So, I've been gone for a while and I'm truly sorry for that. Between work, personal drama, and getting ready to start a YouTube channel I just haven't been able to find the time to sit down and write. I'm going to do my best to not let anything stop me from keeping my stuff updated.
Chapter Seven
With Robin
The Bat-Family, bastions of strength and justice; mere humans who dare to stand in opposition of super powered criminals; Tim Drake is proud to carry the title of Red Robin, a title he earned with sweat and blood. He has taken down the fiercest and most depraved of criminals in his few years of crime fighting, hell he managed to uncover Batman's true identity at the age of 13. Despite all of this, despite his strength and unwavering determination, being a hair's width away from death still shakes him to the core. He never allows his team to see it, but after a near death experience he locks the door to his room, heads to the bathroom, curls up in the bathtub, and lets the pain and fear flow out of him. This is where Tim finds himself after the particularly brutal fight earlier in the day; he still has no idea why the Suicide Squad is in Jump, nor how all those criminals found out.
With all the chaos it wasn't hard for the Titans to swoop in and take a good portion of the criminals by surprise. With a majority of the criminals on the outside handled, Robin decided to head into the abandoned office and get a head start on subduing the remaining criminal element. He managed to clear the first three floors before catching a stray bullet in the left thigh, it slowed him down a bit but that didn't matter against the low level enemies he was facing. His luck turned to shit on the fifth floor, where after eliminating six thugs and two low level telekinetic Metahumans, he was blindsided by Nanaue. The attack bruised a couple of ribs and fractured his left wrist, but wasn't enough to take him out. He managed to fight Nanaue off for a couple of minutes but the bullet hole in his left leg started slowing him down more and more, to the point where he was barely able to evade Nanaue's massive fists. Moving a millisecond too slow caused Robin to be rag dolled across the room by a powerful back hand. Upon colliding with a pile of scrap he felt an overwhelming burst of pain in his abdomen; an old metal pipe had pierced his stomach and was lodged in his liver. The pain was followed by a wave of nausea and darkening vision. He was then lifted by Nanaue, who had a hand completely around Robin's head, as he stared crushing the much smaller male's head the only thought on Tim's mind was how much pain this would cause his father.
As darkness consumed his world, Robin was vaguely aware of the sudden influence of gravity and the impact of his body on the floor below. With the darkness retreating he was able to make out the large blue-grey arm of Nanaue lying on he ground in front of him. A pain filled roar caused his head to snap up and to his odd relief, his most vexing enemy, in a new outfit, stood with his katana plunged hilt deep into Nanaue's chest. A quick upward yank and the sword sliced through its victim's chest and out of their skull. With the shark-like threat neutralized, CED approaches the near dead Titan and kneels down in front of him. The amount of blood Robin lost makes fighting back impossible, yet once again he is shocked as CED pulls the pipe out of his side and places a glowing hand over his wound and said wound begins to heal. Without a word the strange vigilante stands and starts to leave.
"CED-"
"Okami." He interrupts.
"Okami… why did you save me, why not just let me die? It'd save you an enemy." Robin's tone is drenched in confusion. After a moment of silence, Okami returns to his previous position of kneeling in front of Robin. With a chuckle he places his hand on the young man's head and ruffles his hair.
"You aren't my enemy."
Those four words simultaneously inspired a since of comfort and fear in Tim. While it is nice to know such a dangerous person isn't looking to kill him, he doesn't exactly like the idea of a violence loving killer being his ally. Shaking the fog from his mind and pulling himself from the tub, Robin prepares to face his team. As he walks past the computers in his room one of the security feeds catches his attention.
With Raven
The whole team is gathered in the common room but nobody is talking. The battle they just endured was unlike anything they'd been a part of before, there was so much death and none of them walked away uninjured. Raven was thankful her only injuries were a black eye and a rather nasty cut on her upper left arm. The worst off was without a doubt Kaldur, he suffered a shattered right arm, broken left shin, and a broken collar bone. Cyborg's legs were damaged to the point he needed to replace them, Starfire and Cassie both had cracked ribs and blunt force trauma all over their bodies, Beast Boy's left arm was torn out of socket and has a mild concussion, and Robin nearly died. Thanks to Cyborg's advanced medical tech Kaldur is in good condition, though he'll be down a couple of days. All in all this was a vicious wake up call to the dangers of the hero world, because of the exception of fighting her father, the Titan's have never dealt with something on this level before.
The sound of a chair sliding across the floor causes Raven to look in Cyborg's direction, the look on his face is concerning. Victor, as he prefers to be called in private, is a very protective person. He cares for all of his teammates as if they were family and Raven can feel the pain and self-hate rolling off of him. She wants to say something to comfort him but he speaks before she gets the chance.
"We did good today; we put away a large chunk of the city's criminals. We also fucked up in a major way; we were severely unprepared for a fight that large and chaotic. I know that Robin will have an entirely new training regime and schedule for us by tomorrow, so I'll be updating the training simulators and creating new obstacle courses in the next few days. We can't let this happen again."
"Very well put." A deep, commanding voice replies from the door. The team is shocked to see Batman and the newest Robin walking into the room with Red Robin. "But you're not entirely right. This was an unforeseen and unprecedented event, being unready is to be expected, this isn't your wheelhouse. There were no civilian causalities; your team did an admirable job."
The pure astonishment of being praised by Batman was ruined by a scoff from the short Robin.
"That isn't an excuse father; they should be ready for anything. This just proves that they aren't suited for being heroes and that Drake is a failure." The condescending look is knocked off his face by Robin slapping him in the back of the head.
"Ignore my little brother; he's just mad that he has to join our team. With that in mind You'll need to refer to me as Red in the field and Tim at home." With a smile on his face he shoves Robin forward and turns towards with his father. Just before exiting the common room he turns his head slightly and calls out. "By the way, Raven you'll be in charge of making sure Damian acclimates to his environment."
"Oh joy." Raven thinks as waves of anger and frustration roll off of her new charge.
Four Days Later
Meditation has been an impossibility the past few days; between the attack and attempting to manage Damian's aggressive and arrogant attitude, Raven has had enough stimulation for the next few months. After tossing and turning for nearly three hours, she finally fell asleep, though for a paltry hour.
"What the hell was that dream? I haven't seen any Roots of Self for that man since I met Vlad. The torture and hell he faced is unbelievable, I wonder what happened to him next." Speaking of Vlad, Raven hasn't heard from him since right before the attack. She knows he was a part of it from what Tim told them. "What's wrong with that idiot, it's been four days and he hasn't contacted me or shown up at the bookstore. I hope he's safe."
Her worried thoughts are thrown from her mind as her phone goes off. Looking at it she sighs, it's only Victor telling her to meet up in the common room; getting up she slips on a pair of black skinny jeans, Vlad's shirt, and black socks.
With the Titans
For the second time is less than a week the Titans find themselves visited by Batman, though this time the other two of the 'Big Three' are also present, a fact that scares the shit out of the team. After everyone arrived, they were treated to the longest five minutes of silence possible before Superman started the impromptu meeting.
"Two days ago, Amanda Waller was shot twice in the lower spine inside her office in DC; the culprit has been confirmed to be the formerly declared deceased Rick Flag." This revelation causes half the team to nearly choke on their surprise. "As most of you know, Flag was the original leader of the Suicide Squad. After shooting and permanently paralyzing Waller, he stole the controls to the bombs placed on the base of the of each Squad member."
"Then last night, this happened." Batman says while pulling up several images on the large screen at the front of the room. They depict the Suicide Squad, Rick Flag, and Bane with his forces attacking what appears to a League of Assassins facility hidden in the mountains. Wonder Woman takes the lead after the Titans have time to take in the images.
"This facility was used by the League of Assassins to produce a synthetic Lazarus Pit Serum. We believe that Flag managed to come across this information and recruited his former team, along with Bane to launch an attack. Fortunately, nobody walked away with the Serum" The good news is swiftly crushed by Batman.
"After looking over the scene we have determined that the Suicide Squad allowed Bane and his men to lead the charge. After a brief engagement between the two forces the Suicide Squad betrayed Bane and cut down his men from behind; Bane appears to have survived and escaped the mountain range. At the same time Flag and El Diablo made their way to the lab and presumably destroyed all traces of the LPS. All in all 35 of Bane's men and 27 League of Shadows members were killed."
"Since Jump is the last place they were seen we have come by to install a Zeta-Tube in the Tower incase they return and your team need assistance."
A Few Hours Later
After the Zeta-Tube were installed the three League members stuck around for a while to talk with the Titans, even Batman to everyone's surprise; although he pretty much keep to his sons and avoided everybody else. Raven even managed to have a pleasant conversation with Cassie and Wonder Woman. By the time the trio left, most of the Titans were ready to call it a night. Raven however decided to head to the roof and gaze at the stars. She sat there alone, transfixed by the beauty of the infinite void for well over an hour when the door to the roof opened. As she expected when she heard the noise, Damian stalked over to her and sat down a few feet from her. As problematic and obnoxious as he is, she's taken a liking to him; and him to her according to her empathic abilities.
"Do you truly have a boyfriend?" His question holds hidden concern.
"I'm not sure; we haven't really had much chance to discuss the nature of our relationship."
"Is he worthy of you?" This causes Raven to chuckle. As hard headed has he is, Damian is an extremely caring boy if you can get past all the sharp edges. Once Raven proved she was as strong willed and stubborn as he was, he quickly came to accept her as his only friend on the team.
"He could kick your short ass if that's what you mean." She says with a cocked eyebrow while looking directly at him.
"As if, only four people are capable of that." He quickly replies, indignation dripping off his words.
"Let's see, your grandfather, father, Nightwing, and… who?" Raven asks curiously, as Tim told her that Damian is rather proud of the 'fact' that only three people can defeat him.
"….I don't want to talk about him right now." Raven doesn't need her empathy for that statement; she can hear the turmoil in his voice. So she leaves it alone and they both look at the stars for what seems like hours.
With Vlad
"Yeah, I got it." Vlad says into his phone as he looks at his computer.
"Good, good. Remember this needs to be done fast, a couple days at most; the targets won't stay put forever and your entire plan hinges on all of this happening at the same time" Ryzer responds. "I gotta go, things to do and people to extort."
Standing up and rolling his shoulders, Vald heads to the shower. As the hot water flows down his body he lets out a loud sigh.
"So much to do in such little time… oh well, at least I'll get to spend a bit of time with Raven when this is all over. Hopefully she forgives me for what is to come."
Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think.
With laughs,
SonoftheJester
