Teen Titans: Revenge of the Joker
Chapter 50: Arkham Asylum
A/N
So, the title not only refers to this chapter, but also to the WONDERFULLY AMAZINGLY AWESOME GAME that was released not too long ago for PC and PS3 and Xbox360. :D It's…. it's…. *drooooools* Amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing!!! XD Needless to say, I've already beaten it.
Anyways, I'm sure many of you have been waiting for this story arc for AGES!!! (I know, I know. "No shit, Sherlock!").
(Also, just take note, I had to change that scene from 46 with the Joker and Robin just slightly. XD I don't think anyone would necessarily notice, but it helped with this chapter)
(Also, also, look, it wasn't THAT long of a wait this time! XD Enjoy!)
"YOU! ARE! NOT! GOING!"
The Titans East aircraft hanger echoed with her shouts as Bumblebee leaned over the wing of the Titans East airship, glaring down at the four injured Titans assembled on the ground below them: Aqualad with his cast and sling, Starfire with her bandages and burn cream, and even Menos stood there with Mas on his shoulders. All faces were set hard with determination.
"Come on, guys, the airship can't even hold all of you…" Speedy spoke up with annoyance as he scaled a ladder toward his chosen cockpit. He frowned at the clock inside the pit displaying the time. It would take about an hour to get to Gotham… "And we really need to go."
"Whether the ship can carry me does not matter! I can fly behind. I just want to find Robin!" Starfire demanded stubbornly, pouting hard with her eyes blazing green.
"Come on, Star! You can't fight in your condition," spoke up Beast Boy.
"But you only were healed last night!" Starfire spoke up indignantly, clenching her fists at her side. "Are you to say that you have condition to fight?!"
"He's fine…" Raven murmured, sounding deeply irritated at all of them. "All this arguing is doing is keeping us from finding Robin!!" she spat out, a little more forcefully than they were used to hearing.
"Come on, all I have is a busted arm," said Aqualad darkly. "Can't you heal it on the way there, Raven? You guys need all the help you can--"
"I need to go for Robin's sake, and if I heal you, I'll be too weak to fight myself."
"You're staying, and that's final!" shouted Bumblebee, lifting into the air and clenching her fists together, her patience completely broken. "Besides, we need that last seat for Robin! Don't you nutjobs get it?!"
"…there's only one way to handle this…" Speedy grumbled in an irritated voice, suddenly sliding back down the ladder and landing gracefully on the ground. He turned towards Aqualad, a fist held up. "Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you win, you come, if I win, you stay."
"Seriously?!" squealed their leader. "You can't be—"
"You're on!" Aqualad said with a mischievous smile, raising his fist. Bumblebee smacked a hand to her forehead and turned away, grumbling furiously to herself under her breath about stupid boys and their stupid pride.
"Ready. One, two, three SHOOT!" they chimed in unison, bringing their fists down rhythmically.
Scissors versus paper. Speedy won.
Aqualad frowned hard, then held his fist up, a hopefully little smile on his face. "Come on, best two out of three!"
"Nope. A deal's a deal. You're staying here!"
"Aw, come on, that's not—"
"Aqualad! Seriously!" Bumblebee exclaimed, almost pleaded. "You guys need to stay here! I can't have anyone else getting injured any further. Besides, if anything happens here, you can deal with that, but don't get into too much trouble, you got that?"
Aqualad looked uneasy, combing his fingers through his hair. Speedy clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, pal. Don't worry. No one is gonna die or anything just cuz you're not there."
"You're so sure?" Aqualad murmured darkly.
"I promise. I wont let anyone get hurt." Speedy smiled, looking downright sure of himself. Aqualad couldn't help but grin a little himself, more at Speedy's attitude than anything. That cocky little bastard…
"Let's GO!" Beast Boy hollered impatiently from his cockpit, pulling the glass canopy closed.
Speedy turned and clamored back up the ladder.
"Please, all of you, be careful!" Starfire said with concern in her eyes.
"Si!" shouted one of the twins, followed by the other. "¡Tienen mucho cuidado! ¡No vuelvan muertos!"
"Let's go!" Speedy shouted as he jumped in his seat and strapped in. The remaining cockpit canopies fell together, and Bumblebee threw the engines into gear. The whole blue ship lifted from the ground, hovering a moment, before soaring straight above the remaining Titans heads as it shot through the open bay doors. Those left behind watched it disappear into the sky over the ocean, silence hanging between them like curtains.
Starfire clasped her hands together, her heart pounding with hope. After so much worry, so many days of uncertainty and disappointments… they were finally going to find him…
The branches of the old, dying trees outside the asylum danced like cannibals as Bumblebee brought the blue jet down to the ground outside the broken outer gate of the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. No one said a word as the engines' roar diminished into silence, a terrible sense of foreboding shrouding them all as they stared up at the abandoned facility. It was something like out of a horror movie… an old set of buildings standing empty and dark. It was all partially demolished, and stood open, like a rotting wound.
"Do you sense anything…?" Speedy's voice suddenly crackled through the headphones as the Titans began to unstrap themselves.
Raven remained still and silent for a long moment, her soft violet eyes staring up at the looming buildings, a strange shadow passing through them. Her body gave a small, almost imperceptible shudder, chills running all over her back as though insects were crawling across her skin in droves.
"You have no idea…" she finally murmured in a low, mysterious voice, closing her eyes a moment and bowing her head. "This place…" she looked back up at the building, and could not finish her sentence…
"But, can you sense Robin?" asked Beast Boy. The others had opened their cockpits, and were now sitting, waiting for her.
Again, Raven remained silent for a few breaths, eyes wavering unfocusedly at the main building. Finally, she shook her head in a slow pivot. "No…" Some terrible feeling had passed over her as she finally reached forward and pressed a button on the dashboard, causing the glass around her to spring upwards, and the stale, icy air outside rushed around her, biting at her skin. She stood, gripping onto the side of the plane as she continued to stare up at the disconcerting sight of the dilapidated old insane asylum. "…however…" she finally said, turning towards the others, her face obscured in the shadow of her hood, "We're in the right place… this is where it all happened…"
The other three Titans glanced at one another with troubled faces as Raven stepped off the ship, her cloak fluttering behind her as she landed weightlessly to the ground. The others followed suit, and tailed her as she approached the gnarled front gate. She paused a moment, staring past the bars, the chains and the enormous padlock up to the building. What was this feeling, she wondered as she crouched low and passed beneath a gap in the twisted gate bars. Her eyes fell upon a place high above the ground, a tower of one of the buildings that made up the massive complex… she… almost felt as though something was beckoning to her…
"We better stick together…" Bumblebee murmured, flying over the gate and landing beside her. Speedy snuck under the way Raven had, and Beast Boy merely galloped through as a small mouse. Bumblebee looked at them. "What do you guys think – should we make our way to the other side and sneak in—"
"I can only sense two people," Raven spoke up. "The Joker and his accomplice, Harley… you guys should go after them…" Her voice trailed off as her feet left the ground, a hand pointing to a high window. "I'm going this way…"
"Wait, are you saying we should split up?!" Bumblebee asked a little startled. "That's probably the worst idea ever!"
"Something's… I need to see… it could be…" Raven's voice sounded a little distant, and kept trailing off as she began to float away towards the large building.
"Uh… wait, Raven! I'm going with you!" Beast Boy called out. He leapt into the air and transformed into a bat, flapping to catch up with her.
"Should we all—"
"No! You guys go another way," Raven suddenly replied, turning around. "This is something I need to check out…"
"If we come across the Joker, we'll give you a call," Speedy said, tapping on his communicator. He looked at Bumblebee, who seemed less than thrilled at the thought of splitting up.
Without another word, Raven shot forward towards an upper floor of the abandoned facility, Beast Boy trailing close behind. Bumblebee bit her lip, but then forced any nervousness away from her face. They were Titans. They could do this. She had to stop doubting them…
"Come on," she said darkly, beckoning to Speedy. "Let's go find Robin… and the crackpot responsible for all this…."
"Oh, Mister Jay!"
Joker grumbled an acknowledgement under his breath, but not really listening as he scratched his chin down at some weapons displayed across the table. He lifted a gun and surveyed it closely, opening its arsenal to reveal a vial of chemical, looking at it closely, then closing it back up again, satisfied with what he saw.
"You'd better come see the monitor. Looks like we have some visitors!"
"Visitors?" the Joker spoke up, suddenly alert. He glanced up at Harley, who sat at the big armchair, watching the television screen. The Gotham criminal abandoned what he was doing and bounded up the stairs to her, leaning over to see what she was going on about.
He grumbled darkly under his breath, his eyes narrowing down at the screen. It was those stupid kids… the Teen Titans… not all of them, he noted as he quickly took in the screenshot of them, standing outside the gates talking. Just four of them, only two from Robin's original team.
"How do you 'spose they figured out our hidin' place, Puddin'?" Harley asked in a ditzy voice, leaning forward with her chin cupped in her hands, rest on her crossed knees.
The Joker didn't answer, but he had his guesses. His fingernails dug into the arm of the chair as anger boiled through him, a furious grimace where a smile ordinarily would have been. This was not what was supposed to happen… those brats were going to ruin everything… the big reveal to Bats… they ruined it.
Finally, Joker sighed a deep breath, releasing his tension. No use getting all worked up about it, he thought. Might as well greet them… and kill them…
As he watched, he saw the group split paths, two flying away, two running straight to the front doors of the main building. A smile split across the clown's terrible face. It appeared they would first be dealing with the two Titans East members.
This would be fun.
"Places everyone!" he suddenly boomed in a cheerful voice, his arms spread out wide as he grinned his terribly smile. "The show must go on, Batman or no Batman!"
The darkness that surrounded the asylum pressed in tighter and tighter as Raven floated closer to it. She winced, giving a small shiver, wanting to turn back... as much as she had surrounded herself in darkness throughout her life, this was something else entirely... terror... bloodlust... insanity... a hundred years worth of unstable mental and emotion turmoil swirled through this place like a hurricane. The torrents of lingering malice, psychopathy, and anguish threatened to knock her clear from the air where she flew.
But why she felt summoned to the far wing of the vast building was anyone's guess... it was like a concentrated area of darkness completely unlike the rest of it... it held fear more than anger… an end of hope rather than an end of freedom… and she felt compelled to seek it out... maybe... it had something to do with Robin...
She sailed gracefully through a bare window frame that looked as though it'd once held stained glass. She landed lightly on the cracked tile floor, letting her cloak fall around her like a stage curtain as she stared before her. She had flown into the end of a long corridor that stretched into darkness before her, only one lone flickering light in the distance illuminating anything. Beside her, she heard the screech of a bat before a shift of movement out of the corner of her eye let her know Beast Boy was beside her. He'd changed from bat to canine, tilting his nose to the ground, and then upward. He then returned to human form. His face looked intense, serious, even as he knelt there on the floor like he was still a dog.
"...blood..." he murmured in a low, solemn voice. He straightened slowly to a stand, hands clenching as though to keep his fear and his anger in check. "I smell blood... even now..."
Raven said nothing, her face completely in shadow as she stared into the dark corridor. Behind them, lightning flashed, illuminating the world for a moment, the sky outside threatening to rain with each passing moment. She paid it no heed, her eyes falling closed. She was searching... searching with everything she had for some sign... some hint...
...Robin...
...somehow, she could tell, this place was where he'd been... where everything had happened... but now...
"Raven?"
Beast Boy's voice roused her from her thoughts. She turned to look at the green changeling, who shifted weight from foot to foot with a sort of uneasiness. She opened her mouth to speak, but found herself without words. Finally, she swallowed hard, forcing down all her anxiety and locking it away, and with a wave of her hand, motioned for them to move on.
Beast Boy hesitated a long second, a little apprehensive from Raven's demeanor. She seemed too quiet, even for her... and that gave him a bad feeling. He finally followed carefully behind her, looking around, readying himself as though expecting something to jump right out of the wall and attack them... although, given the way things had been going the last few weeks, and especially given the spooky nature of the place and the metallic smell of blood, he supposed it wasn't so surprising he felt that way.
Their footsteps echoed vacantly through the empty hallway, neither of them speaking as they continued forward. The scent of blood grew stronger; the darkness in the air grew thicker. Raven drew her cloak tighter around herself as she glanced into a broken door of one room, seeing only moldy broken chairs and puddles upon the floor.
"This way…" murmured Beast Boy as he pointed down an adjoining hallway. The smell was overpowering now, even Raven could smell it. Raven nodded and the two of them continued on. Beast Boy turned into a wolf, staying right at Raven's side with his nose down, sniffing to try and find the exact source of that terrible smell.
The two of them suddenly paused together, turning towards one lone, unremarkable door, which flickered a grim yellow in the dying hallway light behind them. The hair on Beast Boy's back stood on end as he saw a dark, dry pool of blood extended beyond the bottom of the door. Raven found herself unable to breathe, that terrible darkness enveloping her, making her want to scream. It felt like she was trapped within a terrible childhood nightmare she couldn't escape.
Reluctantly, she reached out a hand, using her mental abilities to spring the catch on the doorknob, and gently pushed it inward. Inside her mind, almost beyond her consciousness, she was pleading with the powers that held the world together that Robin was not on the other side of the door….
The flickering hallway light poured into the room, and Raven cried out despite herself at the sight before her. Beast Boy gave a loud shrieking bark and leapt back, returning almost instantly to normal.
"Oh, dear God, no…" he whimpered, his voice cracking with pure shock and anguish. His feet nearly gave out on him on the spot, and he had to reach out and grab the door jamb to keep from falling to his knees.
…Children….
…Innocent little children… dozens of them…
After a long, horrible moment staring, unable to breathe, Raven found herself stepping into the room, the stale blood that coated the floor causing her feet to stick a little to the ground. Her stomach twisted and contorted with pure disgust, and her heart felt frozen with grief … so many lives… so young…
"God… some of these kids can't be more than two…" Beast Boy breathed barely above a whisper. He still stood transfixed at the door, staring down at the children with his eyes as wide as they could go. Finally he had to tear them away, clenching them shut. He didn't want to see any more…
This was one of those times when he understood why the Justice League frowned upon teenagers being superheroes… this was too much to take…
Raven took careful steps over the limp, lifeless forms, her eyes scanning over frozen stares and white faces, but trying not to look directly at them… just enough to figure out that not one was breathing… all of them had succumbed from gunshot wounds, whether immediately or after a long time of bleeding…
It took her a long moment to notice the blood-stained, coordinating outfits… her stomach curdled beneath her ribs as she froze a moment to take it all in. She glanced back at Beast Boy, who was staring unblinkingly down at the bodies, his eyes fixed on a very familiar purple costume – his own. He'd realized it too… these children had been masqueraded as them, and then gunned down…
This had something to do with Robin… she was sure of it…
She swallowed down the bile threatening to rise, and slowly traversed the entire sea of bodies to the other side. Once there, paused once more for a long moment, surveying the entire room, barely able to see in the flickering light. She frowned hard as she turned towards the wall, her eyes still scanning, feeling like she'd missed something.
Then her purple gaze paused on something small lying on the floor. She carefully made her way over to it, bending and lifting it up, her eyes widening in disbelief.
It was a little plastic doll… a figurine of Robin… they actually made these…? Her fingers tightened around its tiny form, holding it tightly in her hand as she looked up.
And her eyes immediately fell on something else, and all the air of her lungs was sucked away.
A pair of green eyes… vacant… ghostly… but still sparkling with the vibrant life it once held…
Her mouth fell open as she recognized the little face they belonged to. That little girl… the one back in Jump City… the one who'd seen Robin… No… there was no way… not here in Gotham...
"…And you're my favorite too, Raven, even if you are a bit of a poopy pants…!"
Raven swallowed hard, bowing her head. Six years old… no one should ever die at six years old… it had been one thing looking at all the other nameless faces of the other children… but this one…
She clenched her hands into fists, her jaw tightening. The Joker was behind this… he'd hurt Robin and he'd killed these children… he would pay… he would pay dearly for everything…
But… why…? Why did he kill these children…? Raven took a deep breath and looked around, forcing back unwarranted tears. What reason could the Joker have for doing this…? Was it just for fun… or was there a motive, a plan…? From the looks of the costumes, it had to have been planned…
Her eyes fell on a rope hanging from the ceiling a few feet from where she knelt. She slowly stood and made her way towards it. The frayed of it dangled right at eyesight, and she reached out a hand and touched it carefully, as though afraid it would strike out and bite her. She furrowed her eyebrows, trying to make sense of it all. She glance at her feet to find more rope piled there, covered in blood. She crouched down, and slowly picked them up.
And suddenly, her whole mind was awash in emotion and pain. Her grip suddenly tensed around the ropes with all her might, her balance failing with her knees crashing to the floor. Teeth bared as she clamped her eyes tight, excruciating agony throbbing through her head and heart.
…it was him… She could sense him… his spirit, his presence, his remnants… whatever you could call it… somehow… she could suddenly see him dangling from that rope… she could hear his shrieks as gunfire sounded… could see the terror in those young faces before their lives were destroyed in front of him… She nearly doubled over as it washed over her, dousing her in a frozen hell, pulling at her brain, threatening to shatter her mind to pieces…
…just like his had been….
"Raven…?"
Beast Boy had finally made his way over to where she knelt, his eyes wide as he was staring down at her. He felt helpless, useless… what was there to do… so many lives… what could he do…? And here he stood, staring down at Raven, watching in alarm as tears rolled heavily down her cheeks. "Raven!" he gasped, leaning closer. Crying? Raven never cried. Her face was screwed up, like she was in pain… and crying…? "Raven, what's wrong?"
Raven couldn't speak, but she released her grip a little on the rope, holding it out towards Beast Boy with one hand. Beast Boy looked down at it curiously before becoming a canine once more, leaning forward and flaring his nose over it. He gave a small whine, eyes shooting wide as he recognized that smell. Robin… it was Robin's blood… he'd know it anywhere, the guy had gotten hurt enough on their missions…
"What does that mean…?" he murmured once he returned to normal, kneeling beside Raven with wide eyes in fear. "Raven…?"
"It means… we're too late…" Raven croaked with a rare voice full of emotion. Her eyes suddenly widened, transfixing themselves to the bare wall before her, looking haunted and lost. "They… broke him…..he's broken…"
"…broken….?" Beast Boy repeated numbly. He blinked at her in bewilderment for a long moment, before stammering, his voice laced with dread. "What do you mean broken? How can you tell? Maybe he's just---"
"His mind…" she choked out, looking back down at the ropes. Beast Boy looked up at her gaze, recognizing that distant, otherworldly stare… understanding she was seeing something he could not. Raven's hands gripped the cords once more, dropping her head, as though in prayer. "This was his breaking point… they used these kids… they were what finally made him snap… finally made him give in to them… and it destroyed his mind…"
Beast Boy stared dully at the girl, still not quite understanding… or maybe he didn't want to understand. Raven seemed to sense this as she lifted her head, focusing on him once more, the pure emotion in her deep purple gaze turning his chest cold.
"Even if he's alive… even if we find him… we can't help him… Robin, as we knew him, is gone…"
A/N
Ooooooooh, the suspense! Can't you just FEEL it?! 8D Isn't it DELICIOUS?!?! It tastes like cheesecake, doesn't it?? :3 Or maybe that's just me.
... oh, were you hoping for Robin in this chapter? XD Guess you just gotta wait a bit longer, you do. Yup yup!
R&R and I'll see you during Arkham Asylum pt 2! (Or whatever else I happen to name it)
