I didn't realize it at first, but I made a perfect set up for angst-filled glory which I'd rather avoid. How did I not realize it after writing the prologue? I have no idea, but I didn't. Maybe it's because I've watched Raven's dad, a brain in a jar, Brother Blood, Slade put the Titans in such drastic situations and then watched everyone walk away almost like nothing happened. Anyway, that's why the chapter took so long. I was actually debating how traumatized these people were! Even in their superhero careers they had to have some pretty traumatizing moments I took that into consideration! That's a terrible thing to have to think about! If the series can tone it down, then I'll probably go way too far one way or the other...

Sorry I didn't put this before: Dick=Robin, Garfield=Beast Boy, Kory=Starfire, Victor=Cyborg, Raven=Raven

Chapter 3: Details

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Danny looked at his patched-up hand as he walked down the single-file line of prisoners to god-knows-where. Well, it wasn't a great fix, but it was good enough. Personally, Danny had no idea how to fix a broken, sprained, or twisted hand. He hardly knew the difference. School was never exactly the first thing on his mind, especially health class, probably the most dreaded of all classes.

Sam, knowing how to make natural medicines out of some random berry in the woods and plenty of other witchdoctor gimmicks, was his medic most of the time while Tucker just stood there and made fun of him for breaking a bone again. Just because Danny had advanced healing, it didn't mean a broken bone didn't hurt any less and was a laughing matter, but how could he be mad a Tucker? The guy didn't know and Danny never really chose to complain since Sam was always right there and some idiot guy thing inside of him always wanted to be tough-ish around her.

Of course, that was before he got mixed up in all of this mess and was thrown into a detention center and now this correctional facility. It was amazing how many different ways you could phrase the word "prison" and give it a sort of honorable ring when it really was a box full of idiots, thugs, and him. He wondered how Sam was doing. Last he saw Sam and Tucker, they were running, same as him. Only, he was naturally faster and sped ahead. It was a terrible decision now that he had time to reflect. He should have stayed with them. He should have protected them and now…that's the worst part. Danny had no idea what happened to them. All he can remember is the fear in their eyes as the shouted for him to run. He wished he had stayed behind to help in some way. But, he didn't.

They could be in this place too if they were unlucky enough. Danny pictured Sam in one of those testing warehouses. A horrified expression in her eyes as she figures out what happens after the buzzer. What happens after that didn't dare enter his mind.

He walked towards the door where a prison guard patted him down and then let him out into a giant caged-off field. If Danny had to describe this place in a word: Chernobyl. Upturned pieces of concrete and bars were just sticking out of the rough dirt floor that was sprinkled with trash of brand-name snacks everywhere, tall menacing walls were chipped and their thin layer of paint was peeling, everything smelled like a clever mix of the dumpster and water. If he was going to figure this place out, he might as well look at the rest of this disaster. A few prisoners laughed and decided to make quick remarks as he ran past.

"Where you goin', snowflake?"

"Nowhere to run."

"Yeah, keep moving, that'll keep you safe."

"Where do you think you're going to get."

Patience was one of those things Danny learned after getting ripped on by Dash every other day of his high school career. Ignoring them came naturally, but he'd admit it was a pretty annoying distraction as he tried to keep count of his steps. The wall a few hundred yards away blocked Danny's view of anything past it. Obviously there was no city, but he could have probably seen a road if that damn wall wasn't so high. Danny looked around. There was at least one guard for every fifty feet and a ton were scattered at ground level.

He had decided that he was going to escape and he hadn't forgotten that decision, in fact, it was a desire that was screaming at him so loudly that it was taking a good amount of patience not to do something stupid right now. Taking a breath, he started running down the perimeter of the fence to at least get an idea of what he was up against and make sure that if he was going on foot, there'd be no problem, even with human speed. Small details made big plans.

Obviously, they had guards on the watch towers. The fence wasn't electric. The wall was pretty high and there was a guard tower in the distance. It didn't look like there was some sort of shield around the perimeter. Ghost shields always had that obvious green tint to them. There were three buildings inside the wall in total. The one he had just come out of looked about six stories tall.

The next took up the most space and blocked out most of the perimeter. That place was ridiculously well guarded and blocked off any exit Danny would have used going out the back of this facility. Stone walls were cut off by those giant buildings and there were plenty of guards parading around it.

At only two stories tall, the third building was -by far- the smallest. Prisoners were moving in and out of it and some were loading furniture onto trucks. How else do you fund a prison besides making the crappy foldable chairs that always broke after two uses? The prisoners loaded on the furniture into the truck. A guard glanced at the truck once and then it sped away to freedom at the wall's gate. It all started to make sense - the reason those chairs were terrible. Danny had no idea how the hell he was going to get out of here.

He was going to figure something out. Maybe he should start being social.

"Where do you think you're goin', snowflake?" called one of the guys when he ran by.

…maybe not. And, how did he resemble a snowflake?

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Dick hobbled through a single-file line out into the courtyard, just like every other day. It was driving him insane. But, routines all had their weaknesses. They played the same list of music every morning starting with "Please Be Kind" by Django Reinhardt and the last would be "the Ballroom Waltz" sung by an annoying Cliff Eidelman. The music's date ranged from the 1920s-50s and it was annoying to listen to them every single time.

To break his pattern, Dick had made a point of inspecting and learning something new about all three buildings of this prison center every day. All three had their own little labels including the "mad house" as it was nicknamed, where every prisoner lived row upon row, the "dog house" which was the testing and correction center where they had to go through fights at least once a week, the "office building," or warehouse, including, but not limited to, a woodshop, metal shop, computer lab, and filing system all overseen by guards. Cyborg and Raven worked in the metal shop by some kind of stroke of luck. Dick had to pull some strings and make some trades to work in the filing system in the hopes that he could snag some crucial information about this place every now and then. So far, the most impressive thing he found was the ridiculously high the pay role of these guards.

There were exactly sixty two guards outside right now. Twenty four wandered through the open court yard while the rest were stationed either on the overhang of the buildings and walls or in the watch towers. Their shifts were in eight-hour intervals and they changed at 10:00 after the first morning count at 9:30. Their radios, at normal times, were always on channel 3, channel 4 was for maintenance, channel 2 was for the defenses by the wall, beyond the fence, channel 5 for minimum security inside of the "dog house," channel 6, which was always monitored, was an emergency channel, and 1 and 7 were private channels that weren't anywhere on the record.

"So, where's this thing?" Garfield asked in a hushed voice as he guided Dick through the swarm of prisoners that all clumped together at the door before they moved on to the benches.

"I'll tell you about it later. You should get back to work before they notice you're late," Dick said.

"Don't worry about that. Show me what it is now or it'll drive me crazy all day. They don't care if I'm late or anything, as long as I get my job done," Garfield said with a light shrug.

Dick motioned his head towards the mad house. Garfield set Dick down on one of the thousands of makeshift benches that were formed from the old foundation that had to be broken and dug into three years ago to make more room, the unorganized pieces of concrete were already scratched in and marked by other prisoners like a real park bench in Jump City. Even the standard garbage of the Lay's and Ruffles brand names, the only junk food this prison seemed to provide for the guards, was tumbling across the dirt like it would in the park. "There's an open vent right there on the fourth floor. You see it?"

"Yeah," Garfield said looking up at the brick building. Sure enough, four floors up on the right side of the building was the trademark square of a metal vent, just that one in the most obvious spot.

"Stop staring at it," Dick said quickly.

Garfield moved his eyes to his shoes. "What about it?"

"The entire building is infused with that ventilation system, but it's all behind the wall except for that spot."

"I see where you're going, but we scratched that plan before, didn't we? Remember the thirty foot wall?" Garfield asked motioning towards the brick building.

"Thirty-five foot wall and it's not a problem," Dick said. "The guards were doing some kind of investigation two weeks and they accidentally dug up a sewage pipe line that came from the mad house. Maintenance kept on going on for hours how they ended up miles away from the facility when they were looking for other problems while they were fixing that one. All we have to do is dig into the wall into the vent system, crawl down to the lower floor, find the pipe line and we crawl our way out."

"Crawl through a sewage line? That's nasty man," Gar practically gagged and his face twisted at the simple idea of it.

"Walk, crawl, does it matter? Do you want to stay here?" Dick asked almost threateningly. Garfield looked like he was trying to picture another day in the "dog house." Dick knew what he thought of that place. Barbaric, inhumane fighting against people that used to be his allies, honorary titans, and the mandatory inability to hold back was all that came with this place. He could hold his own for a while, but against all of these teenagers with super strength and dimension-warping powers, he wasn't able to keep it up and the infirmary seemed like a sight that was humiliatingly too familiar.

Garfield let the objection die, no doubt considering his own grievances. "One more problem: the cameras. They see the entire cell. We should try digging somewhere else."

"We're monitored even more everywhere else. Everything but the right hand corner where it's perched," Dick said. "You never noticed the blind spot?"

"I was never really paying that much attention," Garfield said. "Are you gonna tell everyone else, or should I do it?"

"I'll do it," Dick said with that quick authority that made him their unquestioned leader.

"Are you going to be alright with Kory?" Garfield asked wincing and bracing himself for any kind of negative reaction, because, logically, there couldn't be a positive one.

Dick clenched his jaw and the shallow glare, even behind his sunglasses, was an easy thing to sense, and he knew it. What was he supposed to say to Kory? He would just tell her what was going on, it couldn't be that hard. She…she'd be fine. Dick nodded before Garfield felt the need to ask again, "Yeah. Yeah, I'll talk to her."

"You're sure man? I mean after-"

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said darkly. There was no reason for him not to. If he was going to remain the team leader, he sure as hell was not allowed to break down and have a doubt about anything.

Garfield nodded and helped Dick walk to his station in the warehouse before running off to another section of the office that issued out the perks in the left wing rooms 24-27. Minor details were sometimes the most crucial things that he'd have to pay attention to. It was 9:02. He had a good hour and a half before he'd see Kory. He pinched the bridge of his nose, drawing the sunglasses down a little. He could do this.

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Danny didn't want to stop running when a sharp buzz interrupted the 20's music on the loudspeaker, signaling a head count or something. Everyone was talking and grumbling and pushing and it was just a big mob that was trying to form up, which always leads to controlled chaos. He was immediately pushed into a line and into someone.

"Please," said a light voice. It was obviously a girl's and it seemed pretty fragile.

Instantly, Danny apologized. It kind of came as an instinctive reaction after miserably failing trying to get a date…ever in high school. Those were just not his glory days. When he turned around to see who he had crashed into, it was quiet possible his jaw dropped, a tan…orangey tan, green-eyed, red haired girl was shyly holding one arm close to her. Sam probably would have shoved Danny back, being the moody Goth she was. This girl was cute to say the least, but then again, if she was here, something had to be wrong. For all he knew, she could be working with demon girl. That'd be Danny's own personal hell right there. It took him a while to realize while thoughts were running through his mind, he was still staring at the girl. It was probably a mistake not looking at his shoes. He fixed that error and instantly looked down.

"Are you new to this place of imprisonment?" she asked as guards pushed a few people and everyone around them buzzed with conversation. Her voice was kind of light and chirpy.

Danny looked up at him again, "How could you tell?"

"You are saying the 'Sorry' very quickly," she said. Okay, her grammar was kind of weird. Foreign girl? Besides Jersey, there aren't orangey-tan people with red hair.

"Sor-I mean, that's a bad thing?"

"No. I find it rather good, but others are not as appreciative of such things. It has been a while since someone was nice." Wow, a kindly person in this kind of place. Didn't the beast kid say that these were just guys with powers? Not directly villains, so some of them had to be nice if they were ex-heroes. She didn't look like a villain in any way. He doubted this girl, with her giant green eyes, would be able to hurt a fly. That's actually what he thought about a lot of ghosts he fought before and that always worked out well. Yeah - no.

"Don't get used to it," Danny said making his tone venomous and shifting away from her. Unfortunately, her discouraged big green eyes instantly made him feel like a jerk even after saying something so menial! It wasn't even like he directly insulted her! What is it with girls and that little puppy look that makes them so pitiful? Sam would only reserve that face for a big deal and Danny always hated it when, someone as reserved as her, did use it. "Sorry," he muttered, unable to think of anything better.

Somehow, that was more than enough for this girl and those big green eyes were bright again. "I know. It is not easy here. But, you do not have to act like a florgrath to talk to others," she said with a cheerier demeanor, not sunshine and rainbows everywhere cheery, but enough to make another person's day better.

Danny overshot all of that and furrowed his brows focusing his confusion on one, probably irrelevant point. What was a florgrath? He didn't say anything just creating that ridiculously long, uncomfortable silence between them while he was trying to think it out.

"What is your name?" she asked with a timid side-ways glance, breaking the silence.

"You first," he asked still a little unsure of what to think of her.

Her own look mirrored his, slightly skeptical and confused, but, unlike Danny, she was quicker to trust and said, "Starfire. And you?"

"Danny," he relented. People were going to learn it sometime and this girl seems harmless enough. Besides, it's not like introducing himself was going to cause a problem.

"You do not have a title for hero or villain?" she asked with that side-ways glance.

"Just Danny." A man passed him and checked off something on his clip board and then moved in front of Starfire, continuing the pattern. Why did everyone expect him to have a stage name? He kind of had one…Danny Phantom which was a disguise for Danny Fenton…Wow, he needed a new stage name. Now that he thought about it, everyone he met had had stage names. Mammoth probably had some sort of wimpy real name, but sticking with Mammoth made him all the more threatening. "Why, is that going to backfire on me?" Danny asked genuinely concerned.

"I suppose not," she shook her head, a warm smile growing on her face. It really didn't take a lot to make her smile. It's not like he said anything that would cheer up anyone. "It depends on the people that you will do the work with."

"Work?" Danny squinted. No one bothered to explain anything to him. Instead he had to ask people and look like a punk. That was just great! At least he wasn't talking to demon girl.

"They did not tell you of the work schedule?" she pointed to the smallest building on the lot. In his last prison, it was nothing but that stupid cell and a social hour of hell, he didn't even know prisoners could work. She lowered her eyes and started speaking to her shoes like the world was clouded again, "They assign you a job and you spend the day there."

"You sound ecstatic," Danny said sarcastically.

"I am not," she said to her shoes still. Danny could tell he was on that line of emotional problems of others and casual conversation. "I hope my friend will not be angry with me when I go there."

"Why? What'd you do?" Danny asked as a natural response. Human curiosity always was a bad thing to follow in this kind of situation.

"A terrible thing, and I am worried that my friends will not be forgiving me for it," Starfire said. That had an obvious story behind it, but Danny didn't want to guess, and frankly, it wasn't his business. He remembered all his messed up situations he had to deal with and confess to his friends. Probably one of the worst is when he met his future self and found out he was destined for a career with evil because of something they had nagged him earlier not to do. That was a fun conversation to have, but they were his friends. Never once did they turn their back on him and once he got out of here, he was going to find them too.

The buzzer went off again, making everyone scatter and move back to wherever they were before it. Starfire started walking away towards the building like she was approaching an execution. "Hey, Starfire." She turned around. "If they're your friends it shouldn't be an issue, right? It's kind of their job to forgive you. I donno. Good luck." Danny scratched the back of his head and waved her away as he started off in the opposite direction. He'd figure out his "job" later. For now, he was going to try to remember as much of the property's details as possible, which ment more jogging.

"Thank you," he heard her say.

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Raven loathed the metal shop. That was the only way to describe it. It was a fun thing to help Victor rebuild his car, but that was in the quiet of the Titan's garage. Here, there was noise everywhere. It wasn't like Raven could just stop moving and the noise would stop too. Nope. Cutting, welding, shining, drilling, pressing, everything made a sound in the compact space.

Okay, it wasn't compact at all, the entire garage was about half the size of the testing rooms, but she could still hear everything. It didn't help that a migraine was killing her. She skimmed the pages of the safety manual, which was not at all followed in this place, but what did she care? Her hair was tied up and nothing was going to set her clothes on fire from where she was standing.

Being in charge of the painfully dull process of cutting raw steel to size using a saw that looked bigger than her was more than loathsome in her book. How these people thought she'd be remotely useful in this department was a mystery to her. Library. Send her to a library if they had one. At least she wouldn't be reading a safety manual for the sake of variety.

"I can't use that thing if my life depends on it," Raven said skimming over the instruction manual for the large hunk of machinery in front of her. Victor was the one that usually handled this kind of stuff while she took advantage of the limited time to meditate. Now, she had to make the quota on her own because of what was probably happening to Vic.

She peaked over the book to see the empty space where she should have been getting her work done. Guards patrolled up and down the warehouse and were always watching to see if someone would try to sneak a piece of metal. There was some kid looking at her funny on the other side of the room. It dawned on her that this was the first time that she had been without Vic in this place for more than a day. Usually most of her view of this place was blocked by the hulking cyborg.

One day he was with them, and overnight he was gone, taken away, just like everyone else. Thrown in the "dog house" for Doctor Hillsberg's kicks, Vic must have caught the man's interest with something he did in that warehouse. That's what Raven was going to think because the other thing that could have happened didn't give him a chance of coming back to the team. What kind of sick man thought throwing Vic into a warehouse, forcing him to duel an opponent with whatever little he was given, and then going through Vic's very programs to change up his systems, completely destroy anything familiar about him and restricting- STOP!

Raven snapped the book shut and began to mindlessly measure the metal beams. Red hot blood was trickling down from the palm of her clenched hand. She couldn't get angry. If she got angry her powers would go off and they'd have no place to go but inside her body. She already had plenty of bruises and minor cuts from her previous episodes. There was only so long that she could feel nothing when her mind magnetically wandered to everything around her and all the bad here. Optimism was never her natural forte. Meditation every day was something she had to work for and her emotions boiled inside her just dying to get out, if she didn't calm them down, they set themselves off and lashed out at whatever they could get. If Raven wasn't careful, she'd end up breaking her own bones because of an involuntary temper tantrum.

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Dick drummed his fingers against his forearm as he stood, leaning against the wall adjacent to the runner's assignment sheet posted on the wall to room 25. Most people had already passed it by, but he knew Kory showed up a little later than the mob and would be here in five minutes at most.

It wasn't like it was the end of the world, but what was he supposed to say? Just his plan. He could say it and walk, or at least hobble, out without having to deal with any emotional weaknesses. He wished he could do this when he wasn't injured, but they needed to start digging as soon as possible.

Soon enough, the red-headed Tamaranian walked in with a smile on her face. Now was a terrible time for a loss for words, but she just seemed so normal right there. If she faced him, she'd instantly frown. He knew it.

"Kory," Dick said gathering his courage which always seemed to fail whenever something remotely emotional happened. It's not like Bruce was a great mentor for how to deal with that department. She wouldn't even look away from the paper when she heard his voice, but her lips lowered to a grimace. Her green eyes pinned on the ground and she twisted her fingers as she slowly turned to face him.

"Richard. I am sorry I have not spoken to the team recently." Dick didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. If she was upset, why would she have to face everyone at once, but, at the same time, why didn't she go to them? Her eyes caught onto his lopsided posture as he kept his weight shifted onto his right side, which was in better condition. "Are you…alright?" she asked timidly.

"I'm fine. The team was a little worried," Dick said trying not to show his discomfort in standing. Dammit! She wouldn't even look at him! "Really, Kory, I'm fine."

"I'm sorry," she said to the ground. "I-I did not mean to harm you. I have been doing the thinking and have been trying to find a way to talk with you, but I was hoping it would be an encounter a little later than this one. However, I am truly sorry, I…"

Why did she feel so guilty? He's the one that struck first. He was quicker to submit to that idiot doctor. Now, she thought she was the one that had something to be ashamed of. Everything about her was so kind and innocent and it made his heart twist to see her even consider, for a second, that any of that was her fault.

They wouldn't even be near this place if it wasn't for his obsession. He was the one that convinced the team. He was the one that had thought it would be an easy job. He was the one that let them get caught. If anyone should be ashamed to look at a team-mate's eyes, it was the former Robin. But, he couldn't afford to give himself what he deserved. Not now. He couldn't have doubt or self pity. He had to look at her no matter how much the guilt killed him.

If he closed his eyes, she wouldn't be able to see behind his sunglasses, but he had to do it. He cut her off from her apologetic babble. "It's not your fault. Hillsberg is the one that's making all of this happen," he lowered his voice. "None of it is your fault. We're going to stop him."

"But, we are responsible for the actions. I fear that we-" Why was she still talking to her shoes? Couldn't she look up at him? Her green eyes were pinned on nothing but some stupid speck of dirt on the plank of wood! For once in his life, Dick was starting to get jealous of a floorboard! Why couldn't she just look up at him so that he could face her and not the other way around?

"It's not your fault! Stop looking at the ground!" Dick said seething in anger and banging a fist against the wall. All he could think about was the fight between them. Someone had actually planned it, set them up there, and observed. It was the ultimate humiliation and insult. If he ever found Hillsberg, he'd be a step away from breaking his one rule when it came to villains.

Kory cringed, misinterpreting the reason for his anger. Her eyes were wide with fear and they were pinned on him. "I am sorry," she said with fear obviously trying to be masked by her voice. She wasn't Raven; her fright was more than visible. No, he couldn't be the one that made her so scared.

"It's not your fault," Dick said calming himself down. He offered a wary smile. "I mean it. Listen, once we're out of here, everything will be fine."

"I fear that our team cannot stay together for very long like this," Kory said.

"No. We've made four months. We're going to stay together."

"How do you know?" she whispered childishly. Her eyes dropped down just in sadness this time. Her lips curled down into a hopeless doubt. He hated it when she looked like that.

He started to whisper so that no eavesdroppers could hear. He took a breath and just tried to get through the part that he had planned to skip to, "I have a plan to get us out of here, as a team."

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Garfield walked through the mechanics shop at 12:00, the buzzer had rung declaring it lunch or at least that disgusting substitute they all called lunch. He wandered through the garage where she was assigned for her hours of work.

"Raven," he said in a low tone. He had been running up and down the prison all day collecting laundry. If the thought of Mammoth being on the list of people to collect from doesn't get to a guy, Garfield didn't know what would. "Time to go. High-school food galore," he joked lightly. He knew it was a bad one, but it wasn't exactly like he was in the most cheerful mood.

"The anticipation is killing me," Raven said in her usual drool monotone. It kind of scared Garfield how well she was able to do that. Not because she'd never laugh at a joke, he was used to that and it was a pretty kiddy reason to be scared. She just didn't know how to tell good comedy yet. What was scary to Garfield was that he didn't know how she was taking any of this. She could be one step away from a mental breakdown and her voice wouldn't give an inch to let him make sure that it wasn't just his over-active imagination wandering to other things since video games weren't allowed here. At least her powers were under control, that's something, he guessed.

She was always in control of them, but there hadn't been a time where she got angry and dark-energy fire started to engulf her. He wished it was that easy for him. Although he usually got to use his powers once a week, there was always some kind of animal instinct inside of him that was dying to get out. It was a craving that he couldn't get rid of. Repeatedly, he'd try to change on the spot and nothing would happen. No result ment no satisfaction, and Garfield sometimes felt like he was going a little crazy not being able to turn into any animal he wanted at any time. Sometimes he just wanted to jump from a high place or dive into any puddle he found after a rainy day and turn into an animal. Of course, he never went through with it because he knew he wouldn't change, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't tempted at times.

"You don't have to be all grumpy today."

"Why not today?" she raised a skeptical eyebrow dropping a new beam onto a small criss-cross platform. The edges were jagged and some of the bars were uneven, but Raven wasn't great with these kinds of tools anyway.

"Dick's got some good news," Garfield said keeping his enthusiasm as controlled as possible, but he wasn't nearly as good as Raven.

She glanced over to her left where some muscle-kid was staring at her. He winked after she caught his gaze and walked out, whistling one of the tunes that played over the loudspeaker all the time. Now, it was just the two of them in the garage section of this warehouse. Garfield raised an eyebrow following the guy with his eyes, "Uh…okay then."

"Ignore it," she said walking past him. "Is this the good kind of good news or that you found a stupid new deck of cards?"

"Don't be all mad because you're terrible at card games," Garfield said lightheartedly.

"When is the last time you've seen me want to play Go Fish?" Raven said in her deadpan voice that only managed to improve Gar's mood, because for a split second, it felt like nothing was wrong.

"No, it's something that's really good. You might even smile…that or the world will collapse," he laughed at his own joke. Raven didn't even flinch, but Garfield knew she found it a little funny, she had to. Outside, the fresh air smelled like, well it was terrible. As they walked from the warehouse to the dog house, Garfield noticed there were the few kids that always lingered behind and waited for the mob to die down and then there was one that was just running in the opposite direction like he was some civilian out on a morning jog. It was the Danny kid. He sped up running past them and Raven visibly cringed.

"You alright?" Garfield asked tracing Danny in the corner of his eye. The guy looked harmless, but so did everyone else. But, come on. He couldn't even defend himself from a broken hand; Raven wouldn't cringe for something like that! If they fought, she would have beaten him in two minutes tops.

"Yeah," she said half-heartedly.

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"Doc, what is the new one doing?" asked his boss.

Hillsberg looked through the one-sided mirror at the top of the testing and experimental facility into the open courtyard. With a flick of his eyes, Hillsberg could identify any one of his patients and the new one, also known as Subject Phantom, was running up and down the courtyard and ignoring the lunch bell. Other subjects were following the suit, but none of them were moving from their seats.

"Running, sir?" Hillsberg raised an eyebrow unsure of what he ment.

"He has a history of escape attempts. Schedule another fight. We need to make sure he understands not to make trouble."

"But, sir, we were making advances with Subject West. I think in less than a week he'll be the perfect-"

"Mr. Hillsberg, even though we both have the same goal and have five successful subjects, we have different priorities. Unlike you, I know that a test subject can't make advancements if they are lost altogether from some Hail Mary attempt to leave this place. Schedule a test for him against Subject West if you really want," he said without a hint of doubt. "That'll teach him how to run."

"Sir, we've- we've made plenty of advancements," Hillsberg felt like he needed to offer this information. "The five first successes are now remarkable chattels for us and we already have people in-"

"I know that, Mr. Hillsberg," he cut off the Doc. "I am seeing results, but every time one of these idiots pulls an escape attempt, weeks of effort are blown back because of a new spark of hope. Speaking of sparks, how's Subject Stone coming along? Any progress?"

"He's a better machine than ever and much easier to control. He was a partially flawless system at first, but I believe in a week or so, he'll be perfect. All that's left is to break a part of him and he should be our sixth successful experiment. One of our best."

"That's why I pay you, Hillsberg."

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Okay, focus is back on the Titans for this chapter. I'm getting around to finding a balance. So follow, favorite, comment. What needs improvement? What did you like? Best part? Worst part? Thoughts? Predictions? Questions? All the rest. You invested this much time. What do you have to say?