The plan had been simple, too simple: Raven would teleport them in, Bumble-Bee and the rest of Titans east would head west and cause a distraction whilst Robin would lead the main force to rescue Terra.
The Geomancer had been revived a few months ago, shortly after the Lords had finally decided to take a hand in the Titans affairs (and those of the world in general),their advanced watchtower and J'onn's knowledge of shape shifting quickly solving a problem that had been viewed as insurmountable, freeing Terra from her rocky prison. The troubled girl had been reunited with her former friends and all had been happy for a time, but like all that girls happiness it was short lived.
The Lords were…changing, it had been most obvious after Luthor's…impeachment, but Robin knew that it had started long before that. The constant fighting and the endless villains had taken their toll… it had started out small; the occasional 'suggestion' to the government, the odd overzealous beating, quickly escalating to become a bid to seize control over every rule and regulation. Whatever the reason though the lords now controlled the earth in the name of 'justice' with an iron fist. All the governments (willingly or otherwise) now answered directly to the watchtower.
Terra had been taken a month ago, for 'routine testing' apparently, but Robin hadn't been so sure, both Terra and Robin had always been against the Lords new 'system' but Terra, always the free spirit, was especially outspoken. Always criticising their way of running things, their 'draconian law system' things like that. Even going so far as to allow some of the lesser offenders to escape, an action that Robin frowned upon, but even he could see what she had meant; convicting people of 'causing a breach of the peace' for complaining about a restaurant's service was just daft.
And so when Terra had been taken Robin had slipped her a transmitter to ensure that the titans could find her if anything 'unsavoury' was to happen, and from the looks of things his paranoia had paid off, as usual.
It had taken a while but with Raven's help Robin had been able to track Terra down; She as being held in Arkham asylum, as an enemy of the state no less!
And so here they were; the Teen Titans, famed adolescent superhero's committing a jailbreak from one of the worlds most secure parahuman prisons; Arkam Asylum.
Arkham, somehow it always came back to Arkam, the monstrous asylum that presided over the decaying city of Gotham. It has been said that Arkam is a soulless place in the worst way, nothing but a crypt for the mad souls left to rot in its confines, but Robin knew better, Arkam had a soul, a soul born from the tortured minds of the twisted wretches that suffered in its stygian depths.
He still remembered his first time, hauling Two-face up to the wrought iron gates, the gnarled blackened metal a chilling reflection of the malignant presence that lurked in the walls.
It called to you, sang the siren song of madness till the very stones seemed to moan "you belong here, you know you do, come throw away your wretched sanity and join the dance"
He had fought that compulsion many times during his tenure under the dark knight, being brought to the brink but always pulling away before the call became too strong. But even when you left Arkam it felt like you'd left a little bit of yourself behind.
The asylums parting words always chilling "No matter, we will always be here, waiting…for you"
It must have been horrible for Terra, to be locked in the bowels of this cursed place, listening to the sobbing of the stones and feeling the evil of the walls press down upon her like a smothering miasma.
Even now under Arkam's 'new system' malignancy still seemed to drip from the walls, the anima of the building greeting Robin like an old friend, washing over him with the warmth of a fetid breath.
The others felt it too, he could see it in their faces; Beast boy looked sick, his eyes constantly darting around, always alert and tensed to run, it seemed that the old saying that animals could sense evil was true after all.
Cyborg seemed preoccupied, the only red glow of his prosthetic eye given a hellish quality in the asylum's cloying gloom.
Starfire was shaking; even her boundless enthusiasm was muted by the stink of the place, the bright emerald glow of her power dampened to a flickering green glow, bathing the walls in putrescent pus coloured light.
It had hit Raven the worst, she hid it well but Robin could see the truth, she felt it keener then any of them, her empathic abilities magnifying the whispers into a cacophony of ethereal noise.
True to Robin's guess, Raven felt Arkam's prescience clearly, but her reaction was not born entirely of revulsion… some part of her, a part that she had hidden beneath a thin veneer of discipline and will, sang along to the asylums song, revelling in its entropy and drinking deep of it's malice.
It was getting harder to maintain control…
Neither the prison guards or the layout posed a problem, under equipped to deal with Gotham's rogues gallery, the security stood no chance against the Titans and Robin was all too familiar with its twisting halls. At least the old ones…
"It's gone."
"What do you mean 'it's gone'?" snapped Cyborg, harsher then he had intended.
"The door to the vault, its…gone."
"How can a door vanish?" moaned Beast boy in aggravation, slumping against the wall to his left.
"I am in agreement with friend Beast-boy, doors on this planet do not move, they are polite like that."
"Here."
As one, the huddled Titans turned to Raven.
"What?"
"I…said I…" Raven paused, apparently marshalling her strength. Robin quirked an eyebrow. For a moment, just a moment it had not sounded like Raven…
"The door is here."
"How do you-" began Beast boy suspiciously, but he was cut off when Raven lent against the wall, causing it to swing inwards with a groan of sliding stone.
Raven stepped back as the others cautiously filed through leaving only her and Robin in the dark hallway.
"How did you know about the secret wall Raven?"
"Lucky guess."
Robin could tell that she was lying, but now was neither the time nor the place to confront her about it so he shrugged and stepped through.
Raven had indeed been lying, she knew exactly how the knowledge of the door had come to her; Arkam had told her…
And so they arrived at the vault.
The vault, a relatively new addition to Arkams containment facility, was a huge steel/titanium box, evidently designed to hold the strongest of criminals 'and keep Terra from reaching the earth' thought Robin darkly. The lock was ridiculously complex; each bolt had 3 separate codes and each code changed bolt in sequence. it had taken him this long just to breech the first 3 codes.
"C'mon man… we ain't got much time." Cyborg's voice in his ear was an urgent reminder for the need for haste
The vault signalled its release with a sullen Clunk the huge locking pins retracting as the door slid open slowly to reveal the dark space beyond.
Beast boy leaped forward, eager to retrieve his love and escape the wretched place. "Terra!" his face froze, mouth-hanging open at the sight before him.
"Not quite."
"No…"
It was Superman, the former icon of justice, flanked by the rest of the Lords, the limp bodies of Titans east lying at their feet.
Superman smirked slightly at the Titans shocked expressions, evidently enjoying their surprise.
"They tried to free the prisoners… we had no choice" he offered as an explanation.
BB broke the shocked silence first.
"W-what about Terra? Where is she?"
The smirk that had crossed Superman's face vanished to be replaced by an ugly sneer at the mention of Terra's name.
"Oh yes the agitator…she was executed as an enemy of the state yesterday, she called out for you you know, all of you, she wanted to know why her friends didn't save her."
"Wha- what?"
"I said she was executed, she was an enemy of justice and so got exactly what she deserved."
"GAR! NO"
But Cyborg's warning went unheeded
"Raaagh!" BB charged, all thought lost in the animal rage that had overtaken him, his form shifting to that of the man-beast in mid-leap.
Superman looked on disinterestedly as the hulking behemoth pelted towards him, barely even blinking before casually swatting him aside, sending BB flying to impact the wall with bone crushing force.
"I am willing to believe that he wasn't thinking clearly when he did that, it was his 'love' after all, and as no harm has been done, if you leave now we can forget about all of this 'unfortunate' business and get on with our lives."
Robin looked at Beast boy's prone body, curled in a mangled heap by the vault wall and then back at Superman's eyes, eyes that did not hold a trace of remorse or the man Robin once admired.
That was it, the final test, the totally cavalier way that Superman treated Terra's execution with proved it beyond all doubt; Superman had gone mad.
"You…you've gone too far."
"What was that?"
"I said you've gone to far you bastard."
Superman actually seemed shocked; the bastard actually seemed shocked at Robin's words!
"I'm warning you, this is your last chance, leave now or become enemies of Justice and be treated accordingly. I will not stan-"
Whatever he was going to say was lost then, lost in the combined roar of an explosive disk, a flurry of star-bolts and the raucous bark of a sonic cannon.
The combined assault was enough to send Superman hurtling backwards to slam into the wall of the vault; Treble strength neo-titanium tungsten alloy bending like toffee under the impact.
"Star you keep on him! Raven handle the lantern, Cyborg with me! Titans go! "
Starfire nodded and darted after Superman, pelting the area with Starbolts as she zipped past.
Wonderwoman flew to intercept but was deflected by a flurry of explosive discs before Cyborg smashed her to the ground.
Robin leapt to help Cyborg but his flight was arrested by Hawkgirl, the Thanagarian slamming into him with all the force that only a 110 pound woman flying at 45 miles per hour could muster, Robin didn't even have time to think before her mace came scything down, hungry for his blood.
Later he would have loved to say that it was Batman's training that had saved him in that critical moment, but as much as it sickened him he knew that it wasn't true. Slade was the only one who had come at him ready to kill, and Slade was the only reason he could move fast enough now; jack-knifing his legs up and into her face and using his momentum to slip through the gap between her arms, flicking out his staff as he tumbled.
Cyborg was struggling, he'd got the drop on Wonderwoman and delivered some punishing blows, but now that the Amazon had gotten her feet under her…
He swung wildly, trying to buy himself time to recover the offensive but Wonderwoman easily caught his fist and tugged him forward, smashing her elbow into his face with a crackle of crushed cartilage. He reeled back clutching his face and swung blindly, a clumsy attack that she easily avoided, swerving round his fist to land a punishing series of blows across his face and chest that left the mechanical teen lying broken on the floor.
Raven too was having problems, whilst she could probably overcome the Lantern in terms of pure power. Especially with the evil of Arkham fuelling her strength, but the Lantern had a level of control with his ring that she could only dream of, attacking from so many different angles and with such force that all she could do was dodge around, occasionally throwing a lump of rubble or a force bolt his way.
And that was the problem, they just couldn't beat the Lords, not in a straight up fight, hell Superman could probably take them all on himself. So their only chance was to keep the Lords of balance. once they had their bearings the fight was over.
Robin swore loudly as he saw Cyborg fall and parried another jarring blow from Hawkgirl's mace, leaping back, dodging the follow-up kick and using his staff to change direction in mid-air to avoid a blast from the green lantern duelling with Raven above.
A satisfied smirk briefly flickered across his face as he saw Raven punish the lantern for his inattention; slamming him to the ground with an obsidian fist.
Hawk girl swung again, a scything blow that would have taken his head from his shoulders, whether he blocked it with his staff or not, or it would have had he not leapt over her swing, twisting in mid-air to plant a shock disk in the small of her back. She screamed for a moment before collapsing, battered and smoking but alive, to the floor.
Robin had barely a second to catch his breath before Wonderwoman charged him, launching an attack that snapped his hastily raised Bo like a twig. he threw the sundered halves at her and leaped back, the tonfa concealed in his gloves extending just in time to deflect a kick aimed for his head, even with him redirecting most of the force instead of simply blocking it her blow still numbed his arm. His counter attack; a thrust with his free tonfa caught her squarely in the chin and sent her reeling back, but it was a futile gesture; he was might be the better fighter but the gap between their speed and strengths was too great. it was only a matter of time before his broken body joined those of Bumble-Bee and the others.
Raven swerved left, narrowly avoiding the emerald beam that sought her heart
"AZERATH METRION ZINTHOS"
Her incantation, coupled with the boost Arkham provided her forged her power into a claw of pure night, a claw that smashed through the Lantern's hastily erected shield and threw him into the far wall. Raven paused, breathing heavily; it was getting harder to maintain control… the voices…
WHAM!
The lanterns beam caught her head on, blasting her from the sky to fall in a heap on the ground below, the lantern erected a cage around her before she recovered, too busy battling for control of her own mind to even pay attention.
On the other side of the battlefield Starfire slowed her assault, breathing heavily, the walls surrounding her target were molten, liquid metal flowing into liquid rock where she had forced Superman through the vault into the bedrock below, dripping down into a smoky crater at least 6 foot deep. surely nothing could have survived that?
A hand burst from the smoke and caught her by the throat; she had time to scream before-
Crack!
The battle halted at the sound. all eyes turned to the figure striding from the smoky wreck of the halls southern end; Superman stood silhouetted in the hole he had made on his backwards journey through it , Starfire's limp body hanging from his outstretched arm.
"No…" Raven looked up, even the perpetually screaming voices of Arkam had fallen silent.
Nobody, not even the Lords could quite believe what had happened, it couldn't have happened could it?
"Starfire!"
Robin leapt forward with an inarticulate yell, disc already leaving his hand when Superman's heat beam hit it dead centre, causing it to explode in a burst of shrapnel and gore, sending Robin flying backwards clutching the bloody stump of his arm.
To the Lantern it looked like Raven had exploded, the emerald cage containing her shattering in a blaze of power, her form completely hidden in a corona of swirling black and red.
The scream started small but built and built as other voices joined Raven's, reaching the point of agony and transcending it easily. It was a scream of total pain and hopelessness and the Lords found their own hidden fears and pains coming to the fore, all protection stripped away by the primal sound, and as the scream grew so did Raven's aura, swallowing everything in total darkness before vanishing completely.
When they awoke the bodies of the Titans, living and dead were gone.