The Feeling of Death.
TOWER STATUS…
CHECKING…
Primary and auxiliary power disabled.
Minor structural damage in sleeping quarters…
TOWER INHABITANTS…
18 foreign bodies detected… scanning…
(5) Titans operational.
"Eighteen mercs. Dude, we have a massive battle ahead of us."
It had been thirteen minutes since the brutal attack on Starfire, and currently all the superheroes were crowded in her room. Cyborg was the one who had spoken as he scanned the Tower for any discrepancies.
He found plenty.
"The power is out, along with the generator. They must've disabled it."
Robin brooded. He was deep in thought, and his brows were furrowed in heavy concentration. He was attempting to formulate a plan, to beat the mercenaries at their own game.
"How long until daylight?"
"Four hours and thirty-seven minutes."
Robin sighed and walked to the door of Starfire's room, peering cautiously out once he arrived. He saw nothing.
"Each of us has fought at least one of the mercenaries. We can defeat them, but we have to do it quickly before they establish a strong foothold in the tower."
"Robin man, there's something else you should know."
Robin whirled to face the Metal Teenager.
"The alarm system. The only way to disable it is via the main control room. It's not working anymore, so that means someone must've accessed the main controls."
Robin seemed indifferent. So what?
"But that's not all. I ran a biorhythmic scan of the room, and it showed one figure entering, his heart-rate normal and blood pressure average, but a few moments later another figure entered, this one was extremely stressed and nervous, as indicated by the wireless heart monitor. A few moments after that, only one figure exits the room. So unless that guy had a heart attack…" He left the remaining statement up to each Titan's imaginations.
"There's someone else involved. We have to find out whom, he might be able to help us. Beast-Boy! Find a way to the control room and examine the tapes that monitor the room itself. Figure out what the Hell happened, then get back here ASAP. The rest of us will wait here. You're the only one who can do this, so don't fail it!"
Beast-Boy nodded, before saluting gallantly and winking at Raven as he morphed into a fly and buzzed away.
Raven just groaned and rolled her eyes.
After passing by two towering soldiers who were slowly making their way towards the sleeping quarters, Beast-Boy reached the control room and morphed back to his normal self.
He saw a dead mercenary lying in the corridor just outside the door with his head twisted at an unnatural angle.
He entered the room and was stunned by the amount of flickering lights and shiny screens populated this seemingly insignificant part of his house. He crept to a large black cabinet that held only five TV screens, the ones that were on constant 24 hour surveillance. They recorded everything they saw, so it was only a simple matter to access the archives of twenty minutes previous and examine what exactly happened.
He saw a small but well-built man dressed in a black sleeveless gi and wielding a machete, of all things. He saw him enter and fiddle with the controls, his head swinging upwards every so often to watch what the cameras saw.
Beast-Boy sat, mesmerized by the flickering blue screen as the black, ninja-like figure whirled around and began fighting with the other mercenary that had entered. He disposed of him relatively quickly, and turned to face the exterior camera's corresponding TV screens.
Beast-Boy wasn't sure, but it seemed to him that this character was quite shocked at what he had witnessed.
After a few more moments, the figure exited the room, and that was the end of it.
Beast-Boy pressed the 'stop' button on the DVD player and briskly exited the room.
The group titled 'Triple J' reached their objective without a fuss. In fact, no sound was heard ever since they had secured the living room.
They found a door labeled 'Stairs', and the leader grunted an order for one of his partners to go down the stairs, and the other to go up.
They obeyed, and the leader began to secure the immediate area on his floor.
Twelve minutes later, the soldier who was sent upstairs returned casually. He saw no threat, and deemed the area safe. Another three minutes after that, the soldier who explored downstairs climbed back up, his area too was safe.
"Eastern stairwell secure, chief."
His earpiece blared to life.
"Good. Make sure it stays that way."
"No problem."
Five metres away, in the shadow that enveloped the whole tower, Delta team one crouched motionless, their guns trained on the chest and head of the three individuals. Their night vision goggles enabled them to see where others could not, and right now they were seeing three poorly trained ex-soldiers attempting to secure a vital choke point.
It was sheer dumb luck really, when Jamison decided to flick on his night vision goggles, "just for the Hell of it." He saw two men aiming their weapons at them, but instead of even raising his gun to aim back, he simply nudged his partner and jerked his head to the SEAL members nonchalantly.
"Hey. Do you think they know we're on their side?"
Jones raised an eyebrow and turned on his goggles also. Lucky, yet at the same time unlucky, Jones had a slightly higher IQ then Jamison, and he knew a threat when he saw one.
"Our position has been compromised, hostiles hesitant in opening fire. Awaiting instructions."
…
"Open fire. I repeat, open fire."
They squeezed the trigger on their guns, and a torrential volley of bullets emerged from the barrel and slammed into the three shocked mercenaries. Jones and Jamison raised their weapons and fired back; seemingly oblivious to the amount of damage their bodies had taken. The barrel of their weapons erupted as bullets snaked their way towards the SEAL members.
Their aim was pathetic, but three bullets managed to embed themselves in SEAL three's Kevlar vest. They kept firing back, but the bullets kept coming, until finally Jones collapsed on the ground, followed by Jamison as the bullets pushed him further back, causing him to loose his foothold and trip down the stairwell.
Jackson took a few more hits, but eventually even he succumbed to the deadly rain of metal projectiles and he slumped to the floor, his knees no longer strong enough to support his massive frame.
The SEAL members ceased firing and checked their rounds. They calculated that, at a 93 accuracy rate, each member required roughly seventeen rounds to be taken down, all in the chest.
They released their weapons and spoke into the microphone once again.
"Three more hostiles eliminated."
Seventeen down, eight to go…
Crow roared in hatred and flung his earpiece at the wall, shattering it into a thousand useless pieces. All his plans were going to Hell, but he toyed with the fact that he could easily take everyone else with him…
"Bart! Get the remaining men and tell them to move out. We can't stay here any longer, because those freaks will find us."
Bart nodded and rounded up the rest of the motley crew.
"Sir? What's going on here?"
Crow sighed. "We lost Triple J and Blaze, Walker and Greaves. Haven't heard from Triple M yet, so I have to assume the worst. We need to get out of here. Out of the whole Tower, so we can detonate the charges remotely from a safe distance."
The rest of the crew nodded in unison, not even sparing a thought that perhaps Triple M was still alive. They were all too eager to leave this house of horrors.
Triple M were in fact, still alive and well, and they had just secured the stairwell. They set up a defensive perimeter and flicked on their night vision goggles. No-one was going to sneak up on these three.
"Marks to Crow. Come in Crow. I repeat, come in Crow!"
Marks repeated with slightly more urgency in his voice.
"Marks! This is Bart, Crow is…unable to reply. Evacuate the building now. I repeat, evacuate Titans' Tower now! Contingency plan is in effect, you have precisely thirty-one minutes until eradication, so evacuate!"
Marks' eyes widened in horror. Everything they had planned, it was all over. They were defeated by a group of kids.
"Roger that, Triple M moving out."
Marks switched off his microphone and gestured for the others to follow. They gazed at him in slight bewilderment, as if to say "We are disobeying a direct order by abandoning our post."
Marks didn't care what they thought.
They shuffled off in silence, still wielding their combat knives.
"Found anything?"
"Negative sir. Nothing yet."
For the past five minutes since the deactivation of power in the Tower, The two SEAL members had been examining every square inch of the basement, looking for anything out of place.
"Sir I think I found something!"
Fischer waltzed casually to SEAL six's position, his gaze following six's finger as it pointed to three coffee coloured satchel charges.
"Commencing defuse now sir."
Fischer raised an arm to signal for six to stop.
"Negative soldier. I have another plan for these."
"But sir, these are not timed, they are remotely detonated. They could push the button any second-."
Fischer raised his arm again and spoke into his microphone.
"Team one, what is the progress of the mercenaries?"
There was a brief silence, followed by a distorted whisper on the other end.
"They are evacuating the tower. Repeat, the mercenaries are leaving the premises."
Fischer smiled coldly beneath his Kevlar mask. "Excellent."
Beast-Boy arrived at Starfire's room and began to relay the information he had stored in his mind in regards to what he saw.
"Did you bring the DVD with you?" Cyborg pressed.
Beast-Boy moaned. "Dammit! I knew I forgot something!"
Cyborg slapped him on the back of the head.
"So now we have someone else involved, someone whom we do not know whether he is a friend or foe."
Robin was more thinking aloud then voicing an opinion. He fell silent, formulating a plan beneath his masked eyes. After a few more moments' contemplation, Robin gazed up and met the eyes of each of his team-mates.
"We split up. Get ready, and we go in our separate directions."
"Robin dude, are you sure that's a good idea?"
At that moment Robin snapped. "OF COURSE NOT! But what other option do we have? If we stick together in these corridors we'll get in each other's way! Now hurry up and do as I say if you want to live through tonight!"
Cyoborg fell quiet and the rest of the Titans simply stared.
"You heard him." Beast-Boy began, shattering the uncomfortable silence. "Let's split up and take those mercenaries down. Divide and Conquer, right Robin?"
Despite himself, Robin managed a small smile. "Exactly."
Detonation in... (27) minutes (34) seconds…
The Panther was doing what he did second-best: Hiding. His best skill was of course killing, something which he intended to do very shortly.
He was eyeing a trio of deadly mercenaries as they made their way to the ex-filtration point. He was summing them up, analyzing the way they moved and walked, and he surmised that one of them, the leader, had had ninjitsu training.
He was going to be a tough fight, not to mention the other two that flanked him.
The Panther slid a hand into his black belt and withdrew three shurikens. They were small and slightly circular, with blades protruding from the base and mimicking a star shape, hence their preferred name; ninja-stars. If he was lucky, he would be able to kill the two and injure the other, if he wasn't then he was up for a very hard fight.
He slowed his breathing almost to the point of it being non-existent. He held the shurikens between his fingers, which were clenched to form a fist. They protruded from just below his knuckles, and he held them up to his face as he closed his eyes.
His heart rate slowed tremendously, and he was utilizing all his ninja training to full effect so as to prepare himself for the intense battle ahead.
Blink, moisten your eyes.
Slow your heart, slow your breathing, conserve your energy.
Sense your target from beyond your eyes.
Feel him…
He could feel power welling up from beneath him, and he opened his eyes.
In one swift motion, he flicked his arm around his body and released the twirling blades.
They screamed in the air as they reached unmatched velocities, before slamming into the back of the skull of both soldiers.
The leader of the group was much too skillful.
He twirled around and struck the shuriken with his knife, flinging it off course and causing it to embed itself in the wall.
"Come out come out you little Cocksucker."
The Panther didn't reply. Anger gets you nowhere.
"I said come out!" Marks spat, obviously in rage.
The Panther emerged from the shadows, his blade in one arm, a combat knife that he had pilfered from a corpse in the other.
"Whatever you say."
The Panther lunged, determined to catch the mercenary off-balance.
That was not the case.
Marks deftly dodged the attack and took hold of The Panther's arm tightly, before bringing his fist around and striking him in the kidney.
It all happened so fast, The Panther barely had enough time bring his other arm from behind and block another attack from Marks. He lifted his leg and pushed the mercenary away from himself, regaining his balance and composure as he did so.
"Finally met your match, have you?"
The Panther didn't bother replying, instead opting to edge closer to his prey.
"I bet you didn't expect me to match your skills."
Still drawing closer.
There.
The Panther loosened his grip on his knife and flung it at Marks, who anticipated the movement and jumped out of the way, right into The Panther's fist. Marks stumbled back, only to receive a devastating kick in his chest, winding him and sending him back even further.
"You may have the Ninja fighting style, but you have failed the technique."
He reared his fist back, the one wielding his blade, and impaled Marks swiftly, the metal slicing easily through his skin and tendon before emerging on the other side.
He withdrew his blade and proceeded to walk away, before he heard an ominous 'slit slit', signaling the fact that he had just been shot in the back, twice, by the same man he had just impaled. The pain traveled up his spine and down, causing him to lose all feeling in his legs and falling roughly on the floor.
No! I can't die now, not yet!
Get up!
With the pain came an eerily comforting numbing sensation, and all he felt was a slight sense of euphoria.
He would be home soon…
No! This isn't your time!
It was dark, yet a sense of light consumed him.
Get up!
Warmth. Light. Cold. Dark. It was all the same, blending to combine a feeling he had never before felt.
GET UP!
He felt… death.