Chapter 9
The room was dark.
The only light came from the softly glowing buttons on every machine. The soft humming of working machines filled the room, making my footsteps seem louder than they truly were.
I crept past several machines, cautiously checking each corner for intruders before venturing around it myself. Perhaps I was being too cautious. But I would rather have been cautious than dead.
Making my way into Slade's stronghold had been an unrivaled feat. But I needed to take it farther. I had to rescue the Titans.
The Titans. Rumors circulated about what had truly happened to them. Most said Slade had killed them long ago. We chose to believe the more preposterous ones. The ones that claimed the Titans were still alive. Somewhere. Somewhere in the bowels of Slade's fortress.
It was hard to think about what might happen if we didn't find the Titans. If the mission failed. The Atlantians were defeated. Even if Slade continued to fight us, in hopes of destroying us all, we already knew we fought a losing battle. Atlantis would fall.
Our once proud civilization was going to be defeated. We had fought, long and hard. But it wasn't enough. Our people were dying. They had lost the will to battle long ago.
But to save what we had left, we continued to push them until the end.
There was little hope. Just one dream remained. And until recently, that was all it had been. A dream.
We intercepted a communication several weeks back. A blurp of sound was all it really was. We immediately set to work cracking the encryption code. It took many days, but eventually we could understand the small fragment of information it gave us.
Titans.
That was the part of the message that most interested us. The rest was unimportant. But this. This one word, gave us new hope. Hope that we might yet defeat Slade.
And so, a mission was launched. And I was selected to carry it out.
And so now, here I am, creeping through a virtual maze of death and torture, and the only real thing I know is that some little message contained the word Titans.
It was becoming hard to summon the hopefulness my heart had contained since I left the others.
But I had to keep going. If not for me, than for the rest of the resistance.
I heard a noise, a tiny shift was all it was. Possibly a piece of metal sliding down a pile, or a tiny bolt grating against a machine.
A few months ago, I would have ignored it. But I knew better now. The slightest movement, the most insignificant sound could mean certain death for you and the group you were commanding., I had learned that lesson the hard way.
I fingered the healed scar on my temple, remembering in vivid clarity the day I got it.
It had been one of my first missions. I was the youngest fighter there. But they trusted me.
With a pang of guilt I remembered the team I had been a part of for such a short time.
Our commanding officer had been Holom. He had been a leader for a long time and knew the mission like the back of his hand. We all trusted him.
Selena. Everyone called her Bubbles. She was so sweet and happy all the time. Even the war hadn't dampened her spirits. She was our tech op. She was in charge of weaponry and technology to get us inside the base.
And last, Darrel. He was our mercenary. Our trained killer. He could slice you seven ways and take off your head before you realized you were dead.
That was the team. The mission was simple. Get into the base undetected. Steal weaponry, information, anything we could get our hands on. Once we were all back on the outside Bubbles would blow the whole place apart.
Simple. We didn't ever think so much could go wrong. We were discovered. Captured. We fought, and lost. I escaped. The others died. Simple as that.
Simple.
Right. Nothing is simple anymore. The whole world is made up of intermingling lies. The twists and turns alone can bring you to your knees.
But we've learned to cope. Learned, or died.
I slunk through the machines, backtracking to the source of the noise. I peered around a corner and my breath caught.
Cyborg!
He was alive. Or as alive as he could be. He had been deactivated. And a long time ago. No one had been near him for months, possibly years if the sheet of dust on him was any indication.
I crept closer, my ears straining to hear any sound. Reaching into my pack I pulled out a power cell, silently thanking Tram for making sure I was so well prepared.
He's aged. I noted silently. His brain may have been shut down, but his body continued to grow and change.
I flipped him onto his side as silently as possible. Opening the hatch in his back proved more difficult. A layer of dust had developed and I was forced to blast away the hinges in order to open the door at all. I made ready to insert the power cell, but at the last minute, I set my hand over his mouth.
If he screamed, we both died.
Then I pushed the power cell in so the circuits connected. His body light up, the light casting a bluish tint over everything.
His hands gripped and he grabbed my arm, flinging me over is head and into the wall next to him. I flipped to prevent any damage, but he had me by the neck before I could react, his cannon powering up.
"Who are y-" He stumbled back after seeing my face. "Aqualad?"
I nodded. "I'm here to rescue you."
"What happened to you? You look so much-"
"Older? That tends to happen when five years have gone by."
"Five... years?"
"You and the others were captured Cyborg. Don't you remember? Slade brought you here. It's been five years since that battle. Everyone assumed you were dead."
"I... remember. They deactivated me. Shut me down. I don't remember anything else. What about the others?"
"I don't know yet. I came here to save you all, but you were the first I found."
I was surprised that he managed to except all this as calmly as possible. He had just lost five years of his life! Lived here in this smelly old room for five years, and he didn't seem to notice. Maybe it took some time to sink in.
"Would you care to help me rescue the others? Or you can return now, I could show you the way to the boat..."
"I'm not going anywhere without my friends."
"Fine. Let's move, but we have to be quiet."
He nodded hi understanding and I crept out from behind the machines, signaling to him when I finished scanning the room for intruders.
We slunk into the hall again and I froze as I heard voices coming our way.
"We'll have to fight them, we can't hide anymore." I could have, but I wasn't about to abandon another comrade.
"It wasn't your fault! You did what you could!"
"But I left them! I could have saved them!"
"The only thing that would have accomplished was getting you all killed!"
"But they died anyway!"
"And you lived. They knew what they were fighting for. They knew you stood the best chance of getting away- and you did!"
"But if I had stayed-"
"You all would have died."
I shook off the old memory, shivering at the chill it gave me. I had long since learned to deal with the guilt, but that didn't mean I would ever forget that mission.
"Let's do this." Cyborg whispered beside me, powering up his cannon.
OOOOO
Author's Note: I know I haven't worked on this story for a while- but it hasn't been that long! I guess my muse decided to pay me a visit and help out a little. It's not that long, but better than nothing- right? I'm going to try and get another chapter out sometime, but if it's not soon, at least count on it being a long one.
MysteryMaiden7
The room was dark.
The only light came from the softly glowing buttons on every machine. The soft humming of working machines filled the room, making my footsteps seem louder than they truly were.
I crept past several machines, cautiously checking each corner for intruders before venturing around it myself. Perhaps I was being too cautious. But I would rather have been cautious than dead.
Making my way into Slade's stronghold had been an unrivaled feat. But I needed to take it farther. I had to rescue the Titans.
The Titans. Rumors circulated about what had truly happened to them. Most said Slade had killed them long ago. We chose to believe the more preposterous ones. The ones that claimed the Titans were still alive. Somewhere. Somewhere in the bowels of Slade's fortress.
It was hard to think about what might happen if we didn't find the Titans. If the mission failed. The Atlantians were defeated. Even if Slade continued to fight us, in hopes of destroying us all, we already knew we fought a losing battle. Atlantis would fall.
Our once proud civilization was going to be defeated. We had fought, long and hard. But it wasn't enough. Our people were dying. They had lost the will to battle long ago.
But to save what we had left, we continued to push them until the end.
There was little hope. Just one dream remained. And until recently, that was all it had been. A dream.
We intercepted a communication several weeks back. A blurp of sound was all it really was. We immediately set to work cracking the encryption code. It took many days, but eventually we could understand the small fragment of information it gave us.
Titans.
That was the part of the message that most interested us. The rest was unimportant. But this. This one word, gave us new hope. Hope that we might yet defeat Slade.
And so, a mission was launched. And I was selected to carry it out.
And so now, here I am, creeping through a virtual maze of death and torture, and the only real thing I know is that some little message contained the word Titans.
It was becoming hard to summon the hopefulness my heart had contained since I left the others.
But I had to keep going. If not for me, than for the rest of the resistance.
I heard a noise, a tiny shift was all it was. Possibly a piece of metal sliding down a pile, or a tiny bolt grating against a machine.
A few months ago, I would have ignored it. But I knew better now. The slightest movement, the most insignificant sound could mean certain death for you and the group you were commanding., I had learned that lesson the hard way.
I fingered the healed scar on my temple, remembering in vivid clarity the day I got it.
It had been one of my first missions. I was the youngest fighter there. But they trusted me.
With a pang of guilt I remembered the team I had been a part of for such a short time.
Our commanding officer had been Holom. He had been a leader for a long time and knew the mission like the back of his hand. We all trusted him.
Selena. Everyone called her Bubbles. She was so sweet and happy all the time. Even the war hadn't dampened her spirits. She was our tech op. She was in charge of weaponry and technology to get us inside the base.
And last, Darrel. He was our mercenary. Our trained killer. He could slice you seven ways and take off your head before you realized you were dead.
That was the team. The mission was simple. Get into the base undetected. Steal weaponry, information, anything we could get our hands on. Once we were all back on the outside Bubbles would blow the whole place apart.
Simple. We didn't ever think so much could go wrong. We were discovered. Captured. We fought, and lost. I escaped. The others died. Simple as that.
Simple.
Right. Nothing is simple anymore. The whole world is made up of intermingling lies. The twists and turns alone can bring you to your knees.
But we've learned to cope. Learned, or died.
I slunk through the machines, backtracking to the source of the noise. I peered around a corner and my breath caught.
Cyborg!
He was alive. Or as alive as he could be. He had been deactivated. And a long time ago. No one had been near him for months, possibly years if the sheet of dust on him was any indication.
I crept closer, my ears straining to hear any sound. Reaching into my pack I pulled out a power cell, silently thanking Tram for making sure I was so well prepared.
He's aged. I noted silently. His brain may have been shut down, but his body continued to grow and change.
I flipped him onto his side as silently as possible. Opening the hatch in his back proved more difficult. A layer of dust had developed and I was forced to blast away the hinges in order to open the door at all. I made ready to insert the power cell, but at the last minute, I set my hand over his mouth.
If he screamed, we both died.
Then I pushed the power cell in so the circuits connected. His body light up, the light casting a bluish tint over everything.
His hands gripped and he grabbed my arm, flinging me over is head and into the wall next to him. I flipped to prevent any damage, but he had me by the neck before I could react, his cannon powering up.
"Who are y-" He stumbled back after seeing my face. "Aqualad?"
I nodded. "I'm here to rescue you."
"What happened to you? You look so much-"
"Older? That tends to happen when five years have gone by."
"Five... years?"
"You and the others were captured Cyborg. Don't you remember? Slade brought you here. It's been five years since that battle. Everyone assumed you were dead."
"I... remember. They deactivated me. Shut me down. I don't remember anything else. What about the others?"
"I don't know yet. I came here to save you all, but you were the first I found."
I was surprised that he managed to except all this as calmly as possible. He had just lost five years of his life! Lived here in this smelly old room for five years, and he didn't seem to notice. Maybe it took some time to sink in.
"Would you care to help me rescue the others? Or you can return now, I could show you the way to the boat..."
"I'm not going anywhere without my friends."
"Fine. Let's move, but we have to be quiet."
He nodded hi understanding and I crept out from behind the machines, signaling to him when I finished scanning the room for intruders.
We slunk into the hall again and I froze as I heard voices coming our way.
"We'll have to fight them, we can't hide anymore." I could have, but I wasn't about to abandon another comrade.
"It wasn't your fault! You did what you could!"
"But I left them! I could have saved them!"
"The only thing that would have accomplished was getting you all killed!"
"But they died anyway!"
"And you lived. They knew what they were fighting for. They knew you stood the best chance of getting away- and you did!"
"But if I had stayed-"
"You all would have died."
I shook off the old memory, shivering at the chill it gave me. I had long since learned to deal with the guilt, but that didn't mean I would ever forget that mission.
"Let's do this." Cyborg whispered beside me, powering up his cannon.
OOOOO
Author's Note: I know I haven't worked on this story for a while- but it hasn't been that long! I guess my muse decided to pay me a visit and help out a little. It's not that long, but better than nothing- right? I'm going to try and get another chapter out sometime, but if it's not soon, at least count on it being a long one.
MysteryMaiden7