CHAPTER FIVE
After a brief flight, the automated transport craft finally touched down at its destination: a run-down factory on the very edge of the city limits. The robot guards pulled Starfire onto her feet, and pushed her out of the doorway. Two other droids caught the weakened alien, and placed her inside a specially designed prison intended to dampen her alien powers. Slade watched with pleasure as the once-strong Tamaranian was placed in her cell with no resistance, a sign that his latest creations were as effective as their creator had promised they would be. He would have to thank his apprentice later.
He observed as his foe slowly regained consciousness, and enjoyed seeing the look of horror on her face as she realised who she was facing. She struggled against her restraints, but with the cell preventing her using her powers, she found this almost impossible. She was trapped.
"Well, my young opponent," Slade started, "it seems as though the mighty Teen Titans have faltered. You and your 'friends' were no match for my soldiers, nor will they succeed in rescuing you."
"My friends will not abandon me!" Starfire responded adamantly. "They will find me, and then we will show you what we can do!"
"Foolish girl," Slade retorted. "Do you think your friends even have the slightest hope of finding you? You are alone, trapped in a cage designed specifically for you, with no way to contact you. As far as they're concerned, you're out of reach, so why would they try to find you? They'd only fail."
"No!" Starfire cried out, despairing.
"Yes," Slade replied. "You see, these droids are the perfect weapon against your fellow Titans. I had them designed specifically to counter your special abilities, and then had them built en masse so that even if you somehow found a weakness, they would simply overwhelm you. Of course, I couldn't have done it without the help of my new apprentice."
"Apprentice?"
"Yes. I believe you have met already." He reached out into the shadows, and beckoned for a figure to approach. "Step forward, my young apprentice."
The figure stepped into the light, and at once Starfire recognised him.
"Fury?" Starfire started, trying to understand what she was seeing.
"Yes," Slade replied. "You see, Fury has been graced with a most brilliant gift. An IQ of 152, to be exact. But not only does he possess intelligence, but ingenuity. He was able to come up with the perfect solution to your powers, and construct it with remarkable speed. He has been my greatest asset for this scheme."
Fury said nothing; his face was like a mask, with no emotion or anything showing through it. Starfire looked at him with a mixture of despair and fear.
"But that's not all," Slade continued. "He also constructed the very cell you stand in. It did, of course, require some work to create, but the end result was worth it."
Starfire continued to look at Fury, her feelings of betrayal clear in her eyes...yet Fury did nothing at all. He just stood there, watching the scene.
"Ever since Terra's betrayal, I have longed to exact my revenge on the Teen Titans. Now, with these tools at my disposal, I can accomplish that. The Titans are not accustomed to defeat: with a failure this great, they will surely be torn apart."
"No!" Starfire yelled, on the verge of tears.
"Without their peacekeeper, it is only a matter of time. Of course, I suspect Robin will make some foolhardy rescue attempt, but that will only aid me more. With my former apprentice under my command, I will finally have the city in my grasp...and for once, there is nothing you nor your friends can do about it."
One of the robots stepped forward, carrying Starfire's communicator. The robot handed it to Slade, who looked at it briefly before throwing it to Fury.
"Here, young one," he addressed Fury. "Take this; maybe you can find some way to use it to mislead the Titans." He then motioned towards the Tamaranian girl. "Guards, take her away and lock her up down below."
The robots guarding Starfire moved her cage to a lift, and proceeded to take her underground. Starfire constantly looked at Fury, as if willing him to do something with her eyes. But Fury just stood there, immobile, emotionless, and almost as robotic as his creations. The lift descended into the darkness, and for the first time since her capture a tear rolled down Starfire's face.
Out of her sight, Fury looked at the communicator, pocketed it, and walked towards one of the buildings, a determined expression on his face.
Robin felt numb. Mind, body, soul...all numb.
The Titans seemed to have gone into a reclusive state. Cyborg was sitting in the corner of the Rec Room, examining the remains of his lower left arm; Beast Boy sat on the couch, nursing his head and for once not cracking any jokes; even Raven was affected, forgoing her usual meditation and simply sitting there, looking down at the floor. Robin sat right by the window, looking back at the city, trying and failing to get his mind off Starfire. A few hours earlier, he was worried about how to explain his feelings to Star; now he was worried about whether he would ever actually see her again.
Cyborg looked at the remains of his arm, put them to one side, and walked over to where Robin sat.
"Don't worry, man," he said. "We'll get Starfire back. That's a promise."
"How?" Robin replied.
"We'll find a way," Raven replied, looking up. "We always do."
"Yeah," Beast Boy remarked, "but usually we're not up against a group of indestructible robots controlled by a maniac!"
"You're not exactly helping, Beast Boy," Cyborg replied, anger starting to seep into his voice.
"Well, what else am I supposed to say?" Beast Boy retorted. "'Don't worry, Robin, we'll come up with some miracle to get her back'? We can't win against them; we tried with five and failed, so what makes you think we'll succeed with four?"
"We have to at least try and do something! It's better than sitting on our butts, feeling sorry for ourselves because we lost!"
"Oh, so getting ourselves blasted, smashed and knocked out is a REAL improvement, is it?" Beast Boy shouted back angrily. "That would help as much as your cannon did!"
"Oh, so now you're trying to blame this on me, are you?" Cyborg shouted back. "Well, I'm sorry, but how am I supposed to break the laws of physics exactly? They have SHIELDS! Man, what is your problem?!"
"It's six foot tall, covered in titanium and standing right in front of me!"
"Oh yeah? Well, you're nothing but a lousy fu..."
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Raven shouted, her eyes burning with anger. Two of the lights glowed black and exploded, causing the sprinkler system to go off. The two boys fell silent, realising just what that conversation really meant.
"Is this it, then?" Beast Boy asked with concern. "Are we going to fall apart because we lost a member?"
"It sure as hell looks that way," Cyborg said quietly, picking up his broken arm. He looked at Robin. "What do you think?"
"I need some air," Robin replied, his voice still lifeless. He walked past the other Titans and out of the Rec Room. For a moment there was silence. Then, finally, Cyborg spoke up.
"Come on, guys. We've survived worse than this; there's gotta be SOME way to defeat these guys. We just need to find it. Beast Boy, Raven, do you want to take another look at that one we captured?"
"Yeah," Beast Boy replied with little energy. "Let's go."
For the fifth time, Starfire tried to rip the chains around her wrists and ankles out of the wall. She would not let herself become some toy for Slade to play around with – not after all that had happened.
However, yet again she found that she could not summon her alien strength to break the chains. She looked at Fury, who was guarding her cell, and realised that he had obviously taken a lot of time making sure that the cell worked. That must be pleasing for him, she thought bitterly.
"You can't escape from the cell, Starfire, so don't bother," Fury remarked after the Tamaranian had finished struggling against the chains.
"I will not allow you and Slade to do anything to me," she replied defiantly. "You are a traitor to the city!"
"You think I don't know that?" Fury retorted. "You think that I actually enjoy this?"
"Then why do you not act to stop this?" Starfire questioned him.
"Because there's nothing I can do," Fury replied. "Not yet."
Before Starfire could reply, the door to the prison opened, and Slade stepped in. Starfire did not look up: she would not give him the pleasure of seeing the distress in her eyes. He walked up to the cell, and looked at the young alien.
"So," Slade started, "you are trapped, helpless, completely out of reach of your friends...and still you do not acknowledge defeat. What do you possibly have to hold out for?"
"More than you would know," Starfire replied. "My friends will not abandon me. I know they will come and find me."
"Your friends, my dear, do not even know where you are. Indeed, I do not believe they will even be able to do anything: defeat is something hard to take for a group of superheroes. They may even have considered breaking up the Titans..."
"No!" Starfire cried out. "They would never do that!"
"Maybe not while you were around to maintain the peace," Slade continued. "But without your apparent 'good aura', how long do you think it will be before they are at each other's throats?"
Starfire, though she did not want to admit it, realised there was some truth to what Slade was hinting at. She had heard the others arguing before, and it had led to instances where the group was close to breakdown. She looked down at the ground, and realised that she was almost completely helpless.