To Dig a Grave
What kind of dumb-ass question is that? - Red X
-t-h-i-e-f-
Terra. That had to be her.
Red X knew, even though every part of his mind protested that made no sense, he knew. This statue had once functioned as a living teenaged girl of flesh and blood and soul.
The girl, however, no longer sported vibrant blonde tresses, or brilliant blue eyes the color of free skies and blueberry smoothies. Her once flushed cream skin had darkened to a dull gray-blue of weathered stone, even the clothing on her body had petrified. Her pert, waifish face, frozen forever in a silent shriek of final defiance, looked heavenward, arms outstretched as if screaming to God for one last ounce of strength.
X couldn't imagine if she'd gotten her final wish.
A dark chuckle pierced the stagnant air with the force of a hammer blow and X spun. Slade had somehow materialized in the middle of the path behind him in that manner in which he did and scared the cat-burglar the rest of the way into his grave he'd meticulously - metaphorically and literally - dug for himself over the last couple hours by coming here.
Slade's dark, two-tone mask seemed to suck all the light out of the chamber, his very presence chilling the room like a ghost sucking warmth from the living. He clasped his hands behind his back and merely stood there, feet planted firmly in the very center of the narrow path, preventing any options of escape that X trusted to get by Slade.
The thief instantly flicked four shuriken into hand and fanned them expertly between his fingers. He felt his legs grow jittery with the urge to flee, but fought back his instinct with an iron resolve.
Well…maybe not iron…but this was the best he could do right now!
"All that's left of my former apprentice," Slade remarked unfabulously, waving a hand to the cold stone statuette. "Her final defiance triggered a volcano on par with that of Pompeii. She managed to stop it, but not without making a…sacrifice."
"Hmm, you have such a way with words. You write your own material or do you pay Steven King?" Red X asked, probably unwisely.
Luckily for him, Slade merely chuckled at his witticism and casually circled to the burglar's left. X shifted his weight, and followed suit, keeping as much space as possible between him and the psychopath. Slade never stopped looking at him. The thief felt the familiar fluttering sensation in his belly but ignored it, writing it off as bad microwave pork instead of the gut-wrenching dread it really was. He didn't think he could meet that admission of fear without losing his nerve completely.
"Be carefully with that tongue, Red X," warned Slade. "I might decide to cut it out of your face."
Okay…sheer, sadistic brutality of that threat not helping his resolve much! X had known virtually nothing about Slade's existence until about two weeks ago. Sure, the name stuck a bell from a couple head-lines, but almost all of said head-lines followed-up with a long, drooling article on how totally the Titans had shut him down or something. When Terra had supposedly destroyed the Teen Titans, X had sensed a faint utterance of the name there and about, but never bothered to draw anything more than very casual conclusions. Slade: crazy, ego/power-tripping maniac with some connections.
While stealing the suit from Titan Tower, he'd gone over a couple personal flies lying around in Robin's room and a few of the database histories to see which criminal ranked as top Titan priority. The name Slade came up plenty of times, but having no relevance to himself, X had dismissed the thought from his head.
He'd only gone in depth on the subject by really going over all the know facts in his head while hiding in an abandoned parking lot beneath a semi-truck. Once everything added up, he realized Slade probably didn't play with a full deck of cards one way or the other and probably wouldn't mind 'silencing' his apprentice. But something else told him that since the 'Terra Incident' Slade's tendencies had changed.
Red X suspected strongly Slade had become even more crazed than ever before.
"So, did you just decide this might be a nice evil lair or did you miss the sparkle of Terra's personality?" X asked. A moment after he did so, X wondered why everything he'd just figured out on the evilness of Slade hadn't made an impact on him and he continued to make smart-aleck jibe. If the man didn't beat his face in he should have if only to teach X how to shut his mouth every once and a while.
Slade narrowed his eyes. "You like to talk, X. A bit too much for my taste." The man stepped toward him and X whipped his arm up, weapons at the ready.
"Back off, old man. Where's the Atlantian?" X demanded, vouching that now would be a good time to get serious…and play the distraction card so the maniac wouldn't wring him to bloody pulp just yet, but you know… whatever.
Slade laughed - not chuckled - laughed and if you know anything about Slade, like X did, that laugh could open the mouth of the Abyss and summon up hell-fire. The thief shuddered and a niggling doubt in his back of his brain began to blossom into a rose of uncertainty.
"Aqualad, is otherwise indisposed," Slade said cryptically, words slow like dripping honey. "He's being entertained by a mutual associate of mine and won't be joining us. I hope you're not too disappointed. After all, I doubt you came here solely for the sake of a single stranger."
"You're right," the thief agreed, nodding. "I notice when I got back, first thing. You stole my card collection...I want it back."
"Really?" He didn't sound convinced.
Red X felt an inappropriate smile tugging at his mouth. "Well, three's a crowd and what-not. But I wonder if petrified teenagers count?"
Slade waved a hand. "Not at all."
And then that same hand - through an impressive slight of hand - tapped a hidden remote control and the path at X's feet blew up. The rock exploded from three vocal points in front and to the right of the thief and hit the burglar like a wrecking ball, blasting him from the walkway and throwing him off the path and into open air. The burglar found himself plunging through fall-throughable-space and staring up as Terra's frozen frame vanished into the distance overhead. In a panic punched the belt notch, activating the vibro-portation tech.
His body buzzed and he felt himself flutter out of perception as his molecules accelerated and he snapped in and out of real-time. When his body shuddered back into reality had snatched at the wall and snagged his fingers in a deep crag etched in the rock face. He clung tight to the rock, grabbing firmly with his other hand and hugging his body to the side of the cliff as the rest of the debris whizzed past his head and into the darkness below.
Heart spazzing in his rib-cage, the boy wondered vaguely if Slade attempted to kill all his apprentices.
"Still hanging in there, X?"
"Oh that's clever!" the thief laughed sarcastically. "Brilliant, real damn witty!"
Slade chuckled (Damn him!) and kicked a small pebble down the hole and right on top of burglar's hapless head. Boink! X seethed silently, face pressed against the crook of his arm to keep himself from telling Slade to go do unsanitary things with kitchen utensils. A course of action which, probably, would get him knocked right off the side of this rock. After all…
Slade was off his freakin' rocker!
"This from the boy hanging off the side of a cliff?" Slade's voice remarked from overhead. "I applaud your quick-thinking, X, but sorely question your sense of irony."
"Getting philosophical on me?" X growled, bracing his feet against the wall. He loosed one hand and flicked another handful of shuriken into his fist. "Well, that's just lovely."
He hurled the projectiles up at his attacker's face. The man had leaned over the side of the cliff to watch his victim, but now he leaned back to evade the erratic assault. The throwing stars zinged through the air and ricocheted off the ceiling to shoot off in random directions, vanishing into the darkness. Slade made a condescending noise in the back of his throat and leaned back over to tell the young thief how terrible his aim was…
and had his face met by X's boot.
Slade snarled in rage as the younger criminal landed the blow. The awkwardly aimed hit did little more than blind him as Red X vaulted over his enemy and landed on the crater ridden path. The thief didn't hesitate; he spun and launched an X from his palm. Slade anticipated his move, however, and ducked the projectile. The murderer rose to his feet and angrily began closing the distance between them with all the speed injured pride could muster, his single eye dark with fury.
Red, refusing intimidation tactics, flung two handfuls of his deadly throwing stars, briefly slowing the man as he paused to block every friggin' one of them. X felt himself gaping, but hoped the mask hid it as Slade easily deflected his weaponry and kept right on coming. The man suddenly charged the smaller felon, angling himself to the boy's right and swinging out with a ferocious left hook.
X ducked the attack, but found himself staggering at the very edge of the pathway, pin-wheeling his arms in an attempt to stay topside. Slade saved him from the fall, however, by snatching a fistful of his suit and throwing him up the path. He twisted his body mid-air and like a feline managed to right himself and land awkwardly on his feet.
Deciding that he didn't want to die and early death, the larcenist clenched both fists and out came the twin rotary blades he favored. He had the suit; he would press his advantage now while his vitals could keep up with the tech. The electric whine of the spinning stiletto blades echoed through the empty cave as he fluttered out of perception and attacked. Slade hissed as whirling blades lunged out from all sides, striking at random it seemed from all angles and directions.
Finally, the thief, frustrated by his failure to land a proper hit, reappeared and lashed out a quick blow to the larger man's head, the heel of his foot crashing into the man's temple. Slade went down and immediately rolled back up, looking mildly annoyed.
"A nice strike, X. You have potential, but you'll never find an opening big enough to finish me. Hit and run tactics will only get you so far. Get you tired and worn." Slade circled the smaller fighter, eyes fixed on the thief as if he would suddenly burst into smoke and eddy out through the crevasse overhead. "You're smart, but you're not that smart. Strong but not strong enough. That's why you need me to train you, to condition that raw talent into something worthwhile."
X bit his tongue; trying to distract himself from the pain in the back of his head and the ache slowly worming down his arms. Slade's words echoed in his mind and body like a residual aftershock, as if the mere description had altered the state of his physical anatomy. The speed of his own attack jarred his arms numb in a way that fighting the Titan's never had. He couldn't keep it up. His guerilla tactics of hit and run reached their limit and he vied for switching tactics.
He lunged in low, using his smaller size to his advantage and slipping under the man's face-breaking punch to strike out a blow to his belly, slashing both blades for the man's middle. Slade, however, had not gained his reputation by letting stealthy strikes do him in. He swept his powerful arm down and around like some great, clearing cleaver and smashed the larcenist's arms away from him, sweeping them both to the left.
X improvised and rammed his shoulder into the madman's gut.
Slade grunted and staggered back, but managed to snatch X by the arm on the way, effectively ending all his hopes of keeping his distance from the larger man.
Panicked, X quickly whipped out a shuriken and immediately slammed the four pronged weapon between two of Slade's arm guards. Metal bit flesh with a sick meaty thud and Slade uttered a strange kind of hiss and grabbed X by the face. Then he literally threw the smaller criminal all the way to the end of the path where his head smashed brutally against the base of Terra's podium.
Black stars exploded behind his eyelids and the sensation of a demon let loose in his skull. For a moment all sound faded in the deafening pound of his own heart, his blood roaring in his ears drowned out all other noise. Stunned, he slumped lifelessly at Terra's feet, going limp in the gravel. Every nerve tingled, as if his traumatized brain couldn't remember how to play with the rest of his anatomy.
Must have caught on quick. Pain flooded his flesh like fire and every part of him ached with an unspeakable hurt. The ringing in his brain vibrating through his entire being.
Slade's steps on the stone vibrated in his skull, deafening him. He clenched his eyes shut, tears stinging the back of his eyes. Everything hurt again and worst of all he couldn't move to do anything about it. Feeling sick, Red slowly dragged himself to his hands and knees and clutched his head, feeling the world tip dangerously.
"You cannot win, Bannon," Slade remarked from somewhere nearby. "You're just another of my pupils, though, by far the most difficult to persuade."
He yanked the burglar up suddenly but only to strike him back down, delivering a stunning blow to the younger felon's jaw and backhanding him down the path. X hit the gravel hard and rolled over and over until he skidded to a painful halt about a third of the way down. Body shuddering from the violent shock, the burglar groaned and rolled onto his belly, slowly hunching his shoulders and dragging his limbs under him.
"Make this easier on yourself…" Slade began.
"Yeah, yeah, I know - and give up right?" X mumbled to the dirt.
"So it is obstinacy and not stupidity that keeps you from swearing yourself to me," commented Slade. "How valiant."
X clenched his fist so tightly he gripped the dirt. He could feel blood spreading hot against the nape of his neck and a strange chill about his extremities. Focus, X; just focus.
"Gee, does this make me a hero?" the thief chuckled quietly.
He felt eyes (eye) narrow.
"You aren't a hero. You aren't even a pawn on a chessboard yet. You refuse to take a side and squander your talents to serve yourself. A worthy goal in the short-term, but your lack of ambition astonishes me," Slade said and honest to God started to lecture him. "You are given everything you need, have it handed to you, but you strike it away and refuse a chance to become something great so you can entertain your petty, childish fantasies of romanticized thievery.
Slade moved down the path toward X and reached out either to deliver some new form of cruelty or to offer him a hand up.
The younger man didn't give him the chance. He hurled dirt into the murderer's face, blinding his one good eye and sending him reeling backward, roaring in fury. X leapt up and blasted the man with four individual energy bursts and five shuriken just for a topper and made a dash for the tunnels. Slade didn't have Aqualad. This was not his problem anymore. No reason to stick around and die.
And I don't romanticize anything, he added privately.
Then something snagged his cape and the thief found himself sprawled artlessly on his ass.
Slade loomed over him, gripping the hem of the garment in his massive fist. He eyed the resourceful young bandit with a calm air and remarked, "You fight dirty."
X shrugged. "I'm not Robin."
And aimed a kick to the man's groin. However, Slade had grown wise to the boy's game and caught the offending boot before it made contact. X reasoned that Slade would probably kill him now and resigned himself to it, deciding he'd a lived well if not long. But to his relief (or horror) the man started dragging him unceremoniously back toward Terra's statue and away from the exit.
Red thrashed like a demon-thing and using a move he just thought up, kicked the larger man's knee out from behind. Slade went down on one knee, placing his head within kicking range for the larcenist, who happily obliged the new target.
Clang! Boot on metal face mask.
Then the owner of said target spun around, startling X with his speed and smashing a fist into the rock behind his head. Dust coughed up over his shoulder and X guessed that if Slade hadn't held anything against the thief before, he certainly did now. Slade's knee rammed mercilessly into his midsection and drove the smaller fighter into a fetal ball of pain. Then the man grabbed X by the back of the neck, gripping him tight. Without even a grunt of exertion, he hurled him against the base of Terra's podium like one tosses a kitten.
Pretty damn easily.
Slade leapt on the younger criminal before the stunned young man could figure out what he'd run into. His powerful hand easily encircled the boy's lower jaw and pinned his head against the stone. X squirmed, struggling to get free of the murderer's grip. His jaw ached. Slade's hold felt like steel, crushing his face and for a moment he considered it a plausible possibility.
Then Slade shoved head back against Terra's ankle, slamming the back of his skull against her petrified boot. Blood smeared the girl's stone shoe, dripping from the thief's head wound. X found himself staring up at the frozen teenager, staring at her upside-down face from the ground. He tried to move, but Slade held him too tightly.
"Look at her," Slade murmured forcefully. "That is what comes of disobedience. Of defiance. Continue to fight me and you're just another Terra."
His fingers dug painfully into the younger felon's jaw, bruising the flesh and nearly choking the burglar. X felt his neck strain, the stone digging painfully into his lower back. Slade had him bent over backward against the rock. He grasped the larger man's wrist, struggling to pry it off him. Might as well have dug his fingernails into a vice, but that didn't dim his hopes much.
"Better another Terra than another Slade," X replied brightly, once again without regard for self-preservation.
"Better my apprentice…than a dead thief," the madman returned readily.
X swallowed. "I'd rather die."
"Very dramatic. Are you done?" Slade inquired.
He released the thief, shaking his hand free and dropping the athletic young man to the ground. X reflected on the corniness of his last line, but decided it had been the cliché that got him out of the face hold so he figured his dignity could take the bruising if it would spare his head. He felt shaky. His entire body threatened to go limp at any moment.
"Everything you do will crumble and fade into dust and nothing will remain," Slade hissed, kneeling low beside the injured thief. "People remember great things. Great and terrible things and you know this. You're a thief, that's why you steal: to be recognized and remembered and you're ruthless in that pursuit."
He tossed a bloody shuriken into the dust by the teenager's head and X wondered if he'd only just pulled that from his arm. "Just moments ago, you struck to kill with those weapons. Weapons you stole from Jump City's most illustrious crime-fighters. I understand you, X, and you should appreciate what I'm offering you freely. Come with me…and even heroes will utter of your exploits in hushed stories. A legacy that won't be erased."
"Bite me!" X hissed, "You don't know what I steal for and you don't understand me because even I don't understand me!"
Then his arm gave out and he fell to his elbows, ruining the affect. Slade didn't reply at first. Instead, he kicked X viciously in the side of the head, knocking him on his side and tossing him like a broken doll at the foot of Terra's platform. White fireworks bloomed behind his eyes and X moaned, rolling to his stomach and working up the strength to move.
Slade only chuckled and almost casually grabbed the teenager's arm, wrenching it behind his back and twisting up until the thief uttered a wordless cry. He kept twisting until Red's entire body went rigid with pain, his spine arching helplessly in reaction. He stopped, feeling the limb straining, threaten to break. X's breath came in shaking gasps that verged on tears as tendons slowly ripped and tore beneath the strain.
Slade released his arm and X slumped to the ground, gasping in relief.
"Do you want me to break it next time?" Slade asked.
X stared. "What kind of dumb-ass question is that?"
Slade backhanded him casually, knuckles striking his cheekbone with bruising force and snapping the boy's head to one side. X heard bells ring and held his head, waiting for it to stop. In the distant background he could hear Slade rambling something about how useless it was to resist, no one was coming for him and monologue-ing everything X already knew.
Why, oh, why did villains have to monologue?
Slade crouched beside the thief who drifted only half consciously between his own thoughts and reality. Floating listlessly twixt the two. "You have nothing and no one, X. You're alone and on one will ever come to save you. Do you understand? You will never get away from me because -,"
Here he seized Red's zynothium belt and ripped it off the teenager's waist, tossing it over the edge of the cliff and into the abyss. The thief numbly wrote himself a mental note to get pissed about that later, but his head hurt too much for that at the time. He stared listlessly at the stone by his nose and listened as Slade went on.
"- secretly, you don't want to."
X blinked up at the man, certain he'd misunderstood then finally added, "Huh?"
Slade caught his chin. "You're captivated by what I do. The challenge of my intrigues fascinates you on a level you can't begin to comprehend, but it does. You don't realize it yet, but in that neurotic mind-," his single eye grew wild and his cold fingers slipped from X's chin to touch the centre of his forehead, "-is the perfect killer, the perfect fighter, and the perfect pupil. That's why you don't know the reason you steal. Somewhere, hidden in your subconscious the idea of working for me, serving me and training beneath me thrills you…and that's the part-"
His other hand shot up and quite suddenly X found himself held fast, Slade's hands clutching the side of his head in a merciless hold.
"-I plan to bring out…once I've scraped away every other pesky flaw in your being."
X gaped; too horrified to speak. He'd known Slade's murderous mind didn't function like a normal person's. Hell! Even his didn't, but he had not realized the extent of Slade's damage. Whatever subtleties or façade of sanity he'd once claimed had long since melted into pure, unfettering schizophrenia. If Slade's grip on reality got any more twisted, the maniac would literally try to 'scrape away' his flaws. That unpleasant thought in mind, X managed to sputter the first thing that raced to his shell-shocked brain and mostly likely the best line to get him dead…fast.
"You're totally flippin' psycho!" he managed, talking like he had a speech impediment.
"Still you remain as impertinent and stubborn as when I first began testing you," Slade said, going on as if he hadn't heard. "You, Red X, are the only one who still refuses to change despite everything. Even Robin altered his behavior in accordance to my whims, but you…you just continue on your independent path of thievery and petty crime, when you have the potential to learn so much."
The man shook his head, still kneeling in front of the exhausted larcenist, back to the edge of the dark cliff edge behind him. All his attention fixated upon the single sentient creature before him, every particle of his focus upon the breaking of the fragile mind before him. On how to shatter him. Make him into a killer.
How to kill? Kill? No. How to murder. Make him into a murderer...
'-you'll never find an opening big enough to finish me.'
Click.
The sound of something in Red's brain turning on and suddenly as a toggle being thrown he just really wanted Slade gone. If the man wanted a killer...then he'd get one.
X didn't think. In a sudden, lucid moment he saw his opening - the one Slade had said he'd never find - and he watched as if of another person's body as he lifted his knee to his chest, kicked out. His foot, bearing every bruise, pain and emotion behind it, smashed Slade straight in chest. The adrenaline powered blow knocked the man reeling, sending the criminal staggering back. He saw himself stand and calmly as any Super Man, step once toward his target, pivot and deliver a flawless roundhouse kick to Slade's jaw.
His heel collided with the man's face, knocking his head to the side at an unnatural angle and madman and criminal mastermind stumbled backward. He lurched toward the cliff-edge - as if in slow motion - reached the end, teetered there…
and toppled backwards into the abyss.
And just like that X's mind snapped back to his body and the overwhelming sensation of his own skin filled his aching head. He fell back against the rock behind him with a great gasp and hugged his arms around his shoulders, shivering violently. Snow floated from the crack in the ceiling and a pale creamy light of a sunrise began to slip in through the crag overhead.
Slade.
Just like that the nightmare ended. X found himself alone. Upon discovering this, he slide down the stone and landed on his backend again, the last of his strength sucked away by cold and residual shock of actually beating Slade...and like that too.
No impressive battle scene, (unless you count having the living daylights beat out of you by a guy three times your size) no tension building fight leading up to the climactic end. No. Slade had died as suddenly as any other maniac. Not even a creepy horror-flick moment where the baddie comes back for one more go at the protagonist. So much for Hollywood and cinema!
The asshole had fallen off the damn cliff. Period.
Something fluttered and flashed at the corner of his vision and spun in a downward path to lodge in the gravel and dust beside his fingers. He squinted at the little white and red rectangle and gingerly picked it up between thumb and forefinger. He turned it over and the laughing, maniacal grin of the black joker smiled upon him. His favorite card.
X leaned over to stare over the edge of the precipice into the darkness. Snow whirled in through the crevasse overhead and spiraled down into the gloom of the shadows, following Slade to whatever doom gravity had carried him down to.
"Thanks for keeping my card safe," he croaked, adding almost as an after-thought, "Asshole."
Then he slumped against Terra's podium, completely unconscious.
-t-h-i-e-f-
Author's Note: Umm…huzzah? I killed Slade? Took me forever to get this battle to flow. I'm very picky about my fight scenes. Criticisms? I have a feeling you'll have some for this one. And I own nothing. Not the Titans, not X and not Stephen King obviously.