Teen Titans – New Divides – Universal War
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Chapter 10: Confrontation
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Slinging his escrima sticks to literally stick to his back like Wilson's twin swords, Dick knew what to do as Kori had insisted upon him staying – babysat by his fellow titans.
Dick sniffed, pulling out his cell as he left a message to the expectee.
~He has my daughter. He's not doing this to stop an unknown threat from taking over. He's doing this to put me down. Anna by now realizes how much Slade and I…have a history; a bloody one. ~ Dick frowned at the image of Anna being put through what he had as the man's blackmailed apprentice. This had to stop and right now, Nightwing was the only one who could save her. Kori would stop Kazuya. She had the will to hold on to hope. But with Slade? There was none of that, just the cold hard and ugly truth looking back.
Anna must have been scared witless if Slade had told her that much. That she'd put up with…being used like a weapon for this long. But, why? She was self hating, she hated being a meta as much as Aiden hated being cursed by and otherworld – prophecy.
And, Ami? Ava? They just wanted to fit in and find who they were. To embrace their gifts instead of fear that unknown. Ava was wiser because she wasn't keeping to the past. She was like Bruce. She moved ahead, keeping a straight path along while thinking ahead. Knowing about outcomes of her present and what was to be expected. She was royalty, a real element of winter and the solemn promise of a quiet place to connect with her universe. Dick thought about how Ami still didn't know what a true role she had. To become…a vassal to a god should they move onto the cycle of time, for Ami to take over in their stead and to govern the sun's energy. And whatever else she'd been burdened to undergo….Starfire could find a way. Ami was bright, strong. Anna was quick, but she wasn't as insightful at times. She was quiet. That scared him more than anything. He'd been like that and Slade had found a way to manipulate Robin for that same end.
To serve the man, sacrilegiously while stealing and harming his own city…while the rest of his team remained hopeful.
But Ann didn't have that same hope. Slade knew that she didn't connect and tended to be awkward, always committed to her mission, just like Damian. Just like…
He turned his bike from the drive, letting the fumes burst forth as Slade had to be somewhere, even if it meant breaking and entering.
Nightwing was going to save his baby girl. He wa going to tell Slade after all this time that he was still no backing down. That he'd activate his gift and let Slade feel his rage, his anguish for what the man was trying to plan.
Slade never did something like this unless there was more to gain. Was it status? A free get out a jail free, card? Was it Ann's undying loyalty, or Athena's hand…
Dick felt his eyes widen, he felt it!
Slade's going to add to this trouble. He contacted the heroes in Jump.
~I know what's going to happen next. I need to head to where; Cy? Tell Blue and Dami to make sure they don't lose sight of…~
He worded it carefully. Slade was not going to bargain himself, not alone. Anna was a gift to the goddess; he was using the girl with phoenix fire…..to halt Athena's attacks and ….he wasn't done there.
He was going to take it. That power – because he had Anna! He rode faster down the freeway.
His kid was just another misfired Judas Contract!
Slade, was never going to let her off that long leash. He saw it, right atop the hill. The estate.
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And right there, I her jeep with a crisp saber about her swing was Astarte. Goading the Wing of her time to get off of his vehicle. To fight.
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"You're making a big mistake, Sarah." Dick rebutted, his lips dry and a great fire building in his gut.
"I follow the law of the gods, but yet you fail to see the benefit of our counter – offer." She swung the saber and it changed. A bit more double edged to match the father of the fire bird's temperament.
He wasn't holding back this time.
"If you really want to confront your daughter, face me." She obliged him, follow her to hell and back. To the brink towards what was absolute.
"I won't unless it's the only way. Where is Deathstroke??" He shouted across the hill to her, the bottom where he was. She was waiting at the top of that slope. Baiting him with narrowed cat's eyes.
"Deathstroke wants more time, we gave him an opportunity to have it back. You would think it odd, yet Anna only listens to one superior."
She smiled. Wait, then Anna wasn't in danger? No!
"She's in a cage with a man eating beast right now, my kid shouldn't be put through this! Sarah! Open you –
"She is a warrior of flame and rebirth!" the same saber swung and cut through the hilltop. Dick held his ground yet felt himself shuddering at her might. A god's might. A war goddess.
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"As my god - child Raku, of the Earth deity's rights, I too hold sway over this realm's element." She raised her arm as the mighty sway left Dick to drag his butt back to his bike, her hazy anger as clouded as her perception of what element earth even thrived by. Earth used to have been a water planet before land masses had formed, so was she talking of man? In a philosophical sense?
Of course, Dick drove to the back of the estate, finding it vacated as memories played over in one torturous reel in his mind. An enlightening fact – Dick had been here more than once. As both Nightwing, and as Richard Grayson. When Slade had been overshadowed by Roku (Shadows and creatures or Life after Death.) Dick had not gone into understanding WHY Slade had somehow taken an interest in the occult, but Roku had hidden his intentions better than the guardians could put together in a single year.
Raku was going to be better than his old enemy, his self that only existed because of a curse placed onto him by Lilith. That he'd go through the same pains of loss as his father, Lord Azag or in the past life of the time god, Tamuz, an earthen demi God.
Dick knew about the danger of Aiden opening up to a being that could manifest life and bring pain and suffering to others. He knew, however…why did the idea that Raku -
"Here you are, Grayson!"
She swung out as he dipped in time to jump off the bike before the motor blew high into the air with her blade. "I know what that girl will do. I know here history. Every part she'll play is to return to the womb – to shed old feathers and break from her mortal chains. As my next…. retainer. I wanted a vassal yet Nine wasn't prepared." She spoke, making Dick see a whole other side to the cold-hearted ally turned adversary.
"I want to protect your daughter. The dishonor it would bring…Deathstroke has forgotten one thing." She waved her piece and pulled it back, extending an arm as Dick took it, gaping.
"Slade is doing this as he knows Anna will learn as you did. That one day she may become a cruel killer for the sake of some obsession. Nay, she is aware. She knows to press forth on her own."
Dick tried to understand. Why? Why did Astarte trust Slade to back off?? She could be…...hurt or…
"How?" He blurted out, unmasked eyes as confused as Aiden's had been when he'd been told about the golden dawn's power.
"How do you know that much about what she believes?? What if you're wrong? Slade…he may just go through –
"He won't." Astarte stared in the direction of the estate; her eyes shut as her sigh came out to tell of more dangers.
"Because the journey to Athena's chambers below, has already started. Anna and Slade are not there. You were too late." She walked off as Dick brushed by, stopping the goddess from deserting him.
"Where??" Dick demanded. "Where are they, and where do I have to go to stop Slade from corrupting my kid's mind??"
"Anna's mind is far from malleable –
"No!" Dick came at her with the force of a brick wall, smoke pellets making her view that much unclear until her body was pinned to hit the tree he'd hidden behind earlier.
Slade's security…
He wanted to go in and burn the place to the ground.
Astarte's eyes brought his worst to ruin; his emotional side and something liked to believe he was worth man –
She shoved at him, but his grip was not as in the beginning.
A trick.
"Let. Me. Go." She snapped. Her teeth as sharp as a big cat's.
"LORD Hades..."
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Dick's heart wasn't there, his mind wasn't well but…it wasn't Lilu tugging him to fall. No. It was a god, a spectral reminder of others who wanted Dick to join their forces. To purge the unworthy.
To gain back Athena's kind gestures as Ares was no exception. The real one, not the boy from Eris's petty overshadowing feat.
"Why did you meld within the man's consciousness, brother?"
She spoke in a way that was familiar, yet they were far from related. They were war gods, akin to the harsh realities painted within those uncountable orbs below a masked expression.
Hades did not govern all of the Under worlds. He only shared the honor with…
"Is Lady Hecate safe? Did you do as I'd pictured; sell out your sibling?"
Hades chuckled. "Nay, she is freed and our newest time lady and vassal to my sibling are there. Along with Veravakumu."
Squinting, Astarte readied her weapon. A hidden kick to keep the thing inside Grayson, still.
"You took your hostage to this place. Why then, do you feed off of his torment?"
"It is the determination, not the pained eyes I've set forth on collecting." Hades shook Dick's head, smirking as if he had the man for life under his thumb.
"Deathstroke is going to stall for us, he's doing so at the cost of everything. What are you here to take or say. Why do you withhold this reason for your ascent?" She put a hand to her hip, masked pistol there that could hit a god dead in the eyes. Hades was not wearing his helmet; she knew he'd not be so careless. But, why the obvious act?
"Anna….it is true? You want to resurrect the fire – bird, through the girl?" He egged at her, her eyes unchanged.
"That is partly my reason for involving the, mortal fools to march amidst my ranks." She leaned her head to the side and tilted it, identifying as impatient. "What? Is Lady Hecate aware of the threat to our world? Lady relic Eternal, Maat was furious when she found out that two semi – deity were fighting over her spot. The light being Hakuro is now out for the blood of a reddest martyr. Raku too is yearning to fre himself with the help of his shadow."
"News to me." Shrugged the damned one, his eyes not leaving the estate's view. She moved to the side, blocking his view. His desire to raze it.
"Grayson is not a god; he does not own the dragon's fire, anymore…"
"He is however definitely a god." Hades said. "He had taken a potion that gives him the honor of housing one. By a herculean male who knows of the contents of such a marvelous invention."
"A, serum." Astarte worded. The mercenary known as Slade Wilson was clever to have a second body to take the fall for him." Gritting her jaw, Astarte knew that the rivalry was quite ugly. Slade and Robin had exposed this much, even after Nightwing's…. intervention in Bludhaven. Years before Anna's birth into this time.
Slade had been busy helping out the red dragon, but no. It was his plan. To torture the man who was always alive in his past, his present. He'd done so to tear the male up. And what a cruel trick it was, she grimaced.
"He is simply an enemy that has his uses, and yet he did what I would believe to be, kittenish in quality."
"Why that tone, Hades?" Was this a slight bit of amusement? She beckoned him to return, to just go. She wasn't going to entertain a patriarchal, grape devouring, woman eater. Nay. Persephone was but a muddy flower beneath his boot. Her cries below the earth a silent song to the ones already buried beside her.
"I won't fight the child's father. Come out and face me, we can then decide a plan – plenty." Astarte suggested, yet Hades retracted his good faith in the goddess's proposal.
"Then give him to me. I will whip that solider you protect; I'll let the young fire - bird enjoy defeating her demons for –
"Anna is not one to betray a p…."
Oh no. Dick HAD been right. Her words stopped.
She pursed her lips and turned to cast a spell over Slade's home. One; to set it to ash, as Lord Hades grinned with Dick's face to his uses. "Understand? We gods don't trust copy – cats. Too risky. Athena is a goddess posing as a war lord and with Lilu's curse pulled from my bones…I intend to protect both my kin and home from her, perversities."
"And Wilson? What should we do with him." Astarte turned to her new comrade. "What should we tell Autur, who plans to only make Slade a deal to live longer than the man you'll overshadow?"
The god's hands splayed outward. A smile graced his lips. Dick's.
"Easy. I'll stay and govern his will…IF you can let me have the pleasure of merging with that body - of incapacitating both he and my long enemy, Athena."
"So, Zeus's brood bleeding at your feet is something to revel in?" Astarte wasn't smiling. This was serious. The council would be after them with a thousand hell hounds to clean up the remains.
"It has me "leaping for joy." The underworld god was nothing but if not, honest as he voiced his aspirations. For taking Dick to face Slade, to use Slade to wound and maybe fatally, inflict vengeance against the Universal and her broad sword. He was having a blast even without being whole again.
"Then be sure to cover your tracks." Astarte spoke, head turning and legs leaving the hill for her jeep's front seat. "I have other matters to attend."
"Ever the spoil sport, dear goddess of chariot – chasers." Teased her ally. Was he, though…
She dismissed the king lady – killer with a toss of her hair over her shoulders. Her cap on, beeping her horn, she left Slade's home to burn to the ground.
While Hades hadn't even had to make Grayson lift a finger.
She hated one thing; that Slade was going against her orders, so Hades might be an interesting leash to tag the man with. Getting him to bow, to bend as her eyes were lost in a vision. She stamped a finger to put the car in autopilot before that, automatically. Her eyes saw Anna, the fire in her consuming her flesh. Eyes and talons but bolder than when they'd faced Lothos. When she'd almost found her purpose.
Now Slade was daring enough to go against Anna's superior. He wanted to be hers, and well. Astarte didn't approve.
Old man Wilson had to know his place as she left the astral void to drive south, down to the waterways where Dick's body might have already found a safe place to drone out the noises in his skull.
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