Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans, etc. However, this storyline is mine, so no stealing!!!
Chapter Nine
The limestone was smooth. Patrick's hand ran along it with no friction, a hovering orb of flames in front of him, guiding his way through the musky corridor. Steeper and steeper the path got, soon walking became hazardous. Patrick began wondering who on Earth would take the risk to come down here to merely talk to one another. It seemed that the overall process was ridiculous.
The cavern began to narrow out and there was a large concentration of light in the near distance. Perhaps this was not the entrance, but some sort of naturally occurring air duct. It really seemed that way due to the sheer twenty plus foot drop from the opening and the floor where several men were standing in what appeared to be some sort of secret base.
There were several projectors, all of which seemed to have several schematics of Titan Tower, the giant 'T' difficult to mistake for any other building. On the floor there were several cubicles each lit with some sort of high powered computer monitor. Directly beneath him was a raised floor with a desk on it, some sort of leader's position of honor. No one was sitting at it, but the computer screen on it was well lit.
Two people walked up near the monitor. One was dressed in a generic uniform, the other in a more custom suit, something more showy and cultured.
"There is a new member?" the superior officer asked rhetorically.
"Yes," the other man said as he clicked on the lower right portion of the computer screen on the computer screen he was in front of. "Recognition scanners identify him as Patrick Garrison, orphan, age: 16."
"This is the first Titan who we have actual information on, yes?" the superior asked quickly, glancing down at the screen.
Patrick had perked up. Some one had said his last name; these people sure did their research on him. He had been perfectly shadowed above these men, the acoustics of the cave doing its job to let him listen in on them.
"Are there any relatives?" the superior asked.
"Yes sir, one Samantha Johnson. I have troops outside her current residence waiting on you order."
Patrick's heart had skipped a beat when the worker had said yes. He had gone his whole life suspecting that he had no family. The idea that he had a sister, Samantha, was perhaps the happiest news he had ever heard.
"Excellent, I am glad you know our policy with our enemies' family," the superior said as he walked up to a microphone on the desk in front of him. "Attention, please direct your attention to the main projector. We will be showing a live feed of what you all are working here for."
Patrick looked up at the projector. It seemed to be a shaky camera running into a home. It looked down and Patrick saw an M-16, similar to the ones the thugs at the bank had had earlier that week. His heart sank, his mind suddenly comprehending what was about to happen to his sister Samantha. Screaming loudly as he charged his power, he leapt down from his position above the two men and stared the superior down, flames licking the ground around him.
"Call them off," Patrick growled angrily, "Call them off or I'll-"
He was cut off by a piercing scream and the sound of several automatic rounds being fired off. He flinched and looked down at the ground, the heat of his power rising.
"I'll kill you," he said in a blind rage, "I'LL KILL YOU!" As he yelled he released a full powered blast of flames, melting the skin on the two officers around him, leaving them as mere ashes around him. The shockwaves shattered the glass of all the monitors in the chamber, the shrapnel of the metal components and shattered glass impaling several other workers.
Within seconds, there was only one man left in the room alive, crouching over a fused control panel, desperately trying to open the main doorways. Patrick walked closer to him, the man beginning to shake in fear.
"So, you enjoy killing people?" he asked as he neared the man slowly, pulling out his folded knife as he did so. He whipped it open and picked up the man by his throat, pressing the knife slowly into his left lung.
The man screamed out in agony as blood came gushing out of the wound when Patrick removed the blade. "Please, no… I have a family," he pleaded.
Patrick smirked at him evilly. "Funny, I used to have a family too," he said as he removed his hand from the man's throat and pressed the knife into it, pulling it sideways, splattering his face and a good portion of his trench coat in blood. The man fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, the heart's blood pooling around him.
Patrick looked around in the room. He had just killed over fifty men, most of which were unarmed. He was no better than those he had just murdered ruthlessly. Suddenly the voice of the final man he killed returned to his head.
He looked over to the bloody corpse. There was no doubt he was dead seeing as he was halfway decapitated. "He had a family," Patrick whispered out loud, "He… had… a family." He hung his head and started walking to the air vent he had entered in. The team would have to find out about this. It wasn't just him it involved. This group of criminals had information on all of the other member's powers and even the very schematics of Titan Tower.
On his way out he walked to the only active piece of technology, a printer with a hallowing picture on it. Samantha, his sister of only 13, the ghost of her perfectly beautiful face and brown hair forever engraved on the flimsy printer paper. This was the last link he had to his family, the last link to his sister.