Disclaimer: All characters and locations, unless featured in the Teen Titans show or otherwise, are property of Mr. Bigg.
LOCATION: Unknown (Somewhere on the continent of Antarctica
"Uh... is this heaven?" Conary asked, rubbing his head as he sat up. The sky was a vivid blue, interrupted only by the occasional cloud. Sun rained down on the frozen ground, making the ground seem like it was solid light. It was beautiful, but the freezing winds also made it bitterly inhospitable.
"It's like death... a horrible marvel," Conary said, almost prosaically. Suddenly, a frigid gale brought him back to reality. He gazed in every direction, searching for some sign from his team.
"Ergh..." a voice said faintly from behind him. Conary jumped for cover, hiding from his unseen enemy. Instead, he found Batholry, sprawled on the ground before him. Her white skin, normally so distinctive, made her invisible in the environment. Her eyes were closed; her body moved little. Conary knelt down, checking to see if there were any injuries.
"Don't be retarded dude, she's a fricken' ghost!" Conary said, laughing weakly. "C'mon Batholry, time to get up!" He yelled, cupping his hand to the ghost's ear. Batholry's body shifted; white lids opened to reveal her haunting eyes.
"What... what happened? We- Where is the sky ship? Why are we not on it!?" Batholry asked in a nervous voice.
"We fell. We fell for a while, I think. I don't even think we should've survived, but we did, and if I survived, then Adila and Hotei should've survived too, but where the hell are they?" Conary asked. Batholry shook her head.
Conary procured his satchel from the snow near his crater, digging through it furiously. "The comp survived! Good thing too, I still need to back up all those government files... but let's see... perfect!" Conary muttered, producing a long-range communicator and a handful of hand-warmers.
"We can find the others with that?" Batholry asked.
"Yeah, and call Rayfe for evac, among other things," Conary replied, extending the receiver antennae. He started walking off into the snow, while Batholry slowly floated alongside him. For a while, Conary fiddled with the various knobs and buttons, trying to get some semblance of a signal. At last he put the communicator back in his bag.
"Jesus, you'd think the government might spend a few bucks to include Antarctica in the damn calling plan. Long-range my ass," Conary grumbled, shoving a hand-warmer in his shirt.
They trudged along, walking a floating respectively, in a somber silence. After a while, Conary broke the silence. "Hey Batholry- what's it like to be dead?"
Batholry remained silent for a while longer. Finally replying, "Pretty cheeky, asking the dead about death. I suppose I get to ask you what's it like to be alive, then?"
Conary shivered slightly, rubbing his arms together. "Well, I thought it might be good if I knew, because odds are I'm gonna die in the waste as is," he said tentatively.
Batholry laughed a little, then grew silent. Concerned, Conary said, "its fine if you don't want to talk about it-"
"When you die," Batholry interrupted, "You see all. For the briefest of moments, you see everything The Maker has made, made, and has yet to make."
"...What then?" Conary asked.
"After that, I saw nothing. Blackness took me, robbed me of sight, of sound and scent... everything, all I could feel was cold. I spent... days? Centuries, like that? I don't know anymore, it seems so long past. I remember... there was fury. Great anger, pushed the coldness away, so was my desire for justice. The darkness was gone, and I found myself in my rotting home, just a thing that refused to die without atonement. That is death, Conary. My death."
Conary fell silent. Another draft pierced the air, kicking up the jagged snow from the ground. He brought up his arm to shield his face, and as he did, he noticed a familiar light flashing on his wrist...
"Holy shit, I'm an IDIOT," Conary cried, opening the comm. channel. "Are you guys ok?" he asked hastily.
"...Fine. Cold... broken.... position?" Adila's answered, obscured by static.
"I can't hear you!" Conary replied. Suddenly, he heard a shot fired. He whirled around, expecting to see more black-clad soldiers, but found only white.
"Conary- look!" Batholry exclaimed, pointing into the sky. Conary looked up, half-expecting to see a helicopter, coming to air-lift them to safety. Instead, he saw something like a second sun; a tiny white star, falling slowly to earth.
"A flare..." Conary muttered. It wasn't too far, either. He set off sprinting across the ice, with Batholry in tow. As he approached the smoldering flare, he could see two dots, presumably Adila and Hotei, coming towards them.
"HOTEI! ADILA!" Batholry shouted, flying over the tundra with her ghostly speed. Conary did his best to keep up, but as he reached his end, his foot caught on the snowy floor, sending him to the ground.
Hotei and Adila latched onto his wrists firmly, pulling Conary to his feet. He saw in their faces, both cold as the snow, and could not speak. He saw what had them.
On the ground was a large metal tunnel. It sloped into darkness, interrupted by the occasional lazy fan.
"A vent... but why here? And why this big?" Conary asked.
"Tyr's base. Intelligence says it runs miles below the continent. It's bigger than Manhattan," Adila said. Picking up a chunk of ice and tossing it in. Conary recognized the look on her face.
"Look, it's fair to warn you, I've not the best experiences with vents..." He muttered.
Adila silenced him with a glare, saying, "Stow it. Our mission isn't over yet." And with a glance down the vent, she added, "We're going in."
The Sword of Damocles had landed several hours ago, and there was already work to be done.
Genocide cleaned his guns as he prepared to enter the brig. Word brought little hope for the guards stationed outside the... witch's... cell. Men were going missing left and right, but there was no sign of prison break. Still, The Doc ordered him to investigate the matter personally.
"I don't know what that dumb ass is thinking, keepin' filth like these brats around," Genocide muttered, holstering his weapons. He felt extremely skeptical about his boss' plan, (mostly because he knew too little about it), and besides, powers like these were dangerous to control, much less imprison.
Especially that girl, Kiyo... she might be the most dangerous of all. Though he knew little of her, there were times when he felt she was strong. Stronger than he? Genocide grimaced, looking at his crimson fist. That girl... he would break her.
Above him, the light panels began to flicker. The acrid smell of electric fire filled the air. He upholstered his weapons, and moved toward the brig door.
"Entering the lion's den. How brave of you," came a soft, mocking voice from behind.
Genocide whirled, guns raised. When he recognized the speaker, he lowered his hands. "You? Here? You've come far. You got business with The Doc?" Genocide snorted from behind his faceless mask.
"You... could say that. But right now, I need to speak with you. About what Tyr is planning," replied the speaker.
"Well, shit buddy. He doesn't tell me nothin'," Genocide said, his voice laced with contempt.
"You know the truth, Genocide. You know he's losing his sanity; you know that, sooner or later, those injections won't be able to save him anymore."
Genocide nodded.
The Speaker began walking away, saying, "Then we are finished, for now. I just have one piece of advice for you: if he makes an offer of silver, take it."
As the last words fell on Genocide's ears, the speaker was gone.
"Whatever," Genocide muttered, opening the door.
It was like someone had covered everything in black paint. Light panels had been shattered, their wires sparking erratically. Fires had sprouted from holes in the walls and floor, yet their orange flares did little to ease the shadow. In the center of it all, an impossibly tall hooded figure hunched over a pair of guards. The guards themselves were curled in the fetal position, grasping their skulls. They were probably dead.
Genocide cocked his pistol, lining the barrel up with the figure's head. With cruel unemotional accuracy, he squeezed off four shots with both guns. The bullets sped towards the figure, bringing the message of death with them.
The shadows of the room shivered, and then surged towards the two figures. A pillar of black rose from the ground, blocking the bullets path. Simultaneously, lashes of shadow appeared on Genocide's limbs, their strong grip nearly making him drop his weapons.
"Fool... you... think... you can... kill me...?" Panted the hooded figure. A blue cloak rippled around her body as she turned to face him. Under the hood, her face was black as the room, save for the eyes.
There were four, all of them blazing with unholy crimson energy. Her lips parted; her smile seemed composed entirely of fangs. "Fool... you are all fools! Each of you thinks you are some god, some omnipotent being! You are deceived, all of you!" shouted the girl. "You don't understand... you could never understand... the end is nigh! His time is near at hand... Father's time..."
Genocide could feel his arms being crushed by the constrictions of the tentacles. Gritting his teeth, he focused all his energies on maintaining consciousness.
"YOU WILL FEAR! ALL WILL TREMBLE AT HIS NAME AND MINE, FOR I AM RAVEN, AND I AM OF TRIGON!" shrieked Raven, her words growing more unstable. Energy surged all over the room as each word escaped her lips, tightening the bonds of Genocide.
For a moment, the energy emissions subsided. Genocide felt the coils lax; he quickly emptied his guns into the girl's face. Raven clutched her eyes, yowling horribly as the pain filled her being. Genocide mustered all his strength, ripping himself free and dashing the door.
The minute he slammed the door shadows pressed against it, trying to force their way past the obstacle. Genocide quickly slapped on his communicator, opening the security frequency. He was relatively sure his bullets didn't do anything but piss her off.
With her powers, that was not a good place for her to be.
"I need a lockdown on brig section 14-D. If the prisoner gets out, be prepared to flood this level," Genocide said.
"Copy that, sir. The Boss needs to speak with you," replied the security officer.
Genocide stood impatiently in Tyr's laboratory. Usually, the Doc only called him here to chastise him, but he could tell something was amiss. He was hustled into a large room by a pair of medical officers, who left abruptly. Large computer screens dominated the walls, showing various readouts on medical studies and the Doc's other weird projects.
"Genocide, your timing is impeccable," Tyr said, stepping into the room. He was followed by two more medical officers, wheeling in a pair of sheet-covered stretchers. "Do you remember why you accepted my job offer at the beginning of all this?"
Genocide didn't like the sound of the question. "Uh... yea. You promised me power. Unquestionably power," he responded, doing his best to hide his suspicions.
"Yes, power. The one thing we all search for, yet so hard to find," The doctor said poetically. "Look in here, please," Tyr added, holding up a small retinal scanner to Genocide's mask.
Genocide complied, staring into the box for a few minutes. Suddenly, a beeping noise came from the box, which Tyr immediately gave to one of the officers. "An amazing little device, that is. The nanomachines in you body, or more specifically, your brain, are able to transmit all their information into a data drive inside that box. Your memories, your identity all now exist in here," Tyr explained, pulling the sheets off the stretchers.
On one was the green child abducted from Titan's Tower, known as "Beast Boy." The thing on the right... it could maybe of been a clone, but emerald skin was replaced with metallic surfaces. The silver being looked older, brawnier, and more bestial than the green boy.
"My finest work," Tyr said proudly. "Composed entirely of nanomachines, each encoded with the child's DNA. With some slight alterations, of course." Tyr walked over to the wall, pressed a few buttons and opened a drawer. "Of course, the only thing it needs now is a mind." The doctor added, hiding something behind his back.
"Power is what you desire, Genocide? Verily, it shall be yours," Tyr said, taking a gun from behind his back. "It's no use struggling," Tyr added, his silver eye flashing. "The nanomachines won't let you."
Shoving the barrel in Genocide's face, the doctor started laughing uncontrollably. As he fired, one last thought appeared in the chaos of Genocide's mind.
An offer of silver...