same confident and taunting expression that Nightwing always wore into a tough fight, a fight that Dick would nearly always come out on top whilst making the whole fight look easy. The newcomer wasn't too bothered by his predicament, something his own brother didn't seem to mind, judging by the grin on his face. The Demon started to reel in his captive.

The latter grinned cheekily. "C'mere," he said as he yanked the web hard, sending the Demon flying at him. He followed it up with a sharp jab to the creature's nose and a strong kick at its gut, just above its pincers, and sent it flying again. Unexpectedly he leaped towards the falling Demon as well. "Shocked? Trust me, it's nothing compared to this."

And he let fly with a huge blast of lightning directly at the Demon.

When he got up, the string of web was already crumbling into dust, the Demon that had spun it badly burnt and twitching occasionally. The older of the two walked over and thrust his blade into the creature's head. It died quickly, crumbling into a mixture of ectoplasm and dust that quickly dissipated until all that was left were the burnt remnants of spell cards.

With that done, both walked over to Red Robin. He kept his face calm and neutral, but his hand was still gripping his staff. Cautious. Both Van and Ken could understand it. The two parties stopped to face each other quietly for a while before Van broke into a wry smile and extended his hand. "The name's Van Fanell. Pleased to meet you, Mr Drake."

Universe ?

"They've made contact with the boy," reported Maggot as he strode angrily into the Master's main chambers, "The Fanell brats have made contact with Timothy Drake. Wayne. Whatever his name is; I really could care less." He looked around at the grim faces of his fellow War-Generals. "The weaponmaster and the lightning boy were on the ground not TWO minutes since my Zombies attacked him, along with those punks from the Council of Spiders, who were completely useless by the way; I think we should just stop our human smuggling agreement with them and devour them up to the last man. All of us."

"Just get back to the matter at hand, Worm-boy," grumbled Aeon as he shifted in his chair. There was a fleeting smirk on his mouth before he spoke again. "Namely, the fact that you, well technically your crony, had your ass handed to you again. Not to mention that your target Red Robin was more than capable of dealing with your Demon, if he had not been preoccupied with the allies that we sent him. And yes, they were incompetent, but let's not forget that it was you who made the contract with them in the first place."

The lanky War-General got up, enjoying the attention that he was commanding from the rest of the War-Generals, all of whom were sneering gleefully at Maggot's failure to secure the death of Tim Drake. He was about to continue when liquid shadow gushed down from the ceiling above, catching them off-guard. Two tendrils of black shadow pierced out of the goo, stopping just at the throats of the two bickering brothers. The rest of it coalesced into the form of Razorpoint, the eldest of the seven War-Generals, an old man who radiated red-hot anger and hatred. That hatred at the moment was restrained, but just barely, and the rest were under no doubt that he had no qualms about releasing it to destructive effect.

"Both of you be silent. The issue here is Drake. He is to be removed; that is the will of our Father. Your soldiers and their allies are incompetent, Maggot, and you. Aeon. All you're doing is just posturing as usual. If the two of you have nothing useful to contribute to this pointless argument, then it is in your best interests to hold your damn tongues." Both the tendrils that he had aimed at both Maggot and Aeon reshaped themselves into a pair of barbed pliers each. "Unless you want me to hold them for you."

Razorpoint's eyes strayed over to where an enormous blob of gelatinous matter lay sandwiched between the War-Generals Feral and Gemini. "Sludge, I need you to finish the job. If you can take down the Fanell brothers permanently, so much the better, but your priority is Red Robin. Obliterate him; leave no trace of the boy remaining. Give him a proper...send-off. Preferably with fireworks."

The War-General Sludge burbled in acquiescence, oozing down a small grate to the discomfort of the two beside him. The sinister smile on Razorpoint's face never left as he watched Sludge exit.

"You know, if you're just going to stand there smirking, you might as well let us go."

The smile disappeared abruptly. As far as he was concerned it didn't really matter which of the two idiots had made that comment. The tendrils disappeared, he walked up to both and smashed their heads together. It wouldn't remove them permanently, but it would at least shut them up.

Universe 3576

"I don't see why I need to go with you guys. Don't get me wrong, I believe you guys. If you say there're people after my life, then I believe you. But you think I'm not used to this? That I'm not used to life-threatening situations? To people hunting me down for reasons I couldn't begin to comprehend?"

Van sighed, frustrated, as he tried to think of an argument that would convince Tim to come with them for his own safety. "Ken? Help me out here, bro."

His younger brother seemed distracted by something. Ken was frowning, his hand absently rubbing at his throat. "I think...we need to carry on this conversation somewhere else, Van. Somewhere like near that pond there. And I think we need to move now."

Tim was wearing a frown of his own. "Is it me, or am I getting thirsty really fast?"

"Too late."

"Aggghhh!" all three grimaced as they fell slowly to the ground, clutching their throats, gasping for breath. Tim's throat was on fire; even the effort of swallowing was akin to having a handful of sharp rocks shovelled down his throat. "Guys? What the…what the hell is going on?"

"Ken..."

"I got it." Ken got up to his feet slowly, growling at the effort it took to get himself up. "Open wide, Jelly Man." He fired a fierce blast of lightning directly in front of him, the jagged current arcing itself in all different directions. There was an agonized burble of sound 20 feet away from them, up in the trees. Ken fired a second stronger blast in the direction of the sound, yelling angrily as he did so. "Van!"

Van pushed himself up with a burst of effort. Flame raced up his blade again, and he swung his sword in a large arc, leaving a wide swath of fire between them and their enemy. All three immediately made their retreat, running towards the lake as fast as they could. For good measure, Ken fired a third blast of lightning at the intruder as he ran, smiling in satisfaction on hearing another anguished howl. Through the smoke and flames of the trio's attack however, came the monster's reply and it sent all three of them flying into the lake. There was a huge splash of sound as all three hit the surface of the water at the same time, throwing up water. For a while there was nothing; the water rippled as calmly as it had a while earlier.

"GAAAHH!"

Ken's head was the first to burst out of the water's surface, followed by Tim and Van. All three made their way to the edge of the lake, wading out of the water before collapsing on their knees on the ground. Panting hard, Ken extended his senses for any sign of their attacker. No sign. He turned to his brother. "Thanks for the save, Van. Quick thinking there."

Van grunted. "We're not out of the woods yet."

"Figuratively and literally speaking," chuckled his younger brother as he helped Tim to his feet. The latter was visibly shaken from the strange turn of events that had just occurred, although he tried to hide it, leaving the two brothers impressed. One clearly didn't become Batman's sidekick without being prepared for events that simply should not exist in a logical reality.

"That wasn't your first monster, was it?" asked Ken.

"No, I've seen my fair share...although my work usually had more to do with superhumans instead of superfreaks. You guys seemed used to it though. What the hell were those things? The spider-monster, and that creature that just seemed to suck the water out of my body."

Van nodded at Tim approvingly. He walked over to where Tim was sitting against a tree, Ken looking on beside it, his voice unconsciously taking on a familiar professorial tone. "Noticed that did you? The spider-monster was a Cursed Demon, an amalgamation of a number of Cursed Zombies which in turn are summoned magical familiars. While each Cursed Zombie is identical, any number of them can combine to form a Demon; a Demon's form, abilities and powers may not always be the same even if they're alike. Naturally this means the bastards can be quite unpredictable in combat. Still, they do share some similarities, in that they bear an imprint of the Warlord or War-General who created them. Most likely that spider thing was..." He looked at his brother, who nodded in agreement.

"Maggot's, or one of his goons. Spider-freak isn't the real issue here, though," Ken muttered.

"Yeah, the real problem is the second one. The monster was just your average goon, unsettling as that may be. The other attacker, that was Sludge, one of their top guys, a War-General."

Tim got to his feet, wincing a bit before stretching out. "So what do they want with me?"

"That's the question, isn't it? Why would one of the Chaos Legion's top generals personally come down to eliminate you? You're talented and skilled, your training under Batman and your brilliant mind make you one of the most dangerous individuals of your generation. You've got potential, and you've only just begun to tap into it. But you're still a normal human, albeit one at the top of his game. When it comes to the Chaos Legion, the life-force that they can obtain from you is not that substantial to warrant Sludge's attention."

Van shook his head, getting back to the matter at hand. "At any rate, all the better if we manage to screw them over. And if they want you dead, then it stands to reason that we want you alive. I know you can't fully trust us at the moment, but I hope that you can at least trust us enough to come with us while we figure things out together."

A blast of gelatinous water shot out of nowhere, trapping Van by his wrists and feet to a tree just as a bright blue light burst from somewhere on his body, covering him like a second skin. A second blast wrapped itself around his neck, a watery hand shaping to slowly choke the life out of it. Ken dodged the next few blasts in time but Sludge kept up the attacks from wherever he was, preventing him from assisting his brother or checking in on Tim. The War-General then made his entrance, slouching and dragging his mass towards the three young men.

War-General Sludge of the Chaos Legion was a humanoid mass of viscous gelatine the colour of muddy swamp water. He had no eyes to speak of, and the acidic drool that came out of the hole that passed for his mouth sizzled wherever it fell onto the ground. He had the height of a towering grizzly, with none of its majestic fearsomeness. He never moved quickly, always alternating between lumbering and dragging his feet forward. Where he walked, plants withered. Tim stared in unbridled horror as a creeping vine of poison ivy shrunk into a gray crumbling wire that disappeared in a cloud of dust as Sludge walked over it. He was aware of a growing thirst in his throat, one that felt as though all the water in the world would never be able to quench it. He realized, in a small detached part of his mind, that the creature was absorbing water from everything around it. Where he walked, trees became pale grey skeletons and small rocks cracked in half abruptly; the chatter like the shots of a firing squad.

Tim was aware of Ken beside him, his movements slower, but his eyes no less determined. The young man grunted, and a wave of electricity leapt from his hands in a wall toward the War-General, leaving a curved barrier of lightning to impede Sludge's movement. Sludge had no choice but to take it head-on, visibly flinching in pain, to the satisfaction of the agent who had sent the electric wall. The young man fumbled in his pocket, brief irritation flickering across his face, before he pulled out a small blue disc the size of a watch's face. He slapped it on Red Robin's uniform and held it there while muttering its activation phrase.

"Shield-Gen on."

Tim Drake could only sit in shock as white-blue energy leapt out from the disc, flowing over every inch of his body. It was a strange sensation, yet not unpleasant, and the thirst had abated for the time being. The world before him was tinged a gentle blue, no doubt the effect of the shield. He looked at the younger of the two brothers. "A force-field generator?"

The young man nodded. "This here's a Shield-Generator, Shield-Gen for short by our tech dudes at Mithril. The technology itself has similarities to the force-fields cooked up by your STAR Labs, but ours are designed to last longer. Shrugging off gunfire is a breeze, and you can withstand two consecutive direct shots from a tank before the shield itself is compromised. Shield then takes about 5-7 seconds to recharge back up to full strength. Each charging at HQ before these things are utilised in battle can last a day. Finally, the hardening effect of the shield means that you're more or less covering yourself in a force-field with a hardness similar to that of diamond, which gives you advantages offensively and defensively."

He then blocked a second attack from Sludge, but the aura covering him was markedly different. A slightly darker shade of blue coursed around him, and lightning crackled in tiny arcs around him every so often. "My powers are a bit different than others, so my own force-field is a little bit different from the standard Shield-Gen; it's not artificial like that of a Shield-Gen but an automatic effect of activating my powers."

From within his jacket sleeve, a metal tube slid out and dropped neatly on his open palm.

Tim stared. "That's a lightsaber. They don't exist."

Ken grinned fiercely in return. "Yeah, that's a lightsaber. They do exist."

He threw it at his trapped brother, its blade igniting as it spun, cutting through the bonds that held Van's wrists and feet. With a shout of effort, Van ripped off the water choking him and leapt away before it could trap him again, activating his own Shield-Gen as he did so. Like a boomerang, the spinning lightsaber returned back to its owner. Sludge switched targets from Van and rushed the other two only to be stopped in his tracks by a pair of explosive batarangs flung at him by Tim. The latter looked at Ken grimly.

"Those were my last two."

Ken moved in front of Tim, lightning coursing down both arms, ending in a sphere of blue energy in his left hand, and a small grouping of crackling sparks in his right, slowly making their way into his blade. Van stood at the other end, baiting Sludge with a second target.

"Then we're gonna have to wing it. Be ready."

The sharp click of a telescopic bo staff extending was Tim's reply. The two ran straight for the Warlock, who greeted this attacking rush with a volley of acid blasts right at the two young men. Red Robin leapt up and over the attack, while Ken ran headlong into the acid blasts. Tim's mouth dropped open in surprise as the acid blasts froze in mid-air, courtesy of a few well-aimed ice bullets from Van. His younger brother, blade already extended and charged up, swatted away the frozen acid balls, shattering them, and moved swiftly into a thrusting manoeuvre.

Ken grinned. "Hey there, Sludge. I can't really remember, but I think you hate electricity right?"

The thrust was a feint. Ken easily somersaulted over Sludge as the Warlord retaliated, swinging an arm defensively. "Boy, has Van got a shock for you then." The humanoid noticed, too late, Van's sword embedded in its body. The elder brother grinned before channelling an enormous amount of electricity through his sword. For good measure, he fired shot after shot, all lightning-imbued, point-blank at Sludge. In the meantime, Ken finished forming the ball of lightning in his hand.

"Van! A second serving for our customer! Over to you, bro!" he yelled as he flung the lightning orb that he had created at his brother.

Van leapt back, yanking out his sword out of Sludge's mass. He flicked it once to get rid of the acid before holding it aloft, catching the ball of lightning that Ken had formed earlier with the flat of his blade. Lightning coursed through the blade once more, the charge this time even stronger. The blade took on a blinding glow. He ran towards the now-weakened Sludge again, driving the point of his blade into the War-General a second time, shocking the being from the inside. But Sludge was not going down without a fight. Struggling to maintain his humanoid form, it charged at the shocked young man, intending to cover him and disintegrate him from the inside. Both were understandably shocked when Red Robin leapt down from his vantage point above, drove his arm into the War-General and yelled a loud battlecry.

The third and final burst of electricity that assaulted Sludge was the one that finally defeated him. He collapsed into an undignified pile of goo, a gurgle of pain coming out of it. Eyes wide open, mouths drooping, the two Fanell brothers turned to stare at Tim Drake who was now looking distastefully at the horrible-smelling gunk on his right glove. He frowned.

"What?"

"What was that?" an incredulous Ken asked.

"Huh? Oh, high-voltage taser function in the suit. One-time use only."

Van came over to clap Tim on the back. "Regardless, good job. Thanks for the assist."

"Eh, no problem," Tim replied as he kept staring at his glove. "This gunk isn't gonna come off, is it?"

"Sorry. Best to burn it."

He sighed. "Shame. I really liked the glove. Your watch's beeping, by the way."

Ken looked at his wrist communicator, which was beeping urgently as well as Van's. He activated it.

"Warning. High levels of nitroglycerin detected. Area extremely unsafe."

All three looked at the weakened pile of goo that was Sludge. Thoroughly defeated but not yet dead, the War-General had reconfigured his chemical composition into the highly explosive compound, leaving only enough of his body matter to form a single word on the ground.

"DIE."

"THE TWO OF YOU GET BEHIND ME NOW!"

A small spark appeared out of nowhere, the last bit of magic Sludge was capable of at that moment. It floated onto the nitroglycerin goo, and the resulting explosion levelled the forest in a kilometre-wide diameter. When the flames had abated and the dust had cleared, there was no sign of the three young men.

It was only a few hours later that a pack of roaming wolves entered the now-quiet battlefield, sniffing around the burnt carcasses of animals caught in the crossfire. Meat was meat, and the wolves were not feeling particularly fussy. Splotches of pinkish goo, greying at the edges, dotted the ground. The explosion had even scattered it into the trees. The goo pulsed weakly but steadily, as if waiting for something.

As the alpha wolf sniffed around a particularly gooey area, a perfect circle, composed entirely of black shadow, materialized under it. Before the startled animal could respond, a shadow tendril shot out and speared it from below. As the rest of the wolf pack ran away, whimpering, the tendril flicked away the pack leader's carcass before withdrawing back into the black hole. Stairs appeared out of nowhere from within the pool of shadow and two cloaked figures walked up the stairs and out of the black hole, surveying the damage that their minions had earlier caused.

The shorter of the two sniffed disdainfully. "What a mess. Did Sludge cause all this?"

Maggot, one of the Chaos Legion's War-Generals like Sludge, poked around in the pinkish goo that was his brother. "He really needs to get out more. Alive, obviously, but he got beaten too easily. There were better ways to take those three out than a suicidal tactic like that. Right, Razorpoint?"

The taller figure remained silent as he kept scanning the battlefield.

"Damn it, you really are no fun to work with," sighed Maggot as he stood up and gathered power to himself. Tiny white larvae, their abdomens glowing faintly, streamed out of his sleeve and into the goo. "Wake up, Sludge."

The larvae, embedded in the goo, began to glow faintly, the weak muddied light emanating from them obscured further by the goo. The goo itself was pulsing stronger now, and Sludge's characteristic gurgle was bubbling out of the goo. The greying edges were gone, and the pink colouring of the substance was clearer now, not as translucent as before. Slowly but surely, the goo was reconstituting itself into the War-General Sludge.

The damage done by his three opponents had been severe though; there was no doubting that. Patches of dried slime still dotted the landscape, and the reconstitution process itself had taken significantly longer than most.

Sludge gurgled a sound of thanks to his older brother Razorpoint, and a noncommittal one to Maggot. "Boy, you help someone…"

Razorpoint growled once, shutting up Maggot. "Are you confident they are dead, all three of them?"

There was a hesitant pause. Razorpoint's anger was feared by all, even his sibling War-Generals. Sludge was the one who got on best with their eldest brother, but even he knew the consequences of angering him. Maggot, standing behind Razorpoint, took two furtive steps backward. There was a sudden cruel bark of laughter from the old War-General.

"As much as I want to see the whole Fanell family dead, my preference would be to take care of every single one of them personally. If they're alive, then I should thank you, I suppose. You've given me the opportunity to kill them myself."

He walked off, seemingly oblivious to the sudden relief that cut through the tension in the air, and melted into a pool of shadow that glided away. Maggot and Sludge looked at the departing shadow, then at each other before bursting out in nervous chuckles.

All of a sudden black spikes punctured out of the ground everywhere around them. Both War-Generals suddenly found themselves caged in separately by black shadow tendrils that popped out from the ground beneath, the tips of the tendrils pointed at them, glistening with shadowy black ooze.

"Next time though; be more thorough."

Author's notes: Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from readers soon! Apologies in advance for those who may need some context. With regards to the DC Universe, the story does not take into account the events of Flashpoint and/or the New 52. Further narrowing down Tim's story, the time-setting takes place after the last issue of DC's Red Robin starring Tim Drake. Tim is still working for Batman Inc, but his relationship with Batman has been strained somewhat due to the events of the series' last issue. On a final note, the disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN TIM DRAKE/BATMAN/ANY DC COMICS CHARACTERS WHO WILL SHOW UP.

Thanks!