Hello, my beloved readers! This is my first TT fic, intended to be quite serious, and how can I possibly own the Teen Titans when I don't even own the car I drive?
Reviews keep me going, so if you like the story hook, feedback would really help me tell whether or not people are reading… Slade's POV.
Prologue
Even as I stand in the watchful glare of the monitors that serve as my eyes, I feel the sensations. The sensations have an annoying habit of clawing at your mind most fiercely when you are trying to meditate, or assume a state of collectiveness.
The Underworld... At the time, it had seemed a rather inspiring place. But its scars have long since grown tiresome. Even in silence, there is the persistent roaring of flames and the wailing of rotting souls in my ears. There is the sting of sulfur powder on my eyelashes, and the feel of grease on my lips; a sure sign that, somewhere within the vicinity, flesh is burning. They are constant reminders of my passage, and I am forced to shoulder them. Contrary to popular belief, Hell is not a grand hall of brimstone so much as a festering wound to be forever carried and endured. I have earned my fatale ahead of schedule in making a deal with the Devil's undertaker, Trigon. How ironic. I do enjoy being ahead of schedule.
I admittedly regret the absence of my loyal servant, Wintergreen. In light of my disappearance, he masterfully and wisely followed suit. I could track him down, but he is reminiscent of another life, a life when I was less monster and more human.
As I walk before the glass cradling my views of the city, I give a passive glance into its reflecting depths. Rather than spotting my own menacing reflection, I see the Renaissance adornments of a young woman as she slits the throat of another for reasons unknown to me. The girl is abruptly smited into ash as a wall of flame erupts from the bowels of Hell's forges. Upon first realizing my left eye could gaze into the deep recesses of Pluto's domain, I watched the reenactments of the misdeeds and the punishings with mild interest. But no longer. While moderate entertainment, the sudden screams and barraging images are an impediment to my concentration, and a static-like interference in my planning.
I stop before the screen I frequent more often than any other. It is the one framing my view of Titans Tower and its inhabitants. I often wonder how the titans would feel knowing they have such an avid audience, but they would never suspect as such. The titan Cyborg created a rather impressive security system, but predictable in its composition. It had been almost boring hacking into it. I glance towards the window displaying the only titan who's waking and sleeping hours are similar to my own.
Robin habitually paces away the early hours of morning, lost in a haze of complicated thought processes. I can understand his restlessness, for I had difficulty for many years organizing the complexities of my own mind before I learned to detach and eliminate all useless emotions and stressors. To eradicate pointless care and replace it with cold confidence is yet another valuable skill I could have taught him had he remained my apprentice. He could have been the greatest, shrewdest criminal mastermind of all. He's Cyborg without the predictability, Beastboy without the weakness and ignorance, Starfire without the instability, and Raven without the constant doubt. Rather than being blessed with powers, the boy had been bequeathed with a potential for perfection unattainable by those gaining an edge through mutations and abnormalities.
His flaw is his inability to recognize the great gift I once offered. The boy could have had it all. He could've played God in this forsaken city. Unfortunately, that flaw is a fatal one. In my plans to wrap chains around Jump, he is no longer an asset, but an opportunity cost and the only real threat to my endeavors.
Coincidently, I see the young face of a man mildly reflected in the screen. It hovers neatly in place like an odd sheer mask over the image of Robin's. The young ghost's face, the first I recognize, blanches as a river of blood trickles down to pool below the right eye and eventually waterfall from the high cheekbones. It almost appears as if it is Robin who suffers, and I anticipate a future satisfying in the quantity of titan suffering. My thoughts reach a full analysis of the situation before the black inferno even claims the ghost. How quickly thoughts come unhindered by pointless outside factors… But the Titans are not my first targets. First, I have business outside of Jump that needs my immediate attention.
The game has not yet ended.
The pawns are simply realigning.
And I will be their master.
-- What's old Sladey up to? If you care in the slightest, carry on! And reviewing is a kind gesture that is greatly appreciated!!
