No Room Left in Hell...
Chapter One.
You found me out Pierrot Le Fou. I through that prologue out knowing full well I would not be able to follow up in timely manner. I'm guilty and I'll do it again! 'Sept this time the chapter is not too short. At least I don't think so.
Titan's Tower.
In the maintenance room, between the sounds of metal tools on metal car parts, Cyborg droned on about one of the best football games he had ever been witness too. The machine man rested his back against the floor and gave his attention to a lubrication checkpoint on the T-car's engine. Beside him, also on her back, was a dark haired girl with navy blue eyes as hard as ice. She didn't seem too interested in his story.
"So he fakes a left, then a right...he backs up as number forty-three lunges for him, he gives up and runs the ball!" Cyborg said, obviously reliving the game in his one human eye as he applied grease to a joint with his metallic pinky.
"The whole time, I'm standing in my seat, not knowing what to think! I'm holding my breath half thinking-"
"Cyborg."
"He's wont make it! He won't make it!"
"Cyborg."
"But there he goes! He's half way down the field and there's only-"
"Cyborg!" Raven called louder.
"Sorry," Cyborg amended, "Just got carried away. But tell me Raven, doesn't anything about a good old game of football interest you?"
The girl was silent; Cyborg waited patiently half expecting her to denounce everything about the sport. He didn't like to agree with Beast Boy too much but it did often seem like Raven hated "fun."
"While I can not deny the physical discipline and the results of such, I can still point out that the same results can be reached without chasing a ball up and down a field."
"So..." Cyborg started, taking this in, "You're saying if I could think up a game that involved getting ripped and deep thought you'd give it a go?" he asked, turning a big grin on Raven.
"No, but the Board of Education would fall in love with you," Raven said flatly.
Cyborg burst out laughing. Of course Raven didn't join in, but if he wasn't imagining it, he was sure she was feeling the amusement vibe.
The teens continued to work on the car in peace. Not much was said at this point. Honestly, Cyborg didn't need help maintaining his "Baby." In fact he was touchy, and compulsive of how the others interacted with his homemade vehicle. Starfire couldn't touch any of the buttons, Robin couldn't drive, and Beast Boy? Well, he wasn't to be anywhere near it unless absolutely necessary. Raven, well. He liked that his estranged teammate shared in this one interest with him. She didn't love the car the way Cyborg did. In fact, it didn't have to be a car. It was the structured balance of maintenance that brought her here. Cars were like math. There was always a way to fix them. Cyborg also entertained the notion that maybe, just maybe, his sparkling, magnetic personality might also be a perk that kept the mage here during tune ups.
"Dude, check it out!" Beast Boy said grabbing Robin by the shoulder and brining a can into his line of vision. "Umbrella's entered the Tofu making market! Look at these new Tofu Franks!"
"Gee Beast Boy that's...great?" Robin said, giving both the can and the short green child a quizzical look.
"You bet it is! It's about time this big companies paid more attention to us alternate lifestyle consumers," Beast Boy said, taking off to make use of his new food.
The Titan's leader, the only human and the only one without super powers, shurgged at the sight. His friends sure were zany, but at least they were never boring. He walked, directionless and found himself stopping at the large window that showed him the city. There was something odd about it today he thought. He couldn't see much from here but a small nagging was eating at him. The sounds of the city didn't reach his ears but he still felt it seemed quieter than it should be. His eyes followed a news helicopter as it made its rounds. Nothing suspicious there.
"Robin!" Starfire's call rung his attention. He turned to the center of the room and found an orange skinned red head sitting at a small table with a chessboard. The pieces all seemed to be in the right place.
"I am ready," she announced, proud of her accomplishments.
"All right," Robin smirked, leaving his post and forgetting his premonitions to join Starfire.
Curled up in the top bunk of a prison cell, a pale skinned, pink haired youth could think of little else but her predicament. Once again, four walls kept her from the outside world. The unwritten law that her team would always lose to the Titans seemed to still be in effect. This was the third time in only two months. It was becoming routine. A very tiring routine.
"Bet if I went straight and they saw me walking down the street one day they'd attack me just for 'old times sake' or maybe out of habit.' Jinx snorted. "Heh. Straight. What a stupid concept. I'm not even straight-straight never MIND the other kind of straight."
A sudden burning sensation assaulted her blood stream then. In a panic fit, she rubbed her upper arms, forearms and sides as if she could cool herself from the outside. It was to no avail. Her insides became hotter. She whimpered, pleading for it to stop. Her heart began to skip beats. The feeling scared the hell out of her. Was it going to just stop any second now? She didn't want to die!
As suddenly as the sensations attacked her they left. The burning stopped. Her heart rate returned to normal. She relaxed somewhat, but her fear did not leave her. She wanted to say she didn't know what it was but reality told her different. She knew what the probable cause was: that doctor from her team's last heist attempt. He had injected her with something. What, she had no idea. And that was what frightening her the most.
Jinx laid on her side for an unknown amount of time. She was deep in thought, weighing her options and trying to guess just what that psycho might have infected her with. She considered telling the guards she was sick but part of her didn't want to know what her diagnosis would be.
"If I'm going to die...or turn into a frog...maybe I should know it's coming," Jinx muttered. Grudgingly, she pulled herself from her bed and walked towards the unforgiving steel bars that kept her.
As she opened her mouth to speak the world around her descended into chaos. An explosion preceded smoke and debris that flushed into the room like water. She could not see the dark fog that was robbing her of precious oxygen. Gasping and coughing she reached for the bars only to find none. Survival instincts did not allow her to dwell on the enigma. She moved, with one hand covering her nose and mouth, her free hand found a wall. She followed it until she found her self on the catwalk that overlooked the mess hall. Here the curtain of smoke was thinner. What else she saw was alarming. Slade's robots were there, doing what they were born to do. Fighting. But not with the prison guards. They were attacking, and killing, the prisoners!
Jinx watched speechlessly as the disoriented criminals were cut down one by one. Some of these guys had been seriously dangerous men but the machines had taken them by surprise and many of them didn't even have their weapons. Through a large hole in the north wall of the mess hall Jinx spotted their ringleader making his grand entrance. Slade.
"What the F(k are you doing?" Jinx screamed at him, leaning over the safety rail, but could not be heard over the fray. He did, however, notice her. The military garbed super-criminal turned his one cold blooded eye on her. This seemed to be all the signal his machines needed to turn their attention on her. Several began to ascend ladders intent on attacking Jinx.
Just couldn't understand it. It seemed like a dream. The smell of blood was tainting the air already. Why the hell was Slade doing this? Even if he had, inconceivably, changed sides heroes did not murder anyone!
"Back! I said back!" Jinx turned to find a guard standing right beside her with a handgun trained on the robot that was approaching her. He fired and the bullet recoiled off the machine towards the ceiling. The bot swung an arm and caught the guard good in the face. The human fell towards Jinx who instinctively moved only to see the man fall over the railing. Without thinking her hand shot out and caught his arm.
'What...am I doing?' Jinx asked herself, looking down at the frightened authoritative figure whose life was literally in her hands. While she was dangling her upper body over the railing for the sake of someone else, the machine had not lost interest in her. Neither had the six behind him.
"Titans! Go!"
"'Bout time," Jinx muttered, yanking hard and bringing the guard up in the process. She let him fall carelessly to the ground on which she stood.
"What are you after!" Robin hissed at Slade. While the other Titan's attacked Slade's forces, Robin had busied himself with the mastermind of the operation.
"Now Robin," Slade said in a taunting tone as he parried all of Robin's punches and kicks, "It wouldn't be like me to just give away my plan's now would it?"
"If you're telling me to beat it out of you then I'm more than will-Ugh!" Robin growled as Slade landed a strike of his own.
"I fear that not even the world's second greatest detective will be able to figure this one out, so I'll give you a hint. That wasn't a mere technology research facility those children hit the other day," Slade said.
"The Hive? They told us you paid them to attack it," Robin said, readying himself for his next attack.
"Yes. And aside from failing to retrieve the goods, they were foolish enough to think they could scrape off the top and that I wouldn't notice. Isn't that right Gizmo?" Slade said, looking past Robin. Robin turned and found that the genius child was in the grasp of one of Slades assault droids.
"Where is it?" Slade asked coldly.
"Crud," Gizmo spat. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about," Slade said.
"Let him go," Robin ordered Slade.
"I will. Once he hands over-"
"Hey you sticking-pirate-wannabe Jonnyy one eye! They took everything from me when they arrested us!" Gizmo cried, kicking his little legs.
"And a smart guy like you simply let them take everything?" Slade tsked. To this Gizmo went silent.
"Duuuuuuuude," Beast Boy said, "I can't believe you..." The green teenager was looking appalled as he took in the sights of the prisoners and a number of the guards.
"Ah yes. That's my new policy. The less anyone knows about this rare item the better," Slade said simply.
"You are out of your mind," Raven spat him. She was joined by Starfire and Cyborg who had finished off Slades machines. Slade looked around calculatingly.
"Very well," Slade said and with that Gizmo was released by the single remaining Slade-bot. "There's no rush. There's always later. Don't forget my new M.O." Slade said, looking at a dead man in the latest prison fashion. It was soaked red with its own blood. "They will all look so much worse then that by sunrise." Slade vowed.
"And you think we're just going to let you walk out of here?" Robin challenged, snatching his extending bo-staff from his belt and entering a fighting stance.
"Certainly not. Come and get me!" Slade said, entering a stance of his own then darting backwards, then taking off into the night. The Titan's pursuit was blocked momentarily by the last Slade-bot. Once it was dispatched and Titan's were outside they found no sign of Slade.
"Ok. Who else is getting tired of that trick?" Beast Boy asked, scratching his head.
Robin marched back into the prison with out a word and grabbed the Gizmo by the scruff of the neck.
"What's Slade talking about? What did you take from the Umbrella facility?" Robin demanded.
"Dammit! Didn't I already tell you zit lickers that I don't know what he's talking about? Everything I took was confiscated," Gizmo whined. Robin continued to glare at the child.
"Is he not telling the truth?" Starfire asked Robin after a few tense moments.
"No..." Robin said narrowing his eyes on Gizmo's ear. There was a curious black speck. It looked very much like an earring. Robin grabbed it.
"Hey! That's mine! Ow!" Gizmo whined.
"It's a computer chip," Robin deduced quickly. "Was this what you took?"
"You figure it out muck sniffer!" Gizmo pouted.
Robin's quick mind went over all the information he had at this point and then carved a plan out of it.
"Starfire, you come with me. We're going after Slade. I have a few ideas where he might be. Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy," he said, instantly getting the full attention of each of them, "Take the remaining prisoners somewhere safe and protect them. As long as Slade doesn't know that we know what he's after he may still target them."
"The remaining Hive members? All three of them?" Beast Boy said, once again indicating the carnage Slade had left.
"Yes. The three of them," Robin said, his voice revealing a hint of remorse for those already slain, but he soon pushed off for the exit and Starfire trailed after him.
"Why does the caged bird beat her wings? It's because she wants to be free!" Jinx sang to her keepers. They did not seem swayed. In the empty football stadium set for demolition next month the only Hive members to survive the attack at the prison hours ago spent there time in a cage developed by Cyborg. It resembled Cyborgs' frame with its blue see-through covering that revealed some of its inner workings.
"Dude-ett, we're not in the mood, "Beast Boy said to her. "We should be helping Robin. Not babysitting."
"Well maybe if you'd have caught Slade the first time you wouldn't have to be here would you, snot brain!" Gizmo snapped at him.
"You take that back!" Beast Boy shouted at the midget menace. The two began to trade insults, eventually getting Mammoth and Cyborg involved.
Raven was getting irritated. Jinx watched with mirth evident in her eyes until another wave of burning attacked her blood stream. This was the fist time it had happened in front of the others. She struggled to look natural. She grinned and lurched forward only slightly. Luckily, her friends were engaged in a name calling game with the male Titans. Beads of sweat were breaking out all over Jinx's body as she used a bar of the cage to steady herself.
"Enough," Raven grumbled at the males, her annoyance was clearly with the lot of them, including her own teammates. Her eyes turned suspicious when they landed on Jinx. Before she could inquire Gizmo crossed his arms and spoke.
"My thoughts exactly vampire-face," Gizmo said, standing and flashing a cocky grin on the Titans. There was malice and ominous in it. In that instant every light in the stadium went out. In a flash they came back on but the Titan's were treated a shocking sight. The Hive kids were out of the cage and making a run for freedom.
"How the hell?" Cyborg cried.
"Doesn't matter. Stop them!" Raven ordered, "I'll take care of the exits." As Cyborg and Beast Boy ran after the felons, Raven closed her eyes and chanted. Using the highest concentration of her power she ceiled every exit she could imagine with whatever material was near them. Seats and loose boards doused with her influence covered the main entrances. In the parking lot cars were piled on top of one an other in front of another exit.
Once satisfied Rave began her own pursuit. She found herself walking past the lockers rooms several floors down. She was on guard. The squeaking hinges of a brown door took her attention. It was labeled boiler room. She entered cautiously. Shadows were thrown about by the rooms single light that hung from a cord in the middle of the room. Pipes of various sizes and uses hid the walls. Steam shot out of nearly every one of them with an assortment of hisses and cries.
"Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly," Raven heard a familiar female voice but she couldn't tell where it was coming from.
"You might as well surrender Jinx. You can't escape and you can't take me," Raven called out to her nemesis.
"And what makes you say that?" Jinx called back, forcing confidence into her voice she didn't really feel.
"I've barricaded all the doors." Raven said, peering around.
"Aw, well if you did, don't you think we should have a show down anyhow?" Jinx called back.
"If you insist," Raven said, summoning her power. Silence was the only response she received if you could even consider that a response. It lasted a long time.
"Hello?" Raven called after another moment.
"Be right with you! Sheesh. Haven't you got anything better to do then wipe the floor with little ol' me?" Jinx said dropping from the ceiling it seemed. The light swayed even wilder than before causing Raven to realize she must have been standing on it the whole time.
"Possibly. But that's no concern of yours." Jinx hadn't taken a fighting stance. She just stood there. Distraction overcame her large pink eyes.
"I've been wondering about you," Jinx confessed, taking in the full sight of her opponent. "What the heck are you? Are you a witch? A mage? The hive computer put you down as a telepath but what's with the chanting? I'm an Acolyte-"
"You think I'm really going to tell you anything that would give you an upper hand?" Raven said. Her arms were still out stretched, her magic at the ready.
Jinx squinted one eye as if Raven had said that last thing in Spanish, then realization dawned on her.
"Oooooooooh. You still wanna fight, huh?"
"You villains are losing you're touch," Raven commented dryly. Her arms were getting tired from being held out for so long. Maybe it was part of Jinx's master plan.
"Ok..." Jinx said, dropping her head in defeat, "I give up."
Raven's reply was something like this. "..."
"I'm serious!" Jinx said. She wasn't interested in getting her rear end handed to her again in such a short amount of time. And maybe she was a little distracted by Raven's response to her randomness. It was interesting. The chipper mood was stolen from Jinx then. Another attack from whatever was swimming in her bloodstream overcame her senses. She doubled over and rubbed at her skin frantically. She whimpered, pleading for it to stop. Her heart began to skip beats. The feeling scared the hell out of her. Was it going to just stop any second now? She didn't want to die! It was twice as bad as last time. Her eyes became hyper sensitive and were pained by the swinging light.
"Ah! Ah! Make it stop!" she cried. Raven's eyes narrowed on her prey. Her first thought was to anticipate that this might be a trick. She then recalled seeing her in a similar state in the cage moments ago.
"What's wrong with you?" Raven asked, cautiously coming to stand over her. Still little emotion entered her voice. She was Raven after all.
"Nothing! Nothing!" Jinx said, pushing away. Raven's communicator beeped then.
"Titans!" Robin called.
"What is it Robin?" Raven asked calmly. She watched Jinx in the corner of her eye. The girl seemed to be calming down now. She rested her head against a large cylinder protruding from the wall.
"What isn't "it" would be better question," Robin said grimly.
Starfire sat on the cold street eyes filled with the sincerest sadness she had ever felt. The quiet chaos around her was complemented by dead bodies. Every where. Hanging out of crashed cars, from outdoor dinners, across tables, in the street and on rooftops. The scene was blasphemes and soundless. Everyone she saw, in all directions, was dead.
"It's..." Robin choked as he spoke into his communicator not knowing where or how to describe it. He leaned against a police car. "The entire city...For the past hour everyone we've come across is dead. There's no end to it. No explanation. The bodies are simply...lifeless..."
I know it jumped around alot, but I wanted to take care of all of that in one chapter. It will take much more of Resident Evil 2's plot in the following chapters once the Titan's end up in the police station.