Sick
Chapter Seven - Caged
As the first brilliant rays of the sun touched him, Robin screamed, held completely paralyzed in agony. It was worse than anything he had ever experienced, even more than the marks the master had burned into him. It felt like napalm was covering his entire body, scorching the skin from his bones, boiling his blood. Peripherally, he heard Starfire cry out, his pain passing to each of them through the mental link. He knew he was dying but was so overwhelmed by the pain that he didn't notice when his cry turned from expressing pain to begging for mercy from it. He began to smell his flesh cooking in the burning sunlight and screamed again, a sob breaking the sound. The time had come to die.
Robin was so overwhelmed by the intense agony that he didn't notice that he had burst into flames. The fire licked at his hair and face as his undead body continued to lose the battle with the sun. Beside him, the other Titans had fallen to the ground in their own fight with the pain. Beast Boy and Raven had already passed out, and Starfire had begun to chant in Tammeranian, her eyes glowing green with her effort to control the misery. Cyborg was doing his best to keep his concentration on his cybernetic half, but could not stay on his feet. When Starfire finally blacked out, Robin's full agony was concentrated on him and he fell to the concrete, gritting his teeth against the vicarious burn. The last thing Cyborg saw before his system shut down was a dark figure knock Robin off the roof of the tower. The half man half machine fainted before he could even reach for his dying friend, succumbing to the blissful and painless release of unconsciousness.
When the figure touched him to push him from the roof, it was like adding fuel to the fire. New, hot pain bloomed where the other touched him, and it hurt so much that Robin couldn't even scream any more. He simply let the jagged needles of pain from the wind cut through him as he fell, hoping the end would come soon. When he hit the surface, he was released from his torture as the icy water extinguished the flames and protected him from the sun's light. But with it's protection came a new danger; in the sudden change from the most mind-wrenching pain to complete stillness and darkness, Robin's overloaded brain just shut down, and he began to drown.
The dark figure that had pushed him hit the surface just after he did, swimming down toward the destroyed crime fighter. Robin's struggles to get to the surface were weak at first, then faded away completely as he gave up. The boy wonder sank slowly, water filling his lungs, grateful it was all over. His life had become nothing but torture and blood and he was glad it had ended. He closed his eyes, feeling the water flow over his damaged flesh, and let the blackness of death take him. The dark figure scooped the drowned boy up and kicked for the surface, meeting the craft that was suddenly there. Before any of the Titans had awakened on the rooftop, Robin's body was taken away.
It was only when the fire consuming their friend had been quenched by the ocean that the others woke. One by one, they sat up and blinked in the bright morning light, trying to digest the enormity of what had just happened. Each of them turned their gaze toward the spot Robin had been standing but could only sit motionless when they saw nothing but the smooth surface of the rooftop. Before he could stop himself, Beast Boy morphed into a wolf and threw back his head in a long, mournful howl, reflecting the sentiments of his teammates quite eloquently. Cyborg gathered the weeping Starfire into his arms and let his tears fall silently as he held her, her warmth comforting him as well.
Overcome by grief at the loss of her friend, Raven unknowingly loosed a giant black bird of energy that flew straight up and burst into a thousand shards, it's anguished cry echoing in the quiet morning. She stepped to the edge of the roof and looked directly into the sun, wishing she could burn the image of Robin on fire from her mind. She knew Robin's horrible death would stay with her forever, her last memory of him of his skin burning off and his hair on fire. Tears welled up and she did her best to control them, but Beast Boy's howling and Starfire in the background forced her grief on her. She fell to her knees, head bowed, and let the burning tears out, sending her sorrow-born destructive energy into the water below. One black ethereal bird after another dove into the waters, crushing rocks and seaweed in their talons, rending fish with their beaks.
Far from the tower, the dark figure cradled Robin's body in an almost fatherly embrace, holding him gently as he worked the controls. Batman fought his own emotions as he guided the speeding Batwing back toward Gotham, keeping the tint on the windows heavy and dark. He had seen his young ward conquer much adversity, and take hits before, but nothing compared to what had just happened on the rooftop. After Robin's call, he had tried to get to Jump City as fast as he could; he knew he wouldn't make it before dawn; but the last thing he expected to see was his longtime friend and partner ablaze. Hearing the agony in Robin's cry had wrenched even the usually stoic Dark Knight's heart, cementing his decision to risk the end of the world for his protégé.
Batman was upset, angry that Robin had been forced into doing what he had. There was no way Robin could be allowed to spill his blood for Krimjehf, but that didn't mean he had to die. While it wasn't written in the prophesy, he had learned that it was expected that the Chosen One would try to end his life, although not by the means Robin had. It was believed among those in the know that the new vampire would try to stake himself, or shoot himself with a silver bullet, neither of which really worked. Batman was almost sure that the master vampire had not bet on Robin going with the most painful, and only permanent, method of facing the dawn. He wasn't sure, but his ward may have succeeded.
Once in the Batcave, he placed Robin's lifeless and mangled body on the med bed and looked over the younger man carefully. Alfred emerged from a secret door with shackles in his hands, eyes automatically drawn to the pale, still body lying before him. "Good lord," he managed, "Master Dick…"
Sensing the question, but not having an answer, Batman stayed quiet. Both men leaned over the teenager, hoping for some sign of life. So suddenly it caused them both to jump, Robin's eyes flew open and he gasped for air, causing a coughing fit that brought out most of the sea water. When he had calmed, Robin tried to focus on where he was, his blood red eyes searching the cave. He tried to sit up, but was overcome by pain from his burns, so decided to lay still instead. His gaze landed on Alfred, who had stepped back from the bed, then immediately darted to Batman. "B-Bruce?"
Batman had set the computer to searching for an answer when he'd left to retrieve Robin, so by the time they returned to the Batcave, a printout was waiting for him. "Stay still," he commanded as he scanned the information in the paper.
"What…happened? How did I get here?" Robin was again attempting to sit up, gritting his teeth against the pain. "It didn't work?" The enormity of what he had just experienced and the fact that it had failed came crashing down on the young man, and he doubled his effort to sit, hoping to at least retain his dignity.
Alfred knew better than to hold him down, but approached Robin anyway. "Don't worry, Master Dick, we've faced difficult adversaries before."
By that time, Robin had forced himself into an upright position, swinging his legs around so he was sitting on the edge of the med bed. "Not like this, Al." He grunted as some ribs dislodged by his impact with the water popped themselves back in place. Examining his skin, he was surprised to find that most of it had knitted over the burned muscle and was continuing to heal rapidly. His stomach growled audibly, which only brought his hunger into focus. Doing his best to ignore the needs of his body, he gingerly stepped down, testing to see if his legs would support his weight. When he had regained his balance, he looked up at Batman.
He had placed the sheet of paper on the console of the Batcomputer and taken the shackles from his butler. "You must remain here until the blood moon passes." Batman looked behind Robin, prompting the younger man to look as well. There hung a metal cage, suspended five feet off the floor. There were not bars but metal fencing with holes too small for a snake to fit through and too hard for a wolf to chew through. Robin followed the cables up to the ceiling of the cave where a high powered generator rested, ready to create a charge too powerful for even a spider to slip through.
"I understand," stated the boy wonder, holding his hands behind his back calmly. While Batman shackled him, Robin felt a new hope bloom in his heart. If he could just make it through the following night, he might be okay. After he was boosted into the cage, Batman took a long look at his pseudo-son. Robin knew this was at least a little bit hard on him, so he offered all he could, "Thanks, Bruce." With that, the power was switched on and the boy wonder was very careful just to lay down in the middle of the cage, not touching any of the sides.
As the day had just started, Robin fell asleep, his badly damaged body desperately needing the time to heal. While he slumbered, a voice began to call to him, just as it had before. In his unconsciousness, he didn't sense it at first, but it swayed his dreams, at first causing breathtaking fantasies. They were so realistic that Robin could actually believe that life was back to normal, that he was living with the Titans and keeping Jump City safe. As the calling in his mind became more incessant, his dreams turned sour, making him relive the moments that disturbed him the most, feeding on his friends. By the time dusk had fallen, his dreams had become night terrors, eliciting moans and restlessness from the boy wonder. Alfred watched him move in the cage again and sighed. They were almost out of the woods.
Again seeing himself collect the Titans' hearts, Robin bolted awake, accidentally touching one of the sides of the cage. He yelped as the high voltage burned his skin and quickly scooched back into the center of the cage, nauseated by not only the dream and the burn, but by the movement of the cage as it swung with his restlessness. His arms and shoulders were sore from being so tightly restrained behind him, and he hadn't fed since he'd almost died in the dawn. His dizziness was getting worse.
Bruce had joined Alfred in keeping an eye on their charge and stood very close to the cage, silently offering comfort through his proximity. A strange feeling washed over Robin as he tried to steady himself, as if he was separate from his body. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself, and when he looked up, Bruce had a Batarang in hand and Alfred had stepped back. It was then that Robin noticed his hands were out of the shackles and looked down to see why. Not his hands, but his paws. As a wolf, he involuntarily growled at Batman and clamped his fangs on the side of the cage.
He yelped when the electricity burned him again and changed into bat, letting his uniform fall to the floor. He flitted around the cage, again burning himself on the metal. Landing into a snake, he slithered right up to the bars and tried again, this time, his small body was thrown back into the cage. Regaining just a moment of control, Robin was himself, shouting, "Stop me!" before he again changed, this time into a grotesque spider. Rather than touch the cage, he spat powerful venom onto the metal, all the while hoping it wasn't corrosive enough to let him out. With no result, the spider stood on his rear four legs and hissed at the Dark Knight, dropping to the floor of the cage and not moving. Bruce waited a moment before leaning in, hoping he hadn't just killed his partner.
As soon as the Dark Knight was directly on the other side of the bars, the spider melted into a green mist and silently floated out of the cage. Batman barely had time to back away, shouting, "Alfred, look out!" before the mist enveloped them both. In a matter of minutes, Bruce Wayne and his butler were lying on the floor of the Batcave, still and pale. Having now fed, Robin was free to follow the voice in his head, turning into a bat and following the other chiroptera out of the cave and into the night. It wasn't too far to Jump City, where he was compelled to go to the sacred chalice and bring Krimjehf to life.
But first, he had errand to complete.