Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.
Author's Note: So, recap of what happened last chapter: Oriole's been protecting everyone from Slade's influence. When the others found out, they decided to learn from Raven, Batman and Robin how to free their minds if Slade ever gained entrance. Then Slade attacked Oriole's mind and Raven rushed to her aide only to be pushed out of her mind by Slade. Shortly after, Sara discovered many hidden secrets in the depths of Slade's mind, including a way to stop him.
So what is Slade planning? Well, read on to find out.
Oriole
Chapter 28: Hope and Optimism
Oriole
6:30 am
Halloween Morning
Jump City, California
Titans Tower
Oriole opened her eyes and sat up. She was back in the hospital room in Titans Tower. The Void was long gone, thank God. That place felt like a claustrophobia attack.
"You can handle yourself, huh?"
She jumped and yelped in alarm at the voice and whipped her head around with neck-aching speed, only to see Robin in his chair, arms folded across his chest. She sighed with relief and placed a hand over her hammering heart. "Oh, it's just you."
"'I can handle myself, Ro.' 'You worry too much, Ro.' Sound like anyone you know?" He snapped, mimicking her voice.
Sara sighed. "And I was telling the truth. You do worry too much, Ro."
"Not based off of what I saw or what Raven told me!"
Oriole pinched the bridge of her nose. "What did she tell you?"
"Pretty much everything. How you were so eager to have Raven's help even though you specifically said you didn't need help, that you could help yourself! What the hell were you thinking?"
She opened her mouth to respond, but Batman walked in the door after a loud knock. As usual, he got straight to the point. "You know what Slade's after, don't you?"
"Of course I do! I wouldn't be much of a mind reader if I didn't."
"Then what is he after? We'll be able to guard it better if we-"
"No. You won't want to guard it when I tell you."
"Sara-" Batman began, but he was cut off.
"You're supposed to be able to trust us! Whatever happened to being brother and sister in everything but blood?"
"Dick…" Bruce warned.
"We are, but-"
"Then you should trust me!"
"Robin!" The Dark Knight barked. Robin closed his mouth and looked up at Bruce. "I want to talk to her alone. Go."
Robin scowled at him. He hated being treated like a child. But then he sighed and said, "Fine. But you get a minute. You might have trained me Bruce, but this is my place. Don't try to give me orders."
With that, Robin turned and stomped out of the room. Oriole watched him go with concern flashing in her green eyes. When the door slid shut, she said, "After everything that's happened, you two haven't gotten any better?"
"That's not important right now, Sara." Bruce muttered, pulling his cowl down off his head and sitting down in Robin's abandoned chair.
"It's important to me." She argued.
"Sara," he growled. Sara's jaws closed with a gentle click. "Robin can be headstrong at times and unfocused. Right now, he's not accepting that Slade's defeating you. He's panicking and it's keeping him from thinking clearly. He can't see that you're just as worried as he is. From the way you defend yourself against Slade's attacks, I think I know what Slade's after, but I need to know for sure."
"Like I said to Ro, he won't want to protect it once he finds out what it is."
"Slade's target is Robin, isn't it?"
Sara gaped. "How did you…? Nevermind, it doesn't matter. Look, just don't tell Dick alright? You know what he'd do."
Bruce shrugged. Then he leaned forward, looking serious again, "I understand that you want to protect him, but there's nothing you can do. Martyrdom isn't the way to go."
"You always put others first. That's what I'm doing. And I know that's what Di would do too if given the chance. Like you said, he's too stubborn for his own good and if he's not careful that'll get him killed. I appreciate your concern, Bruce, but I don't need you to patronize me. I already know I don't have to do this. But I want to. With Slade's new powers, he could squash Robin like a bug underfoot. Slade knows that. It's why I'm protecting everyone from his influence."
"Sara, you don't know the specifics yet. Maybe Slade's just trying to confuse you and convert you back to your old self. Dick told me about Slade teaching you how to hunt."
Sara looked away. He didn't know anything. This wasn't about Sara at all. The only reason he was hurting Sara was because he wanted vengeance for making him look like a fool back in Cody, and partially because Sara was the easiest target, but she pushed that thought aside. "Maybe…but I don't think so."She amended. More determined than ever, she added, "And I'm not gonna stop helping the others."
"That wasn't my goal." Bruce stood and left the teen alone with her thoughts.
Robin
8:00 am
Titans Tower
Jump City, California
By the time he was done with setting up the security with Cyborg and helping Raven teach Beast Boy how to put up a defensive barrier around his mind, he found Oriole sleeping in her cot, a look of peace gracing her gentle face. He wasn't mad at her, not really, and he wasn't confused about why she was doing all this. If he were in her shoes, he would be doing the exact same things. But it still bothered him that she wouldn't entrust him with the identity of Slade's target. Whatever it was, it must have either been dangerous to the city or precious to Sara. He decided it must be something dangerous, for there was no single item that Sara would want to protect so fiercely. He considered it might be a person, someone on the team maybe, but he pushed that theory aside when he remembered that she too called it an "it."
In any case, he wished he knew what Slade was trying to accomplish here. There were few things Sara could obtain that Slade could not. And besides that, if he wanted to use Sara to steal something, why would he rage war against her mind in plain view of the Titans? They would know the instant she lost control (a thought that made Robin shudder) and be able to protect whatever it was Slade was after. Maybe he was just holding her hostage. But then he came back to the same question: why Sara?
As Robin contemplated this Raven walked in the room and sat on the edge of Sara's cot, opposite Robin. She looked exhausted. Then again, next to no sleep and almost two hours straight of teaching her peers the basics of mental barriers might have something to do about that.
"Well, that's all I have in me today. They don't know how to fully shut someone out of their conscious (that would take years) but they do know what to do if their minds are invaded."
"Nice work Raven. How about you go get some sleep? You look terrible."
Raven nodded. "I don't feel so hot either, but I wanted to talk to you first."
"Okay, what about?"
"Could we talk in private?" She asked, her eyes flicking to Sara's sleeping figure.
"Raven, she's asleep."
"This is about her, so I don't want to talk here. Besides, we might wake her up."
Robin sighed and got to his feet. Raven led him out of the door, through the commons area, and into a hallway opposite the hospital wing. "Alright, now what is this all about?"
"Did you talk to Oriole about how dangerous it is to let Slade near her mind? Has she attacked his mind back yet?"
"Of course I talked to her about it Raven! She won't listen to me. She keeps insisting she has to protect the rest of us, including you, me and Batman, even though all of us can defend ourselves. I know this is dangerous and I tried to tell Oriole that but she just won't listen! It's like I'm not even talking someone."
Raven nodded. "Okay, I understand."
"What do you understand? This isn't okay! She-"
"She's doing exactly what you would be in her situation and you know it."
Robin tried to think of something to say back, but Raven was right. He sighed, "Then how would you get me to come to my senses?"
"It would be impossible. And Oriole's as stubborn as you are, if not more so. The only way we can help her is to find Slade."
"Easier said than done. We've already looked everywhere in the city and Sara said that he might not even be in the city. She said that his range could extend for a few miles to a few hundred! He could be in another state for all we know!"
"He's in the city. Haven't you noticed that every time he invades her mind there's always a power outage? You said he controls electricity right? If he were further away, he would draw power from the nearest power source."
"Yeah, okay, so he's in the city. I don't know where else to look!"
As if on cue, the lights flickered and died, as did the hum of the super computer in the other room. A scream echoed throughout the Tower, but this time it wasn't Sara's. "Starfire!" Robin cried out and ran to go find her. There was only one explanation for what was going on. Slade was in the Tower. Sara met up with him and they ran together towards the source of Starfire's scream. They found her unconscious next to her room's door.
Robin scooped her up in his arms and carried her to her bed. He lay her down gently and brushed a stray red hair from her beautiful face. When he stepped back outside, Raven, Beast Boy and Batman were racing towards them.
"What happened?" Bruce demanded.
"What do you think?" Sara snapped. A loud boom echoed behind them. Robin turned towards it and Sara cautiously began walking towards it. He followed, hoping that he was wrong, hoping that whatever happened to Star was just a freak accident, hoping Slade wasn't here.
But all of that hope was shattered when Slade appeared right in front of Sara. She gasped and before she could react, Slade grabbed her arms and threw her at the opposite wall. Robin charged at Slade but met an energy shield like Sara's, only this one was the same copper orange as Slade's suit. Slade's eye turned that same color copper and Sara held her head. Electricity crackled in the air around Slade as he tried to force his will on Sara's mind.
Robin pounded his fists on the shield, trying to distract Slade just for a moment. Then he remembered what Raven said about counterattacking Slade. Sara said she hadn't tried that yet. "Sara! Fight him! Try to attack him!"
I'll try. Sara thought to him. She slowly got to her feet as fire spread across her fingertips. Fireballs hurtled toward Slade and smoke rose up to cover what happened. Robin and Beast Boy cheered, but then the smoke cleared and scorch marks, where Sara's fire had actually hit, marred the wall next to him.
"Nice try, my dear, but you can't hope to fight me. Optimism will get you nowhere."
"Neither will arrogance." She chucked another couple fireballs at him, but he deflected them with a small bolt of electricity and retaliated by striking her with lightning. Unlike Slade, she couldn't deflect it. She groaned and fell to her knees.
Beast Boy and Raven joined in Robin's attempts to break the shield. Robin didn't know what Batman was doing but he didn't stop to ask. He took out his bo-staff and hit the shield with it. From what he knew about Sara's shields was that a certain amount of force could break it open. But this one seemed impregnable. Just then, a crack formed on its surface and Robin redoubled his efforts. But a black-gloved hand grabbed him and shielded him with Batman's cape. He heard an explosion and Slade grunt as his shield blasted open.
Batman stood and ran at Slade, ready to kick some ass. Sara got to her feet and landed a kick to Slade's head.
"Nice try, Slade, but you'll never break me!"
Slade chuckled. "Not with help around I suppose."
Batman punched Slade's back but Slade took it like a champ, turned around and kneed Bruce in the stomach. Robin jumped over Batman's doubled over form and kicked Slade's chest. He took Sara's hand and led her away from Slade. She followed without complaint. Cyborg turned the corner then.
"Cyborg, get Oriole out of here!"
"No, I can still help!" She ripped her hand out of Robin's grip and, to his surprise, went into Starfire's room instead of towards the fight raging down the hall. Robin poked his head in and saw her healing Starfire.
Satisfied she would be in there for a while, Robin stepped back out and raced back to the fight. But then Slade forced everyone back with another shield. "Well this has been fun, but I have other places I need to be right now."
"Like what? No one's hired you in ages." Sara walked calmly towards Slade, smirking.
Slade chuckled. "It appears you've been in my mind far longer than I thought. But did you tell them everything you discovered while you were snooping around?" When Sara's smirk turned to a frown, Slade added, "I didn't think so." His eye gilded over with copper and with a flash of brilliant light, he was gone.
All eyes turned to Oriole, but no one spoke. Sara hardly seemed to notice them. She turned on her heel and walked back down the hall. Robin caught her arm. "Sara, what was he talking about?"
"It's nothing."
"Obviously it's not. What aren't you telling us?"
"I said it's nothing!" She pushed him away, turned into a wolf and padded away.
What was she hiding? What could be so terrible to scare Sara into aggressive submission? More importantly, why was Slade after her?
Author's Note: So, Slade can now just pop in to the Tower whenever he likes and he's after Robin. Again. Slade's stubbornness issues are really starting to tick me off. What is Sara hiding? And yes, there's more besides the fact that Slade's target is Robin and besides everything she told Batman. Why? Because it's more fun this way! Thanks for sticking with me so long guys! We're almost done. It's kind of sad to me but I want to know what your reactions are, so please REVIEW! And have a great week! See you next Sunday!
