Teen Titans – Haunted – And Analysis in Red and Orange: Chapter 4: Thunderstruck
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The aching pain in his back was there, as he was too soon roused from the fall by a passing shadow, swiftly as it flew and his eyes caught it in a passing side - glance.
Saying its name, as his eyes turned to slits. He'd known it. He saw what the flash could very well be, what it had failed to hide from his keen sense of sight.
"Slade..."
The hunt had continued, as the answers were growing closer, once more.
Then it wasn't a false lead he'd been after...None of it was ever suppose to be so simple. The question was, why was he chasing after that hunch at all?
A dream? No. That wasn't it.
Robin shifted his body to stand alert. Ready for anything. He anxiously grabbed his nearby bo – staff until his knuckles were bleach white. He didn't want to be wrong. Not here, not tonight.
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The rain still, it tormented him, and that sky. The rain still had not been falling properly. Waiting to collectively consume the ground, into thicker droplets the raindrops fell, as a bolt of lightening lit up the back - wood's clearing.
That was where Cinderblock had let Robin fly freely into the ground and into the California pine trees below the Titans' supposed, current battlefield. Off the beaten path, some would call it.
Raven, Star, and Cy with Bb were probably in over their heads…agh...If only –
The lightening wasn't wrong. HE wasn't, as the hero's eyes stared off in shock at what stood in the clearing, peeking over and playing peek – a – boo, with the lightening as a perfect cover for this mystery - figure's notorious big reveal.
Standing behind a tree; the two-toned mask, the stealth and care in how the figure was holding itself.
Robin snarled, and with a low growl, with his staff in hand, he followed this trail of metaphorically placed breadcrumbs out into the dark woods.
His masked eyes narrowed dangerously at the figure, as his detective instincts kicked into high gear to have him want to tail the figure out, right into the back - woods.
It was true, and Robin was almost overwhelmed that he'd been right all along. No one had believed him, but, well now –
He shouted out a cry to the mad man's shadow, just before the storm could take hold of their fighting ground's environment and blind him as before.
"Stop!"
The figure moved with ninja reflexes through the pine forest, making his way up into the tree boughs as if he could hide from this angst – filled, and sleep deprived super – hero for an eternity.
Robin had given his fairest warning, but now it was time to bring out the corporal punishment. A birdarang was sent flying oh – so close –
Yet, it never hit its target.
The cover from that darn lightening showed the hero that the tree had become his target instead, but not the masked, mad man's face. He'd not even gotten so much as a wince out of that straight a throw!
Robin jumped up onto the empty branch, tugging out the stray birdarang from the defenseless California pine tree without so much as batting a lash. He'd missed, again. Always, as it had finally started to rain. His hair gel was soon washed out. His ebony hair lay plastered to as the rain only kept coming down. He could care less. This was now becoming way too personal for him to call it quits.
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Slade's voice took his attention to search upward, as Robin's eyes looked up at the next branch above him in an instant flat. In this dark maze of branches and low hanging boughs, he could see what haunted those dark corners of his mind.
"Too slow, Robin." A pause as the hero got ready to beat the demons of his past. He planned out a strategy, quickly trying to speed up before his answer was again lost forever in time.
"You always were." Finished the man above him in the tree tops.
Robin readied his trusted grappling hook. Now or never. Slade was not going to get away…. He'd just pushed way too far this time!
Snarling up, Robin relented to his angst. "I knew you'd come back." The cord cable's line met with hard wood as Robin hoisted himself up by his cord to where Slade stood, patiently awaiting a few words to speak at his own leisure.
Robin found his way up onto the thicker branch, ready to fight and send the man crashing into the hard earth one more time – yet the lightening from this blasted storm was constantly giving Slade the upper hand, the forces of nature not being in the hero's favor tonight.
Slade kept moving, never slowing down.
Now, Robin had an excuse to challenge himself.
They leapt about as Slade led and Robin followed blindly across bough after bough. They'd ended up far higher up the next and last tree, higher and higher as the hits were next to useless from Robin's bo - staff and birdarangs. Slade was left a perfect and spotless being, while Robin was sopping down to his black boots and cape.
Finally, they ended up on the same branch together. Slade was supposedly stalling, trying to stay and let Robin catch his breath. He couldn't keep up with how much he'd been pushing himself each and every night. It was inevitable, really.
"Already out of breath?" Robin's panting probably alerted Slade that he needed to keep their distance from becoming too, noticeable. That, or Robin sensed that Slade wasn't just here to steal from this city…He didn't have time to pity a Teen Titan.
"Don't tell me you've gotten soft –
Robin growled in his throat, but Slade raised up a palm to calmly halt the boy wonder and his reckless tantrums. Such a bad habit…
"Save your energy. You're going to need it. I merely freed Cinderblock to get your attention. And now that I have it…"
That eye. It was turned on him and he couldn't shake the dread and cold that was slowly seeping into his body. Not from the storm, but by Slade… and, by his newest threat.
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Back with the Titan's roadside wrangle of Cinderblock….
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Starfire blasted the chest of the large gargantuan villain. He'd gotten their, Robin! She was most unhappy that they'd been forced to let him be lost to the "woods of darkness and pine needles." But - Of course, this was her leader. This fight, however, was still not very pleasant to have to deal with in the pouring rain –
"Star! Look out!" Bb rushed in as a triceratops and knocked Cinderblock back into the rails, until the big lug tossed Bb to fly over the prison vehicle that Cy was trying to stop from nearly combusting.
Too late.
The boom* was more so the heroes needing to jump in and stop Cinderblock as a single unit, but Robin wasn't here to lead them. Four Titans would have to make do for now.
Robin was probably in the woods, trying to fight to survive. The woods were at least covered in pine needles –
That would smart. Cy leaped up and caught a dizzied Bb, who unapologetically SNEEZED onto his arm as a result of the drop in air pressure. Cy cringed and made a disgusted face a Bb only moaned out by how low he'd fallen. Temperature and all, he still had a job to do. The rain was starting to come down, and so would the road into a mudslide, if they didn't stop this heavy hitter from having his way with the Titans' limited time to tango with a disgruntled bulldozer.
"Rae, Bb! Get the guards out of the vehicle! Now! Star? Let's you an' me wrap this up…!"
Star nodded to her co - captain and the two muscle - bound heroes went to clobber this bulky evil doer, just as Raven had been safely paired up with a sickly BB to save a few drivers from the burning prison unit. The one that would be a mess, so now she'd have to get Cinderblock to jail via a portal, all by herself.
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Robin's route was a bit rockier, but still he traveled the path of a hero. He couldn't let Slade win. In his mind, he was determined to stop the mad man from moving ahead onto the chess board.
Another of Slade's stupid analogies that had been stuck in his mind…. Why couldn't he be free of him??
Lifting hit staff up to the menacing threat in the tree tops, standing across from him and sharing the same limb. The same damned AIR that he breathed! Robin now decisively threw out the question to his nemesis.
"What are you planning?" Ever the faithful detective, and Slade should have guessed by now that Robin's wits were far smoother than the man gave him credit for.
"Seismic generators, Robin. Three of them." A controller was pulled up to the boy's eye level. The PTSD wouldn't win. This was the present day. His tricks were over, done! Robin could get over this. He just had to face it, fight and beat his enemy until the nightmares ceased to exist. Yeah, no therapy could cure this itch. Just some old fashioned closure.
A picture formed by the man's silky description of some destructive future, all caused by his calamitous desire to see Robin beg for mercy. As if the hero would ever beg…
Slade continued to weave his ever – winding web. The lies only burrowed deeper into Robin's consciousness as wasps laying eggs to feed their young. A parasite. That's what the man was to him and his team. Always, he seemed to be too large a threat to remove without some added precaution.
Robin's thoughts came back to him as Slade made well of his threat to the boy wonder.
"Placed on fault lines all over the city. And in three short hours, they'll trigger an earthquake so magnificent, it will break your city in two." His enemy's one eye nearly widened with sheer "glee" at the last two words.
~In two. ~
Robin's eyes might have swapped their expression briefly, yet he didn't let Slade's fanfare take the hero for a joy ride this time. He wouldn't have to pleasure, not ever.
With a low growl, Robin shot back with his own threat; he clenched his staff tightly, within a strikingly close enough distance – and with as ruthless a manner as Slade had shown him during their pain - filled fights in the past, he prepared to swing back out. "Not if I break you first!" In a shout, Robin swung his bo – staff more than twice at the man, but Slade let himself fall from the bough in a hairy twist of fate. He went on jetting through the raindrops, propelling himself towards the ground without so much as a bruise to remember his first apprentice by. EX -apprentice, as Robin dove down after Slade to javelin the staff into the forest floor, while crying out his battle yell over the abrasive crackle of violent lighting and thunder up in the night sky.
The hit again was lost, and then again…. there was no Slade to be found.
He'd vanished, but his threat however still stood. Robin found the ground soon in a crouch, the staff breaking his fall as he collected and collapsed it back into itself, now at the height of a basic walking stick. He'd grow older in body and mind if this went on... Soaked, his cape folded around his entire body. He looked to each side of the woody space, but all his eyes saw was the dead of that night and how the rain had transformed the space around him. Keeping him at a calm, even as his heart still wanted to beat frantically for a way after the mad man and his newest master plan.
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A cranky, shrill voice made Robin turn to look towards the path that he's since recovered, along with some of his earlier focus.
"Uh, sorry to interrupt you little nature hike, but…." Standing along that path was no shocker; they'd found him, almost as long as it had taken for him to meet up with Slade...The Titans were relentless when it came to keeping tabs on their leader.
More, unpleasent memories tonight had been unearthed. Great.
Bb made sure to let Robin know how upset his bedraggled team was right now. Beastboy painfully yet comically ripped out his green hair in a frenzy and shouted; bells went off right then and there, while Robin's ears tried to quit their incessant ringing as the yelling unrelentingly came his way.
BB allowed his lungs to bleed out in a final frenzy with his uncapped, emotional disappointment made pretty crystal to the four other heroes.
"WHERE WERE YOU !?!" Was all Robin heard as those four other teens stood in the rain, waiting to ask their stoic - leaning leader that exact same question before the end of tonight had been over and done with.
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