If I owned Young Justice, there would've been an Apprentice arc with Dick.

Saturday, April 21, 2012 13:59

Kara let her head drop as Deathstroke finished. The man walked away, chuckling, pocketing the small piece of green Kryptonite he had been using. The sadist looked back, face unseen underneath the mask as the blonde Kryptonian panted, back and legs aching. She wasn't bound, but it didn't matter with the power of red Kryptonite beating down on her- it made her realize how much superheroes with powers relied on them, and how much stronger a human hero was- especially if they were skilled at hand-to-hand combat. It drove her respect for Robin and Red Arrow up a notch.

"Your friends will be here soon, my little duckling. Let us hope they brought Crock's girl," Deathstroke smirked behind his mask. "It will be so sweet to lord the fact that I can control the Sportsmaster's daughter over him, it truly will." The assassin turned away a final time, vanishing into the shadows. True to the Terminator's predictions, she heard a crash and saw a red-and-yellow blur speed by, skidding to a stop.

"KaraKaraKaraKara!" Kid Flash cried with bittersweet happiness, rushing over to help her up.

"Where's… Where's Robin?" The Girl of Steel panted out. "He… He needs… To know…"

"What?" A girl in a magician outfit walked over to stand next to Kid Flash.

"It's… It's a trap!" Kara gasped out, looking up with tired eyes at Kid Flash and the magician. Kid Flash gasped, and turned to the girl.

"Zatanna. Find Aqualad now!" Kid Flash ordered, and the magician- Zatanna- hurried off.

"Gosh, why did we have to leave Ms. Manhunter with Superboy in Tàu?" Kid Flash muttered, Kara barely able to hear it. There was another Kryptonian?

Zatanna was back, followed by the familiar form of Aqualad.

"Supergirl, you say this is a trap?" Aqualad looked down at the weak daughter of Krypton. She nodded. "Then we need to get out of here. Zatanna, go alert everyone else." The magician nodded, sprinting off.

.:Elsewhere in the lair:.

Robin landed a couple of hits on Deathstroke before being tossed aside, where Red Arrow stepped in with a couple of exploding arrows shot at the Terminator's face. The assassin dodged them, while the red archer stepped aside to allow Batgirl to throw a couple of batarangs in the general direction of Deathstroke, followed up by a pair of Artemis' arrows. Robin was back in the game then, hitting the assassin with his escrimas. He barely dodged the huge sword swung at his face. Red Arrow tried to shoot Deathstroke, but the assassin grabbed the bow, breaking it and tossing it away.

The four heroes all attacked at once, and in the fray Deathstroke shot the wrong people with red blood cell eating nanos- Robin was left unaffected, while Artemis was injected. Leadoing away from the fray, he grabbed his dart gun, sensing that there were more heroes coming. True to his sixth sense for survival, Aqualad and Kid Flash showed up, Static and Young Manhunter next to them. Quickly he shot the two newcomers with the nano-injecting darts that were also tipped with anesthetic to throw them off. There had also been small amounts of anesthetic in the nano solution he had injected Red Arrow, Artemis, and Batgirl with. The two metas passed out as the three injected humans swayed. Robin looked around, wondering why his partners were passing out when he wasn't. Deathstroke raised an eyebrow behind his mask. This was unexpected, but still a victory. All he had to do was wait to inject the magician, and he would have an apprentice.

"What did you do?" Robin shouted angrily as Batgirl passed out, the two Arrows barely clinging to consciousness- Artemis was the first of the two to pass out, followed by Red Arrow. A shriek sounded from behind Deathstroke, followed by a shouted spell.

"Eit Ekortshtaed pu ni-" Zatanna's spell was cut off as Deathstroke shot a gum at her mouth that sealed it shut. He then shot a dart at her, knocking her out and injecting the nanos in her.

"Now, Robin, I'll tell you this- this was originally a trap to get Artemis as my apprentice, but you'll do. I injected them with red blood cell-eating nanos. You don't obey, and I push this button. When I push it, the nanos start eating their red blood cells. Unfortunately I couldn't inject the clone and female martian, but oh well," Deathstroke explained. "Now, you'll be coming with me- if you want your friends to stay alive that is."

Robin swallowed. He knew what would happen if he followed the assassin- he didn't lie about stuff like this- but he felt like he would be betraying his friends, too. Finally he looked up, nodding, and moved over towards Deathstroke.

"That's a good boy," the one-eyed man smiled behind the mask, leading Robin out of the hangar to the sleek private jet waiting outside. When they were in the air, Robin took one last look at the warehouse his friends were unconscious in.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, almost inaudibly. Deathstroke didn't hear.

Okay, I know I keep beating up Robin, but he's not the only one!

On another note, I'm updating mostly to reply to this awesome guest reviewer who gave me many happy awesomes when I read their review. In reply: I doubt I'll be losing this story because I love this story dearly. And don't worry, you have ten more very assured chapters. (I'm currently working on Chapter 36, as well as various other stories- mainly the Apologize series, YJ: Lazarus, and Winterspell.) There will be various timeskips, most of them being indeed one or two months. I don't want to give my readers the crazies I felt when I realized there was a flipping five-year timeskip between season one and season two.

PS any of you authors out there want a random YJ plot bunny I could probably give you one. I have, like, 1872 words and four google docs pages of them. Of course, a few of them have half-page summaries. :)