Teen Titans; The Fighting Life – Epilogue Story; Chapter 6: Paranoia

/

There was a report of an explosion in the gulf; Friday, I'm told by my crew…. Wow! You have got to see the fight here! Superman is hitting harder and faster than we can keep up! You got that on camera? –

"As if this is a Battle Royale - folks! It looks to be the mastermind! Bane….and is that…Holy!"

/

A disappointment.

The Titans had not guessed it. That was because the young heroes had not gone to the JLA for any help yet…

It was only a matter of time.

He'd have to tell the kid the reason soon.

A cloud of smoke spat up from a sputtering pile of spark – encased bots on the ship's main front.

Slade's eye widened as he waited to get in close enough to land the copter. His comrade for the contract earlier, took the man down and let him shove open the door. With an impatient glance at his robot army, Slade's displeasure was not impossible to see behind the mask.

"Sure, this is it?" The pilot called to the other mercenary.

Slade didn't exactly respond. He just tried to mark this as a farewell "thanks" with a jerk of his head.

"Got it! See ya!"

The chopper was done here, and Slade had more messes to clean up than just the blood spatters on his uniform.

/

The alert had been a signal on the controller. He'd deactivated it as soon as the gunfire had gone quiet.

The floors were a mess. Bot parts strewn about and ready to catch fire.

Fire, that should never have spread so quickly.

The decks were just one wasteland after the other. Slade saw that one bot had been able to catch the culprit through its memory file. He crushed the screen once it had played from start to finish.

No more messes.

Slade readied towards the stairs of the lower deck. He saw an unwelcoming picture, immediately once he'd entered past the brig door.

It was clean. No oil staining the walls, or sparks flying. Getting irritated enough, Slade walked on down the hall.

The last door –

The technology in there was highly unstable.

That brat wasn't going to be safe for long. He knew what he'd done was practically suicide!

And yet, he did as Slade had hoped.

He'd treated this place as one of his future missions.

As a real criminal.

Slade walked in to the room where the red – bodied tech stood, safe and –

Robin's body though, was lying still on the floor right before the device.

He was sure now that it was the right time.

Slade stepped over his apprentice and knelt down to grab the teen's arm. Tugging him to stand, Robin looked to be working on the burn – out effects of the affliction that Slade had kept active inside the young hero.

The nanobots also could partly accelerate healing, yet they drained your life if used too much in excess.

"Quite a mess you left for me to clean. Now, get up."

Robin's arm was yanked hard as he realized what his captor was up to. The boy's eyes burst open.

As if pulling the teen's arm directly from its socket, Slade decided to test his subject's reflexes. So far, Robin still had his normally functioning receptors to recognize the excruciating ache.

Robin screamed and kicked his legs wildly. Whipping out a cry, he tried the man's patience so far.

"AhH!"

"ENOUGH!"

Robin was released and dragged by his scalp this time. Again, his face was to the floor and into the dust he'd lain in upon Slade's arrival.

"I applaud you as always for staying sharp, yet my base is NOT a LANDFILL!" The man had the teen to look into his one, furious eye.

Robin was rammed* to the floor as Slade proceeded to drag the teen by his leg out into the hallway, instead. On his back.

"Hah! No! I have to! –

"Too sloppy." As Slade kept Robin to nurse his fractured arm and curse out as loudly as he could, the pill's presence was still there. He could feel it filling in all the missing gap's in the boy's silent DNA structure.

Robin bit his lip as a feeling of fusing bone and mass had him jerk in the man's grip. Her shuddered before the unthinkable event had passed, leaving him gasping up at the ceiling in shock.

"Already…"

Slade mumbled that word in a disgruntled way. Robin's falling tears by the resetting bone, were nothing closer to a miracle.

They came by the steps, a one-way ticket towards another set of bruises. Robin shook his head in protest as the mercenary was probably having a blast beating him down.

"Stop! –

At every step, he cried out. The "dragging" of a young teen up a flight of chrome - metal stairs was in itself, like plucking a dozen lashes a second from one's face.

A grown man could cry, and that was what Robin did. His pain was magnified as the torture continued to press into his abused flesh.

The man grabbed the boy's wrists now and flipped him onto his front. The door opened at the top as his body was tossed through it. Screaming, the man chucked his apprentice to fall right in the center of the landing space. Rug burn on his chest was inevitable. Right where the sun had already dipped low, as the sky was ready to turn to rain.

Robin's sniveling would do him little good in the fight against his crazed captor.

He shivered and clutched his arm. That. It…was still fine…?

Robin gasped. This wasn't just his imagination!

"I left out one thing in your contract. We, never bothered to go over WHAT I was permitted to do with you while under my care."

Growling and to his feet in a hobble, Robin shouted.

"Sick…. bastard!"

Robin was up and the war again, raged.

He had broken his arm. Busted himself up on a flight of metal steps! Why was he fixed? What was this man talking about?

"You thought that stopping the machine would fix you up, good as new?"

Slade swiftly evaded Robin's fists of fury.

"I could get those things out! Before you'd decide to trigger them…AAH! I was so close!"

"You would have died without me."

"You are the one that's killing me!"

Slade brought his hands behind him, and with a wild - card bout, he started to laugh. Not just, he also tossed his head back for added effect.

"What is wrong with you?" Robin gawked, pulling away in surprised disbelief. "All you've done is let me out to destroy your plans! I am TRYING to get you to break off our deal! Why are you just, just…." His fists had doubly clenched up, shaken by the fact that his pain was so, amusing to the mad man and that he wasn't sure even why

"That would be expected of anyone who's only been granted, a taste of freedom…" Slade chuckled before shaking his head slowly. Robin become stiffer. This man, what was he planning?

"I took out your whole fleet! I'm a monster! You should lock me up, call the REAL heroes to come protect your –

"Don't joke with me, Robin. We both know you'd never have the chance to defeat me…"

"With the Titans, It would be no sweat." Robin grumbled and agreed on that misconception, yet he couldn't leave here without some answers.

"I'll clue you in on a little secret; the pills you were supposed to take, you've had them multiple times."

"I don't –

Robin flushed crimson, as the man put up a palm to have the boy to let, him finish.

"In your soup broth, your palm, the drug in the air of that echo – chamber cell, and…The injection for your ribcage's earlier injury."

Robin did not like where this was going. He looked up at the man, at a loss for words.

"What…what does that.."

"Call it a long – standing passion project of mine." The man spoke, as if in thought, aloud. Almost beaming beneath his façade of someone so sane; it hurt to look at the man, where he stood praising some "wild accomplishments" from the crime lord's golden years.

Slade rubbed his chin and readily started to circle the dizzied teen, like a tiger waiting to pounce.

"I had been after the perfect apprentice, someone who could embody all that I was willing to teach them."

"You, picked me…" Robin gulped, not needing to be reminded of his failures by the greedy, mad – man.

"Yes, but you were only, almost perfect. Not quite. So, I thought back to a time when I was just like you…I fought the enemies expected of my rank, and with this I was rewarded something, evolutionary…"

Slade leaned closer, right up to Robin's horrified face; like in the haunt upon his first taste of this blackmailing effect. Robin's whole body was saying to get off the ship. To not listen. A part of him had a feeling, that this was no ordinary progression in their deal any longer. His gaping jaw was ajar, his breathing hitched as if he were a fish out of water, struggling for his home in the waves. He forced his eyes to stay focused, but wanted to jump to his reckless shock into the ocean and let his anxieties fade away.

He'd never once looked behind himself at his one way back to the tower. The ocean was a net that kept him from finding his pod, or his family…

"I chose to test out my theory again, on another living subject." Robin's eyes briefly popped at the man having admitted his crimes.

"The nanobots had shown me some fairly interesting results from one those tests. What did pop up on my charts…was that I'd seen you harboring their potent effects, like clockwork…"

Robin's weak disposition was already to pieces. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.

The man continued, rattling the worst of the boy's fears with a single lash across his welt- riddled consciousness.

"The rest, fell into place when you'd experienced that fever from the drugs."

Shit…shit! This isn't happening! You're insane!

Robin's brain turned to a thick paste that would not allow him to flee the man's watchful eye.

He was scared, afraid of being left in this man's world with no way back. As it were, he also COULD not go home without the man' secret codes and cues. He hated every fiber of the man. He wanted to plummet, or make him do the sinking into that rapid tide pool he imagined below their craft.

It was too late to make any more bargains. He shuddered and didn't look for a way down, to his fate.

It was here, right in front of him.

And now.

All of those horrific super – killer soldier themes from Beast boy's impressive sci – fi movie collection, were starting to look like the very, revolutionary super science that Slade was forcing down the hero's throat.

Here it comes..

Slade cocked his head to the side with an eerie tilt. Robin was unable to breathe. His body was stuck to the floor. He was…

Grounded.

Trapped.

"I've attempted, and succeed partially in turning you into a meta – human like myself. Welcome to your new life as my apprentice, Robin… So?.. Congratulations!…You're simply speechless, aren't you..."

That obnoxious hiss* was the final strike.

Robin launched his nails into the man's view as his wrists were caught, brought to his knees for not being as grateful about…becoming…

A monster like the man, an exact copy.

A damn super - soldier in training.

A prisoner of war.

A stranded captive stuck together with this –

"I know it seems bad now, but trust me when I say this…"

Robin tried to catch his breath. Trying to pry from the monster's was a real work out.

Tears fell onto his black jeans, while his eyes were fiercely bloodshot by the added agony. Brick after brick. His sanity was being torn down. His fire so ready to flux and stir that he forced it to lie dormant.

"I'm no killer…I'm not you…"

Robin snarled at the man, right into his miserable mug.

"No….way. I'll ever be like YOU!" He let his healed arm swipe through the air. Willing to reject the proposition and fall into the ocean, as a way to get this brute to listen to reason. Slade recovered the arm as the boy weakly batted away his oppressor.

Slade sighed aloud and let his head sway to the side. He needed a cold drink after this. Teenagersm did not like to listen to anyone…

"Stop this, Robin. You are only going to –

Slade made his point that Robin was too weak to fight him mano – e -mano. Robin's movements reverted as he saw the same reason. Control. He had very little. His breathing had slowed its pace. This was why Slade could be the better fighter. His teacher.

"The Nano -bots….They were just a–

"Ach!" Robin felt his wrists as they twisted and bent backwards, well over their given limits. He could only grit his teeth and endure this lesson in talking back to a devious war - criminal.

"The probes also have another promising feature, should you think to undo my good work –

"I'm not a –

"AAGH!" Robin was pushed and bent backwards on his knees, until his back was nearly to the floor. Slade leaned over; his apprentice's wiry wrists still within the older man's steely grip.

"You'd be better to try again to see things my way. This is a life - long transformation. There is no cure…Only the inevitable truth. The nanobots are also being kept active to keep YOU from usurping me."

Slade pushed on the boy's wrists until he'd heard a pop from the kid's underdeveloped joints.

"This "deal" can last, and I intend to keep your full attention on the obvious solution."

"No!"

Another bend and the Boy wonder would be an immovable, Boy – Pretzel!

Sweat collected at the ends of his ebony strands. His hands were shaking so badly and turning from blue to yellow at a rate that made the teen, too dizzy to care…

"too…much…!"

"Hmm, you're still no pro at this." Slade loaded himself like a spring and stepped backwards to have Robin dragged into his chest upon coming back to standing.

"Get…off of me!" Robin pounded at the man's strong chest. Slade grit his teeth. Robin was, obviously regressing from the drop in endorphins wearing off. A minor side effect. The serum's activation wasn't anything more than a working prototype.

"you are…sick! Sick! Bastard!...Take… Me…home. Take…me…Home! Now! –

"No." Slade gripped the boy by his wrists a bit harder onw, to just leave a slight impression. The first break from the twisting was already starting to revert to a rosier red. Robin winced and seethed up at the man, as Slade gripped the boy's chin and jaw to stare in his direction.

"You are NOT to speak to me in that disrespectful tone. Do you understand? The Titans are alive because I let them. You should not try to negotiate with anyone Until you've calmed down. No villain or even your mentor would listen to a crying whelp talk back to them as you have to me."

Robin's tears littered the man's gloves. His shades were looking filthy from all of the fighting and the boy's extra slobber.

"Now, if you'd like to instead try to stay calm and TALK, then I will permit you be allowed to speak. Can you try to calm yourself for your master, Robin? Even that it means forcing back that sobbing act?" Slade was goading him in the most unpleasant way.

He felt ugly, and unwell. While, HE wasn't the only one! He was still a victim of the crime lord's fucked up, maniacal wet – dream!

"Just breathe, this is just the start of an opprtunity any soldier might kill for. One thing we should address first though, is that temper of yours. The serum's effects over time may have a mild, steroidal effect on your brain's, supposed…wiring. I've all but learned to tame my anger." Slade told the child calmly, not caring that he'd just ruined a young ward's only time to see dry land again.

"I could teach you, if you'll listen and stop with that irrational decision to save the Titans."

"That…they are my friends…I'd NEVER betray them –

"Though, you already have."

Robin was out of his usual spit fire. That comment had driven his resolve to go... far off, into the nothingness of his eternal longing.

His body trembled as his face fell to look at the stained floor; debris from the bots had not been cleared, so it was another shock to his already worn-out system.

"If…. If I can find a cure –

"You did not hear what I said." Slade lowered his voice, though monotonous and laced with a drier pitch. He cautiously let go of the boy's drenched chin.

"I did." Robin sniffed. "I heard, every word…And, I don't care. If that's impossible…" He swallowed his pride and tried to keep calm.

Raven's tedious meditation lessons could very well come in handy. When he was alone and away from this creep, there would be no need to depend on the looney – bird baddie for a course in anger management. He'd rather chew on sharp spikes than listen to the man lecture him about patience or respect.

"How long was this going on." Robin asked with his voice not as ready to stutter as before. "Please, tell me if I'm -

"Dually noted; you have been in confinement and on this ship for a few days. "

Robin blinked. "Then.."

"Hmm, if I had I gotten out my calendar to check…I'd say…about, four straight weeks, in total –

"Four...…weeks…those drugs were, inside me...?..." Robin felt like gagging on his own vomit. There was no way it was reversable...Maybe, he still had to not give up. The man was trying to be a thought - killer to the teen. Robin was still a hero! He couln not stop, he would not.

Nothing showed, so his mucus was enough to spit out, he'd assumed as the urge refused to be free of him just yet.

But…he refuted that tactic. About a month. so what. He'd been at sea in his cage with this man for an entire month. This was not a year, he could still plan his escape.

He needed to find a solution. One that would spare all of his friend's fates…And, his. Though...How many hours, and how had they not found him already, yet...!?

"You did notice how far from any major ports or cities we've been, didn't you?" Slade clicked his tongue, shaking his skull a slight. "How disappointing. I would have thought the noble Dark Knight himself, might have taught you better in deducing somethings so , obvious.

"I was, sea sick…locked up." Robin muttered and tried to prevent this chat from getting his hopes swallowed up.

By the man and his psychological games, Robin would have to grow a second consciousness to protect his last sliver of dying hope.

"If you are not going to make proper eye contact while I'm speaking, then the nice cozy desk in my office would not be a bad place to pick up on where we left off."

A proposition. Robin shifted a bit on his feet.

He had to do it.

Before the man inevitably broke him, first.

Robin took in a stale inhale, then letting it out as a Batman had shown him in the billionaire's dojo.

"Yes, sir.."

Slade blinked, thinking the wind was playing tricks on him. Robin frowned as the man bothered to pretend that he'd said nothing at all. Staring off at the ocean, like a lost cause.

SOCIOPATHIC PIECE OF! -

Robin took in another gulp of air, this time trying to be a bit less, indirect with his responses...

"Yes, sir!"

"Did I just hear a plane go by? Must have been my imagination."

Slade shrugged and Robin's shoulders grew tenser, still.

He was guessing the man knew what the kid was trying to attempt.

A way to lighten my sentence. Why won't you budge!

~ He is not serious, I can't! I'm not a loyal killer…I'm a…~

Robin took in one last breath before his pride shattered to bits in the sea with his hope.

~ It's for them!.. I don't care what he thinks! I'm going to fix what I can…I'm going to get him back for this…malice, anger…I have to make it look real…I'm going…to try…~

"M…M…MA…MASTER…Y…yes….s…sir…Master…!"

A chuckle was bitten back from the older male. Robin was having trouble with one whole sentence that any mere child could recite in their sleep? It, was actually kind of adorable; how he was trying so very hard. To not let the man see the poor boy's frustration and shame in his masked features. That was a stretch. He'd already taken his mask off, the shades could be taken too if he tried anything in his current situation.

He'd gotten a look from Robin just then. Poor kid needed to lighten up, so that was going to be the next step. He also needed to eat. Once the serunm's effect left him hollow again, Robin might go cannibalistic from the drop in adenaline hikes.

"Then, I'll see to that as part, of your apology." Slade responded and had Robin pulled forward, until he was coaxed to climb the stairs to the captain's quarters. That had been where …Byt the infirmary.

"What, about your Slade bots?" Robin suddenly blathered out to the man. He didn't want to see the mess. He'd left those bots flailing and sparking for mercy…

"Just do as I say for now. There are more being delivered tomorrow at dawn. You won't see them." He replied in earnest.

"Oh..."

Robin's head lowered as he ascended the long rail up the creaking steps with his new jail - keeper.

"Not like you should care." Snorted the man. "You destroyed more than fifty, and almost killed yourself in the process."

Robin slowed a bit, and Slade somehow understood everything that the boy was feeling.

"Can't talk about it? They were only mere props. I was going to have you spar with them, eventually."

"One of them had a defect."

"The nanny bot?" Slade cocked his head to the side. Robin cringed by how playfully the man had spoken out the bot's, once - assigned title.

"Yeah." Robin sniffed. "I…did a decent judo chop onto its neck, pretty hard." He rubbed the back of his own before walking up the stairs again, trying to steer clear of any more distractions.

"Those bruises healed more than over an hour ago."

Robin paused, mulling over the man's calculations as he spoke to the teen. He had them down pat, Robin's every motive. Why did he still see its face? It was so…bizarre and almost…

Living.

Sentient, which was not true at all...That dummy - bot...

"You…sure we can't go back to my –

"You said it yourself." Slade shrugged. "Too many distractions and you were getting sea sickness in the brig. I doubt being underground will fix that attitude."

"Then..." Robin breathed in through his nose and closed his eyes at the sound of a gull by his left ear, right across the water. It was, so desolate out here. Slade could do whatever he wanted.

~ Unless, I do whatever he says...~

"Then, promise you won't hurt them…when we get there –

Slade didn't say a word and pushed Robin along by the collar of his black tee.

When they'd gotten to the tip top…

Slade's face grew very, very, dark.

Robin lowered his guiltier, face and waited out his punishment in silence.

"New task; take care to pay attention. This is your first assignment from me."

Robin lifted his head up slightly, and clutched his fists together at his sides.

"You'll be participating in a bit of charity work; which will also help you to understand –

His arm swept over the room at the display of run – down and dismantled Slade - bots.

"These."

Robin's face was in awe, though not by the mess.

He gawked up to the man.

"I'm not a robotics' –

"Have you not sent yourself and your team underwater a few times? Or de - constructed one of my many animated weapons with only your skill and wits to define you?"

Robin absentmindedly nodded a "yes."

"And?"

"And...?" Robin parroted back the question. He was trying to get the boy to look like a little kid again. Not gonna' happen.

"Don't be cheeky, the point is that you've driven your R -Cycle around the country without a second thought. Batman must have had a heart attack when he'd seen you –

"What should it matter what he sees in me and my team?" Robin snapped back, out of habit as he zipped himself up, to avoid another contest of strength with his…foreboding slave driver.

He still wasn't going to say it, even in his mind that man was a –

"You never made up. Sorry." Slade, was being such a prick that Rovbin was unable to imagine a decent punishment for thhe man once he got back to his real home...

~Remeber the no - kill policy. Stay cool..You've got this. ~

Robin groaned to himself as Slade walked over the wreckage of dead bots.

Was he…Was Slade was being fastidious? He didn't have care; Robin was an object; like anything the man had already stolen. But he had brought up Batman a few times…As if –

"Why are you so concerned about my relationship with –

"The next words had better be from that mouth of yours; "Sorry, Master, but why is Batman so important to this conversation?"

"I…. Am trying…To be…. good." Robin's temper was red hot as his nostrils shot out tufts of steam like a minotaur. He was just trying to get the kid's metaphorical "goat." Beastboy would call that animal abuse.

"Try, again. Maybe I'll tell you. Maybe, I won't. It's your choice. Now, help me clean up this mess before the rain starts up. Apprentice."

Robin rolled his eyes and decided to skip the question. His pride wasn't worth much more of this joker's time. He hoped, anyway.

He waltzed over to the pile and started to collect every limb, or shell he'd cracked as hopeless tangled nests of circuitry he could find he was forced to wade through in his roughed - up black combat boots.

"Yet, just think." Slade passed by this new version of Robin, holding the Nanny bot's decimated skull in the center of his larger gloved palm.

He had a few trash bags that could take a little extra weight. They'd have to cover their trail, gather the parts to be scrapped for later or reasssembled to save a few extra coins in his piggy bank.

Robin had chucked a few bots' spare parts into the ocean when he'd gone and taken his new powers for a spin. Had he known this sooner, Slade might have saved a ton of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.

"With all of that power coursing inside you, these robots were just the tip of the iceberg. You may not know it, but my ability is to heal from more than a simple flesh wound - and for that, I can never be sent below those waters like my creations, for much longer than a day. Though, the longest was a year in my thirties. It was, a tough job."

Slade could talk. He REALLY could TALK and TALK...And Robin -

Robin didn't say a word as he continued to block out the man's comments. He just wanted to rest, to get back to the brig and have nothing to do with being half – Immortal through some corrupted insurance policy.

"If you ever want to defeat someone who cannot die easily, Apprentice." Slade stepped in front of the boy so he could not run out of his line of sight.

"You may have to eventually, get creative." The man's breath by his skin was slightly warmer, with a desire to teach the boy an assassin's code of ethics over his hero's handbook..

Robin continued to bag up the bots with his hands coated in their oily messes. He just plucked up one, and again, and again…Robin's hands were shaking a bit, but he tried to still his fears while Slade was watching from above.

The man had become his god, his only way back to civilization…

~That's what he wanted…An apprentice who could kill without having to ask…~

The soured taste of bile finally returned and the dirtied bots were given an even more, unthinkable farewell.

Robin didn't even bother to shed a tear as he ignored the itch and kept packing the bags, until there was nothing left to bury.

/

As you can see, I'm playing on the series' many striking quotes that we all know rattle us to the core - I may just go back to my coursework once i'm done with my min- pre mid -crisis reliever. Better than a cuppa tea for me! Tea's included in this session, so get toasty! Stay dry out there and enjoy this take in a few chapters than don't span over 10'000 words a page! Stay curious! This Inkblot is going to trickle on down to Imaginationland to see what she can use for some grittier, later plot scenarios. Anyone think that we should include going back in time here? Let me know what you think! I enojy a bit of constructive criticism now and again.