Last chapter was supposed to be longer than it was, but since I hadn't posted anything in a week I had to do something. Anyways, I've been thinking about awesome plans for the future of this story and i've been brainstorming ideas for a while, so in the near future expect an announcement of my plan. Warning! It could be evil Bwahahahaha!...or I could be kidding. Also I decided to change it to a regular fic because the crossover wasn't necessary. I hope that the fic is still easy to find. Enjoy. :)
P.S.(I'm sorry it took so long to update, my classes are eating my free time faster than Usain Bolt can break his own record)
He opened his eyes and saw pure white hallways, adorned with paintings. He looked closer and saw that they were all blank, and stained with blood. The floor beneath his feet was a lavishly designed blue carpet, that also had the red substance on it. As he looked around he could see nothing but walls, paintings and the floor beneath him, he stopped. There was a yell from behind him, and as he turned he could see a man, trying to limp away into a room that hadn't been there before. He followed him in.
In the room was a trail of blood that the man had left behind and a few bodies on the floor. He didn't pay too much attention to the dead and continued into another door that had magically appeared. The next room he recognized from watching TV and from pictures that he had seen. On the floor was a bald eagle, clutching a cluster of arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. He looked in shock as he followed the trail to a door in the wall. There he found a hidden staircase which led him to the roof of the building where he saw the man from earlier and himself. Before he could could react a flash flared in front of him, and when the bright light disappeared he was holding the bloodied figure in one hand, and one of his desert eagles in the other.
"Do it," he said,"Kill me and it will all be over, you'll never get to really know who I am and who you were supposed to be."
He didn't react to the situation like he thought he would, and pressed the desert eagle against the man's cheek. He felt his finger pulling slowly on the trigger, his will not even preventing the event in motion. Then out of the blue something knocked the powerful handgun out of his hand. He turned to face whoever threw it and was shocked by who stood there...
WAKE UP!
"Hey are you alive?"
Marcas woke up to see a white ceiling and what he thought was an angel, but it was just Supergirl. There was beeping equipment all around and from what he could tell he was probably in the hospital.
"Are we at a hospital?" Marcas asked.
Off to the side a monotone voice replied, "No Marcas, you are at the hall of justice."
The young man heard the voice to his right and sat up. He looked at Supergirl then at the man standing next to her. The person of interest was taller than the average human, of course he didn't even look human, but all in all Marcas recognized him from the news. He was the martian manhunter and he is an original member of the Justice League.
Supergirl interrupted Marcas's thoughts as she pressed a few buttons on the console next to him. "You know you had us afraid for a moment."
An eyebrow raised on Marcas's face, "What...I took a nap."
"That may have been true, but if I can't even wake you up through telepathy then we have to do something.'' The martian pressed a button on his side of the room and the machines turned off.
"He's right, it would've sucked to lose somebody like you on the first day here." said Supergirl.
Marcas let the comment fly right past him, as he pulled the IV out of his hand, and got out of the bed. He noticed that they hadn't even bothered to change him out of his uniform that Oleg gave him. He checked his person to see if they did confiscate one thing that he knew they would take if not anything else...
"My guns..."
The manhunter reached behind his back and handed Marcas a case, "Your weapons are in here. They were confiscated before you were to be brought into the medical wing for certain reasons."
Marcas didn't even question the reasoning behind them taking his firearms and thanked the Martian. He slipped the two shining handguns in their holsters and locked them in place. He reached out a hand to formally greet the original member of the Justice League when Supergirl grabbed it.
"Come on, you've got to see the rest of this place!"
She quickly flew Marcas out of there and dragged him around the facility to meet every member of the league there. The Martian shook his head and smiled.
"So did you get anything form his thoughts?" a voice said from the shadows.
The manhunter nodded, "I did, but we had to put him in a medically induced coma for me to enter."
"And what did you find?"
Jon hesitated for a moment, and closed his eyes, "I saw everything that he went through, and then some. I saw his parents, his friends, some minor brain damage, and then there was Deathstroke."
The man in the shadows walked into the light to reveal Batman, "I knew that you would find something like that, but Jon, what else did you see?"
The manhunter balled his hands as tight as he could, "There was nothing else to see...the boy simply has a tragic past, and has been traumatized by it."
The caped crusader knew better and narrowed his eyes behind Jon's back, "Jon, don't lie to me."
"All right, I found out something extra about the boy."
"What did you find?" asked the dark knight.
"I found out more about his lineage. The boy has been lied to about his family for the most part."
Batman pulled one of the doctor's stools behind him and sat down, "Tell me more."
(Out in the lobby)
You could almost swear that Supergirl and the Red Crosshairs himself were an item by the way that she was dragging him around and introducing him to everybody. First it was Black Canary and Green Arrow which were over by the entrance to the gymnasium, then there was a brief hello to Stargirl by the entrance to the ladies room, and a stop by the cafeteria where everybody including most of the original members were dining.
Marcas didn't know what she would do next until she hovered over the room, "Hey everybody, guess who this guy is."
Everybody dropped what they were doing to stare at Supergirl and Marcas, who's eyes were as wide as saucers, "This is the new guy that i've been talking about, everybody meet... meet." She leaned down towards Marcas and asked, "What's your name?"
Marcas still stood there, "Um, its umm...Marcas."
Supergirl face palmed, "No not your real name, I mean your hero name."
Marcas was starting to sweat, and he could notice it. He always knew that he suffered from stage fright and always would, but now was the time to grow up. "It's Red...THE RED CROSSSHAIRS!"
That last outburst got the original members to turn their heads and see what was going on. What they saw was a very red Red Crosshairs and a surprised Supergirl. From across the room the Flash could see that the situation was going to become embarassing to Marcas and Kara and rushed over there.
"Hi, there Red I'm the Flash." he said as he grabbed Marcas's hand.
"Hello there nice to meet y.."
"Say why don't we sit back over at my table so your face doesn't turn crimson" The flash interrupted as he signaled Supergirl to follow.
After that everybody carried on with their own business, as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, at the other end of the room Supergirl was getting an earful from her cousin.
"Kara, do you remember what I said about dealing with newcomers."
She nodded, "Yes, don't get too over excited..."
"And?"
"Be more mature now that I'm older."
Superman folded his arms and gave her a stern look from across the table. Supergirl sighed and sat down.
"Exactly, now I want you to apologize for embarrassing our guest here."
She rolled her eyes at the notion, but decided to obey the golden rule, do unto others that you would do unto yourself. All that Marcas had shown was politeness and cooperation through her meet and greet in the hall, and even if she acted foolish for her age he didn't mention anything.
"Marcas I'm sorry for how I acted, and..."
He held up his hand, "Apology accepted, besides I haven't been to the hall of justice before. You know, how many people can say that they met most of the Justice league in one day without having to be saved from something?" Everyone at the table nodded in agreement and led Marcas to seat of his own. The young man couldn't believe it himself, here he was sitting with none other than the original members of the Justice League, well, with the exception of Batman and the Martian Manhunter that is.
He looked all around and saw that they were just as they were depicted in the comics, in costume and all. Looking at each of the costumes he saw how pristine they were and colorful compared to his which were black, grey, and red. Not even hearing his name called he continued to stare on at those around him.
"Marcas?"
He turned and saw Superman looking at him, a grin on his face. "So how do you like it here so far?"
Marcas didn't know what to say, the place was massive, and the people here were incredible. So he summarized the whole visit in one word, "Awesome!"
"So, now that we know how you feel about the place, youve met everybody..."
Marcas interrupted, "Not everybody"
Superman sat back in his seat and looked around. From what all had happened he thought that Marcas had met everybody in the hall, but from looking around the table he saw the guy's point. "I know that Batman and Jon aren't here, but you can meet them sometime later, right now I'm sure that you can use something to eat." Marcas nodded and left the group to themselves.
Superman's POV
From first appearences, I could tell that Marcas will be something else. From all that I could see, not even being a keen detective, is that Marcas doesn't seem to have PTSD like Batman suggested earlier and I know somebody that is going through the mental problems from it when I see them. I looked around and saw that everybody seemed to be ok with their first meeting with Marcas. There weren't any disagreements, and everybody had impressed looks on their faces, but two of the more skeptical people hadn't arrived yet and I think that it would come down to those two, Batman and Jon.
I was staring at the group and didn't realize it til Wally nudged my shoulder,"Uh soops, are you ok."
"Yeah," I replied, "I was just thinking about something.'
Wally looked at the line where Red was at and smirked, "It's about the newbie isn't it?"
I nodded, "Yeah, I can see that everybody here likes him..."
"Well, yeah, he seems to be a really upbeat guy for somebody that looks like they're going to war."
"That's only one thing that's getting me."
That's when Diana leaned in, "What else is there to worry about?"
"Me."
On the other side of the table Batman just sat down, with a more intimidating scowl than usual. He looked behind him to see some of the younger members flocking to Marcas on the other side of the dining hall, something was up.
"What's wrong, and where is Jon?" I asked
Batman looked at Kara and gave her a gesture to leave. "Jon is recovering in the medical wing, and..."
My face changed to a look of surprise, as did some of the others at the table.
"What?" I almost yelled.
Batman shook his head, "It seems that we were all sadly mistaken about how bad Marcas's mental condtion was."
Wally interjected, "So, big tall and green is having to recover all because he did a brain scan on Red over there."
"Right, when he went into his mind he relived everything that Marcas had gone through, including his last encounter with Deathstroke."
"Does he want revenge?" asked Hawkgirl.
He nodded,"He wants to kill him, but from what Jon could tell me he's more concerned with finding the girl that Deathstroke killed."
I looked past the dark knight and saw that Marcas was heading this way and pointed past Batman. He turned and saw where I was pointing and stood up from his seat, "We'll talk about this later."
Narrator's POV
When Marcas passed by Batman, a wave of confusion was sent through his body for some reason, and he couldn't explain why. But as he usually did he just shrugged it off, besides, what was there to fear in the hall of Justice?
As he sat at the head table with the rest of the original members he could feel them staring into him, not at, but in. Now that feeling came back when he passed Batman, but now it was getting at him ten fold. This time he couldn't shake it and looked all around him at the table, and saw that everybody was talking to each other and eating what they had left. Inside he thought that it was just him getting over excited, or it could be the fact that he hadn't even started digging into the sandwich on his plate.
(Later on that day...)
Superman had assigned Marcas to a part of the hall that was built originally as temporary quarters for Leaguers to stay. Now it was used for some of the younger new comers who needed a place to stay.
When Marcas went down the hall it reminded him of the facility back in China, except this place seemed more homely than someplace that was built like a prison. That and it had people who wanted to be heroes, instead of highly trained killers.
The Red Crosshairs looked at the card that he was given to his dorm, and looked at the numbers that passed by. '203, 204, 205...' he thought to himself as passed by the doors one by one.
After passing a few more numbers he came upon the room that would soon be his. He thought that he would have a room by himself like the one that he had at Oleg's apartment, but he was wrong. As he opened the door Thrift Shop by Macklemore blasted out of the room and into the hallway.
Marcas had heard of every kind of music throughout his life, but never one that involved so much bass!
"I'm gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket..."
Marcas covered his ears and could still hear some of the lyrics, "TURN IT OFF!"
He didn't hear himself, but whoever he yelled to got the memo. Pulling his hands off his ears and looking up he saw somebody standing there with the light turned off, a dark blue glow emanating from the shadows. Marcas reeled back for a moment as a metal foot made it's way towards him, than another, and another. Marcas was reaching behind him to grab his sickle and hammer when a hand was extended to him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know that my new roomie would getting here early or not." said the voice from above.
Marcas looked up and dropped his tools. Before him, at 6'8 385 pounds stood a tall metallic being known to all as...
"Cyborg."
The half-machine man looked at him with a confused look on his face, as he was pulling Marcas up.
"Have we met before?" asked Cyborg.
Marcas shook his head, "No, i've just heard about you and the teen titans from the news."
The half-man of steel looked behind him and shook his head. "That must be old news because we've been disbanded for over a year."
Now it was Marcas's turn to be confused, "What?"
Cyborg looked at the office chair under his desk and it out in front of Marcas. He gestured his hand for the Russian to have a seat as he shut the door and grabbed one of his own.
"Do you like long stories?"
Marcas nodded, "Da, as long as they are informative."
"Good," he said,"because this is going to be a behind the scenes look on how the titans came crashing down."
FLASHBACK
Titans Tower
Jump City
Five Years ago...
The titans had returned from a flip-flopped mission taking down what they called the "New Slade." The new guy had incredible powers, such as super speed, strength, smell, hearing, senses, and a lust for blood, and gave the titans a beating that would shatter their world forever. During the fight the "New Slade" bit raven and drained her of most of her life force, her blood. They Brought her back to the tower in time, but she was extremely weak.
"I'm telling you guys, this is getting old and fast!" yelled an angry beast boy to his friends around him.
They were all standing outside of the medical wing, waiting for some good news.
A few seconds after Beast Boy's outburst, cyborg walked outside, a neutral look on his face. The tall machine man saw the looks on everyone's face, and knew what they were asking inside.
"Raven is ok..." he said in a monotone voice,"but just like last time he drained a lot of blood out of her."
Everybody's facial expressions changed from questioning to downcast.
"Every time that we face this guy it's always the same! He always goes after the weakest in the group! I knew that I should've listened to Terra!" yelled Beast Boy again.
Across from the changeling the frustration in another titan was about to come out, she had heard enough of it.
"She is not weak! It is just that this new slade is incredibly powerful!" said Starfire.
Beast boy narrowed his eyes and stormed over to where she was standing and pointed a finger in her face.
"You always do this! You always defend her, even when you know that she's losing control of her powers! I've said it before, and now I'm going to say it again, she needs to go!"
"No!"
The two looked across the room at their leader that had been sitting this fight out for most of the time. He got up and walked over to the two, a look of complete calm over his form.
"Beast boy, we all know that she's been having issues with her powers lately, but that doesn't give any reason to..."
"To let her go, I know, I know. You always say that and guess what? It never makes any sense! I mean, she can heal herself pretty fast, ok? So why hasn't she done that yet?"
"She's lost a lot of blood Beast boy, she can't help it if she's human." said Cyborg from across the room.
Beast boy looked around Robin and snarled at the metal man,"So what if she lost blood, big deal. She's healed herself from worse while she was unconscious, and you're telling me that she can't quickly heal two bites?"
Cyborg was now trying to hold himself back from blasting Beast boy with the sonic cannon...
FLASHBACK OVER
"Hold the phone, since when did Beast boy grow a pair?" asked Marcas.
Cyborg looked at a screen on his wrist and pressed an icon. A hologram projector turned on in the room and before the two stood Beast boy and a blonde girl.
"The girl's name is Terra. She used to be a member of the titans until she betrayed us to Slade. We had to leave the city for a while to plan our next move, and when we got back Terra got hers and later on she had a change of heart."
Marcus raised a eyebrow as Cyborg continued, "She turned on Slade and tossed him into a pool of lava, and gave her life in the process."
Marcas raised his hand, "Then how did Beast boy get in a relationship with a dead girl?"
Now that was a tricky question. Cyborg, even with his knowledge couldn't figure out how she could've gotten out of her stone prison. All that could be done to answer the question was to say that it was a miracle, and nothing else.
"We don't even know how she got out, but after Beast boy found out that she was alive, he wouldn't stop until he had her back. The only problem was that she didn't want him."
"Now why is that?" asked Marcas
"Because Terra didn't know him. For some odd reason she lost her memories while she was out. When he found that out he barely stuck around the tower, he was always meeting her somewhere helping her regain her memories. Soon, she was back to her old self and her old ways."
He always hated reflecting on this next part because of how it happened.
"Before Beast boy found Terra, he dated with Raven for a while, and for a while it seemed like they were getting along well." Cyborg said as he paused.
"Then he met Terra."
Cyborg nodded, "Yeah, after he met her again they called it quits, and Raven went back to staying in her room. Terra had persuaded Beast boy that Raven would dump him sometime in the future and that she was nothing, so that's why he showed so much hatred towards her that night."
Marcus was still confused, why did they split up? What could cause them to fall apart? He looked around the room for something to provide an explanation, and found nothing but Cyborg's bed and a picture.
He reached over to the frame and examined what was in it.
"That was what we used to be."
Marcas turned to look at Cyborg, who was now starting to tear up. Whatever happened five years ago must have been painful. Marcas got up from his seat to put a hand on Cyborg's shoulder, and watched as the former titan buried his face in his hands.
"Beast boy left that night, without an apology. He didn't care if Raven had died, she was just a witch that deserved to die to him. Robin left later on because the "Titans Routine" was getting old, that and Star left because she wanted to back to their home world."
"I thought that..."
"You thought that they still liked each other? No, things changed one night when star wanted to bring something new into their relationship."
"Sex?"
Cyborg nodded, "Yeah, and Robin made it clear that he wasn't going to do that until they got married. Star didn't like that idea so she left."
Marcas couldn't believe what he was hearing. These people weren't the same titans that he used to read about. They almost sounded like a reality TV show gone wrong, like a Jersey Shore that he heard so much about.
"Raven just ran off in the middle of the night, but she left a note. She told me to look for somewhere else to go, because Jump City had nothing left to offer me, so I came here."
"Well, that's an intriguing story." said Red, " I just wish that I could've met everybody."
Cyborg smiled when he said that. He felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, because of his silence. He didn't mention it to Marcas, but the media hounded him day in and day out, wondering why the titans split. All that he could say is that he couldn't comment right then and there, and would get back with them later. They always came back.
"So, do you want to help me move in or what?"
Cyborg looked behind him and saw three bags next to Red, and laughed, "Sure, besides we both need to be well rested for tomorrow."
As Marcas handed him a bag he had a confused look on his face, "What's going to happen?"
"We're going to be tested to see if we're fit to join the Justice League."
Behind Cyborg's back Marcas cursed in his native tongue, "Chert voz'mi!"
(Meanwhile...)
At an abandoned warehouse in Jump City, a small light could be seen coming out from the filthy windows. If you had walked inside you would see weapons crates sitting around a huge computer that was centralized amidst the ammunition and assault rifles, a high tech wonder that cost a fortune. On that computer commands were being typed in to delete the files stored inside, and by the looks of it, whoever was typing was doing a good job of it. This person being none other than the deadly merc with a reputation in the Justice League, Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke the Terminator.
Deathstroke was at a Lexcorp warehouse based in Jump City, and was deleting information relating Lex Luthor to an illegal weapons shipment in Europe. His plan was to delete the data, blow up the crates, get out of there before the League could show up, and as always get paid.
As he typed in the last command he heard a door slam behind him, and the lights went out. Deathstroke, quickly pressed a button on his helmet and activated the thermal sensor in his eyepiece. He scanned the area where he heard the door, but didn't find anything. Seeing that the area was clear he started placing C4 on the weapons crates. One by one the little devices lit up and beeped to let him know that they were armed and ready to blow when he was ready to go, But he wasn't about to leave just yet. The whole time a proximity sensor had been alerting him of a presence in the warehouse, and from what he could tell it wasn't Batman.
'He isn't this sloppy' he said in his head. 'I wonder who it is?'
He pressed another button in his helmet, and before he could arm himself, a form appeared before him. Slade switched back to thermal vision to see if he wasn't just seeing things and was stunned when he didn't see the figure anymore.
"Thermal vision isn't going to pick up a vampire Slade."
The surprised Deathstroke reached down to his side to grab his choice of handgun when the figure held his hand up.
"I don't wish to fight you mister Wilson, i've come here to make you an offer that you can't resist."
Slade slowly switched back to night vision and examined the form of this infiltrator. He read his face and body language and put the gun back in it's holster.
"So you come in here, you follow me knowing that you could die at any moment and offer me something?"
The shadow nodded it's head.
Slade laughed, "Well, I must say, you must have quite the offer to top Luthor's payment to show up like this."
"I do, and I think that you will enjoy it more than Luthor's entire fortune."
Under his helmet Deathstroke had an impressed look on his face, "Tell me, what could possibly be worth more than Lex Luthor?"
The shadow snapped his fingers and the lights turned on, "An old acquaintance of yours, doctor Ivan Markov."
Surprise, Surprise, the good doctor has wormed his way back into the plot, and a new player has been brought into the game...So, here is a few questions. What hoops will Marcas have to jump through to join the league, and who is this new guy that caught Slade by surprise? Who knows, maybe he will have an impact on Red's future.
Review if you have any thoughts about the story, and PM message if you have any questions about the characters and the story. Oh, and before I forget to mention it, you have to read "Rise of the Reaper" by JediMasterChris and "The Shadow Warriors" by Shadow knight1121(I hope that I spelled them right).
One more thing. If you want to make an awesome looking superhero without lifting a single pen, pencil, or marker, try looking up Hero Machine 3 on google. You'll need a computer that has flash on it to operate it, and once you do use it you can make an awesome cover for your story, like I did!
UNTIL NEXT TIME!