Slade had covered his tracks well this time, really well. No matter how many times I went through the ships logs I couldn't find anything that could have caught his attention. If it was xenothium he was after then he'd really gone about it wrong. The ships explosion would have ignited every drop of the unstable chemical. Trying to remember if any robot commandoes had gotten away was fruitless, and I cursed myself for being so unobservant.
When I got back after a full night of combing through the ships wreckage for the umpteenth time without finding anything I went right back to my room. The computer got only a cursory glance before I flopped onto my bed, my spinning mind warring with my tired body.
A few hours later, the best I'd managed was a light doze somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Sounds drifted from the kitchen, mixing with the sounds from my almost dreams. For a minute I felt I was dozing on a sofa in the parlor, a cooling mug of coffee in my hands on a school day. It felt warm, cozy and I was just waiting for the hand that would gently pull me to my feet and tell me it was time to leave.
When it didn't come my eyes cracked open, and all warm feelings were gone when they fell on the calendar tacked onto my wall. For a while I just laid still and stared at the blocks and numbers. 'Everyone else will be strong.' Slade was still out there, was probably planning something that would flip the world over again, but the blocks on the calendar were getting so much closer to a date I'd never have to circle. There were times for weakness. It was painfully obvious I wouldn't be sleeping any time soon, so I dragged myself up off the bed and straightened my uniform.
The meat vs. tofu debate was going on in the medical room instead of the kitchen, so I grabbed my usual bowl of cereal and headed there. A quick glance at a mirror was enough to make me grateful for the hundredth time that my teammates didn't know me as a cheerful person. Starfire was trying to feed Beastboy the same concoction I'd almost eaten the day before, and Raven was trying to explain ti her that the boy didn't eat meat. Lucky.
"Feeling better today?" I asked and suddenly all eyes were on me, shock evident on their faces. "What?" I smirked, taking a bite of my cereal.
"I told you he was fine." Beastboy grinned, waving his arms at me. "He knows Slade's gonna be a pushover this time. Hey, I told Raven if I was a snake my leg wouldn't matter, but she won't let me."
"It won't heal properly if you don't keep it still." The girl said, not looking up from the cup of morning tea she was brooding over.
"Aw, it can heal later, tell her Robin." Beastboy whined.
I'd never noticed before that moment just how young my teammate was. At thirteen he'd been just old enough to be considered a teen, and the extra birthday he'd had since then really hadn't made much of a difference. What did normal fourteen year olds even do when they were stuck with broken legs? What did ten year olds do?
"Cyborg, have you found anything on the cargo of the 'Cornelius'?" I asked, putting my previous thoughts away to debate over later when I actually had the time.
"Aside from the xenothium, nudda." Cyborg said. "Not unless Slade's looking to go into medicine. Stirkonite's mostly just used in mild antidepressants and rubegen's an air purifier." He shrugged and shoved a sausage into his mouth, grinning at Beastboy's cry of disgust at the juices that escaped.
"Dude." Beastboy shuddered. "But Rob, seriously the snake thing. I could totally take out some robot commandoes." He looked at me, his eyes wide and pleading while Raven chose to hit me with a glare that would have made anyone's blood run cold.
"Keep digging." I told Cyborg and finished off my breakfast. "You follow the doctor's orders Beastboy." I smirked at Raven, who relaxed the slightest bit and turned her glare to the green boy when he tried to start up a new bout of whining.
"And what tasks will occupy the rest of us?" Starfire asked. "How will we come up with the plan of capturing Slade?"
"I'm going to follow up on the xenothium." I said. It was the only lead we had, and not everything could be pulled off computers. Slade had to have attacked that particular ship just to blow up its valuable cargo. Besides, there was another errand I'd need to run that would take past that part of town.
"Alone?" Starfire asked. Everyone else in the room tensed up, only Starfire's big eyes showing the worry I knew they all felt.
That was my fault, to them the word 'Slade' had become synonymous with a reckless, unstable leader. If I went off on my own they'd all be too suspicious, and if Slade dropped something big, they wouldn't trust me to lead them through it rationally.
"Raven." I waved her over. "Star can keep an eye on your patient for a few hours, right?"
If I had to take someone with me, it might as well be the one who'd ask the least questions.
.
.
.
If you wanted to know about xenothium in Jump City, there was one man you went to. Professor Chang had escaped from prison a few months ago and retreated to a new hide out, and as far as I was concerned it was just easier to leave him there. He was easy to monitor, and I could get to him before he tried anything, being in prison would have just made him more sneaky in his illegal dealings.
"How did you get in here?" The scrawny man said, backing away from the teens that had just appeared in his laboratory. He reached for a weapon, but it was pulled out of his hand a second later by a few words and a wave of Raven's hand,. The iron grip of her dark energy also held him against the wall for good measure.
"A shipment of xenothium was blown out of the water two days ago." I looked over some of the brightly colored chemicals lining the walls. None of them were red, but I had a feeling that very few could be considered 'safe', Chang wasn't as much of a one trick pony as he led people to believe after all.
"That had nothing to do with me." Chang said, defensively throwing his hands out in front of him. "I would never waste such pure samples."
"It wouldn't be the first time." I said, if they were visible I would have raised an eyebrow. This was the man who'd made a xenothium bomb capable of destroying the whole city. He really shouldn't have been surprised that we'd come to when we found out someone else had done so as well, even if it was on a much, much smaller scale.
"Please, if I'd been the one to set that up, you wouldn't be here." Chang snarled, and tried to pry himself out of Raven's hold. I gestured for her to release him and he fell back to the ground a crumpled bag of cloth and bones. Yeah, prison really hadn't suited this guy well. If I hadn't known for a fact that it had been Slade I would have been sure that the whole thing was some king of revenge plot of Chang's.
"I could have made a bomb five times that size with a fraction of what was lost." The man picked himself off the ground and patted imaginary dust from his clothes. "That imbecile Slade had no idea what he was doing." He growled and stepped farther away from the sorceress, keeping a weary eye on the cloak hiding her arms.
"We never said anything about Slade." I said, taking a small amount of satisfaction in the way he flinched. "And even without your expertise he came closer to wiping us out than you ever have."
"That must really bother you." Raven tapped at a beaker filled with a bright blue liquid. "Business must have been pretty slow with how little xenothium is coming into Jump. It's not so easy to make here, is it?" She turned to me, her blank expression unchanged. "This has-been doesn't know anything, we're better off tracking down Red X."
I watched Chang's face closely as she spoke, and while he's been feigning calm pretty well before, the mention of Red X launched him into a fury.
"That brat's the only reason you made it out alive last time!" The ugly snarl his bright red face was twisted into made him look almost like his old self. I knew I'd definitely have to keep a closer watch on him in the future. "If it weren't for him using up every scrap of the components that come into this city I would have killed of everything here long ago!"
He didn't know anything, and I still had things to do before the day was out, there wasn't time to waste on Chang. I shifted my tired eyes – regretting the lost sleep right then – to my teammate to tell her we should get going, and the man pulled a weapon out of his arms.
"I'll settle for tow dead birds!" He cried, firing a red hot laser at Raven. Her violet eyes widened and a portal opened to carry her away, but I was already between her and the blast, a name that wasn't hers on my lips and a birdarang flying from my fingers.
His shot missed and my blade was lodged in his shoulder, blood staining his white clothes red. It wasn't enough and I charged forward. My fists crashed into his scrawny body, there was no grace or skill in the blows, just a whole mountain of rage that had been dredged up at his words. He cried out, but I barely heard it, all I heard was 'dead birds' and I was struck by the irrational notion that he knew too.
"Robin!" Raven pulled bleeding man away from me and put herself between us.
I looked into her cold violet eyes, then back at the terrified, bloody man cowering behind her. That same blood was on my hands and the only reason my knuckles weren't as broken as his nose was because of the thick, strong gauntlets covering them.
"Call the cops to pick him up." I said, turning to leave the building. I didn't want to have to look at him for even the amount of time that would take, so I waited for my teammate outside.
It was just past noon, and the air outside was still as crisp as autumn could make the air of any city. I breathed it in deeply, partially hidden in the shadows of the back alley. It took a while for Raven to follow me out and I flinched at the thoughtful frown on her face. Leaders weren't supposed to go off the rails like that.
"He didn't know anything." She said simply and started walking. "We should get back before Beastboy tried to get out of bed."
As we walked through the back streets of Jump, my eyes roamed over the displays of the few stores we passed. Neither of us spoke, but I knew Ravens mind was coming up with all sorts of answers to the questions she wouldn't ask about my outburst. That was the thing about empaths and psychic bonds, she knew what I'd felt, and the sort of things that would make me feel that way, but nothing specific.
If I left her she'd just come to the conclusion that the thing with Slade was making me more paranoid than usual and I'd panicked when I thought she was in danger. That was close enough to the truth that I didn't feel guilty about the deception.
We weren't even close to the tower when our communicators went off.
"We got a distress signal from a warehouse in the north part of town." Cyborg's voice crackled over the speaker, already in the T-car. "Meet us there!"
"Us?" Raven asked. "Where's Beastboy?"
"Friend Beastboy has been resting peacefully since I offered him the get well soon porridge." Starfire chirped from the passenger seat.
"Yeah, that stiff smelled pretty funky." Cyborg said, an apologetic look on his face. "We're almost at the warehouse, so you guys should hurry." He reached for the camera and I had the sick feeling that if he turned it off something bad was going to happen.
"Wait for backup!" I said, but the screen had already blanked out and my attempts to restart the connection hailed only static.
.
.
.
That our rush to the warehouse was in broad daylight somehow made it worse. There were no city lights, no fog or rain to ad a sense of surrealism to the situation. It only took us half an hour to get there, but the worry in my gut made it feel hours longer. They weren't answering their comms and it was all I could do to keep up my cool façade.
Even if she could tell how I felt, Raven didn't need the added anxiety of seeing it too. I was the leader, I'd handle it and get my team out safe. That was my job and I would do it right. That's what I told myself over and over until the blinking dot on my screen was right below us.
Raven dropped me and grabbed hold of a beam protruding from the side of the poorly maintained warehouse to slow my decent. As soon as we got near I found the cause of our inability to reach them via comm-link. A small machine settled inconspicuously next to a trashcan on the side of the road.
"Signal jammer." I crushed it with my staff and waved Raven behind me. As powerful as she was, she wasn't invulnerable, and neither were Starfire and Cyborg. To have been taken out so fast there had to have been some kind of trap, and the lack of sound from the dilapidated building gave me no illusions as to the state of almost half of my team.
Around back we found the T-car surrounded by trash. Cyborg's beloved car was toppled on its ruined side, smoke pouring out of the engine still, by the looks of it the car had been hit from the front, then spun out of control scraping a few trash cans and dumpsters along until it smashed into brick wall, making a sizable hole.
Raven flew over to the car and shook her head, they weren't in the car, and I couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped my lips at the knowledge. Cyborg loved that car, and would be crushed that it was totaled, but if they'd made it out alive I couldn't find it in myself to be overly worried about that.
I cautiously stepped through the hole in the wall, more careful than I needed to be of the many uneven bricks that were scattered along the ground. The second it took my eyes to adjust to the dark space was all the time I had to prepare myself for what I saw next.
Intermingled with the bricks were a few wrecked robot commandoes, or pieces of robot commandoes. Some were partially melted, others looked like they'd been literally torn apart. Knowing that whatever happened, my teammates had put up a fight would have been enough to lift my spirits, but there weren't nearly enough pieces for them to have been taken out by the bots.
"Robin!" Raven whispered harshly from where she was kneeling on the ground.
The brilliant red hair fanned out at the ground at her knees was all I needed to see and I was there. I felt for a pulse and nodded for Raven to lift the debris from the girl's body. Starfire groaned as I gently lifted her head from the ground, clearing her airways , and pillowed it on my folded cape.
"Star." I whispered and brushed her sticky, matted hair out of her bruised face.
Raven quickly found Cyborg, his chest plate had been ripped off and there were some sparks shooting out of the exposed circuitry. Looking closer there were sharp pieces of robot commandoes wedged between his joints and the machinery in his chest. His cybernetic eye was smashed to pieces, the wires poking through the broken glass.
It took some prodding from Raven, but he managed to open the other eye, and my heart sped up when I saw that it was undamaged, and watching us closely.
"Slade… still," he groaned and Raven carefully helped him into a sitting position, his damaged hand flicked towards a door on the other side of the room. His mouth opened and closed like he was trying to say more, but his throat just couldn't push out the words.
"It's okay." I rested a hand on the shoulder that wasn't missing its plating, pushing away my misgivings I tried for a smile. "You'll be fine, Raven's going to take you home."
Raven looked ready to object, but I shook my head firmly. This wasn't something I was going to back out on. It was too dangerous to leave them there while we confronted Slade, and she would be able to get them both out a lot faster than I could.
"You can't do this alone." Raven said, her eyes like steel.
"That's an order." I said. "They need you now, I'll be careful, now go." I pointed at the hole in the wall. No more of them were getting hurt when there was something I could do to stop it.
"Fine." She said and lifted them both on metal sheets.
There were remnants of a security system leading up to the door, but they'd all been destroyed in the fight that had injured my teammates. The closer I got the easier it was to hear the faint sounds coming from the other side.
I lifted myself into the dusty sub-ceiling and crawled along it to the main part of the warehouse.
There were more robot commandoes crawling all over the large space. Some were standing guard at the grimy windows and the huge steel entrance at the edge. The smaller door leading into the back room was being watched by a pair of the bots as well. Slade himself stood in the center of the room, his arms crossed while he watched the rest of the bots loading crates into several mismatched trucks.
With his face hidden it was hard to get a read on him, but I could see he wasn't even looking in my direction, his gaze shifting to the guarded doors every few minutes.
There were a lot of bots, way too many for me to have gotten through them and Slade. Only when enough time had passed that I was sure Raven had gotten the others out I started planning. I didn't know what the warehouse was storing, but anything really valuable would have been kept in a better maintained building. Some higher powered explosive birdarangs would be enough to get most of the bots out of the way if I did it fast enough.
A bigger, heavier looking robot stepped out of a shipping container, some kind of blaster in his hands, and began cycling through the huge room. A new model, and I had no idea of what it was capable of. My eyes narrowed, if it hadn't been Slade himself, then it was likely the new model was what had beaten Starfire and Cyborg. Even if I didn't bring Slade in right away, I wanted that thing in pieces before I left, that had to put some kind of dent in his plans.
With my weapons ready I watched the bots closely, memorizing their movements and trying to find the best order to take them out, keeping a closer look on the new model. Something shifted in the shadows, and my attention shifted instantly from my targets to take in the new variable.
Slade either didn't notice, or didn't care as something detached itself from the shadows and slunk past him. It moved and ducked behind crates and forklifts too fast for me to make out it's shape, but it's target was clear. The small shaped stopped behind a truck in the new models patrol path.
I just made out the flashes of black and orange before the robots head dropped to the ground with a loud 'clunk'. The sound echoed through the large space. Instead of ducking back into hiding, the shape stopped, giving me my first clear view of it.
My first thought was that he was small. Then I noticed the militaristic, orange accented black body suit and the helmet covering most of his face. He sat down indian style, the little visible of his expression blank while he began systematically dismantling the bot. Momentary relief at having any kind of ally was squashed when Slade marched up to the boy.
"What are you doing?" Slade asked, as sharp an edge to his voice as there could be without raising it.
"I'm bored." The boy said, his high voice carrying even less emotion than even Raven's and what little I could see of his expression blank.
Slade marched up to the young boy and loomed over him. The boy's eyes were hidden by a dark visor, but even still I knew he wasn't looking at the man. His head was tilted slightly while he stared up at the ceiling. Slade turned, satisfaction practically radiating off him when he turned to follow the boy's gaze.
"Robin." The man said. "I'm glad you've finally arrived.
I was out of the sub ceiling before he'd even finished speaking, birdarangs flying from my finger tips to lodge themselves in the robot commandoes. Those few that survived the projectiles were quickly taken out with a few blows from my bo-staff.
"You're going to pay for what you did to the Titans." I took a firm stance and brandished the staff before charging right for him.
"The Titans?" Slade's loud chuckle echoed through the large space and he knocked away my blows with the metal guards on his arms. "I didn't lay a finger on them." I kept up my assault, keeping him on the defense. Slade caught the staff and leaned in close. "That was your fault." He leaned back and head butted me so hard I saw stars and had to stagger back.
I dropped some smoke pellets while I stumbled back to regain my footing. I was leaning against a stack of crates when I heard his voice again.
"They would have been fine if you'd shown up sooner." His voice drifted at me through the smoke.
"You're mind games aren't working in me this time Slade." I said watching his hazy figure move through the smoke. I threw some explosive marbles at his feet and charged forward to take advantage of the lack of balance that caused.
I'd gotten in a few good hits before he grabbed hold of my staff and tugged it out of my hands, pulling me forward into a punch I just barely dodged.
The smoke cleared up enough that I could see the gleam in his one visible eye when he waved a hand at the boy who was still messing with the parts of the broken robot. "I had to find some way of entertaining him before he wandered off again."
"You don't really think I'm dumb enough to believe a little kid did that." I spat and the kid looked up at me, tilting his head slightly again.
"I should introduce you…" I could practically hear the smirk in Slade's voice "… to my new apprentice." "You'll be surprised at what he can do." Slade grabbed a fistful of the boy's short orange cape and pulled him to his feet. "I know I was, but he could use another field test." Slade patted the back of the boy's head. "If you're up to it."
I looked the boy over, but this new insight didn't make appear any more dangerous. His posture was loose, not tending up even when Slade pushed him a step in my direction. He was even smaller than Beastboy, and there was nothing in the way he carried himself that even suggested he was a threat, he wasn't even looking at me, but up at a stationary fan.
"You don't have to fight." I said, holding out my hands in a show of piece. "I can help you get away from Slade. Do you have parents?" That got a little twitch of a frown from the boy. "I'll help you see them again."
He turned to Slade slowly, then back at me. The man cocked his head to the side, nothing in his posture giving anything away.
"Can I leave now?" The boy said, and I tensed up for when Slade inevitably lashed out at the request. I was ready to grab the kid and run if I had to, but his next words stuck me in place. "This talking is boring."
"So make it interesting." Slade said.
The boy fell forward, and for a moment I thought he'd hit the ground, but he went with the momentum and used it to rush at me. I was prepared for some kind of super power, and braced myself.
The vicious uppercut got me by surprise, before I could adjust he spun around to crash his heel into me with a powerful sidekick. He spun again to deliver another kick, but I ducked out of the way in time and caught his leg, tossing him away. Moving with the fall he rolled back onto his feet, skidding back a little before he sprang up and charged at me again, not pausing for a second.
His form was loose while lurched forward almost like he was drunk, and his attacks looked sloppy and uncoordinated. It look me about a millisecond to realize that that was the whole point of his fighting style when his fist clipped the side of my head almost unbalancing me, and definatley giving me a headache. It was hard to read, the speed and power behind every blow making it hard to adjust.
A palm strike knocked him back again and I had a chance to look for Slade before the boy swinging at me again. I grabbed the kid's arm and pulled it roughly behind his back while Slade got into a truck. I grabbed hold of the kids arms and pulled it behind his back, he dropped to the ground and ducked under my knees, almost smashing my face into the ground.
From behind me brought down an elbow on my back, and pain rippled all along my spine from the impact. I spun and kicked the back of his head, misjudging his light weight and sent him knocked him forward way harder than I'd meant to. The loud crack that echoed through the room when his head crashed into the hard concrete ground and bounced back up almost had my heart in my throat.
He groaned and lay still just long enough to make me think I'd seriously hurt him before his hands twitched into fists and he slowly began pulling himself to his knees. He looked up at me, revealing the deep crack in his helmet, and the blood trickling down his chin. He got his shaky legs under him, but his combat boots slipped back and his head fell back to the ground.
I didn't ask if he was okay as he tried again, or let down my guard, but I'm sure my concern was plain on my face. Giving a child brain damage wouldn't have gone over well with anyone. I watched the boy for a moment, then went to go after Slade, who was loading a crate into the back of a truck. I didn't get very far before a sharp pain erupted in my left calf and my leg fell out from under me, a cry of pain on my lips.
I rolled to my feet quickly and watched the other boy drag himself to a crouch, a bloody knife clutched in one shaky hand. He brushed away the blood on his chin and lurched at me again.
The erratic swings of the blade needed way more attention to dodge than his fists would have. His attacks were concentrated on my left side, and every step I took sent pain shooting up the leg. I spied my staff lying on the ground where Slade had thrown it and scooped the weapon up.
All it took was a few quick jabs to get the knife out of the boy's hand. He used both arms to defend himself from the blows, and I could see that each block sapped more strength from him. I found a gap and took it, smashing my staff at the side on his head, sending him sliding sideways and crashing into some crates. I approached cautiously, doing my best to understate my limp.
"Are you done yet?" I asked.
"You're a hero." The boy whimpered and rolled over. The crack in his helmet had widened, and I was as grateful as I could have been that he had the thing on. Going easy on the kid had gotten me a knife to the leg, and if he didn't have the head gear he'd at the very least have a nasty concussion. His black gloved hand felt around the crack and he groaned. "It hurts."
It wasn't a taunt, and I was taken back at the genuine confusion in his high voice. That… wasn't the response I'd been expecting, at all.
"You don't get to complain when you attacked first." Was the only reply I could think of.
He looked up at me, a frown on his lips before the muscles in his face relaxed again.
"Apprentice!" Slade called. The boy sprang up and tackled me into and open shipping container. My breath was knocked out of me when my back slammed into the cold metal. By the time I was on my feet the boy was running out, the container door slamming shut behind him.
I heard a loud crash and stumbled out and was greeted only by the screeching of tires. The larger metal doors had been knocked off their frames in Slade's escape and one of the trucks were gone.
Sighing, I leaned against the container with a resounding thump and slid to the ground. Blood trickled from my leg and dripped onto the hard concrete, there was no way I'd be able to catch up with the state I was in. I stayed like that until my communicator beeped.
Raven's worried face appeared on the screen.
"Robin, are you okay?"
I leaned my aching head against the container and looked at the night sky peeking through the busted door.
"I'm fine. How are the others?"