Disclaimer: The Teen Titans aren't mine in any way at all.

Gunsmoke And Black Roses—Chapter Twenty

"What… what did you do… to me?" Sub-Zero groaned, clutching his aching chest, Jinx kneeling down beside him and Flake-Bane standing to his immediate left.

Von Hellwing let out a sinister chuckle. "I did what I set out to do. If I am to have the capacity to conquer… not just this little island, but also the world…" his eerie yellow eyes flashed and glowed like a pair of headlights. "… Then my powers must be augmented."

"Augmented? You stole them!" Jinx hissed angrily. "Give his powers back!"

"Why? The fool doesn't even know how to use them properly." He said calmly.

"I don't understand…" Bane said, shaking his head slowly. "Why Sub-Zero? Why not somebody else?" He demanded. "Anybody here can manipulate ice. Why not just use someone else, instead of going to all this trouble just to lure him here?"

"Why, the answer is simple…" Hellwing laughed. "… You have a blunt, two-foot long sword on your left. You have a sharpened, polished, five foot claymore on your right… which do you choose?"

Bane blinked, confused by the strange comparison. "Uh… the claymore?"

"Exactly! Why content myself with the mediocre abilities of you poor savages when He…" he pointed a crooked claw at Zero, "Outmatches you all!"

"That's not true." Sub-Zero said slowly "The king… King Tundra. He's far more—"

"Oh, that's where you're mistaken." The sorcerer replied. "You underestimate yourself, Sub-Zero… though it's perhaps just your humble nature. No, I'm afraid that you surpassed that old fool long ago… you were just too stupid to realize it."

"But… I never…"

"Did you ever fight the king?"

"No! Of course not, I—"

"I rest my point. Had you fought, you would've triumphed easily. You don't seem to realize the incredible power within you…" he paused with a look of quiet disgust. "I was hoping I'd acquire the long lost water-element as well… but it seems that those abilities are too far gone."

"Water…?" Jinx asked with an arched eyebrow.

"What are you babbling about now?" Bane demanded. "You still haven't explained anything!"

Hellwing glanced at them with an expression of mild interest. "I forgot…" He said softly. "You primitives… so foolish, so uneducated, so ignorant… that you don't even remember your own heritage anymore."

"We've been on this island as long as anyone can remember, for generations." Sub-Zero countered. "That's the only heritage I need."

"I suppose I should do you one last favor before I destroy you… to enlighten you of your lost power."

Hellwing chuckled and cast a blast of black magic in his hands, resulting in a cloud of deep-purple and black smoke… when it cleared, a large, dusty book was in his hands.

"There exists, in this world, a number of different civilizations. Yours… mine… the common herd, the mass of worthless cattle with no abilities whatsoever…" he paused "But one of the most mysterious is one, Atlantis."

"You're pissing me off, wizard." Bane snarled. "What the Hell does that have to do with any of this?" He brandished an icy hatchet threateningly.

Hellwing ignored him. "Eons upon eons ago, this island sunk into the sea, where it has remained since. But before that… when it still thrived in the ancient world as a surface island… this book was written." He held the massive tome up for them to see.

He began flipping through the tattered, yellowed pages. "It depicts Atlantean life, events of the day, famous figures…. But… one of the most interesting is a chapter simply titled, The Banishment."

"Get to the point." Sub-Zero said wearily.

"The Banishment… tells of a small group of Atlanteans that wished to see the outside world… this was very contradictory to their traditions; they generally kept to themselves. One day, they defied these rules… they went on a journey to other parts of the world, and returned a year later bearing news of other peoples, other lands… but the other Atlanteans were angry… very much so. So angry, in fact, that these… rebels, I suppose they were, were banished. Yes, they were quite literally banished to the ends of the Earth… to the very top of it, in fact."

"Wait… what… what are you trying to say?" Jinx asked, beginning to get curious in spite of her anger at this sorcerer.

"These banished ones were sent to live at the top of the world, at an island so cold, so barren, that nothing could survive there… supposedly. The Atlanteans, however, underestimated their rebellious cousins' adaptiveness. They adapted to their new home… very effectively. Their ancestral power over the waters was now useless… however, it was lost and replaced by something more useful: the power over elemental frost."

"No…" Sub-Zero was beginning to get where he was going. "Are you saying… I'm… we're…?"

"The constant frostbite turned these Atlanteans' skins as pale as death, and turned their hair as white as the snow around it. Their eyes became red with the effort needed to see through billowing clouds of snow and hail. And they became so accustomed to this frigid home, that they would have it no other way…"

He looked over at Bane and Zero with a sneer. "You, my friends, are merely a foul offshoot of the ancient Atlanteans. Atlantis still exists today, but even they do not remember so long ago when this banishment took place. It was lost to history… until I stumbled across this book."

"I knew, from that point on, I wished to find this Atlantis… and to find their long-lost relatives… for I have always had the power necessary to absorb the elements as my own, but have never had a proper host to take them from… until now. And now that I have your powers, I simply need to find the other elements… fire and ice are but two. Once all are in my control, I'll be unstoppable! This world will be mine, and the masses will bow to Lord Von Hellwing!"

The chamber shook with the force of his voice, and he shone momentarily with a dark aura, his fangs bared and eyes blazing. Then, abruptly, his fury abated and he stood there silently and calmly, an eerily cold and polite smile on his sinisterly withered face.

Gritting his teeth in rage, Sub-Zero drew his sword with a metallic hiss. "You may have my powers…" he spat. "But you sure as Hell don't have my sword!"

He leapt up in a sudden lunge and dashed straight at Hellwing… who wasn't moving. Raising his blade above his head, he prepared for a horizontal running-slice that would take Hellwing's bald head right off his wrinkled neck.

Unfortunately, Sub-Zero was so enraged at this point that he did not think his attack through. Hellwing waited until Zero was at close range, about to slash him with Eviglasere… and suddenly brought his index finger and middle finger, pressed close together, up against the underside of Zero's neck, effectively knocking the wind out of him and inhibiting his breathing.

Hellwing laughed and gripped Zero by the neck, choking him. Even while being strangled, Zero attempted to fight back by swinging his blade, but every time it was deflected by a red-robed arm. The dark sorcerer growled, and threw him back against the far wall, where he slid off with a groan. Immediately, Bane was at his side trying to help him up.

Jinx, on the other hand, was livid with anger. She screamed and directed a flurry of glowing hexes at the sorcerer. He just smiled knowingly and held out his long fingers, literally catching the hexes in his hands and absorbing them. After about thirty, Jinx began to get tired and stumbled to her knees… the wizard took advantage and redirected all the absorbed hexes back at her, all at once. She was hit dead in the head and sent flying across the room, thumping against the ice-cold wall like a rag doll and dropping off with a small moan.

"You bastard!"

An ice axe flew at Hellwing at high velocity, nearly chopping off one of his horns, but he ducked to the side in time to avoid that. The hatchet flew spun back through the air to it's thrower, Flake-Bane. He let out a roar and charged the villain with both of his frozen hand-axes drawn, intending to chop him apart… however, the withered old man leapt up into the air with a height that would've put Michael Jordan to shame and came back down with his fists onto the ground. Instantly, a shockwave of flames soared forth from the spot he'd landed in, and knocked Bane to the ground instantly, stunned and badly burnt.

Surveying the three beaten heroes with little interest and slight amusement, Hellwing clapped his hands again, signaling for some more Black Riders. Promptly, three of them emerged from the entranceway.

"Take Sub-Zero to the dungeons. Let him wander in those caverns and die slowly from thirst and starvation… oh, and take his sword so he won't be able to stab himself. And the other? Prepare him for execution tomorrow… beheading at dawn. As for the girl… have her… cleaned up. I may have some, ah… use… for her, later."


Sub-Zero awoke a couple hours later in a daze. His first thoughts, once he'd regained his lucidity, immediately drifted to Jinx and Bane.

He sat up with a groan, placing a single hand to his forehead and propping himself up with the other. His vision was swirling a bit, but a moment later, it too subsided… and he found himself in a very familiar place…

… The dungeons. The same icy, dark, dilapidated dungeons that Slade and Brother Blood had holed up in a couple of months ago. And now, it seemed, he was here again.

"Hellwing… this is your doing." Zero muttered crossly.

He got up and waited for his eyes to get used to the darkness, the only light source being the occasional iron torch with dim blue flames.

He passed tunnel after frozen tunnel, passing numerous chambers full rusty prison cells with moth-eaten, tattered mattresses and also a few abandoned torture chambers filled with rusted, broken instruments of pain… most of which were covered with what looked like years-old blood stains. For what seemed to be hours, he wandered aimlessly like this.

He cursed his luck. The last time he was here, the only reason he'd been able to find his way out was thanks to Robin's skilled navigating and his uncanny ability to remember the route he'd come by.

Zero, on the other hand, wasn't quite so blessed. For all his fencing skills and extraordinary strength, he had a dismal sense of direction.

He pressed on, always searching for the exit… for the passage that would lead him back to his home, his friends, and his life… but to no avail. Soon, he found himself in the ancient caverns that were situated below the dungeons, interconnected with them via natural tunnels of snow and ice.

The tired knight, aching from his previous battle and smothered by grief, fell down onto the snowy ground with his back propped up to the frozen wall. He stared dully into the tunnels ahead, wondering if he was condemned to lose his life, and probably his sanity down here… wandering for eternity, long after everything that mattered to him was already gone.

A moment passed… and gradually, his mind began to drift, slowly replaying memories from the past…

And exhausted, he slept.


Sub-Zero was running.

He was running, he couldn't quite place why… but whatever the reason, it was urgent. He could feel it…

He looked around, and saw smoke, and fire, and ash, and rubble… he smelled the stench of a burning building. He dodged a falling piece of burning rafters from the ceiling, and kept his pace.

Then, he remembered. He remembered everything! His friends, those three criminals that had captured them… he fought them off and freed his new amigos from the slime they'd been trapped in. The two criminals, Gizmo and Mammoth, had escaped with an elderly man on a flying platform… but…

One had been left behind. A girl… even if she was the enemy, he couldn't leave her to die. If he just allowed a trapped person to burn slowly, to suffer a long death… he'd be no better than the lawbreakers his new friends fought.

He searched desperately, to limited effect. But after a couple of minutes…

"Ohhh…"

A small moan from the other end of the large shopping mall plaza, now alight with flames, echoed to the young warrior's ears.

He broke into a run and began kicking away pieces of burnt trash, cracked rubble, and broken and scorched debris. Finally, with one last armful of smoldering dust, he unearthed the source of the sound.

Lying there with one hand gripping her leg painfully, eyes closed and hair down from it's usual pigtails, she seemed almost like some kind of fallen angel, plunged unfairly from the heavens to the flames. Her pale gray skin almost reflected the glow of the flickering flames and her slender frame seemed alarmingly fragile.

For a split second, maybe less, her rosy feline eyes fluttered open, and she whimpered something intelligible, gripping her hurt leg with a shaky hand… then, she went limp again, completely unconscious.

Sub-Zero knelt down and checked her pulse… and to his relief, found her to be alive. He grabbed her and ran, cradling her carefully, not wanting to wake the beautiful slumberer.

He heard a small sound… his communicator. Robin was on the other end. They spoke briefly, and The Boy Wonder asked about the third and final foe.

"She… got away." Zero's voice was soft and unsure. There, the conversation was abruptly ended.

And with that, so ended the peace of sleep.


Sub-Zero snapped back awake for the second time that day… memories of the dream (which, in and of itself, had been real memories) fresh in his mind.

He suddenly felt refreshed… invigorated, even.

Getting back up, he continued his search, determined to escape this prison and get his powers back once and for all.

A Couple Of Hours Later…

This place was getting stranger by the minute. So far, Zero remembered passing through the actual old dungeons… then, the subterranean caves… but now, something completely different surrounded him on all sides.

About thirty minutes ago, he'd noticed a strange pattern. Every few feet of ice, there would be a small, deep-sea green brick or a teal-blue brick in the wall. As he walked along, they became more and more numerous. But now, they covered the walls. Bricks, stones, and tiles, all colored in deep blue, tan brown, and sea green…

He felt as though he'd entered some kind of ancient palace. The cracked tile floors and worn walls, complete with collapsing archways and crumbling pillars… it was like something out of a history book, the ruins of some long lost place.

It glimmered slightly, pools of water everywhere, all shining with a surreal blue-green glow. The constant, steady dripping of water off of stalactites into pools of water seemed almost like the ticking of a clock, and water flowed slowly and gracefully through pipes and aqueducts on the walls.

His crimson eyes took the place in curiously. He'd never seen anything like this before…

"What is this… place…?" He mused to himself.

He made his way to the end of the massive chamber and found himself at an ancient altar. All around was ornate, but aged, rectangular pools… the pipes emptied water into them, which drained through what looked like a rusted grating on the floor and drained back into the pipe. They seemed to serve no purpose except decoration.

Many crystals jutted out of the ruined walls, in spiky, shining clusters of emerald, sapphire, onyx, silver… their sheen, combined with the already unearthly glow, almost made the atmosphere of the place unbearable.

He strained his eyes… there, in front of him, was the center of the altar. Upon it was a statue. It was made out of what looked like stone, and was slightly crumbled, but still in surprisingly good shape. It was in the likeness of a woman, robed and winged… an angel, perhaps?

But what really grabbed his attention was… a cup. A goblet, more specifically. The statue held in its stone hand an extravagant golden goblet, encrusted with gems and shaped into a sharp curve.

He walked up and placed a hand on the goblet, and pulled. It was difficult to get out, but once he managed to yank the cup out… something else drifted down from the statue's grasp and dropped onto the old floor.

A book.

Curious, Sub-Zero picked it up and began thumbing through the pages. To his disappointment, many of them were written in strange symbols and pictures. Many had diagrams and illustrations of what looked like… fish.

The last page in the small book… the very last one, before the back cover… was, to his surprise, written in traditional Norblitzian. He was able to make it out, though it was badly blurred and faded.

He read slowly and carefully to himself…

' The knowledge that we thought to seek,

from other lands and foreign soil,

has taken from us the love of kin,

and made the blood of our elders boil.

Banished we are, condemned as the wretch,

To island cold, and mountains deep,

While our hearts are filled with remorse,

Our eyes that in eternity weep.

We shan't give up, we will survive,

We will persevere and live,

Our brothers and sisters were wrong all along,

To them, our enmity we now must give.

We have changed, we are not the same,

We are now one with the frost,

But we have endeavored to preserve powers of old,

No matter how great is the pain and the cost.

Should it ever be needed again,

A hero will surely rise,

To reclaim the powers of old,

And receive kinsmen's glorious cries.'

Simply drink the draught of old,

It's power is eternal.

With it, is given the power to defeat,

The menace of fires infernal.

Sub-Zero wasn't sure what to make of all this… but the phrase, 'menace of fires infernal' was eerily familiar… Hellwing. Did that mean… the power to defeat him was here?

He read the tattered page over again, and noticed the phrase, 'drink the draught'… but what draught? He'd found a cup, but…

In his thoughtful silence, he noticed the sound of flowing water… the aqueducts and pools in the corners and sides of the room.

He looked back and forth from the water to the cup. Could that be what it meant…?

Hesitantly… he looked at the goblet; he strode slowly over to the small pool. With a shaky hand, he placed the cup directly beneath the water spout emptying into the pool… quickly, it filled up.

Taking a deep breath and saying a little prayer (just in case), he murmured "Bottoms up," and swallowed the large goblet full in a single gulp.

As he expected, it was… water. Just water. Admittedly, it was extremely clean, cool, and tasty water… but still, it was merely a glass of water.

Sub-Zero groaned in disappointment… until a sharp pain shot up his gut, and caused him to fall flat on his face, the impact of his chest plate against the worn walkway echoing around these ruins.

Then, as suddenly as it had happened, the pain was gone. Sub-Zero felt hot in the face all of the sudden, probably because of the pain a moment ago.

He reached for the water, intending to splash a bit on himself to cool off… but to his amazement, he didn't even have to touch it.

As though responding to him, the water shot out in a stream and soaked his face, cooling him off. He shook his head and stared comically, not believing what had just happened.

He tested this out again. He stared at the water, and willed with all his might, trying to make it do something… a moment later, a pillar of water foamed upwards. Sub-Zero twisted his hand around in a spinning motion, and the watery column spun around like a typhoon.

Then, the meaning of the strange booklet became clear to him all at once. The ancient outcasts from Atlantis that Hellwing had mentioned briefly… they'd written this, when they first came here. They found themselves changing, adapting… but they didn't want to lose their powers of the sea forever. So, they built this altar and blessed it with the essence of the ocean… the water here was enchanted, and permanently granted one with the ability to manipulate and create water. With this, Hellwing… whose powers stemmed mainly from elemental fire… didn't stand a ghost of a chance.

Smiling, Sub-Zero stood on the altar next to the statue, and willed the water to shoot upwards at high speed. It punched through the cave ceiling for what was probably half a mile, a hole about five feet wide and six feet long. He allowed it to flow back down, and then stood on top and did the same again, riding up the watery geyser like an elevator… up, upwards…. To the castle.

"Hang on Jinx, Flake-Bane… I'm on my way…"

Heheheh... Next Chapter: The Final Showdown with Sub-Zero and Hellwing. I'll try to get it up as soon as possible and maybe update my other AU fic as well.

Read and review!

--Count Le Madphantom...