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"You were running your power supply dry. It was inevitable that you would soon be unable to use them at all…"
"There's supposedly an underground 'competition' where super villains come with humans and make them fight this big black creature called the Brindar and if they win the villain wins this prize. They call it entertainment."
"The prize is an immortality potion. Can make you live forever. We can't let Slade get it."
She looked at her hands as if she was about to cry into them, then suddenly, they flickered neon green.
"What have you done to me?"
"Performance enhancer. You will now feel no pain. Feel no fear." Starfire turned around with her arms around her chest. Suddenly, the fierce expression came back, a hand planted itself on her shoulder, "And I'm quite pleased it worked. Now you are ready."
"Then bring forth the Brindar!"
The jaguar leapt into the air and positioned its claws for Starfire's face but suddenly, Starfire did a backwards roll just past the claws and with her hands to the ground, she pushed off and kicked the jaguar hard in the face. It collapsed with a thump.
"No, you are disqualified from the events."
Slade narrowed his eyes, "At what charges?"
"She is not a human," the hooded figure stated. Her voice seemed familiar.
Starfire gasped, "Blackfire?"
Blackfire gasped as Starfire got right up to her. She threw more and more starbolts trying to get Starfire as far away from her but they didn't stop her. The other titans watching in horror from above as Starfire refused to show any pain. Starfire took the hand from behind her back and threw it around Blackfire's neck. She held on for ten seconds and then released. Blackfire fell down heavily.
She was back on the island where she had been held imprisoned a while ago. Behind her was Slade, he had teleported her once again away from her friends.
"The performance enhancer hasn't worn of yet, when it does, you will feel all of the pain that you should have felt in battle, and you will wish yourself dead."
"You will stay here and die while I make a clean getaway with this," Slade held a potion vial of clear liquid in his hand, "The prize that you won me."
"Over here!" shouted Raven, getting everyone's attention. They all ran up to her, there on the beach was Starfire, the waves splashing her face. She was unconscious, with a very pained expression. The water around her was stained with her blood.
"About a year ago, around about the incident of Slade hiring you as an apprentice, Starfire was very clever to look to the future and if something such as this," Raven gestured the unconscious Starfire lying in the bed, "were to happen, she would be prepared. Every other week, Starfire would go to the nearby hospital and put aside a small amount of her own blood. Eventually it amounted up to several gallons of Tamaranian blood."
"All we can do now is wait."
It was late at night when everyone had fallen asleep when Starfire had woken up. She lay on her bed breathing gently. The pain was fresh and she could do little to subdue the expression on her face that came with it. Her eyes slowly opened. She looked around and saw the med room. No one was there. She would have thought that someone would have wanted to be there when she wakes up to give her a friendly face to look at, but no. She didn't care. She was back with the people that she loved. She didn't have the strength to notify anyone of her awakening so she snuggled down deeper into her bed and smiled. With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes and the world turned black around her.
It didn't stay black long. He eyes flashed open when suddenly; she felt a cold grip tighten around her sore and slightly severed neck. It lifted her up in such a way that she had to hold on to the hand to let the oxygen through her windpipe. It took her eyes a few second to adjust; they were tearing slightly around the edges from the sudden wave of pain that course through her body. It wasn't hard to figure out even before her eyes opened that this was Slade yet again come to seek what he so desperately wants.
"Where is it?" he demanded a little quieter than usual.
"I do not know," Starfire mustered.
"You will tell me," his grip tightened.
"In… thedraw," she coughed out.
Starfire remained in Slade's grip, if anything, it tightened. She couldn't let so much as a scream escape her lips. Slade walked over to the table by the medical charts. The table had flowers set on it and seemed like an unlikely place to put something valuable. Slade had expected the evidence room, but maybe Robin thought so too. The draw was locked. That didn't stop Slade; he ripped it out of the table in sheer desperation, and there it was, the potion vial, just where Starfire expected Robin to put it. A devilish smirk was hidden beneath the mask. "Let me go," Starfire spoke in a shaky voice.
Slade didn't reply, he just observed the bottle closely. "You know nothing of this potion, correct?" Starfire didn't answer, "I shall teach you of it before I leave, as a…reward for your service. It is a potion of immortality. Can make its drinker live forever, carefully crafted by the monks of Ningiya with very precise measures of rare and valuable ingredients. Any cubic thousandth of a milliliter could set the whole balance wrong. This brew of potion was only tested once by a wise man that walks the world collecting every piece of information of any use to him. He seeks enlightenment; he has eternity to find it. And while you age and suffer the disadvantages that it brings you, I shall be ruling this world with an iron fist," Slade finished off. Starfire winced; she still had her feet several inches off the floor. She couldn't let this happen. Starfire opened her eyes taking no notice of the tears of pain that she had been holding back and focused all the energy she could muster into a single scream. She would fight another day, she needed her rest now. Today, she would leave the fighting to her friends.
Slade narrowed his eyes at her and whispered, "You shall regret that." He then threw her by the neck into the nearest computer panel. There was a distinctive sound of what could have possibly been a broken bone or some sort of dislocation. By any means, it was internal and it was not good. She dented the panel deeply and landed with a cold thump on the bed beside it just narrowly missing the center of it and falling off the edge with a handful of sheets that cascaded down onto her newly bleeding body.
In only a matter of seconds, Robin skidded to a halt nearly into the doorframe of the med room. He ran cautiously into the room to find it completely empty. He took a second look around and noticed the two beds, one with ruffled sheets, the other with none. He noticed the fresh blood stain and dreaded who was beneath it.
"Hey, what's going on?" Cyborg ran into the room and stood in the entrance to see the flustered leader standing stock still. Ahead of him lay a pile of sheets.
The others were quick to appear beside Cyborg. They watched Robin edge slowly towards the sheets and with a quickening heart rate; he revealed what he had already realized. Starfire laid limp within the cluster of white and red. Robin stood paralyzed; fortunately, Cyborg was quick to react to such an emergency. He hoisted Starfire up and onto a new bed, ordered Beast Boy to turn on the lights; Raven to get the drip ready and he himself got the portable x-ray ready.
Not much time passed when the results were in. Starfire was diagnosed with snapped tenants in her left leg and two broken ribs. The only new wound to appear was the one she grazed on her elbow the side of the bed when she fell off it. All the fresh blood was from the wounds that had reopened with the sudden rise in blood pressure. Raven concluded that she could heal the broken tenant and numb the pains on her chest and reopened wounds but only nature can repair the damage done to the ribs.
"It was clearly Slade. He can't stop bothering Starfire," Beast Boy concluded.
"He's only after the potion," Raven argued, "Starfire just happens to be the one in the way, or the one that can help him."
"So he came here to try to get the potion back?" Cyborg asked as he came back into the room. He had only just heard the end of the conversation because he was checking some more medical charts.
"Quite obviously," Raven finished, "But did he succeed?"
"Yes. The potion vial's gone," Robin looked over the draw that was ripped from its locked in place.
It was still late at night and everyone wanted to get some sleep. Robin was the only one who chose to subside his own needs for Starfire's. He sat at her bedside and looked her over. How could Slade have done all this to you? He pondered. In the past weeks, he's practically dragged you through hell and back again. How could one man be so heartless? Robin stayed with her. He didn't even sleep. Starfire had woken up last time to see Slade. The next time, Robin promised to himself, he'd be the one she'd see first. Robin caressed her cheek and realized that she was burning up. He rushed to the sink in the other room and grabbed a clean rag. After soaking it in cold water, he quickly got back to the medical room. To his relief, Starfire was still there sleeping in the bed, just like he had left her. He placed the rag on her forehead and watched a drop of water make its way down the side of her face and into her hair. He thought back to the fateful day when Slade had first kidnapped her. He held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. When he heard the gunshot, he thought it was all over for his princess. Robin took the corner of the blanket and lifted it off to reveal her arm lying on the white soft bed. He carefully lifted it up and looked it over. The wound was just a scar now, just a mark on her arm that would soon leave entirely. He placed the arm back in its place. That's when he noticed what Starfire was still wearing. The tattered black dress where mounted was the badge of Slade. The badge that represented all that Robin hated most in the world.
If Slade could now live forever, then Robin would have to make it the worst eternity imaginable. He swore revenge and he promised himself that he'd enjoy it.
Thank you for reading now, once again, please review, thanks!