(Author's Notes: AGH! I know, three chapters now and still no real battle involving the Titans. I am going to start working on Chapter 4 VERY soon, so if you wait a few days I will update as soon as possible. They will be fighting Ternion. Heh, anyway, enjoy the story! And submit a review if you already haven't please; I would like feedback. 3 )
Chapter 3: Crimson Enigma
The piercing trills of cloud colored seagulls sounded in the ears of the masked fugitive, and were the awakening songs that they were slowly sobered to. When they finally cracked opened their weary eyes; they gazed with rather blurred vision at a miniature fire and the sitting figure of their associate. As their eyesight gradually returned to normal; they looked around at their surroundings. They were sleeping on a hard, cold floor, their head and neck propped against what felt like a mass of soggy seaweed and rock. They were resting in some kind of small groove in a white limestone wall, speckled with grays and onyxes. But they were at a loss as to what their location was until they rolled over on their left side and gazed down about twenty feet; looking at nothing but the deep, dark obsidian waves of the ocean. Above them in the heavens and out further into sea, sure enough seagulls were drifting lazily in the windy updrafts, underneath an azure January sky.
"Good, you're awake at last." Said Brother Blood a tad huffily. He was sitting with his knees drawn to his chest and his metal arms with the side-spikes wrapped around them, gazing out at sea with his slit, cobalt eye and his inhuman red one. His arms were scratched in some places on the surface and his robotic hands with their elaborately detailed joints were quite nicked. They realized, with great awe, that he must have climbed his way down the treacherously sheer cliffs with his bare hands, just as he had done the walls. His breath came out in hissing puffs of mist; vanishing into the air as quickly as they had come. The tiny fire sputtered and spat a display of sparks into a rough breeze that meandered through their cramped hollow, warping the flame so it danced violently.
"How long have I been unconscious?" They asked him mentally; and upon sending that message a river of pain seemed to split their skull in two. They flinched, sitting up abruptly, and gripped their head until the spasm passed. Brother Blood watched this with mild lenience, more over flat-out bored interest to see what was happening to them. He waited; then continued when his associate seemed to relax.
"About 25 hours; judging by the position of the sun." Blood replied, nudging a twig into the fire with the toe of his black shoe. "We are currently hiding out in the white cliffs near the North Eastern Port, about three miles away from the prison."
"Just three miles? Have you seen any of them looking for us?" They transmitted to him, their voice-thoughts rigid with unease. Brother Blood caught their nervous emotions in their telepathy and frowned inwardly at this. His partner was beginning to seem less and less like a criminal worthy of Helena each minute. He put his doubts aside for the moment and returned:
"No, not yet, but the annoying shrieks of these infernal birds and the constant roar of the waves is blocking out any sounds they might pick up, and we are far back into the cliff face, so anybody out at sea cannot spot us unless we stand up. At night I will have to extinguish this fire; and we will likely freeze to death if we don't get moving." He motioned with a nod of his head to the pathetic blaze.
After a period of silence, his patience began to claw inside of his stomach and tear away. He looked at the other fugitive and growled: "So where exactly do you plan to take me to the one who can fix my mechanics?"
"When night falls, if there is a way from here where I can get to the sewer systems that lie underfoot of Steel City, I can take you to where my friend dwells, the same as I did before I was captured." They answered.
"Why were you brought to Helena, anyway? And why are you bandaged and restrained so; if you can answer that as well?" Blood asked as inconspicuously as possible; wanting details to the reason they were so solicitous and demurring.
"I suppose they were going to interrogate me after they had thrown me into a cell and subdued me, part of the submission process was that they wrap me to keep from moving properly, and masked me so my powers were prohibited. You see, they thought I was guilty of something I didn't mean to do. Because of the situation and my bad reputation, however…" They paused, unsure whether to go on, their mood becoming very sensitive. After a moment, they continued, but darkly. "I didn't stand a chance defending myself. In fact, I didn't even receive a trial they were so sure that I was guilty of murdering that woman-" Instantly they ceased transmitting these thoughts, having sent too much information. They closed their strange eyes and turned away, cutting off the telepathic line completely.
Brother Blood's expression did not lessen; but inside he felt a spark of excitement. Something was amiss with them, something he could get out with a little…persuasion. But he calculated if he could even work his powers anymore without his hybrid upgrades, his mind riddled with dubiety. He had not made the effort to use them in over a year…but it was worth a try. Besides, since his 'partner' was already capable of mental connections, the superior link he'd emit might be easily dominant.
"You have not told me your name, and since we are going to be stuck together for a while we mind as well get along with introductions. I am Brother Blood." He said, quite reserved, using the coaxing voice he had often issued when speaking with his old students. What had happened to them, anyway? He sat back and leaned against the wall, making himself comfortable. While he waited for their response he tapped into the chambers of his brain, where the power lay dormant, waiting to be arisen. Slowly it awakened.
"My name's Branwen; although some call me Gwen for short." They said, their thoughts finally sounding normal and not riddled with suspicion. They turned and looked at him when they spoke.
So you are a woman, thought Brother Blood. All the better, in most cases he seemed to have an easier time controlling members of the opposite gender. He looked into her exhausted eyes that peered through the awful gauze wrappings and in the shadow of the cruel tight straps of the facemask. They appeared confused and once again fell into a bout of nervousness. Suddenly, before she could rip her glance away, both of his eyes glowed crimson, like that of a devil's, and caught her gaze. Branwen's mind instantly went blank and his words echoed inside her as if a long lost deity was whispering soft commands. Her whole existence was now to obey the voice and her heart and mind urged him to speak, waiting for a sound to pierce the loud static.
"Gwen, you shall tell me who dwells under the city, and precisely where and why they are hiding. And you will address me as Master from now on." Brother Blood hissed with hypnotic satisfaction. Branwen struggled to turn her head away, her eyes wide open and practically consuming the red aura as if they had hungered for such a thing her entire life. Her personal, blessed thoughts were diminished in a wink, like a candle blown out in the wind. After a few seconds of struggling, Blood intensified the mental pressure and her fragile will gave in totally.
"There are several that live underneath the city, Master." Gwen spoke in a toneless voice, with a sliver of acquiescence. "The first is Blake Stone, who is a skilled technical artisan, able to create his own metal through his gifts, and he will be the one to re-forge your prosthetics. The second is a young computer expert by the codename Thief, as he is skilled at hacking into any system as well as creating some. His real name is Nemo Anderson. The third is Stella Summers, a woman capable of healing many wounds with the touch of a hand, though the process greatly tires her. The fourth is Zara, a mixture between human and feline whose senses are very profound thanks to her mutations. The final is Arvel; who if gifted with the ability to create and maneuver ice…"
Gwen proceeded to tell Blood that they hid in an abandoned factory deep in the junkyard of eastern Steel City; a portion of the abandoned slums where few bothered to climb over the mounds of twisted, rusted scraps and crushed vehicles. The factory was boarded up outside, having been labeled condemned after it shut down for years, and to enter, one had to go through the old sewer systems. There was a ladder in the aqueduct chamber that she climbed up; at the top one would slide aside a control-operated manhole to enter the first floor of the factory. The aqueduct chamber could be entered through four old, passable sewer pipes whose paths were unbeknownst to the citizens and even most workers.
She said that she had found the chamber after running away from home when she was sixteen, and shortly afterwards she met Arvel; an older teen about her age whose reason for becoming a vagabond was a mystery. The two had taken furniture and other appliances from the junkyard and moved these into the chamber, since they could not get it all up the ladder. When they met Blake a few months later, he used his strength and a few devices he crafted to get the furniture into the factory and they created livable conditions. They ran rampant in the slums of the city, stealing food and trying to earn scraps of this and that for survival, and in their daily scuffles they had found Zara, Thief and Stella. She explained their life's stories to Brother Blood as if he were an old friend that had wanted an update after being gone for a very long time.
So you and your small group of freaks live together; going nowhere in life, and each of you possesses a great power that others fear. This is becoming all too perfect! Brother Blood thought to himself with gusto. "Branwen, what did the police want with your group; did you murder a someone?"
"Every so often, especially when we were going to steal something, we would have run-ins with the police until we became known after a while as a notorious gang the officials had given the nickname 'The Shadow Raiders', because we would come at dusk when the shadows lengthened and disappear into the darkness when we had got what we came for, from food to tools. We never meant any real harm, though, it's just that this society was negligent to except us, for many reasons, and we had no money our whole lives. They sought to capture the leader, myself, for a long time and incarcerate me, and two days ago they had their chance. I was on the boarder of the slums, driven there from a few odds that had turned against my normal route, and one of the apartments at the end of the block was on fire. I ran over to see what was happening, and there was someone screaming up in the burning building somewhere. I pushed my way through the crowds of people the police were keeping at bay to get a better look. The firefighters were spraying multiple jets of water into the black smoke and flames, too many trucks to count, all to no real avail. I ran by the police, watching as a terrified woman leapt from the building in madness and fear, and desperately I tried to shield her from hitting the ground. My force-field enveloped her, and she hovered several stories in the air, lashing and crying out in panic, but she was safe. Some of the police recognized me, and in their anger and fear of the unknown they tackled me. Under normal circumstances I could have kept my concentration, but I hit my head on the concrete and blanked out. The woman dropped and…she died instantly. I woke up in the van escorting me to the prison, wrapped in the restraints you see. The mask was meant to hinder my telekinesis and telepathy through electronic probes that stabilized the brainwaves, but I managed to rip off one of the sides. The rest I believe you know, Master." Gwen finished, sounding very tired. Her shoulders drooped and her head hung lower than usual. Brother Blood, satisfied with what he had extracted from her, blinked once and the red aura vanished. In the corners of his mind the link was still present, and Branwen rubbed the back of her head, confused.
"What was I saying, Master?" She asked telepathically, sounding herself once again, but obviously her memory was fogged, her versions of the past now twisted thanks to Blood's tampering.
"It doesn't matter, dear Gwen, you have already told me everything I need to know." Brother Blood replied smoothly, smiling with hidden fiendishness.
She nodded and sighed.