Disclaimer: I haven't got so much as a sliver of ownership of the Teen Titans, and as much as I'm sure they'd enjoy it, none of the blood-sucking lawyers are going to be able to get me anytime soon… So there.
Gunsmoke and Black Roses—Chapter Seventeen
"Man, This place… is a wreck…" Robin commented, stepping over a pile of charred bricks.
As soon as Smoke had said there might be a chance that the railway was still intact, The Titans had rushed to the base…
… Or what little was left of it.
All the place was now… was an empty, scorched ruin filled with busted machinery, a mess of debris, and the occasional empty barrel or crate. The walls, blackened with soot and burnt-marks, seemed almost to close in on them as they walked. Some of them tilted and leaned at strange angles, knocked around by the bomb blast Smoke had set off.
Smoke led the way, being the most familiar with these surroundings… but even he wasn't sure where was where. Everything was in ruins now, and it was hard to navigate.
Smoke glanced at a hallway ahead of them. A sign on a nearby wall had a floor number and an arrow… or it should have, but it was so badly burnt up and smashed that it was utterly unreadable. Still though, Smoke recognized the hallway almost immediately.
"Guys! Elevator's this way…" he motioned for them to follow and set off down the dark passageway. "I doubt it still works, but… even if it doesn't, there's some stairs nearby we can use."
He strained his eyes to see in the pitch-blackness, but to limited effect. He didn't want to be walking around blind in this place…
"Uh… Hey, Cy… how about a light?" He asked.
"Gotcha covered." Cy said with a nod, deploying his shoulder-mounted spotlight.
Instantly, bright, white light flooded the cramped hallway and illuminated it in its entirety.
"Thanks…"
They continued on through the corridor, passing several rooms… all of which were barren and empty, although one of them did have what looked like the ashen remains of a desk, and one still had a sink mounted into the wall… but the facet was snapped off, and ash drifted little-by-little out of it's stump.
"This place gives me the creeps…" Terra mumbled, looking around uncomfortably. She relaxed a bit though, when Beast Boy gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.
"It's not that bad…" He said. "… Be glad you weren't there when we watched that Wicked Scary movie that time…"
"Man, don't even bring that up!" Cy growled. "… This is NOT the place to be reliving that again…"
"How could a movie be that bad…?" Terra asked skeptically.
Starfire shuddered, and motioned towards Raven.
"Ask her." Beast Boy said flatly, but he gulped and ducked behind Terra when the sorceress in question gave him a slightly irked glare.
"It wasn't much better before I blew it up." Smoke said indifferently. "… The only thing different now is that it's got less furniture, more junk, and a few less bastards layin' around."
Starfire watched Smoke's back with a troubled expression. Ever since they'd come back here, Smoke had been… slightly different. He'd not been talking as much as he normally did, and his expression was in the same melancholy look he'd had for a while now.
'This place…' She remembered, '… it holds so many memories for him. Terrible memories… he must hate being here now, after he thought he'd never have to see this place again.'
"… Crap!" A muffled grunt came from the end of the hallway, where Smoke was.
He was pushing the call-elevator button frantically, but to no avail. The small, cracked button flashed feebly a couple moments before fading back again… nothing happened.
"It's busted." He groaned. "… Must've happened in the bomb blast."
With an annoyed snarl, he brought his fists down on the elevator doors so hard, that they smashed inwards with an ear-splitting, metallic screech and tumbled noisily down the dilapidated elevator shaft.
"I guess we take the stairs…" Robin sighed. "… Where are they?"
Smoke pointed to a corner of the small lobby they were in, motioning to an opening in the wall that used to be a doorframe. "There."
They made their way over and walked into a tall, but cramped, staircase. Cyborg looked down the center of the staircase, through what seemed like several hundred flights of steps…
Robin started to walk down, but Smoke abruptly stopped him. "Wait a minute… I'll go first." He noticed a surprised look from Robin.
"If anything happens down there… I want it to happen to me first." Smoke explained.
"… If anything happens?" Beast Boy echoed.
"Look, I know that sounds stupid… but…" Smoke seemed to be struggling for an explanation. "… I just have a bad feeling about this, so… humor me for a while, okay?"
They all nodded, and followed the gunman down the staircase…
The old metal stairs creaked and groaned and made eerie snapping or popping noises as they tread on it. This, combined with the tap of Smoke's cowboy boots and the way the noises echoed and reverberated all around the cramped stairwell… made it extremely unnerving
"Smoke… how much farther do you think these stairs descend?" Star asked uncertainly. She, like Terra, was beginning to get a tad freaked out by this place.
"S'not much farther…" Smoke said. "Don't worry."
They continued downward for a couple more minutes, there were only about a dozen more flights of stairs to go down before they reached the basement levels.
"Smoke… do you remember where the entrance to this railway is?" Robin asked. "I mean, once we get down there, do you think you can find it?"
Smoke sighed. "Well… I mean…" He seemed uncertain. "Well, I don't really remember exactly how to find it, but… I'll remember it if I see it. I'm positive."
Robin started to ask something else, but a loud groaning of metal under pressure interrupted him. They looked around, trying to figure out what was happening… until; part of the metal stairs suddenly gave way below Cyborg.
"Aaaargh!"
"CY!"
He fell down into the black below them, spiraling downwards… until something grabbed his arm.
It was a large green anaconda that had itself wrapped around Cy's arm. It was Beast Boy, but he couldn't hold Cyborg's weight for very long.
Thankfully, he didn't have to because Star flew downwards and took Cyborg from him, carrying Cy back up to the others. Beast Boy slithered back up a moment later, and changed back into his normal form.
"Cy! Are you alright?" Robin asked worriedly.
"Y-yeah… I'm fine." He said. "Thanks to B.B. and Star."
Smoke looked warily at the steps they had left. "I hope no more of them do that…" He groaned. "But… in case they do, Star and B.B. be ready, okay?"
"Right." Beast Boy nodded.
"Understood." Added Star.
"Good… now, let's hurry before anything else goes wrong…"
After much nervous walking, they finally reached the bottom of the base, where Smoke said the entrance was.
"It's hidden somewhere down here…" Smoke muttered. "I remember…"
"Hidden?" Beast Boy demanded. "You've got to be kidding… we'll never find it down here! This place is huge!"
"I'll know it when I see it." Smoke assured. "Trust me…"
"Should we split up…?" Terra asked.
"Well… we could do more searching faster that way." Robin thought. He turned to Smoke. "What do you think?"
Smoke shifted uncomfortably, reaching downwards and grasping the handle of his revolver. "I… I don't think that's a good idea." He said softly. "I mean, I see what you're saying, but…"
Smoke tried to think how to best voice his concerns without sounding paranoid.
"Look… It's just that… Myntull's damn smart. And he's getting smarter by the minute. Now, I'm probably wrong, and this is probably nothing, but…" Smoke's gaze hardened somewhat. "How do we know he's not expecting us? How do we know that this isn't just some kind of trap with Blackfire as the bait?"
Robin nodded in understanding, and opened his mouth to answer… but it was not his voice they heard next.
"Very observant of you, prototype."
A mortifyingly familiar, mechanical-sounding voice echoed loudly throughout the burnt-out walls and ashen floors of the ruins. Smoke instantly recoiled as if he'd been struck. With eyes of disbelief, he looked over to a nearby speaker on the wall. Despite it's delapitdated appearance... it, apparently, was still in working order.
"… You…"
"Correct. I am me. Who else would I be? First, you act intelligently, and then you go right back to mental mediocrity… I should've known it wouldn't last."
Muttering darkly and reaching for his shotgun, Smoke started to reply… but Starfire spoke first.
"Where is my sister?" The Tamaranean demanded, eyes crackling furiously with emerald power.
"All in good time… after all, where would the challenge be if I were to just hand her over to you?"
"How's this for a challenge?" Smoke barked. "You give me back Blackfire, or else I start blowing holes in that giant bucket you call a body!" With a metal snapping sound, Smoke inserted some shells into the barrels of his shotgun, cocking the gun and getting ready to fire.
"Mmm… Now you see, THIS is exactly why I proposed we work with robotic subjects in the first place. None of these silly temper-tantrums like you find in organic beings." Myntull's voice echoed around. "… Unfortunately, my colleagues insisted upon creating an organic, flesh-and-bone prototype. They never understood that even that couldn't give a weapon a soul. A pity."
The words 'weapon' and 'soul' seemed to have a particularly painful effect on the gunner; he flinched as he heard them.
"If you really do want the girl back, it's a simple matter." He continued, "All you need do is find her, and you can have her. Assuming you can survive that long, of course. But I digress; you should hurry… after all, time waits for no one. And if you don't find her quickly, then I really do fear for your darling little alien bi—"
BLAM!
Thenearby loudspeaker erupted into sparks and flames, torn apart by a point blank shotgun blast.
Smoke, breathing heavily, emptied the shells and popped some fresh one's in. Holstering the gun, he fell to his knees abruptly, a loud 'thump' echoing around the barren room.
"Guys… we have to hurry. If he hurts her, I…" Smoke couldn't seem to finish his sentence, but his meaning was clear anyway, for two reasons. One, anybody could've understood that he still blamed himself somewhat for all this, and two…
… It looked like he was crying.
Everybody stared, not quite believing what they were looking at. But sure enough, every couple seconds, a small dripping sound was barely audible as a teardrop hit the tarnished metal flooring below.
Smoke abruptly felt a light touch on his right shoulder. Sighing, he looked up… it was Raven.
"Smoke… you've got to pull yourself together. We'll never find that secret entrance with you like this…" She said, helping him to his feet. "… and if we can't do that, we can't get to Blackfire."
He shook his head a bit, trying to regain his composure. Finally, he took a deep breath and nodded. "I… I'm sorry. I'm being weak again. If I…"
"You're not being weak." Raven interrupted him. "You're worried, and maybe a little scared. But that's what proves Myntull wrong. If you were the soulless thing he said you were, you wouldn't be feeling like this."
"She's right." Robin added. "So don't let what he said get to you."
"Yeah, you're ten times more human than he'll ever be!" Cy agreed.
"Th-thanks… guys." Smoke said with a faint grin. "But… we should hurry. I know that entrance is here somewhere… somewhere near."
The first thing Blackfire noticed when she began regaining consciousness was that she couldn't move.
Her eye's fluttered open, and she moaned softly as they began to get used to the light again. Once her vision stopped swirling and blurring, she managed to get a better look at where she was.
She was lying on a metal operating table, strapped down by what seemed to be thick metal bands. She grunted and strained, trying to break free, but to no avail. Whatever these were made of, they weren't going to break.
Getting an idea, she smirked and began charging up a blackbeam from her eyes, and prepared to blast her way out. Her eyes flashed a purplish color, emitting the sound of sizzling energy. A moment later, a dark violet beam erupted forth from her eyes, heading straight for the metal bonds on her arms.
The blast hit dead on, and should have blown the thick straps to pieces, but… they just seemed to soak up the beam. She continued blasting, focusing more energy into her shots, but the bands just absorbed it, not even scorching.
She stopped, and stared in puzzlement…
… And then, pain like she'd never felt before erupted throughout her body.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
She quivered and squirmed on the table, shrieking at the top of her lungs. She felt as if she'd just been engulfed by hot flames.
The awful pain subsided a few moments later, leaving her to pant and moan there, still trembling violently.
"It's no use, I'm afraid." A slightly wheezing voice from the other side of the room, "Those restriction bands were specially built by yours truly."
Blackfire managed to crack her eyes open and look towards the source of the voice.
The small, dingy chamber she was in was visible through a small, square window. There, behind the window, was the creature she last wanted to see.
"… You! Myntull!"
The huge mechanical psychopath's brain bubbled and frothed slightly, as if quite pleased with itself.
"Yes… but enough about myself, tell me: how do you like my reflector bonds? Quite ingenious, really. They simply take in whatever energy thrown at them… whether it be the force of a blow, electric shocks, lasers, or in your case, alien energy bolts… and charge it up. Then, it is applied double-fold to the subject in question."
She stared. He meant that it zapped her with her own blasts? How could that be?
"It's not worth the trouble to try and escape. If I were you, I'd just take myself a nap… after all, patience is a virtue."
Blackfire snapped out of her shocked state, and burst out angrily. "You wait 'till the others get here! They'll take your ass apart so badly, you'll wish you'd never heard of them!" She screamed, eyes glowing fiercely.
"No, girl. Your friends will die long before they even arrive here, much less find you." He rumbled electronically. "But don't get discouraged…. You won't be far behind."
With that, Myntull's long, whip-like tail slithered up from behind it's back and began tapping buttons on a broad control panel in front of him.
Almost instantly, the lights in the tiny chamber dimmed, and the table Blackfire was strapped to began leaning back so that she was lying flat on her back. She struggled, but to no effect.
With a loud clanging sound, the roof of the room swung open like a horizontal pair of doors. A moment later, a long metal tentacle shot out like a snake, quickly joined by another like it.
They flailed around for a moment, then slithered down to her and brushed against her face, causing her to shudder slightly at the cold, hard, metallic texture.
Suddenly, there was a sound like someone had flipped out a switchblade knife. Tensing up, Blackfire prepared for pain… but none was felt. She looked at the mechanized tentacles, and gasped.
They had flipped open at their ends, as if on hinges. From the openings were long, sharpened needles.
Stretching out, the pair of appendages pointed the needles at either side of Blackfire's neck, only inches away from her skin. They froze, remaining in this position.
"My dear, you should be honored. You are to be the very first test subject for one of the deadliest concoctions mankind has ever seen."
He folded his arms, or at least the Gatling gun and buzz saw that served as arms, across his metal chest. "The needles you see before you contain an advanced mixture consisting mainly of liquid Cyanide that has been filled with tiny pellets of Ricin. This makes it one of the deadliest poisons in existence."
Myntull's left wing unfurled and used its clawed tip to flip a nearby switch on the wall. Blackfire yelped and closed her eyes, thinking the needles were about to be plunged into her neck…
Instead, part of the wall at the opposite end of the room from Myntull sunk into the floor, revealing a concealed opening… a large monitor screen on treads rolled out, and stopped itself once it was in the little room.
It's screen crackled and filled with static a couple times, before it let off a shower of sparks and blinked to life with the displayed image, "12:00".
"The prototype has 12 hours. No more, no less. If he defeats my troops and traps and manages to find you, then you're free to go. If he does not, however, you will die. Your fate is in his hands…" He paused. "… In other words, you are quite doomed. Cheerio!"
And with that, he turned a dial on the control panel and sunk down into the floor on a lowering platform, leaving behind a very nervous alien girl.
That's the end of that particular chapter. I was going to write a bit more, but I realized this was beginning to get rather long, and besides… this makes for a good cliffhanger. The Next couple chapters have a big shock in store for not just Smoke and the Titans, but Myntull, too. Let's just say that Smoke is going to be granted a new ability, one that'll really let him light things up.
Remember: A review a day keeps the Myntull away. And gets the next chapter up sooner, probably.
Oh yes, before I forget, I wanted to thank everyone again for all the reviews and support I've gotten thus far.
Later
--The Mad Phantom…
