A/N: This Christmas was pretty sweet. I got Batman Begins! But I remember when I was younger I got so excited before Christmas. Now it just feels dull and diluted in my eyes and I always just try to push through the crap going on around me half heartedly. I don't care about presents or getting gifts. All I look forward to is having more time off school. Oh well, enough with my pathetic outlook on Christmas. Here's your New Year's gift! I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I don't own it! This is the last time I have to say it this year! Yes!
Chapter 17 Mud Pit
James blinked a few times while slowly waking up from a rough sleep. He had finally gotten some down time for a few hours, but the sleep was dreamless with just silent darkness surrounding him for around three or four hours, tops. The man looked up and was a bit surprised to not see Slade there. He looked around with confusion and still couldn't spot the mad man.
Panic flared up in him while the situation finally slapped him in the face. Slade was gone and had left him there! How long had he been sleeping? Slade could be on a plane heading for Peru already just because he had dozed off. He kicked himself mentally for making such a mistake.
The feeling didn't last long because suddenly James felt a hand grab his wrist. James twisted his body to see behind the pipe he was attached to. And there Slade was, taking off his hand cuffs without a word spoken.
"You could have just left me here," James said quietly to him. "Care to explain why you're taking me along for the ride?"
They both stood up and Slade cuffed James's hands behind him once again. "You're my insurance," Slade said simply while pushing James ahead of him.
"I've always wanted to be an insurance," James said cockily with his trademark smile. "You're making all my wishes come true. Maybe you can grant this one, Slade. I wish you would tell me what you plan to do once leaving here."
"When things get this serious it's better to do things yourself," Slade said. "We're heading for Jump City. But first we are stopping by Pulcallpa. I need to pick up a few things."
- Robin -
"We need to get out of here…now!" Robin said to Sam while taking out a backpack and shoving the food in the small fridge into it in a rush.
"Whoa! Wait, Robin!" Sam said while shaking her head in confusion. "You're not explaining anything to me. What is going on? Why do we need to leave? Is it something you remembered?"
"Hell yeah!" Robin said to her with a nod. "Pack up your computer stuff. Quickly," he added. He saw the complete confusion as to why she had to do this and he decided to explain. "I got most of my memory back," he said quickly while shoving anything into the backpack. "I still have a lot missing, like my childhood, but I remember my team and everything Slade was planning to do. We need to keep moving."
"But why?" Sam asked. She started to carefully put a few of her things into her own backpack while making quick glances over to the teen. He was acting so differently than what he was two seconds ago. He seemed so much more confident and sure of himself now. It was amazing how some memory could change his countenance.
"I remember when I first came to the Dragon Academy," Robin said quickly as if he was a kid on a sugar high. "I was trying to put together what Slade planned to do with me and my team. He wants to get rid of them, I'm sure of it. But now that I have my memory back, and he knows I'll get it sometime soon, he is going to come after me. I don't know if it will be himself or one of his robots. The only good thing to do is to keep moving around. I can't get captured by him again, but I can't call up my team and tell them what's going on because…okay, it's just too complicated right now to explain to you in full detail. We will talk later about this."
"Jeez!" Sam muttered while shaking her head. "Slade had this planned for a long time, didn't he?"
Before Robin could answer her, there was a loud bang on the door to their room. Sam let out a small scream out of fright and surprise. Robin swore under his breath while spinning around on his heel. He saw the hand of a Slade bot had punctured the door and was now unlocking all the locks on the door to get in.
Robin searched the room for another way out. He ran to the window and flung the drapes away. His eyes went wide when seeing two Slade bots climbing up the building up to their third story window. "Not that way!" he said to Sam.
"Want to go up?" Sam asked him while pointing to the vent above her head. They both smiled at each other because they had both been thinking the same thing. Suddenly the door was busted down, and in came three robots with laser guns aimed for the two young ones.
"You first," Robin said to her while shoving both backpacks into her hands. "I'll hold them off for now." She only nodded without any protest. She jumped onto the bed, and in a flash of light had turned into a very tall lady so she could reach the vent hatch easily.
Robin smiled slyly at the three robots coming at him. He had missed his old fighting self. He swiftly dodged the lasers coming at him and advanced toward the three. He jumped into the air and landed behind them. He executed a sharp kick to the back of one robot and sent him tumbling to the floor. The teen grabbed a lamp off the table he stood next to and swung it like he would a baseball bat, with one of the robot's head as the baseball.
As the Slade bot's head soared across the room, the window smashed open and spilled razor sharp pieces of glass into the room. Sam let out a small scream while turning back into her original form. One robot came at her and Robin tried to stop it. But he didn't have to. Sam took the vent hatch in her hands and slammed it down on its head then kicked it in the chest and into its partner. "Back off!" she yelled at it.
There was more to these two kids James had sent to take care of Robin. One thing was for sure, he wouldn't have to fight by himself in the future. Robin suddenly thought of Abe and started to worry for the kid. Slade had to know that James had plotted against him by now. Robin had gotten all the memories of his old apprenticeship, and he knew that Slade was as smart and quick as a supercomputer. So did Slade go after James and capture him, or was James still on the run? Unfortunately, the first of the two sounded like the right answer.
As Robin calculated all this information in his head, he was jumping around the hotel room like a monkey to avoid all the robots coming at him. Sam hopped a few times on the bed then grabbed the side of the ventilation shaft. Using all the strength she could muster, she pulled herself and two filled to the brim backpacks up and into the shaft with a grunt of exertion. The vent was just big enough for her size. Any adult would have a problem at this point.
Robin sprung off a wall with his feet and came right back at the Slade bot that had thrown him into it. He punched the robot in the face and forced it to the ground in sparking bits. The small acrobat landed on his hands and pushed off them to propel his feet into another robot coming at him. His force made the robot fall backwards and out of the window.
The teen landed in a crouch and looked up to see that Sam was in the vent watching him carefully. Robin jumped onto the bed under the shaft and easily leaped up to it and pulled himself in. He gave her a nod then they both started to crawl away.
The two quickly made their ways to another room with an opening. Robin brought his right leg up and then kicked the hatch open in one powerful thrust. There was a loud bang in the dark room under them as the hatch with its bolts fell to the floor. Robin cringed when hearing a scream of the guest living the in the room as she was rudely awaken from two random strangers.
"Go out the window!" Robin quickly ordered Sam before jumping down into the room. Sam followed him silently and she ran to the window right away. Robin turned on a lamp and calmly said the woman tourist in the room, "Sorry for the disturbance, miss. We need to use your window."
The lady stared at him through the darkness of the room with fright all over her face. She then screamed loudly, "Robbers! HELP!"
"No! Please be quiet, lady!" he said frantically to calm the woman down. "We're not stealing anything!"
"Make her shut up!" Sam hissed over to Robin from where she was tying up the torn spare bed's sheets for a makeshift rope to get down to the ground safely.
"I'm trying!" Robin yelled back above the screaming of the panic stricken lady. "Calm down!" There was a bang on the door. They had been found! Robin glared daggers at the lady and said, "Forget you. Are you done, Sam?"
"No time for a test run," Sam said while throwing the window open and dropping the torn sheets out of it. "Here I go!" she said while gripping the rope in her hands and then descending quickly. Robin was right behind her. His last look in the room was the door being busted down and the lady on the bed freaking out even more. She brought it upon herself.
"Faster!" Robin said down to Sam. They flew down the line and didn't take time to register their surroundings as they took off into the dark city in search for a place to stay for the night. Robin looked over his shoulder and saw that the robots hadn't followed them for some reason. He breathed a sigh of relief and then looked forward. Things were getting down to the grit and grime. He wouldn't be able to keep doing this for forever. Sooner than later Slade would capture him. Till then, Robin would just have to keep running.
- Abe -
He didn't like this. Everything was going exactly according to his father's plan. He knew that he should have been happy and grateful that the plan was working perfectly, but the boy hadn't expected it at all. It all seemed…unnatural to him somehow. Abe thought that his father was brilliant and on the border line of a genius sometimes, but the smart kid knew that Slade was ten times quicker than most and had had to been planning this move for a long time. The mad man had to have a back up plan somewhere!
The blasting roar of the motorcycle echoed around the dark jungle. The kid was once again transformed into an older version of himself so he could fit on the vehicle properly. He flew over the dried leaves and fallen branches with skill only a few his age had mastered from hard core training. The boy had always been an adventure seeker. Motorcycling was one of his all time favorite sports.
Abe had been riding in the dark, immense jungle for an hour now. He kept looking to his left and right instead of focusing on the rough terrain in front of him as if someone was going to sneak up on him at any time. He had this weird feeling that he wasn't alone.
"Sam, I'm a half an hour away from the big guy's mansion," Abe said into his microphone built into his helmet. The place Abe and Sam had been checking out the day before belonged to a big drug dealer from the States. Their dad's plan was for Abe, transformed into Robin, to get into the house and force the guy to fake his own death. This way Slade still thought that Robin had killed him and was his true apprentice. Abe would fly to Italy and when Slade least expected it, would disappear with his dad and leave Slade in the dark. It was a pretty good plan, but it had some flaws. One big one was that Slade already knew most of it.
"Sam, can you hear me?" Abe asked with some impatience in his voice this time. "C'mon, Sam! I don't have time for your older sister crap. We're twins! You might be taller, but you're not older than me." No answer. This time Abe's voice was a bit shaky and not as demanding. He was more like pleading for her to talk to him. "Sam? Please answer me."
No answer.
"Crap."
Three seconds after his semi curse, two lights came on up ahead in the jungle and started to come at him at tremendous speed. They had to be either two four-wheelers or two motorcycles. Either way he was out numbered. These weren't good odds.
At first Abe was confused. It looked like the two vehicles were going to go straight on past him from the side even though they were in a large, muddy clearing with no trees. It was his own light from his motorcycle that saved his life. The bright beam was reflected off the small cheese wire ready to slice right through him. He had only a few seconds to act.
Abe didn't try to focus on his older form as he threw himself off his cycle with a grunt of frustration at his stupidity. Right when his shoulder landing roughly on the muddy ground, the deadly cheese wire flew over his head. The kid winced while rolling on the ground and getting thoroughly covered with thick, sticky mud that clung onto his clothes like a leach would to your skin. His helmet wasn't strapped on, so it came flying off after a few violent rolls.
But he was alive! The boy sat up while looking at his ruined clothing with disgust. He heard the two vehicles behind him turn around and head his way once again. His look of repulsion quickly changed into a one of dread as he got up and started to sprint to the end of the clearing, leaving his bike behind him. He could be faster and quicker on foot.
The kid found out that he was having a problem with the mud he was in. He couldn't go very far without falling onto his hands and knees or to his butt. Every time he picked up his feet out of the mud it would making a sickening sucking noise as it tried to keep him there.
Abe realized that this wasn't a clearing at all. It was a dried up river. It was the dry season in Peru, so sometimes small rivers dried up, and when it rained it would create the dried up clay to form into mud. But it hadn't rained for days now! How could it be like this then? A flare of pure panic rose up in Abe as he comprehended that it had been Slade. He knew! Things could only get worse.
"This can't be happening!" Abe hissed to himself while looking behind him to see the two huge four-wheelers fly over the mud like it was no problem. Big chunks of sludge were thrown into the air behind the vehicles as they got deeper into the mire.
One four-wheeler was coming right at Abe, and it didn't look like it was going to slow down to talk to him. But they had lost the cheese wire, and that made Abe a little bit grateful. The whole front side of the boy was illuminated by the bright glow of the head lights of the vehicle roaring at him at full speed. At the last second, Abe was able to pull his feet free and roll off to the side. He cringed as he heard the wiz of the tires zooming past him as he moved.
The other four-wheeler had stopped off to Abe's side and the robot driver was coming to finish the boy off himself. Abe looked up just in time to see and swiftly dodge the fist aimed at his head. Well, swiftly wasn't the greatest word to describe his move. It was more along the lines of ducking and putting his arms over his head as the robot tripped over him. The kid got up with some surprise that his pathetic move had worked somehow.
"Bad move coming off your only protection, buddy," Abe sneered at the robot while turning around and delivering a sharp kick to its neck and knocking it back into the sludge. The robot didn't get stuck in the mud as easily as the human, so it was up in seconds and ready for another beating from the twelve year old.
A punch to the forehead and roundhouse kick to its chest sent the robot to the mud once again. This time Abe had trouble moving in the thick substance and ended up landing on his back with a loud splat. By this time, the other robot was back and had gotten off its four-wheeler to join the fight. Abe slowly got to his feet with dread on his face. This fight was getting difficult. But he couldn't lose. His life and maybe others depended on it, if his guesses were right.
Both robots came at the kid with surprising speed. Abe ducked and swung his foot under the legs of one robot and was able to knock it off its feet. The other robot dodged the boy's upper cut and kicked him in the stomach. Abe doubled over while gasping for air as chunks of mud slipped off his face as he looked to the ground. He then looked back up at the robot with anger flashing in his eyes.
"Okay, now you guys have pissed me off," Abe muttered through clenched teeth. "Now you'll get it." He came at one robot and relentlessly attacked it with various punches and kicks with no mercy in his eyes. In seconds the thing was lying on the ground in a heap of sparking scrap metal and wires. With new found energy, the kid did the same thing to the other robot.
It was done. He had won. Abe dropped to his butt while panting from so much energy he had wasted. His small body could only go so far till he was worn out. He was a complete mess with mud everywhere possible on his body. But he had beaten them, and that was all that mattered.
Much to Abe's dismay, the battle wasn't over just yet. Out of the still darkness all around him, except for the nighttime bugs, came the sound of more motors being cranked up. Abe sat up with his eyes going wide with horror. Round one was done. Was he reading for the next one?
"No," he whispered wearily to himself. "Not more!" In some desperate attempt to get away from the battle sure to come, the boy got to his feet and tried to go back the way he came. He didn't make it far when four four-wheelers blasted out into the muddy river and toward Abe.
"I'm not going down without a fight, boys," Abe said to the robots as the four vehicles quickly surrounded him. "Prepare to get down and dirty." With that said the boy launched himself at one robot and knocked him down to the ground. He then tried to get onto the four-wheeler, but was quickly caught by his ankle and thrown into the air. Abe came crashing down onto the mud with a loud cry of pain and half defeat. He knew he wasn't going to win, but he still wasn't beaten.
Abe tried to get to his feet, but a robot kicked his chin and made him bite into his tongue. The nasty taste of copper exploded into the boy's mouth as his teeth sliced into his tongue and drew blood. Abe's brain screamed at his body to move as he spat blood out of his mouth on his hands and knees. But he couldn't function. All his energy was seriously depleted. He couldn't go on.
A robot slammed its foot down onto Abe's back and made the boy drop to his chest. He was a bit surprised that they started to tie his hands behind his back and bind his feet together. He thought that Slade would want him dead. He sure had gone out of his way to make this river into mud so he wouldn't be able to fight as well. And it had seemed like he was aiming to kill him with that cheese wire.
Why? Why did Slade want him alive? The question kept spinning rapidly around in the kid's brain as he struggled fruitlessly in his binds as his captors made sure he wouldn't be able to go anywhere now. Whatever Slade wanted him for, Abe knew it wouldn't be a good thing. He would end up dead in Slade's hands anyways. So why was this questions going around in his head?
Suddenly a sharp pain was created in the boy's neck. Abe spotted the glistening needle in the moonlight and winced as he felt the sedative start to take over his body quickly. "God, please help me," Abe muttered right before drifting off into a much darker and scarier place than the giant mud pit he had been stuck in. At this point his life was in the Creator's hands. Only the boy's God could help him now. Otherwise he could be considered dead.
A/N: This was a shorter chapter, and I'm sorry for that, people. I've been busy at my dad's work for three days, so I was too worn out to type. I just made this whole chapter into an action one that I hope you readers enjoyed very much. I had a blast typing it all out. But this chapter is my last update of this year! My next update will be on the 12th of next month because that weekend I'm going on a retreat. Happy New Year everyone! Hope it will be a good one for all of you!
