Teen Titans – Haunted – An Analysis in Red and Orange; Chapter 7: Shadowboxed
/
Rolling out of the way. Fine…he'd evaded an early grave. Robin took to a crouch and had to rush out of the way of an oncoming, rolling gear as he tried to catch his breath. Now, he'd had enough stamina left to take what anger he had out onto bringing Slade in. Tonight. It had to be tonight.
Getting up, quickly he awaited another few taunting words from the mad man's ghosting lips.
" Brings back memories, doesn't it?"
As if Slade were a ghost, his words echoed throughout the old haunt. Robin stifled back a shiver. He had little time to hide and wish for a brighter and better tomorrow to come. Slade was still a threat; his city needed the man out of the way. Permanently. He told himself that countless times, already up to here with the man's warped persona.
"All I remember is how much I hated you!" He shouted out the words he'd held back until today.
"What I remember," Slade went on to recall, " Is that you couldn't defeat me…at least, not all alone."
Such a hushed comment to commemorate their time spent in this place together, that the words this man played with were indeed lethal.
Robin was already searching on foot for the lights.
Pretty desperate, huh? The Boy Wonder's view of the dark may be a key to all of this, so do keep a listen…
He threw the breaker with a gritting of his teeth, his arms used what force they could until the bulb gave way – bursting with a dying sputter of sparks, as Slade then took to appearing behind the teen. A flicker, and the lights were done. He'd be fighting this shadow – boxer of a criminal mind until his lungs gave out.
How, grim.
" Pity your friends are of no use to you."
Robin was annoyed, afraid to shut his eyes and call this a basic "dream sequence." It is very real and so were he and Slade right now. The sun was gone, the lights? He'd have to train in the art of stealth a bit harder in the future. One could only take so much mental torture in a single night.
Robin took the time to scope out this situation. If Slade was so clingy…
Robin barked the question, ending the silence, "Why couldn't Starfire see you?"
Slade stood and let his answer be as fresh and clean as a summer's breeze. Heavily dry, like an arid desert heat.
"I believe you are familiar with cloaking technology."
Robin pointed the finger, this time having no faults in doing so to Slade.
"I'm familiar with all your tricks. That's why you're not going to get away with it." Yelling, he charged into action at a split moment; trying to land a single hit of his with precision, yet failing due to his flustering anger. Slade could out - wit him with such a confident stance. He had to be ready to counter anything the man would throw back at him.
/
Slade was later spotted on his way up the gear axels, finding this to be one his favorite perches for doing some bird - watching of his own.
Slade's haunting voice caused Robin to squint and glare back up. Another taunting to his ex – apprentice's delicate ego. The metaphorical cord was tight enough to bite through flesh, as Robin mentally decked himself for not being direct enough.
" Our time apart may have made you soft…"
Robin glared with his eyes still set on another method of punishment for his arch – nemesis.
" But It's only made me stronger…." Slade leaped from the gears and to the axel base, as Robin was pulled in to go along and "follow the leader" in their risky little game of tag.
He leaped as before in the forest, but the axel base he had found himself on, soon started to fall to pieces and gave way to the construct of time.
Robin glanced at Slade as he leaped to find his landing point. Slade had made it to the catwalk, not a scratch as Robin no shorter soon took from his faulty leap to find his fingertips against the brittle wood of the weathered catwalk. Only moments after Slade's ability had bested his own, sneaking a peek only feet below, Robin saw the broken pipes and columns that had once held this haunt together - as jagged daggers ready to bring him to his demise. He wouldn't fall. Not again…
So, he'd not gotten any stronger. The man was willing to see him die, however.
Robin forced his body to grip tightly at the cracked wood, to propel itself onto the whittled board, clawing at the base to keep from falling towards the jagged spears below him. Slade walked up to him casually – in command of this environment more than anything, with his boots only inches from Robin's frustrated fingertips.
Gritting his teeth, the hero would have to time his next move, very carefully.
" Your friends won't find the generators, and they can't see me. They can't see the truth, Robin, even when it's right in front of them."
Jabbing his legs to hit the bottom of the catwalk, Robin got himself ready to twist up in a light hoist. Heaving, his lanky arms did the rest, as his feet soon did find themselves back on to solid wood. He'd caught up and had gotten into an attack position that Slade's warped mind might have had to call a bit desperate .
Wanting for some attention from anything it could grasp…
"Then I'll have to take care of you myself! I've stopped you before!" His last impression was of the dead - faced mask they'd seen turn to vanish within a pool of bubbling, hot magma.
Never captured.
But never found.
Slade read him through the haze of his pent-up rage. He wasn't going to let Robin leave in one piece.
" Robin…if you've "stopped" me, then why am I still here."
That menacing eye popped open at the words "stopped me." He was rubbing it in deep, and Robin was already losing his grip.
Robin launched himself at the man. The hits came and Robin was pushed to his limits.
Hit after hit, after –
Gut punched.
Bruises.
The catwalk greeting him as his back hit the hard wood.
ENOUGH.
He got to his knee in a crouch. So, vulnerable…
Slade stood, spotless and the only one without a pretty set of rose-colored bruises to litter his masked face. Or dents in "said" metal.
Slade nearly chuckled his next sentence as the words rolled out, mostly in amusement.
" You can't even touch me."
Robin lets out a yell as his tunnel vision became a bright blur. A shout, and Slade side - stepped the hero who was mere inches from the other end of the broken catwalk.
The ground awaited him, as he tried to find his grappler in time, falling fast.
He got to it to keep him alive. Robin luckily found the ground, only to find the shocking surprise of some familiar, solid metal gauntlets in his face the next minute.
" How can you save a city, Robin… when you can't save yourself?"
It ached. How? He tried to fight it. The bruises were growing in number, and so had the anger in his heart and mind. He was, losing. He was losing?! And…
It was, going to only get much worse as the night raged on.
/
When a phantom pain sets in, you'd always wish it farewell. However, if you were the one viewing the pain of another, how would that make you feel?
/
Slade saw how Will stared at him. This, was barbaric. No more or less than how Terra had come to the conclusion that executing the mastermind that held her body in check, would save her and no one else.
Slade was doing the unthinkable. And yet…
He'd wanted to live, so one life would have to go.
Will knew how that hero was in a way, but to say he knew of the boy's past and present likeness, this was of course a gross understatement.
"Are you going to give him the axe? Is that it? Is that all you can manage to say to anyone, including myself?"
Will pointed to the beaten kid in his traffic light colored costume on the monitors in front of him. "Oh, and the Titans look to be closing in on the boy's location."
Devil's advocate…
Slade looked up from his reports. After his life had been returned to him by the red ogre when the prophecy was through, he'd see about taking on a few extra jobs to pay back any number of investors he'd shirked out on. Get back to the safari and try to lay low. He'd also see about something else… (No spoilers.)
No. The Titans were a problem. Robin would either go mad or stay down. He had to lose, here and now.
"We'll see." He waited for the full-frontal shriek as the boy's body was left to his worst nightmares come to life.
"He should have stayed away from prying at the past. That mask was rigged because I knew it was a way to keep prying eyes like Robin's from figuring out more than my identity. That. And he was willing to talk to a ghost after all that time." Slade smirked. "The man he'll become if he survives this, might just later impress me, Will? I can't wait to see what time might tell of our endeavors."
"A true "Vader" in retrospect." Sighed the older man as he zoomed in on the Titan Starfire, and her knock out blast – the one that kept her leader from attacking. On his stomach, as the heroes crowded him and restrained their own leader with tearful resolves.
Right before.
The boy had launched himself at Slade.
All….out of -
Anger . And Slade was sure Robin's resolve wouldn't be the only thing he'd be willing to crack, with enough pressure he could see to it that the boy never rose to wear the cape and mask again even if he wanted to.
"We still have his vitals being monitored…. They look to be, quite a mess…Are you sure that –
"We'll proceed." Slade frowned… Will wasn't trying to say he cared, now, was he? That he felt badly for their little stunt having gone too well?
"As did the man before say he'd wished to spare this "lamenting" of a hero to his inner demons."
Wintergreen shook his head. "I would use caution while bargaining countless lives away with your new, partner. He… seems to be willing to cut as many ties, only if he sees his allies as –
"Will, please refrain from say, weak. Ever again." It was crushing enough that he HAD survived... Did William have to push that button so hard?
"Then we won't falter, very well." Will agreed and went back to eyeballing the Titans' current undoing in the medical bay at the tower.
Binding up their leader with his heart rate showing on their monitor, as if the stakes had changed.
Ah, yes.
Deathstroke, was calling the shots. Wintergreen held back a dry gulp. So much for having a moral compass, anymore.
Slade brought his last, dead eye to stare up at the older man's face. Even while Wintergreen was still at his control seat, he wasn't the one in charge of this pint-sized "victim of circumstance."
"The end is going to happen. I'm simply, putting the Titans out of their misery ; to spare them the agonizing defeat at the hands of something far, more sinister. Outside of their control, even. Or from seeing another friend become their sworn enemy. Either way." Slade spoke of a different, bird. (No spoilers.) One he'd be greeting very soon. "In time, we will know sure enough."
Wintergreen huffed, "And, with that leader of theirs out of the way, finally?"
Slade peered up at the screens and licked his bone - dry lips. "Simple. If he falls, the Titans shall cease to exist."
It could have been a lot simpler. Had Robin never denied him in the first place, and if he'd just stayed a willing but blackmailed apprentice for his friends' sakes.
Actually…
No. This was definitely going to happen. He might have survived and remained at Slade's side, but the other Titans would have gladly perished...
All of this, was just a way to cut the line. To break old ties. To craft a clean slate for himself.
And in the end, he would make sure of that coming to pass.
/
I want to give credit to the slade's mask idea to writer Hannah Sedai who worked in Dust if anyone has read it. The won;t be as detailed, more so less hurt and comfort on a dark and stormy night. Do check out both! And thank you for the reviews if you get to read a single chapter. First time taking a whack at Haunted and it's a lot of plot to play with, will say.
Read on and stay curious for chapter 8! Trying for 2000 words a pop to just make ten or more chapters happen.