Teen Titans; Epilogue Story – Prologue; Rewind – Chapter 12: An Aching Pit in His Stomach
/
Dick's foot wouldn't stop jitter – bugging; he couldn't just, sit still. A part of himself needed to flee – to step away from the other man's shadow. He'd heard an interesting commotion in his master's study. Was that the computers? Had they…
A strange sickness filled the back of his throat. He dragged a painkiller bottle he'd found in the medicine cabinet from his coat pocket, popping it in past his lips as if it were a simple Pez piece straight out of the dispenser. The doubling nausea subsided, and that had only occurred when he'd been asked to do the unthinkable by his master in the first place. He still stood stalk still when their session was done.
A backhand by the man and his lessons, while Dick said nothing and tried to remain steady. He didn't want to do what he…
His head ached as a result of the other reason; he'd been suppressing some painful memories. Ones that he had not even told his master about. Every time he did mention his "episodes" the man grew quiet and then pulled out something –
Dick fell to his knees, clutching his skull with both hands. Willingly, he'd done this….he –
The bots would have left the tower a wreck. That's all! Just a scare to get them –
Dick lurched forward and heaved out the single pill and his meal from that morning. He'd only eaten a light fare, so he swayed until the serum had soon kicked in to level out his system. The nice thing about being a super – soldier was that the response time to thirst, hunger, was reduced drastically so he could function and return to the base on schedule.
Slade would be, mostly ok. As long as his apprentice showered and dry - cleaned his suit…
It was something he'd wash off. Before entering the base.
/
Slade saw how Dick's actions were and it made him hopeful that the time to kill, was at hand. Another night, just right. He walked over to a second screen and saw Raven in her binds, and a third – the JLA looking after Bruce and the Titans.
That…wasn't fine.
Raven could possibly help. She could block their route, keep the teens busy while Cy and his allies took care of Beastboy's affliction.
Slade had not let Richard out until AFTER the Tameranean had dove halfway across the sky line in Gotham for her teammate. No use ruining a perfectly good reunion. Or in Martyr's case, an introduction.
Yes, but Wayne was too busy escaping the fires of his pursuit. At this rate…Slade would end up covering the kid in their last stand off.
Lex didn't care who it was that took the shot. He wanted a dead bat, and a dead rodent he would have. Slade looked back to the remaining robots as Dick clung to one bot's arm for support. Like a big fluffy dog, he didn't treat it as a tool. He was, weeping? Trying to get it to help….
That was a problem.
Slade sighed. A terror? All, to kill?
Dick was a kid, but he was a teen. A man, in Slade's eyes, if he allowed his own adolescent walls to fall a bit. Only then, would he get the help…
It was forced onto him, and he was slowly discovering this…
Raven.
Snarling, Slade left the screens to die to black as he decided that Raven's tampering with his new protégé was, uncalled for.
She'd stop this charade, or he'd have –
~ Master Slade?~ A screen? He turned. No. Dick stood at the exit outside and was trying to check in. Big eyes, too much emotion. He looked a bit better, not as shabbily strung - over and in tears from the shock like before.
"I'm unlocking the doors, now." Slade spoke trough the intercom. He'd see about that performance.
He was clinging, and regressing. Far worse. Slade could sense a breakdown. He couldn't have that, not tomorrow. Not tonight.
Slade knew it; the boy wonder was still in there, fighting to see through the end he'd tried to stop. Well, he had no real idea about Trigon coming to town. As if Ra –
Slade blinked. His one eye would have flashed crimson.
He had to have a talk with that Titanic brat in the basement, in fact…
Dick would join him. As punishment, he'd watch as Raven's magic got say….drained from her and stuffed in a box. Maybe that could fly by Trigon, she'd be powerless, but not useless.
Good, then not everything had fallen short of the man's expectations.
Standing and flanked in front by the Slade – bots, Dick's boots shuffled down and through armored doors to the lowest level of their base of operations.
Slade had not intended for it to feel like a lower level apartment building complex by the design, but it was a rush – project in the past. Nothing more than that. Slade let the bots go still. The ex – hero almost took to their example.
"Let me speak to you privately. Apprentice…" Slade beckoned the boy come hither, and he did.
"Yes, Master Slade." The boy was polite; not at all as readily flippant as his dormant counterpart, he seemed to stand as a soldier, but yet did not act entirely of its purpose. He was drowned in the hooded trench style garb, a minor check to be sure the fit was genuine in its design. He didn't want a puppy to follow him around, yet an eventual equal. Should Richard decide to go along with their world domination feint.
His legs moved mechanically, as if you could tug his cord and make the kid walk in a wound – up motion.
He was too nervous, thus…. he remembered, something.
Was Martyr just a drone, then? Slade checked the boy over, hands behind his back.
Hands to his sides, the bots pulled away from Martyr to stay closely in the shadows, observing as their master wished of the automatic things' presence.
"Report."
Dick started to talk. He didn't know why, but this felt….odd. As if he were an inmate at Arka –
He touched his skull again, then drew back as Slade brought a gloved finger to stop…
Tears.
Oh no….
Dick's heart was racing. Thumping along as that wrong response had hit his panic switch, pretty hard.
"I expected you to handle this better, without regrets. Maybe you aren't ready to kill the Bat…."
Dry and like the deserts, Dick's mouth gaped open to reply hoarsely. "I…can! I w-
" Can you?" Slade's hand moved to cup the boy's chin. He couldn't move.
Frozen, like magic.
"I don't think you've shown that your willpower will suffice. I will be accompanying you on the hit. You can't handle a gun without failing my expectations, Dick. We will need to fix that."
Dick gulped, finding that a part of him refused to nod. He cowered at this, towering –
"Bruce was tall…. but…" Dick muttered and found himself up against the wall, pinned there by the man's deadly vice grip.
" What was that??"
His angry, tiger eyes bored right through the protective layering of Martyr's clothing. A hiss, and Dick was unsure of how he could break free.
"From now on, I won't call you Dick Grayson." Slade leaned in; his eye a dart to the target that was those blue orbs…and Richard felt a tremor go through his spine.
Crushing defeat.
His legs kicked out as a helpless –
" Pay ATTENTION." Slade made the boy stay still in his grip. " Martyr . That is your name. Remember it."
His harsh brainwashing tactic had Dick….Martyr's, arms go limp. "Yes, Master Slade…" His legs stopped flailing at once.
Trigon's gift was something else. Slade thanked his stars for not having to feel the blunt of the curse he'd placed on the kid.
"Good. Then you'll be practicing rounds at the base in the meantime. The bat will be taken care of, and YOU are to go after the Titans. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master."
D – Martyr nodded, finally aware of what a pain it was to…remember….
"We'll have your mind stable, and apprentice? I know it hurts now." Slade let the boy drop to his knees. His shoulders ached but the serum did its job well to his the kid's discomfort.
"But trust me…." Slade knelt with a hand to his knee and whispered in the boy's ear, "You'll learn, to like it."
/
The ticking of the Wayne manor's famed, rattling, grandfather clock was deafening on the ears of Wally, but to the rest of the teams there was something much more jarring to them to have them care at all about the clanking mechanism in the corner of the room.
A shadow loomed over the manor; over the entire city, and the heroes of this modern earth could feel the world a it spun in a new direction.
Bruce tapped his foot while seated in his large green lounge chair in the study, waiting for Alfred to bring some tea to soothe his equally rattled nerves. Beastboy and Starfire tended to the green meta's wounds, as he apologized to her a dozen times for losing his cool. She just tried to apologize back. An ongoing and useless debate of false humility.
They all had lost something. Even Alfred was more "brooding grandparent" than average butler than usual. He went about the halls and stayed mostly in the kitchen. Half the hour he said not a word as the old clock kept on ticking.
And ticking.
"I can't take it! Is this all we got left? Huh, team?" Cy stood up, finding that the lack of pep was driving him up a tree. "Is Rob never goin' back to the tower? An' are we not –
"Raven…" Bb sighed. "She…was in my head…oww…. Said, not to go to her…that bad things are coming…."
"Telepathy?" Roy's ears went in for the conversation. "Are you serious about –
"It was her!" Bb jumped down the archer's throat. "She's in trouble and…. we can't stop em…. dude ….so unfair –
"Slade is a very bad man; I agree that he is…. not easy to do in the "seeing through." Starfire nodded and put a hand onto Beastboy's shoulder. "Fighting each other is what Slade wants, so we must not –
"We got Mr. Wayne outta there, but Slade…he got inside the towers. He's that good at it!" Bb bit his lip and groaned loudly.
"B! Stop it, Star? Stay headstrong." Cy shook his head at the two. They'd been through a scare, but the fact that everyone's lives were in danger more than before?
"What else do you remember." Bruce opened his mouth to turn to Bb. "What else did Raven say?"
/
Right now, here. Right this instant, there was enough time to slip into something a bit less dusted. This magi, had kept his mug out of trouble for a while, but he'd figured out one thing; Trigon's summoning was, confusing.
"He'd lose his mind, Zee…" Constantine shook his head back at the Watchtower. "He won' do it if it means losing' the game he plays." Zatanna tried to skim through a spell book about techno magic as she got to a symbol….
"I know, but Robin is…." She huffed and turned a page with a bat of her eyes. "He's young, like me and Roy. I just can't think of why that…assassin is so –
"He's a looney bird that's looking into the past; his past regrets, an' that energy is amplified enough to affect the lad…. I swear to bloody damn, the goddess herself should smite that –
"John." Zee turned to him, her face apologetic and tense enough to take away his sour mod to replace it with her own. He quieted himself, not hoping to upset his own friend of the family and pupil. "Zee…. I can't let them go through with it. I know how hurt Raven was by her father, and Robin too. There is no standin' by any longer." He decided, "Zee? Ready to take a road trip to sin city?"
"Thought you'd never ask me that one, Teach." She grinned and sealed up the tome she'd been reading while John fired up a portal to the next, nearest stop.
Gotham. And no stopping there.
/
Stomping down the stairs to the basement level, Raven felt his impatience. She felt his struggling inside a shell that was in fact tainted by greed. By a lust to control, to take from others.
To crush their hope.
Just as hers was about to be shattered to pieces.
The door slid back. There, behind Slade was his apprentice; hands tied and his eyes staring down at his feet.
" What did you do?" Slade's voice boomed across the space, making Raven jump.
"What did you do to my –
"I don -
"WHAT. DID. YOU. DO. WITCH. To my Apprentice ." He snarled the most descriptive word. Witch. Simply spitting it hatefully aside as she caught every ounce of his hatred. As possessive as a lion and…cub…
Feral hatred. She could smell the miasma and it stunk.
"I can't use my powers –
"And yet you RUINED my apprentice."
D – Martyr peered up from below his shadowed side. He, was…not….
Raven shot up at the man, seeing Dick's distress. Tasting his conflict like the bland soup that she'd had for breakfast. "He's not –
" Apprentice." Slade called to his protégé as the boy swept forth, coming to restrain the hostage as Slade commanded. "He's not-
" Quiet." Slade had the witch silence herself. Raven glared up at the mad man. "He's just another robot to you. You are the one who's –
"And that, is where I must stop you." He nodded to Martyr, who got the hint. Raven was wrestled from her cot, shoved from her knees to head for the only exit. D – Martyr had her arms pinned and it was painful, very. She'd never seen him so determined to…
To keep her under lock and key. For HIM. While he watched the madness with that stare of fire and brimstone.
"Slade! Trigon will destroy yo…you can't make Dick go through with this! Batman –
"Is going to fall. With this city, cambion – child." Slade acted as if this was not worth his time, that she wasn't useful to him enough. Only Trigon could say that to her face.
In that moment, she loathed Slade. Hatred filled her throat as her eyes changed to four protruding –
"Ung!" She was hit in the back of the head, limply hanging around as Dick….
He'd knocked her out, and had to carry her to a new location.
Finally, Slade had waited long enough. Martyr was ready to spill blood across Gotham.
First blood, which almost brought a tear to the man's eye.
"Get ready, Wayne. I'm bringing your ward home…" He said to the screens in his view. How Bruce stood before his cape and cowl with a face so obscured by hopelessness.
It was a beautiful sight, and Slade couldn't wait to rub even more salt in the wound.
For a moment, Raven stayed as she was and there she would. The bots would create that pretty circle atop Wayne Enterprises, and Raven would be the one to light up the air. A signal; to a demon and the power he could covet from its claws.
Trigon had something Slade did want, and he knew just how to take it from the ogre. No questions asked.