Teen Titans: Dangerous Waters
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.
A/N: Here we are. I've been waiting a long time to get to this one, and I know some of you have, too. I appreciate your patience, everyone. That's especially so for those of you who are following, favoriting, and of course sharing your thoughts on this story with me. For this chapter, our young heroes stand face-to-face with the new enemy I alluded to in the description. Everything that has transpired so far has been leading to this, so enjoy!
Chapter 9: In Darkness
Over the last three years since meeting and joining up with her fellow Titans, the dark sorceress had faced many foes. After she finally managed to defeat her father and overcome her dark destiny, she had felt like there wasn't anyone she couldn't confront without fear.
But here and now, standing before the man who had been able to infiltrate her mindscape and make himself at home entirely without her knowledge, a mysterious being of uncertain yet unquestionable power, Raven felt as though she were looking at something straight out of a nightmare.
Questions began abounding inside her head as she felt his cold, calculating, unflinching stare pierce her just as it had that night over a week prior. It had been a futile way of thinking, but prior to consulting with her emoticlones, a part of her hoped he had just been a figment of her twisted imagination.
There was no such luck on her side, of course, and this time, her four teammates could see him, too.
Just one look at Raven, and Robin knew instantly that the unfamiliar individual standing in their way must have been the intruder to her psyche she mentioned earlier. Her eyes wouldn't widen with shock like that at just anyone.
Cyborg was analyzing him carefully as Starfire looked him up and down curiously, and Beast Boy's own plainly worried eyes were darting back and forth between him and Raven, but Creed remained silent and still, waiting for one of the five teenagers to speak up and make the first move. And just as he expected, it was their team leader who did so.
"Who are you?" Robin looked the masked man dead in the eyes as he demanded sharply.
Right to the point and showing no fear in the face of the unknown, plus giving nothing away of his intentions in his movements. It was clear to Creed the former mentor of the Boy Wonder had indeed taught the latter well. He didn't need a field report from Zunzen to see that.
"Introductions? Yes, I do believe it's time," the shrouded mastermind acknowledged the team leader of the Titans and the other four with him at last, "I am Lord Creed, and I am the leader of the Libertatia Consortium, the guys you've been locked in battle with up and down this ship. All of you have fought well to make it this far, but you go no further."
"Yeah? Says who?" Cyborg inquired, his tone not unlike Robin's. As far as he was concerned, this was the team's chance to end this, here and now, and he knew Robin wanted to get a better feel for the situation before attacking. Keeping this guy talking could only work to their advantage, right?
"You should do yourself a favor and save that bravado for another time, Mr. Stone. I'm not some common street thug you can intimidate," Creed stated outright, unmoving and uncaring as the bionic appeared visibly surprised at hearing his surname spoken so casually.
"Rae?" the green shapeshifter whispered to the unresponsive empath beside him, still trying to get some kind of reaction out of her. He had become visibly concerned for her at this point; he hadn't seen her this out of sorts since the near-armageddon brought on by her father. He hesitated for a moment, but then tentatively reached over and touched her shoulder delicately, as if she were a piece of fine china.
"Why have you come here?" she then blurted out suddenly, finding her voice and causing Beast Boy to jump reflexively and instantly retract his hand in the process. The eyes of her other three teammates all shifted to her, and it seemed so did Creed's based on a slight movement of his head. His nearly-faceless mask looked straight at her once more. She did her best not to look away and let him know just how shook up she was, though she was pretty sure he already knew regardless.
He'd been inside her head at least once before, after all. He could know just about all of her darkest secrets and memories already.
That thought unnerved her probably more than anything else at this exact moment.
He didn't answer her, and try as she might, she couldn't discern his emotions nor his intentions. This was different from when she couldn't sense anything from Beast Boy. In that circumstance, she was being blocked out subconsciously, but this 'Lord Creed' as he called himself seemed just... empty. It was as if he were hollow inside, devoid of anything that would distinguish him as a human. Was he even human?
Robin chose that moment to step in again, and press her question for her. "I think we would all like to know just why you're here."
"You mean it isn't obvious?" Now Creed's voice contained a hint of condescension. "My dutiful first lieutenant informed me that you were asking for me, Mr. Grayson. Well, here I am," he declared while raising and spreading out his forearms, emphasizing the statement before lowering them again and finishing with a simple query, "So now, what do you want?"
"We want you to stand down, call off your troops and robots, release the hostages you've taken, and then surrender immediately," the leader of the Titans answered at once, tersely, and while pulling out and activating his staff in his process. While he was certainly unnerved that this stranger apparently knew his secret identity, and had just outed his surname to his teammates, he knew better than to let it show.
The other Titans had been mildly surprised at the revelation, but still quickly followed suit and dropped into fighting stances, anticipating their adversary would be the one to strike first. They were mistaken.
"Your demands are declined," Creed stated outright, becoming dismissive in the way he spoke. Uncompromising, and certain. Robin didn't like it. It reminded him too much of another foe he and his team had battled several times over the last three years.
"You do see that we have you outnumbered five to one, right?" Cyborg interjected once again, clearly becoming irritated himself at the ongoing standoff.
"Yes, if you come at me all at once you may actually stand a chance," the leader of the Libertatia Consortium remarked simply.
"Please, there has been enough fighting," Starfire attempted reasoning, despite knowing it was a forlorn gesture.
"Aversion to violence is an admirable trait," Creed conceded, momentarily, "It has no place, here."
"Enough!" Robin then growled, "We won't let you get away with all that you've done. So this is your last- what's so funny?" he asked, his teeth clenching and eyes narrowing.
Creed had allowed himself to chuckle at the young man mid-sentence, a low, dry, humorless laugh.
"You said you wouldn't 'let me' get away with everything that has transpired on this ship today. That implies you believe you can stop me." He wasn't condescending or dismissive when he spoke again. This time, it was as though he were giving a warning. Robin was unfazed, however.
"We can stop you, and we will."
"Well then, by all means, step forward and make a believer out of me."
"Titans, go!"
"You have a battle cry. Hilarious."
Creed transferred his cane to his left hand as his young opponents moved to attack. He didn't wait for them to close the distance, however. Instead, he outstretched his right hand and produced five long tendrils of dark purple energy, shadow and almost mist-like in form, each manifested just beyond one of his fingertips. The tendrils sprang forth in the blink of an eye and each one coiled rapidly around one of the the five teenage superheroes. Their unmitigated surprise was both visible and audible.
Before any of them could react, Creed immediately raised his arm up and then flung it to his right, hurling the Titans up off the deck and then immeidately back down onto it a distance away. Then he reversed and swiped his arm over to his left, and released his hold on them in the process. The tendrils vanished just as quickly as they appeared and the Titans were hurled onto the deck once again, crashing through some deck furniture as they went. Robin was the only one to land on his feet, which Creed noted.
Robin didn't waste a second as he lunged at their adversary once again, aiming to distract him while his teammates took a moment to recover and collect their bearings. He jumped from side to side at intervals as he closed in, so as to deny Creed a single vantage point with which to strike.
The shrouded leader in question held the cane in his left hand close to his side while his right hand clasped onto the shaft just below the ornate silver ball at the top, and he calculated the opportune moment as Robin approached, staff held up high.
Upon the precise second that moment arrived, the leader of the Libertatia Consortium pulled his blade mostly from its sheath in the blink of an eye, but not completely. He slammed the hilt of the sword, the ball at the end of the cane, into the abdomen of his young opponent while keeping the tip of the blade in the sheath, the shaft of the cane. The sheer swiftness of the impact along with the blunt force was more than enough to knock the wind out of the leader of the Titans and cause the latter to drop his staff, but what made the blow even worse was the fact it landed directly where he had been shot only about half an hour or so prior. While it was true the wound had been healed, the area of impact was still sensitive at this point in time. Creed then re-sheathed the blade in the aftermath and clasped it onto the left side of his utility belt beneath his longcoat. As he doubled over and collapsed to his knees, letting out a sharp, pained shout, Robin understood just how dire his team's predicament was.
A swift kick swung into the side of his head not a second later ensured he wouldn't get the chance to warn them. Robin was rendered unconscious in only two blows, and if Creed had angled his foot just a bit differently, the strike to the head likely would have been far more severe.
The other Titans came to a halt as they stared wide-eyed in shock. None of them had ever seen their team leader incapacitated so quickly, and of course Starfire in particular shifted from surprise to rage quickly. Her eyes glowed green with her energy as she focused intently on their enemy, and sped off in his direction in a nanosecond.
"Star, wait!" Cyborg immediately called out to her, to no avail.
When she came to a halt mid-air, the alien princess was prepared let loose a barrage of starbolts manifesting around her clenched fists. She was breathing heavily with barely-restrained fury, but held back for one reason: her target wasn't anywhere in sight. The rational part of her brain kicked in and her eyes darted about, wondering where he could have gone. She didn't have to wait long to find out.
"Starfire! Behind you!" the panicked voice of Beast Boy rang in her ears, and she spun around a moment too late.
The leader of the Libertatia Consortium had reappeared through what looked like a dark purple mist and was now eerily levitating directly behind her, his white longcoat flowing off to the side slightly in the wind. He caught her wrist in his right hand, drawing a surprised and startled gasp from the Tamaranean before him. When he squeezed a bit too tightly, with strength she recognized as uncharacteristic for a human, she grimaced as her star energy in that hand dissipated. She then went to strike with an energy blast from her free hand, but was prevented from doing so when she felt the soles of his boots slam into her midsection. Displaying a show of foreboding physical might on an inhuman scale, he sent her crashing into another set of deck furniture and through the wooden paneling on the deck itself, the impact causing her to break clean through to the level below on the ship as the remaining three Titans looked on in absolute horror.
The impact obviously wasn't enough to kill or even seriously injure her, but it didn't look like she'd be coming back up quickly.
Cyborg and Beast Boy both went to attack him next, the former firing laser blasts from the cannon on his right arm while the latter morphed into a lion and charged. Creed effortlessly moved about while avoiding each and every laser shot in his direction, seemingly teleporting short distances instantaneously. Faint traces of the same dark magic dissipated off of him each time he did so.
It was at this time when Raven entered the fray herself, chanting her mantra while seizing other pieces of deck furniture on both sides of the pool area telekinetically. She then disappeared into a pool of shadow at her feet, intent on reappearing behind their foe and using the cover her remaining teammates were providing to mask her movements.
Creed, for his part, didn't appear fazed in the least when he grabbed the green shapeshifter with both hands by the shoulders and flung him around, hurling him off the pavilion, through the netting and into the empty pool and its unforgivably hard surface with incredible strength and a loud thud. He then vanished yet again, which caused Cyborg to switch to his scanner once again. The bionic moved about slowly, looking all around him in every conceivable vantage point from his position while going through different settings on the scanner and keeping his right arm and its cannon raised.
Just as he did before, Creed reappeared in the blink of an eye and grabbed onto the right arm of his younger opponent. A startled Cyborg had little time to react before the shrouded leader of their new enemies applied immense pressure with his hand, this time enough to cause the metal limb of the bionic to crumble in his grip. The laser cannon was rendered inoperable almost instantly. Cyborg tried to break free and retaliate with his other arm, but was stopped when he felt Creed place his free hand on his metal torso and then, he did the unthinkable. The bionic could only watch in unmitigated disbelief and horror when, without an indication of strain or effort, his foe tore off his right arm, exposing internal wiring and other components while sending sheared off bits of fiberglass and metal along with some nuts and bolts out and onto the deck.
Raven reappeared at this time, on the right side of the pavilion, and her white glowing eyes widened in equal shock and fear as she saw her maimed cybernetic teammate brought down, a single kick sending him through the air and into the wall beyond the pavilion. She was immediately tempted to drop everything and check on the welfare of each of her teammates, worry at their conditions gnawing away in the back of their mind, but she also knew to do so would leave herself open to attack. She had to remain in the present. His back was to the pool area and all the deck furniture she'd angled around was still in her telekenetic grip, and so the dark sorceress seized her opening. With a flick of her wrist she flung the tables, chairs, and lounge chairs at her target from a nearly-complete three hundred and sixty degree angle. She then leapt back when she felt his gaze focus on her and used her free hand to reach out to tear away at the supports for the retractable awning as well as the supports for the archways that held up the speakers and show lights.
Almost the entire pavilion was now crashing down upon Creed and anything in the vicinity that wasn't bolted down was being hurled in his direction. Raven was betting that he wouldn't be able to block or dodge all of this coming at him at once. She narrowed her eyes in focus as she looked on at her handiwork.
It was not a moment later when the glowing black energy enveloping each of the objects she'd manipulated was seemingly cancelled out and replaced with the glowing dark purple energy of her opponent, and though she reached out with both her hands, none of of them responded to her anymore. It was as if his powers were overriding her own, or perhaps he was simply on another level than her in terms of dark magic. Not a pleasant thought. Another bead of sweat ran down the side of Raven's face and she locked her teeth together in consternation. She quickly went to form a barrier in front of herself, anticipating he might throw the objects she'd tried to hit him with right back at her, but instead he merely knocked them away from his immediate vicinity in a single burst of his power. Each piece of furniture as well as the metal supports and lights and speakers from the pavilion crashed and broke over each other as they landed on the deck around him, and just as before she didn't need to see his face to know his gaze was now focused squarely on her once again.
"Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven made a quick sign with her fingers and summoned a large, dark likeness of her namesake behind her before sending it off at Creed, who promptly vaporized it once it was within reaching distance via one motion from his right hand. He didn't give her a chance to recover, and reached out with a huge, dark, shadow-like claw comprised of his magic, same color as before, summoned from his left hand this time. Raven responded quickly, creating a portal for her to step through before the claw could reach her, but its fingers forced the mystical gateway to remain open once it started closing, and then the limb went inside after her, grasping and tearing her back out and into the physical world before slamming her down on her back against the deck, hard, causing her to let out a strangled breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.
It wasn't long after when she heard his footsteps walking over to her, calmly yet diligently as she collected her bearings, but the dark mystical forces holding her down weren't letting up. The once prominent white glow in her eyes faded away as they shifted back to her normal shade of deep violet. When he was just a couple or so steps away from her, Creed looked down upon Raven with that same stare that seemed to go right through her.
It was at that moment when the leader of the Libertatia Consortium received an incoming call on the communicator built into the small wrist device tucked away under his left cuff. He unveiled it with his right hand and answered it while observing the half-demon at his feet.
"Go ahead."
"Boss-friend," came the thick accent of Zunzen on the other end of the line, "The objective has been secured. Per your instructions, our forces have begun pulling back. They have cleared the lower decks and the transport is away at this time."
"Have you received word from the commander? Are the 'parting gifts' ready?" Creed continued observing Raven's restorative magic in action as he inquired further with his first lieutenant.
"Indeed."
"Very well. Rendezvous at my coordinates, and dispatch the troopers and tech team with you to their extraction point."
"At once! Over and out!"
As soon as he ended the call, he finally relinquished his hold on Raven and allowed the claw to dissipate. She sucked in another breath now that she could do so more freely again, and dared to speak up once she collected her thoughts, wary at the uneasy stillness as well as what she'd just heard the two criminals say to each other.
"You know I can still attack you, right?"
"You could, but you won't," he stated as a matter of fact, before reaching out once more with hIs right hand, this time to retrieve each of the other four Titans through his own brand of telekinesis, promptly causing Raven's eyes to widen. "Your thoughts dwell on them, and who could blame you?"
She couldn't tell whether he was mocking her or not, but right now she didn't care. He was right, and seeing her friends helpless and limp in his grasp made her heart lurch. She was about to demand that he let them go, but he did so of his own volition, setting them down on the deck just behind him.
The empath didn't waste any time, quickly pulling herself up and levitating over to them. Starfire rubbed her forehead while Cyborg and Beast Boy groaned audibly as they sat up, the latter having shifted back to his human form. Despite remaining dazed, the alien princess shifted her focus to her still-unconscious boyfriend beside her, and glared in renewed anger at Creed, who still had his back to the group even as he allowed Raven to move past him in order to tend to each of them, reaching out with her light blue healing energy.
"Damn... it..." the bionic rasped as he looked over at where his arm had been torn off. Beast Boy's verdant eyes widened in shock and he briefly forgot about his own pain when he caught sight of the condition his best friend had been left in.
"Dude... no! I'm sorry, I should have-!"
"There's... ugh... nothing you could've done BB," Cyborg reassured him, using his remaining arm to pull himself up into a seating position in the process. "Or you," he added to Starfire when she looked over at him in visible worry as well.
"Just stay sharp, everyone," Raven interjected as she continued working on Robin, who once again seemed to get the worst of the damage, "We're not out of this yet."
It was true, after all. The man who brought down all five of them in under a minute remained standing a short distance away with his back to them, as if completely unfazed at the possibility of being attacked from behind. Or perhaps more likely, they realized, he knew all of them were effectively out of commission in their current state.
Beast Boy grimaced. One of his shoulders felt dislocated, an elbow was definitely bruised, and he was also pretty sure he sprained his left ankle due to the awkward angle of his impact in the drained pool. He also had some bloody scrapes on his right side, which bore the brunt of his hard landing. He didn't think he could even stand up so long as he remained in a form with legs without help at this point. He hadn't felt this banged up in a long time.
Starfire winced as she felt along her ribcage. More than a few bones in there had been cracked, based on what she could tell. Simply breathing was now a bit painful for the Tamaranean. She became frightened knowing this. It wasn't the nature of her injuries that worried her in particular. Again, it was the fact they had been inflicted on her at all. She'd taken hits from some pretty strong foes during her time on Earth thus far, and not even a direct punch from the likes of Cinderblock had left her with an internal injury like this. Had her ribs been broken completely at the angle they now felt out of place in, they could have punctured one or both of her lungs, which would have put her life in imminent danger.
All the solar absorption and star energy in the universe couldn't save her from a fate like that.
While Cyborg still had full mobility, he was in no shape to keep fighting without his missing arm, which he could only assume was now buried under the rubble behind them. Upon closer inspection of where it had been torn off, it looked like the control wires had been severed and the hydraulics were damaged beyond working condition, meaning he wouldn't be able to just reattach the limb through quick field repairs, even if he were able to recover it. He also felt a gash on the right side of his face from when he hit the wall. His metal body had taken the brunt of that impact, fortunately. Still, as he wiped at the wound with his left hand and saw his blood on his fingers, he was reminded his human mortality still remained.
Raven wasn't injured physically, aside from a bit of soreness where she'd been forcibly held down, but she was exhausted mentally and she could feel the strength behind her powers fading fast. Between the prolonged battle in the atrium where she had to fend off dozens of killer robots and a highly capable mercenary, and now as she had to expend considerable healing magic on her teammates, she felt at wit's end. She wouldn't be able to fight again anytime soon.
Robin's head injury wasn't fatal, thankfully, but it was obvious to Raven he would be dealing with a nasty concussion over the next few days. She was successfully able to spare him the long-term effects of such a blow, to her relief. She laid his head back down delicately and moved to treat her other teammates.
It was the telltale sound of footsteps that alerted the Titans, sans Robin to the arrival of Zunzen. He soon acknowledged them with his unsettling grin before shifting focus squarely to his superior, who then greeted him.
"Well done, my friend. What's our status?"
"The last gunship is inbound to our location, boss. All other personnel are safely away," Creed's longtime second-in-command readily reported.
"Very good. Then it's time for us to depart as well."
The two of them turned to make their exit, but didn't take two steps before they came to a halt again upon hearing Robin call out to them, weakly. The other Titans watched in surprised silence as their leader lifted his head so as to face their foes while he spoke. Raven was now treating Cyborg and Starfire, and Beast Boy had pulled himself up into a seating position.
"You're just going to walk away?" Robin had sounded incredulous, "We're not finished with you yet!" he couldn't help but wince even as some of the fire returned to his voice. He was obviously in no shape to get up and fight again, either.
"Yes, you are," Creed stated, again as a matter of fact, but instead of resuming his stride, he took a moment to eye the green shapeshifter and then shifted his gaze to his first lieutenant, who met it.
"Yes, boss?"
"A thought just occurred to me," the shrouded criminal mastermind elaborated, his voice once more devoid of emotion, and he then gestured to Raven, "Shoot her."
The words had barely registered with the Titans before all five of them were once again ensnared by the same dark purple tendrils and forced back down onto the deck, except for the dark sorceress in question. The tendrils had coiled around her neck, and she was pulled from her crouched position then unceremoniously tossed onto deck. She coughed violently once the strangling sensation dissipated as Creed released her just several or so feet from Zunzen, who retrieved one of his revolvers and took aim, ready to fire at point-blank range. But he hesitated for a moment.
"Boss... the plan?" he inquired vaguely with his superior in a hushed voice. Creed immediately dismissed the concern.
"If she dies, we will then harvest what we need from her corpse. Now shoot her," he instructed simply.
"Well, if I must," the dutiful second-in-command obeyed, and then reached for the trigger.
At the last possible second, the tendrils holding Beast Boy down abruptly dissipated. If he had more time to think, he might have realized right then that he was freed intentionally, but he didn't have a second to spare.
Panic was coursing through his mind just as adrenaline overtook his body, and he forgot about the pain he was in, including his sprained ankle. He morphed into the form of a cheetah to gain the speed he required, and leapt between Raven and Zunzen just as the latter pulled the trigger and fired two rounds at the empath. Raven, who had been recoiling from the expected gunfire, looked on in absolute horror at the sight before her, and as both bullets hit the green cheetah, one in his chest and the second in his stomach. Some of his blood hit the terrified empath, splattering across her chest and neck. She followed his movements with her eyes as he hit the deck once again, this time haphazardly like a ragdoll, and more of his blood began pooling beneath him as he became still. It was only then when, having completely forgotten the need to suppress her emotions, she finally collected her thoughts enough to let loose a single, bellowing, horrified scream.
"BEEEEEAST BOOOOOOY!"
Creed simultaneously released the other three Titans while also forming a dome of his dark magic around Raven, containing the sudden shockwave of her own power that was released with her anguish. Unbeknownst to anyone but himself, beneath the mask concealing his face his brow furrowed just slightly.
"Huh. It's almost a cliché when you think about it," Zunzen mused aloud, eyes darting from the gravely wounded shapeshifter and the empath as the barrier around her dissipated. He raised his revolver to fire at her again, but was stopped by Creed, who reached out from beside him to swat the barrel of the gun away with his cane. With but one silent and unseen look from his superior, he instantly understood and nodded in affirmation.
At this point, Raven had recovered enough to hurriedly make her way over to Beast Boy. She dropped to her knees beside him and reached out with a shaking arm to touch him. He groaned slightly and weakly at the contact.
"Beast Boy? Garfield? Look at me. Come on now, look at me!" she was frantic as she pooled what energy she had left into her right hand to create more healing magic while snaking her left arm around his upper torso to cradle him slightly. His blood soaked into her sleeve.
Meanwhile, the other Titans moved quickly and placed themselves between their foes and their two teammates, though there was still little they could do in their current conditions. Cyborg was still missing an arm and Starfire had to support Robin despite her own injuries.
Fortunately for the five young heroes, it seemed as though Creed was done with them for the day.
"I thank you, Titans," his devoid, empty voice sent chills through each of them, "This has been quite an illuminating experience. As a show of gratitude, I will permit all five of you live, this time. That said, be warned: the next time you cross me, I will need far more to justify your lives."
"We can't just let you walk away after all that you've done here," Robin stated, terse and completely unamused. Cyborg and Starfire said nothing, but watched both men before them through narrowed eyes. Zunzen regarded all of them with yet another unsettling grin, but Creed merely looked down and pressed another button on his wrist device.
"Since it's clear you still need some incentive, I will oblige you," he told them ominously.
Roughly a thousand or so yards away off the starboard or right side of the Skyward, the large surfaced submarine that had ferried the majority of the Consortium's forces fired two torpedoes, one each from its two lower forward launch tubes. The warheads slammed into the starboard bow of the liner below her waterline, detonating on impact into a massive explosion that rocked the ship and sent a plume of water and smoke into the air above.
"What did you just do?!" Robin shouted. At that moment, he was not only furious as their foes, but at himself for feeling so helpless.
"I just told you, it's called incentive," Creed stated, outright and dismissive, "Water is now rushing in a rate too fast for the automatic pumps to handle. In addition to that, my subordinates have sabotaged the watertight doors and so none will close. You each now have a choice: dare try to pursue us, or stay here and work to save as many of the thousands of innocents on this vessel as you can."
Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire said nothing, but they all looked at one another as well as behind themselves, where Raven worked frantically on their fallen friend.
And then, the last gunship arrived, summoned by the same remote signal that gave Creed's final orders to the submarine. After pulling off to the side it held position overhead, and its crew released a single deployment cable from the main cabin, which Zunzen then grabbed on to. He looked on while his superior bid farewell to their young adversaries.
"You'll see us again," the leader of the Titans warned, both of his fists clenched together tightly.
"I know we will," was all Creed said in reply. He vanished not a moment later while Zunzen was pulled up and into the gunship, which turned and sped off the second he made it on board.
Robin certainly wasn't alone. None of his teammates had ever felt so helpless, either.
Meanwhile, on the ship's bridge, the now-freed Captain VanRoojen and his remaining officers were diligently trying to access the situation as well as all potential responses. The access codes for the officers had been overridden by the Consortium's tech team, but almost curiously the master access code for the captain himself had been left operable. Still, as things currently stood, neither the captain nor the officers present had any time to dwell on that now.
"I need that damage report, now!" the ship's captain commanded sharply, looking out over the bow of his ship. He could see a list to starboard was already forming. The Skyward was starting to sink.
"We still can't get a response from the automatic controls on the watertight doors, captain!" Mr. Murtaugh, the ship's first officer, answered promptly and urgently from where he stood at the steering and primary functions console. "The engineers on the lower decks have tried to make their way to the manual controls, but water is rushing in too fast! The first and second cargo holds are already completely submerged, according to an update I got here seconds ago!"
"The pumps are operating at full capacity, captain, but they're being overwhelmed! At best they can slow our intake of water, but they can't stop it!" Mr. Rostron, the ship's second officer, relayed from where he stood at a technical systems and readout console. "Once five compartments fill up, there won't be any way to stop us from sinking!" he added in a dire warning.
"What of the passengers and crew on the lower decks? Did the emergency override to the lockdown release all of them?" the captain inquired further.
"Affirmative, captain," Mr. Smith, the ship's fourth officer, informed his superior immediately. He was at the internal and long range communications console, and it was right then when he discovered a crucial reversal of their fortunes, "Sir, our outgoing signals are no longer being jammed! We can send a distress call!"
"Get to it, then!" VanRoojen instructed.
"Aye, captain!"
The listing worsened as more and more water from the vast ocean outside flooded into the hull of the Skyward. As much as it pained the grizzled captain, he had to acknowledge that the longer he waited, the worse their situation would become. They were at best hours away from any rescue, and it was clear his liner would not stay afloat for that long. It was only a matter of time before the angle of the list become too steep to launch any lifeboats or rafts from the port or left side of the ship. With a deep, heavy sigh, he relayed his final instructions to his crew.
"Sound the general alarm. All hands, abandon ship."
The officers present all instantly looked over to their captain with a mixture of worry and disbelief.
"'Abandon ship?'" Murtaugh repeated, "But sir... the Skyward...?"
"I know, but still regardless of all else, our primary concern must remain with our passengers and of course the rest of our fellow crew," VanRoojen explained, his voice solemn yet resolute. He was sure of his decision.
The MS Skyward was sinking, and that couldn't be stopped. The fates of over eight thousand and five hundred lives now hung in the balance.
A/N: Just one more chapter to go. The Titans certainly have their work cut out for them this time. No matter the outcome, yet another thing I said in the description remains true: henceforth, nothing will ever be the same.
Thanks again once more to each and every one of you, and of course Wikked Grin as always for his work as beta reader. I do very much look forward to concluding this with you, and perhaps starting on the planned sequel soon.
Before I go, for those of you who may be wondering, I have at last resumed work on my next Star Wars Rebels story. I expect to have the first draft for that ready sometime next month.
Be safe and be well, everyone!