Lunatic: Yeah. It came to me one night when I was feeding my rabbit: this first part up here with Robin. Hahah. She'd broken a nail. No I don't abuse my fluffy bunny.
Note, this takes place several months, up to a year after Aftershock.
One day, when I am ruler of the universe, I still won't own the Teens.
"Here." The dark shape handed him something as consciousness slowly came back into focus. He held it a moment, cautious and very confused. He had no idea where he was, or why. That left him no reason to trust anything given to him by a shadowy shape in the doorway.
"Don't worry. It's not poison." The figure acknowledged his suspicion. Robin inspected the thing in his hands and discovered it was some sort of food. "It'll get the taste of blood out of your mouth.
Robin spared a glance at his captor, and put a hand to his mouth. There was blood there, and he spat, trying to get rid of the coppery taste. He didn't take the food.
The darkness scoffed. "Don't eat it all at once.
A door slammed shut and the light source was gone. Robin sighed and tried to remember what had landed him here.
Cyborg dragged a kicking Beast Boy through the main doors of Titan's Tower.
"Let go of me! We can still go back and save him!" Beast Boy cried angrily.
Raven floated in mutely behind them, Starfire at her heels. All three of the surviving Titans firmly agreed with Beast Boy's sentiments but they had heard the demands, and knew what was at stake. If they did not fall back, and give the villains their way, then Robin's life wouldn't be the only one that was sacrificed. The nuke hidden somewhere in the bowels of the city's sewer system would take care of that.
Cyborg let go of Beast Boy's collar and the green shape shifter immediately stormed back to the door. Black energy surrounded him and held him at bay. Raven, looking infuriatingly calm as usual, stepped in front of him, her hand outstretched.
"We can't do anything until we have a plan." She said firmly. "Rushing into save him would only get him killed.
"Raven is right, we must make a strategy." Starfire's careful syllables didn't match her eyes, which were filled to the brink with worried tears. None of them had ever seen Robin fall so spectacularly to a foe. His last words haunted all of them before he lost consciousness and fell beneath the cement.
"Fall back." He whispered hoarsely.
Cyborg sighed angrily and started pacing, much like Robin did when he was defeated. It only made the others feel their guilt and sense of loss all the more clearly.
"I should've done something! I should've seen it coming!
"Why did I not try harder? Why did I not realize
"I can't take this! Every time we lose, every time we need him most-
"Enough!" Raven's monotone shattered through the self-berating rants of the other Titans. She glowered darkly at all of them, and lowered her hood. "This isn't getting us anywhere. We need to make a plan." She said forcibly.
Starfire sighed. "Our friend is right.
But none of them made a move to the large screen in the center of the room. They were paralyzed in shock and fear at what had become of their fallen leader. Beneath her calm exterior, Raven was shaking.
Cyborg, staring moodily at the floor, finally nodded. "Alright y'all. Let's get down to it." He moved over to the large screen and called up a menu of police files. "First, let's find out who we're dealing with.
"They called themselves theÉSyndicate?" Starfire recalled helpfully. She floated nervously by Cyborg's shoulder, hands clasped.
"Yeah, but can you guess how many bad guys call themselves that?" Beast Boy sniped sarcastically. "There are probably hundreds of crime rings called the "Syndicate"." He made little quotation marks with his fingers.
"True. But we were attacked by something a little bigger than a crime ring I'm thinking." Cyborg mumbled distractedly.
"We are." Raven said quietly. They all turned to look at her. "It's a cult.
"What is a Ôcult'?" Starfire asked at the same time that Cyborg asked, "What makes you say that?
"A cult is a group of people who follow a leader who's managed to convince them that they have to worship them, or some other deity who doesn't exist." Raven answered with her usual monotony. There was a glimmer in her eyes. "I say this because they all had a symbol on their uniforms, suggesting that they work together under a single leader. Crime rings don't like to mark themselves. A cult would proclaim itself proudly.
"Yeah I remember, it was like a spiky- oh no." Beast Boy's eyes widened in horror as he came to a logical conclusion.
In unison they whispered a name they had learned to hate.
Slade.