A/N: As always, enjoy. :)
"Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? Can he walk at all? Or if he moves will he fall? Is he alive or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?"
Starfire's incensed, alien curse was cut off by the sudden rush of Slade's automatons. The brightly clad Titans were soon drowned in a swarm of copper and black. Metallic fists smacked into Starfire's back, knocking Robin out of her arms.
He hit the ground, landing on his destroyed hand. His scream of agony was engulfed by the desperate sounds of war. Flashes of green and blue lit up the haunt like fireworks. Black robotic limbs flew through the air, sparking and sizzling.
A perpetual chorus of growls, squeals, roars, and hisses sang as Beast Boy shifted from creature to creature. He maimed and gored and smashed with all the fury of the animal kingdom.
The crescendo of Raven's familiar chant filtered through the chaos every so often. Her sing-song mantra was followed by the percussion of disassembled automatons slamming into the ground—slashed neatly in half.
Starfire's warrior cries accompanied bright flares of green that colored the drab gray surroundings in hues of blazing emerald. She left no evidence of her attackers. Hot snowflakes of ash cascaded to the floor.
Likewise, Cyborg was attacking anything in his path—whether it be robot, décor, or otherwise. His sonic cannon shook the ground and disturbed the ever-growing piles of rubble. The pipes and rafters trembled and sometimes fell from the ceiling like fallen angels. Dozens of smoldering craters already pocketed the cement environment. The wall of audiovisual monitors sprouted cracks and shed bits of glass.
The screams of Slade's robots were an awful thing to behold. Their dying, warbled shrieks pierced the eardrums and rattled the skull. Steely heads rolled; short-circuiting appendages littered the floor. Robin became buried in mechanical gore.
But the automatons just kept coming. An endless supply of soldiers parachuted from the dark recesses of the haunt and stormed out of the tunnels. The Titans were easily outnumbered 10-1. The atrium, which had always seemed so vast and desolate, now felt crowded.
Robin went into shock.
The horrible pain in his hand went disturbingly numb. His skin tingled while his muscles coiled into knots. His brain overheated. There was too much happening at once. Everything around him and inside him was chaos.
Robotic carcasses collapsed upon him, harsh footsteps trampled his legs, gunfire grazed his head, and yet he didn't react; convulsing wires were tangled in his hair, biting and burning the shaved sides of his scalp, but he couldn't feel their electric sting.
MOVE! he yelled at his body, all to no avail.
It had been years since he had felt so helpless, so weak.
Curled into a protective ball and cradling his gnarled hand, he watched the spectacular scene with wide, unseeing eyes. He felt faraway—out of his body, out of his mind.
His master was nowhere in sight.
The Titans were giving everything they had and still it wasn't enough. Slade's army was a pulsating mass of teeming insects—a never-ending supply of soldiers that spilled over them in waves. The haunt's coffers had been emptied; Slade went all-in.
Smoking heat suffocated the room, draping it in a lung-crunching fog of war.
While the Titans had the fight of their lives, Robin struggled to wiggle his toes. Jilted lovers, his body and mind refused to speak to one another. So, when an airborne Starfire unleashed a torrent of deadly green starbolts on her enemies below, Robin couldn't so much as flinch out of the way.
"ROBIN! NO!"
The frantic shriek came from behind.
Its familiar, feminine tenor was laced with an accent of mysterious power that rippled through the war-torn atmosphere. One moment, Robin was staring in dazed wonder at the lethal starbolt barreling toward him, and the next he was floating ten feet off the ground—an invisible hand holding him aloft.
Then, in the blink of an eye, he was back on the floor, splayed on his stomach, and twenty feet away from where he had been. His view was now that of the western tunnel's shadowy maw. The scene was still anarchy, but he had been removed from the nucleus of it.
Raven's rescue effort had cost her.
The moment she removed Robin from danger, she took a bullet to her undefended shoulder. Granted, the unfortunate robot that had fired the shot got the worst of it. She immediately disposed of him with a flick of her good arm and he joined his disassembled brethren on the floor in a hail of sparks.
But the wound would not be denied its due. Raven sank to her knees, holding her stained shoulder, as more robots converged. Blood turned her violet cloak black.
"RAE!" Cyborg cried in alarm from where he stood and fought.
With breath-taking grace, he nullified his current adversary and began to pummel his way over to Raven, leaving a trail of smoking entrails. Beast Boy—now in the form of a furious and enormous wolf—finished off the robot crushed beneath his paws and followed Cyborg's lead. Starfire covered the both of them from above, picking off Slade's minions while dodging their counter-fire.
Beast Boy reached Raven first.
He leapt over her bowed head and took down the robot charging her from behind. His powerful jaw chomped onto its neck, severing it. The decapitated body fell to the floor with a satisfying thud.
Huffing in victory, Beast Boy trotted back over to Raven, where his pleased snorts wilted into concerned whimpers. Raven's chin was on her chest and her naked face was twisted in pain. Her tangled, lavender hair clung to her sweaty cheeks. Her breath came out in short gasps.
Dark red leaked through her fingers and trickled down her arm as she pressed her palm into her shoulder. The battle forgotten, Beast Boy crouched protectively beside her.
Cyborg came a moment later. His mismatched face was covered in burn marks and splotches of oil—the blood of his enemies. He crouched in front of Raven with a grim expression.
Starfire was doing her best to keep the robots at bay. Circling like a vulture above, her hands were blurs of fuming, flaming green as she fired away. An avenging angel, she rained down brilliant judgment without remorse. Yet, even in all her righteous glory, her strength was beginning to wane. Each starbolt she loosed took a larger and larger toll; her fire began to flicker. Gravity and fatigue brought her closer to earth.
From the shadows, Slade watched all of this with increasing interest. Now was the time to strike. With the witch girl injured and the alien overextended, there was little standing in his way of victory. Before he set the next phase of his plan into action, his roaming eye found the shell-shocked Robin sprawled beside the westernmost tunnel. The boy wasn't moving.
Slade frowned. His disappointment was palpable.
It was obvious his apprentice would be of little use…for the moment.
If you want something done right… the villain thought with a cruel leer.
And with that, Slade entered stage right.
But he didn't fight fair.
As he sprinted from his hiding place, he jabbed a button on his vambrace. The lights shut off, cloaking the haunt in complete darkness. The temporary confusion should be enough of a window for him to finish the pesky trespassers.
"Stay together!" Cyborg cried to his teammates.
The robots continued to swarm.
Electrical flares flashed now and then as Cyborg repulsed onslaughts in the dark, metal against metal.
After a few costly moments of blind bewilderment, Starfire conjured a flame out of her palm, shedding a meager green light.
It wasn't quick enough.
Her hesitation was enough time for his men to take aim and fire. She was strong, but not strong enough to withstand several direct hits. Her weak radiance snuffed out and she crashed to the ground with an ostentatious boom!
"STAR!" Cyborg's disembodied voice yelled in dismay.
The robots kept him and Beast Boy herded away; he couldn't help her.
A wolf howled.
"If she moves, shoot her," Slade hissed to the surrounding robots as he passed them by.
He didn't even give the injured Starfire so much as a backward glance.
With mindless obedience, his men formed a tight circle around the girl, blocking any would-be return to the battlefield. Each of them aimed a blaster at her purple chest. Her scarlet hair formed a wide-arcing halo around her head. Her tan face was taut with pain. Her closed lids twitched as she went in and out of consciousness. The cement around her body was cracked and dented from the impact of her crash—a concrete snow angel.
The remaining Titans were quickly outmatched.
Cyborg and Beast Boy now fought back-to-back with Raven sandwiched between them.
Smirking, Slade wound around his soldiers, haunting their steps as he stalked his prey.
He inched closer to his target, crouching low to the ground. His army pressed in on all fronts, keeping the boys occupied. Blood continued to weep out of Raven's shoulder. She waved a trembling hand when she could, but her injury prevented her from doing much more than blocking the occasional shot. Her concentration dwindled as the pain mounted.
Her assistance would soon be less than nothing.
The coils of the snake tightened.
Cyborg fired his sonic cannon in a steady stream while Beast Boy snapped his apex predator jaws at the encroaching automatons.
Slade waited patiently.
His impressive stock of robots had been emptied. All of his supply had been destroyed or was currently employed.
Cyborg's sonic cannon was the final flicker of hope in the monstrous dark.
It was burning to the wick.
The dazzling blue glow was noticeably subdued. Its impact, shrunken. The floor no longer quaked and the rafters above quieted their rattling. The siege of robots grew more confident and trudged forward, gaining precious gray ground.
Slade recognized the telltale signs of a depleted battery.
So did Cyborg, but he wasn't going down with a whimper.
"YOU WANNA PIECE OF THIS?!" the courageous Titan yelled even as his sonic cannon sputtered.
Underscoring that threat, Beast Boy loosed a blood-freezing snarl.
His wolfish muzzle was carved in angry lines. Mouth wide, he revealed rows of jagged teeth that dripped eager drool. The fur on his back was raised in a fearsome ridge that paralleled his lupine spine. His pointed ears were pressed flat against his skull and his angled, canine eyes sparkled with unconcealed rage as he stared into the faceless horde.
His tail was stiff. His haunches were tensed, ready to spring. A substantial mound of wreckage lay at his paws.
Unimpressed, Slade motioned for his men to press the attack.
Cyborg and Beast Boy roared in unison.
Cyborg lowered his weaponized arm and traded his cannon for a fist, pounding the intruders straight through the chest. Beast Boy, per usual, leapt into the fray like a berserker and went into a barbaric frenzy.
It was a heroic act, but a senseless one.
He left Raven's back exposed.
Slade didn't hesitate.
He pocketed one of his soldier's blasters and crept into enemy camp.
Huddled on the floor, clinging to cognizance, Raven detected movement out of the corner of her eye. Her senses wailed in a silent alarm. Cyborg's back was to her as he took on ten androids at once. She could hear Beast Boy making a ruckus, but the changeling himself was lost in the pregnant gloom.
With effort, she raised her hand to keep whatever it was away.
Before her magic could respond, however, something cold and hard wrapped around her wrist and yanked her up, cutting off her meditation.
She cried out as she came face-to-mask with Slade.
He merely narrowed his eye at her in his typical, characteristic greeting before twirling her around like a demented dance partner and holding a blaster to her head. His right arm roped around her chest. It was like a leaden weight, pinning her against him.
Desperate, her eyes lost their color as she struggled to recall her power. Slade returned the favor by cocking the gun and knifing a malicious thumb into her weeping shoulder. She screamed and lurched against the hurt.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he hissed in her ear, his metal chin grazing her cheek.
"LET HER GO!"
Finally wise, Cyborg detangled himself from a batch of robots and sprinted in Slade's direction. Somewhere, Beast Boy yelped and mowed down his electric adversaries as he paved a path back to Raven.
The robots swiveled and ambled after the Titan pair.
Slade tightened his grip and pivoted, keeping the changeling and the bionic boy in his sights. Raven flailed but it did little good. He kept a constant, cruel pressure on her shoulder—hooking his thumb into her lacerated collarbone. Her face corkscrewed and she bit her lower lip in an effort to keep from sobbing.
"One more step and she loses her head," Slade threatened in a smooth, steady voice when Cyborg and Beast Boy approached.
Skidding to a halt, the Bengal Tiger Beast Boy growled.
His striped tail swished unhappily. His astute, cat-slit eyes ping-ponged between Slade and Raven.
Despite Slade's warning, he shifted his front paws forward and lowered his exotic head in a hostile pose. His extended claws thirsted for blood. Cyborg was at the big cat's side, glowering. His hands were in keen fists. A flashlight popped out of his shoulder cavity, illuminating the situation.
Unaffected by the sudden light, Slade buried the barrel of the gun into the side of Raven's crumpled porcelain brow. His pupil flashed without remorse. At his unseen behest, the remaining automatons halted their advance. They watched noiselessly from the shadows, waiting for their master's kill command.
"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough," Slade mused sarcastically. "If you don't surrender by the time I count to three, I'm going to blow your little friend's brains out."
Accenting that point, the hand that was wrapped around Raven's injured shoulder squeezed with enhanced vigor. She couldn't bite back the whimper that escaped through her clamped lips. Instinctively, she curled into herself. Her graceful jaw brushed against Slade's vambrace. Horrible barbs of pain shot down her arm, up her neck, and into her back, shredding the transit nerves.
Beast Boy yowled despairingly.
"Let. Her. Go," Cyborg repeated in a throaty, dark growl.
"1…2…" Slade responded in patronizing fashion.
His finger put more pressure on the trigger. Raven braced herself.
Beaten, Cyborg shook his head with an irritated snarl. He elbowed Beast Boy's shoulder and lifted his hands in submission. His dark eye burned with hatred.
A lingering, unhappy rumble reverberated from the great cat's chest, but Beast Boy straightened out of his crouch nonetheless.
His tail evaporated, his eyes widened and changed character, he lost his striped fur, and his bones snapped and re-organized as he transformed back into a human.
Still, he didn't raise his arms. He crossed them and clenched his elfin chin in a paltry show of nerve.
"See? That wasn't so hard," Slade taunted and he jerked his jaw at the robot spectators.
His men shuffled forward and quickly restrained the remaining pair of Titans.
Cyborg submitted with quiet dignity, but his eye was shrewd. He was already calculating possible options of escape.
Conversely, Beast Boy squawked and struggled when the robots came for him. His stare remained locked on Raven as he fought without heart against the hands of his captors, trying to inch closer to her.
Enjoying himself too much, Slade gave Raven's shoulder another cruel pinch. Hissing, her bowstring lips pulled back and she gnashed her teeth and whimpered.
Beast Boy fell easily for the bait.
"STOP THAT!" he cried, spit flying from his mouth. "You're hurting her!"
Slade paid the changeling's ill-thought-out complaint no mind and barked:
"Get them into position."