Ch.21:Lock & Load

This was it, the final day, the day that could end or save the world as we know it. There was no doubt that most people were trying to send there last day happily but they still feared the leaning darkness over them. The Price Corp. building was a disgusting sign of power that made every on looker want to vomit or die. It was built on desire and anger, power crazy maniacs and gutless murderers. The Titans on the other hand could not see Price corp. from the shade of there hideout, the trees saved them the disgust.

"O.k. guys I have panned out the entire scene." said Victor with a small smile on his face.

The entire team along with T-East and HIVE students came straight to his spot on a computer with a large screen showing a map of the city. As they arrived Victor pointed his finger on a large black spot just outside of the city.

"That's us."

"No shit." Speedy interrupted.

"Anyway…there is about a 5 mile distance from our hideout to Price Corp. and I have located a very helpful store in our route."

The Titans gathered around with a look of happiness and confusion on it. Victor pointed his finger to a small red square among the other colored squares, it was the only square red so it was easy to locate.

"This guys is a place called Bobby's Bullets. Its an ammo and arsenal shop with a factory in the back, so in other words, it's a giant gun house with absolutely no people, the owner's will be in hiding like everyone else."

The Titans nodded at the plan and started to pack up, it was already noon and the hike towards the ammo shop would take about an hour.

"Tell me again why we can't fly?" asked Raven with a sigh.

"Because, we don't want to attract attention, we need to go normal, everyone ready?" asked Richard as he put a large back pack over his shoulder.

In front of him were the normal Titans…except for Logan who didn't need to change, the HIVE students in normal clothes, and the Titans East were in normal clothes as well; except for Speedy who had a hood over his mask.

"Come on Speedy I always wanted to see you without a mask." smiled Bumble Bee as she socked him lightly on the shoulder.

"Wanting is a lot different than having you should learn the difference." Speedy retorted with a snort.

The Titans giggled at the small joke but headed out of the hideout. Richard began to hike up a hill but was stopped by a whistle.

"Yo! Boy Blunder, turn your stupid ass around."

Richard turned around and saw his teammates inside the T-Car, the HIVE inside of a large dark green van along with the Titans East, all of them were staring at him with a smile on there faces.

"But…I….what…I mean…how….aww forget it lets just get to this fucking store."

Richard hoped into the backseat next to Starfire and Raven and Logan took shotgun with Victor as driver.

"When will you ever let me drive." sighed Logan.

"Tell ya what…I'll let you drive as soon as you can pick me up." smiled Victor.

"Whatever, you watch I will do it someday."

"Someday is a long ways a way buddy"

Logan sank his head down past his shoulders and Victor started a loud laugh.

"Are you sure it's safe to leave Sarah here alone?" asked Kori.

"Yea…I don't want her to become injured she means the world to me."

The Titans nodded but then there was a banging on the door. They opened it and Sarah stood out there with a smile on her face.

"There is no way I am going to miss this."

"Sarah…I don't want you to be in any danger."

"Vic, when have I ever faced some evil that I couldn't face with you at my side?"

"This is different, this guy is more than evil, he's damn near demon and I don't want to make that choice of your life."

"I'm coming Victor and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me."

Sarah closed the door and walked to the HIVE/EAST van and hoped in.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Victor mumbled as he started up the T-car and began to drive off.

"Remember this Vic…when it's you and her nothing else matters. You said it yourself that day, till death do you part. If she dies then it's your job to be along side her. You fight until there is nothing else left in you…or her." Logan whispered softly to his best friend.

Victor began to hand his head low and a small tear fell from his almost real eye. His foot slammed onto the peddle and began to drive off into the dark sunlight. The drive over to the gun shop was empty and barely noticed. No one spoke; all they did was look at each other hoping that the worst would not happen.

"Were superheroes damn it, were suppose to be on the positive side!" yelled Victor out of the blue with tears in his eyes.

"That's true, but were still human, even Starfire. A part of us no it's not to be upset but its instincts, and if we don't feel our sadness and let it out. Then how much will we be different than Price, a man built on revenge, madness, and anger. Were human and that's final, and I don't see a badge telling us to be positive and true. Now I think you need to calm down Victor before you do something stupid. Pull your head out of your ass and put it into the real world." yelled Logan as he socked Victor in the face.

"I…I…I'm sorry."

"Its o.k., were all a little worried and you have a lot to worry about as well, Sarah is not a Titan she doesn't have the skill to protect herself like we do." Raven added with a small smile on her face.

Victor nodded and wiped his eyes then focused on the navigator system; they were arriving at the store very soon. The Titans saw the large tan colored building up ahead it had to be 2 stories high and it was a large length to. The front door had a deep oak brown coloring and above it was a sign with bullet holes in it with the words Bobby's Bullets painted in a black coloring.

"Park it up Titans we need to be hidden from the watchful eye of the tower." Nightwing whispered into there communicators.

The HIVE/EAST van drove around to the back of the store while the T-car parked to the sides next to an olive green side door. The large group of heroes huddled together at the front of the door. They pushed on it and found the door to be locked, not by a lock itself but chains on the other side. The group could hear them rattling whenever they pushed.

"We don't want to break the door down, let's check the side door." Nightwing said smoothly as he ran around to the other side.

The olive green side door was open, but it took a little force to get the door out from the floor, it seemed no one had ever opened the side door, or didn't care to open it. The super group began to walk into the dusty, dark and filthy side room of the store. It smelt like rotting wood, gunpowder, and a dark almost hidden sense of death. Starfire raised a hand into the air and the room was lit with a dim but wondrous neon green light. The room looked like a small closet; it had a vacuum cleaner, coat hangers, and a washing machine, everything you would find in a normal house hold. Aqua lad walked toward the door and entered the front room, but one foot into the room and he slipped on a wet substance and fell onto the back of his head with a loud crack. The water bender slowly got up and held his head tight, he felt a slow drain of liquid pouring from it and with a loud moan he realized he had cracked the back of his head. He walked over to a cabinet and started to search for gauze to rap around his aching head. He was joined by Jinx, Raven, Starfire, and Bumble Bee.

"Thanks…" he said with a small smile on his face.

"What did you trip on?" asked Mammoth as he walked into the room but saw nothing on the floor; the tiles were blood red, to thick to be from any living person.

"Uhh…Big guy I don't think that's tile coloring" Gizmo said with wide eyes.

The team walked into the room and they were hit with a stronger smell of rotten meat and death, the main room was blood red tiles but half of it was a telex tile. Logan looked at the furniture and saw speckles of red substance as well. There were various desks and glass compartments with very few items inside but then again most of the glass was on the floor. That's when he saw a large trail of the liquid like a body had been dragged across the floor. The trail stopped right there near a small door probably to a closet or storage compartment. Logan looked up and was hit with a drop of blood on the face between the eyes. He whipped the blood away and saw it, it was the body of a young man, couldn't have been 19 probably not of legal age either. His face had no flesh it looked like it had been torn off. His eyes were a deep brown but there were hanging out of his sockets. His body had been shot there was no doubt about it; probably by a shotgun because of a large hole in his stomach. But then Logan had a thought, if he had no stomach then what was holding him up? Logan called Cyborg, Nightwing, Speedy, and Gizmo, Mammoth, and Aqua la and pointed up.

"Oh….Jesus titty fucking Christ what happened?" yelled Cyborg as he looked away from the scene.

"I have no clue, but we need to get him down." Logan said coldly as he kept staring at the body.

Nightwing pulled out a bird-a-rang and started to rock climb up the wall, sticking the bird-a-rank into the wall and pulling himself up. Nightwing reached the room and stood atop the little metal weapon praying it would hold him. Nightwing looked at the body and felt like vomiting, it smelled like it was decaying every second, and Nightwing could not stand it. He pulled on the bodies shoulder and saw a pink rope like object covered in blood as well. The rope seemed to be rapped around the large hole in the body but that's when the answer hit Nightwing like a bitch slap with a brick.

"He's hanging on his own intestines!" he cried to the now looking like a crowd bellow.

"That's nice to know why don't I just go get a hotdog and listen to this awesome story some more!" Speedy called back.

"You know I could drop this on you." Nightwing said coldly but loud enough for Speedy to hear it.

"Hey I aint complaining whose complaining; I think it might be that green guy over there I never trusted him always seemed like a complainer to me."

"SHUT UP SPEEDY!" yelled the group with intense anger.

"I was just saying."

Nightwing shook his head with a chuckle then began to untie the boy's body parts from the ceiling and lower it down to the floor. Cyborg picked it up and took it out back were he dug a hole in a small patch of land just south of the gun shop and buried the kid without another word.

"O.k. guys, now that we took care of that we have another question to answer." Cyborg said with no emotion.

"Whats that?" asked Aqua lad with a small frown.

"Who or what killed that kid?"

There was a long silence and everybody looked towards the back at a couple of close sided doors and a small staircase leading up to one door, probably to a bed room. They looked at each other and then pulled out there respected weapons. Nightwing and Logan took the front lines. They slowly crept up the stairs towards the main door. Cyborg, Speedy, and Raven went to the doors and put one hand on the doorknobs. Nightwing slowly counted to 3 in his mind and then yelled out,

"NOW!"

The Titans ripped open the door, Cyborg had ended up in a bathroom were there was nothing but a toilet, sink and a small poster of a playboy girl with no top on. He didn't see anything suspicious but he took a quick double take of the inspection just incase there was any booby-trap. Speedy ended up a storage area with a small stack of boxes he checked behind them and only saw dust and cob webs. Raven on the other hand ended up in a large area, like a second building she had to go into the basement to get the full view of it all. It was a large well lit silver wall and floored room that stretched on for 2 minutes. There were large steel contraptions carrying boxes and some of them had guns sitting on the table, bullets were everywhere, none of them were used but they were in collections, but there were also boxes with clips and caliber wraps hanging out of it. She did not want to check the entire room without someone with her so she went back to the first floor. Upstairs the team was inside of a bedroom. There were two beds one was made and clean the other was messed up and in pieces. There was a large TV in front at the top between the two beds. There was a nightstand on each side and a large desk in front of the room next to a closet door.

"There's nobody here…that boy couldn't have done it to himself." Nightwing said frustrated.

"No he didn't…look." whispered Logan to his ear.

Logan pointed to the left side bed and Nightwing saw nothing. He walked up to it and stepped in something wet, he bent down and smelt the fresh blood pouring from under the bed. There was a body under they he knew it but didn't want to see it. He had to though; he grabbed the side of the bed railing and hesitated for a moment.

"Dude…don't do it, we don't want to see that, not now. Let's just leave it." Victor said with a sigh.

Nightwing sighed and let loose the bed. He knew they didn't want to see anything like that…not again. The pictures from the first body were still fresh in there minds.

"O.k. so did anyone find the gun shelter?" asked Nightwing.

"I did, it's the last door to the right, theres a stair well leading to a large underground facility, there is ammo and artillery below I'm sure of it." Raven said softly.

"Thanks computer, lets get going." laughed Speedy as he headed down the stairs.

"He's been acting really weird lately." whispered Raven to Nightwing and Logan.

"He's just a little nervous, don't mind him, he isn't dumb enough to work for Price." Nightwing said with a smile.

The entire team headed down to the last right door. They entered the room and saw the vast amounts of weapons and artillery. They all started to run around like kids in a candy store, gathering up there favorite weapons. There was a crash from behind them and they all turned around to see Gizmo holding a shotgun, he cocked it and smiled.

"Boys, and Girls, lock and load, because its game time!"