Chapter 4.
Finally, after searching the interior, they found what they were looking for. The stairs led down into the basement of the factory, large vats and tanks holding all manner of industrial chemicals lined the walls and as they finally descended to the floor they came into the main chamber. The room was dimly lit, but in its center there was a large open tank in the floor where rested what looked to be a humongous pile of goop. Currently, the goop was staring at them.
"I see you've returned little one." The sludge said to Annie as she neared the pool.
"I must say you've looked better Clayface." Robin commented.
Raven looked around at the shadows. "Guys, we aren't alone."
"How perceptive of you, Raven." Slade said stepping from the shadows.
"We're here to destroy you father and put an end to this madness." Annie said vehemently.
"Madness? Are you calling your family madness?" Clayface said with a raspy laugh.
"Family?" Annie said aghast.
"Of course. Why did you think I experimented on you?" Slade said nonchalantly. "Clayface and I have been making you a bunch of little brothers and sisters." The titans watched in horror as smaller versions of Annie stepped from the shadows, each wearing one of Slade's apprentice uniforms. I found apprentices with free will to be a bit too much of a trifle so I thought I'd try some who were mindless automatons. Each of these creations answers only to Clayface, who in turn answers only to me. You'll have to excuse their current size. We haven't been able to manufacture enough material to make enough bodies just yet."
Raven crouched ready to dodge and begin fighting. Slade merely chuckled behind his mask as his new minions surged forward. Raven let loose, tearing apart the nearest clay creations with her dark magic. However as soon as she would tear them apart they would merely reattach themselves together, or worse, to a different body to continue the attack.
Starfire wasn't fairing much better. The Clayface clones were proving to be as resilient as Annie in a fight, and were apparently just as capable as close in fighters if not more so.
Raven began to be pushed back as the mindless automatons charged forward with no fear for their safety of well being. No matter how many she felled, they always managed to recuperate and surge forward again.
Robin struggled, but the most effective fighter was Annie. After only a moment, it was obvious that the golems were avoiding her. When she finally connected to one of them, Raven understood why.
Annie absorbed one of her smaller siblings into her body, making her grow as the added mass strengthened her. With a smile she set into the fray against her 'brothers and sisters'. This was when Slade intervened. "Now, now, we can't have that now can we?"
Slade attacked throwing explosive after explosive into the girl, blowing chunks away to be reabsorbed by his army. Raven was about to come to her aid when a tidal wave of goop washed over her. Air left her lungs as she felt constricted. She was about to pass out when her vision cleared and she realized she'd been immobilized in a seething mass of clay which pinned her arms and gagged her to prevent her from using her magic. Using what she could muster, her dark magic would rip into her bonds only to be replaced by new material as quickly as the old was lost.
Starfire was apparently similarly bound, while Robin was simply held by two more golems who looked like they'd absorbed enough material from the fight to be older brothers to Annie.
Annie was the only one left standing, and she looked hurt and tired from the explosives Slade had used on her. Slade was of course gloating. "Give it up girl. You can't beat all of us."
"Bring her to me, so that I can reabsorb her. She has been loose for too long. It's time I did away with her permanently." Clayface said to Slade. Raven's eye went wide as she realized that Annie wasn't just Clayface's daughter but a part of him.
Annie seemed to shrink, caving in on herself in defeat. She finally knelt down in front of the vat that contained the floating blob. "Father, can I please just have one last request?"
"I am feeling magnanimous since we've finally won. Speak, what is your request." Clayface said in triumph.
"Can I kiss Robin just one last time?" Annie asked simply.
Clayface seemed to consider the idea and then nodded. Or at least his face dipped lower on the amorphous mound which was his head. "It will make his look of despair that much more amusing. The sight of his crushed spirit kept me warm on the cold nights of my imprisonment."
Raven felt a pang in her heart as Annie approached Robin. Robin was nearly beside himself. "Annie, don't. I lost you once, don't do this again."
"It'll be alright Robin." Annie said sadly. Her two brothers cautiously moved away from her as she embraced Robin. Raven couldn't bear to watch her kiss Robin and found Starfire looking away as well.
Raven looked back up as Annie stepped away from the boy wonder and her two brothers each grabbed him as he struggled furiously to try to escape from their grasp. "ANNIE, DON'T DO IT, PLEASE!" Robin shouted desperately.
Annie looked over her shoulder at the boy wonder one last time and then turned to her father. "Are you ready?"
"Come to me, my daughter." Clayface grumbled.
Annie stepped forward toward the tank, but as she got to the edge she reared back and before anyone could react, she hurled one of Robin's explosive boomerangs in the air. Slade and Clayface instinctively ducked, but the boomerang hadn't been headed for them. Instead, high above it struck a huge chemical tank, rupturing the side from the blast and sending a stream of corrosive acid cascading into the tank below.
"Even you cannot survive your body being diluted and dissolved father." Annie said darkly as Clayface screamed helplessly as his body began to dissolve. "Now you die, like you should have a long time ago."
"NO! SLADE, DO SOMETHING!" Clayface screamed in panic as the corrosive liquid began to dissolve his body.
Slade looked at the dissolving form of his henchman and watched as his army suddenly began to loose cohesion. Annie stood at their center gathering their bodies into her own. Then, he ran.
He ran for about forty feet before a mud-like tentacle wrapped around his neck jerking him off his feet and pulling him through the air helplessly toward Annie. "You and I have unfinished business." The girl sadly as anger flared in her eyes.
"THIS IS FOR TORTURING ME!" Annie shouted as the tentacle whipped Slade forward toward Annie. With nothing to move against, Slade helplessly flew towards his attacker, spinning around to attempt to kick the maddened girl.
Slade never landed his kick as he encountered Annie's arm as it extended out from her body at amazing speed congealing into a solid steel battering ram that caught the villain in the chest and didn't stop until it crashed him into the far wall.
Raven heard bones give off sickening cracks and snaps as Annie slammed her tormentor with all her strength. Finally, as Clayface's tortured screams began to fade the sludge holding her in place began to unravel. Raven quickly broke free as Starfire blasted her own bonds to pieces. Robin had disengaged himself from his melting captors as Annie rejoined them.
"He is dead?" Starfire said looking into the brackish fluid left in the tank.
Raven looked away from the pool to where Annie had turned Slade into a human, or in his case inhuman, nail. It really didn't surprise her that he was nowhere to be seen. "Slade's gone." She reported getting ready to join Robin in his usual mad hunt for the villain.
Robin however wasn't running, or saying anything. For once, Slade was forgotten and he was looking at Annie. Raven followed his gaze and realized with horror that Annie was also melting.
"What is happening?" Starfire asked in panic.
"Father's power was all that gave me form." Annie said sadly.
"Annie, you didn't have to do this. We could have found another way." Robin said desperately.
"No Robin, I had to stop him. He's hurt too many people. I couldn't allow him to go on hurting people, even if it meant this." Annie said as her form began to droop.
Raven reached out with her magic, trying to stabilize her form. Even as she tried she could feel her body slipping slowly from her grasp. "I can't hold it Robin!"
"Let me go Robin." Annie said seriously.
"What, how can you say that? I won't let you go! I'll take your body back to the tower! I'll find a way for you to have your own form!" Robin cried grabbing the girl.
"No Robin, the same thing that could bring me back might bring back my father and this army that Slade wanted to create." Annie argued.
"I can't just let you die, and don't you dare tell me you're not real again." Robin said to the girl.
"I wish I could. I know you've thought for all these years that you failed to save me, but you shouldn't feel guilty. I chose to save you then, and this is what I've chosen now. I chose this. No one else chose it for me. Robin, when Raven helped us to speak with our minds I felt something. You've found people that love you, just like I love you. Don't destroy your future by dwelling on your past. Let. Me. Go." Annie implored him. Her body had now shrunk and Robin cradled her melting from as Raven desperately tried to hold it together.
"I don't know if I can. You'll always be a part of me." Robin confessed.
"And as long as I'm a part of you, I'll live on." Annie countered. "Starfire, Raven, I'm sorry if my coming upset the two of you. Take good care of Robin for me."
"We will." Starfire promised as tears flowed freely down the emotional alien's cheeks.
"Let go of your power Raven, I'm ready to leave." Annie said in determination.
Raven looked at Robin for what he might say but the boy only looked down at Annie as if his heart was being ripped from his chest. Raven started to speak, but instead simply released her power.
Annie slipped from existence and the pool that had been her body oozed from the fingers of the boy wonder.