"Vampire Genesis"
Chapter 9: "Suffer For Your Freedom"
Disclaimer: Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Hellsing belongs to Kohta Hirano. Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes and Julius Belmont belong to Konami and Rayne belongs to Majesco. The Initiative is a concept from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Wamphyr is Brian Lumley's version of the vampire from Necroscope. See all this stuff and these people that don't belong to me? Good, now I have a lesser chance of being sued.
Author's note: Sorry for my time away; I was busy coming up with ideas for this chapter and working on other story ideas. Anyway, this chapter is going to feature some curveballs thrown your way and I don't want to spoil them for you, so let's do this.
"Resurrection . . . is for those who didn't get it right . . . the first time." – Otep, "Sacrilege"
"Hey there, Slade," a young boy's voice greeted the demonic mastermind, whose singular eye searched for the intruder in his lair.
"What are you doing here?" Slade asked.
"I'm here to propose an alliance," the boy replied.
"For what purpose?" Slade asked.
"My commander and you want the same thing," the boy stated with a smirk. "A world of chaos, a world where blood freely pours down the streets, a world that is an endless waking nightmare, a world that is hell incarnate." The smirk grew more twisted. "How does that sound to you?"
Slade pulled out his longsword and swung in a particular direction, surprised to find that his blade had not found purchase in anyone's vulnerable flesh. That surprise did not show, as he kept his expression and body language composed within his suit. He simply turned around and found a young cat-eared blond boy standing there, dressed in a tan Nazi uniform.
"Nazi, huh?" Slade remarked. "I thought you fools went out of fashion after World War II."
"Oh, we're after something quite different than what you think when you think of the word 'Nazi,'" the boy responded. "In fact, Hitler was a short-sighted moron. We simply want to sink this world into the bowels of hell itself. Does that sound like fun to you?"
"Actually, it sounds very much like fun. My kind of fun, that is."
"And don't worry. We'll give you all the help you need against those Teen Titans, particularly the one called Robin."
"No. Deal with the others however you choose. Robin belongs to me."
"If you insist." He smirked. "What about Raven?"
"Leave her to me. She and I have some personal matters to settle."
"Sounds like a plan. At least I get the hot alien chicks."
"Do what you will with them. Robin and Raven are all mine."
Back at Titans Tower, the other Titans were watching Robin train on the obstacle course, the difficulty level of which he'd adjusted to "lethal." He outran laser fire with a demonic ease and leaped over a chasm filled with sharp, tall spikes with a little boost from his telekinesis. Robotic fists pumped out of the ground, only for Robin to cut through them with a Birdarang saber. Training droids emerged armed with laser cutters, but Robin dodged and sliced through them with inhuman speed.
"He's been like this ever since we came back from the Initiative last week," Kid Flash remarked.
"Way to master the obvious," Mai jibed.
"He's pissed about something, but he's not saying what," Beast Boy added.
"You think it has anything to do with what happened to his left eye?" Cyborg asked.
"I'd bet on it," Raven replied. "He's been pushing himself like this . . . I'm scared for him."
"We all are," Argent said. "He's . . . I thought he was letting me in for a while, but now he's gone and stonewalled me."
"Someone wanna go down there and talk to him?" Cyborg asked.
"Not me," Beast Boy replied. "He set that training course to lethal! I don't wanna get my head sliced off down there!"
"I shall go," Starfire said, flying down into the obstacle course. "Robin!"
"What do you want?" Robin asked, flipping backward and throwing Birdarangs that embedded themselves in the training droids' chests and exploded.
"We are concerned for you, Robin," Starfire replied, remaining above the training course.
"Thanks," Robin said, "but I'm fine."
"No, you are not," Starfire replied. "You have been obsessively training ever since you returned to us from your meeting with the city clan leaders. What is the matter?"
"What's the matter?" Robin echoed harshly, his cape enclosing his body. "I'll tell you what the matter is. The matter is that these powers have brought us nothing but trouble! I have people who want my head simply for being what I am and people who want to use me because of what I am! I failed the people who trusted me to protect them! Tell me, Starfire, with all this power that I have now, why am I still powerless to protect the people I need to protect?!"
Starfire floated down to Robin's level. "You are not powerless."
"I wish I could believe that, Star. I really wish I could." He began walking away from the training course and away from Starfire, who watched him walk by sadly. He stopped only when he felt a pair of slim yet strong arms wrap around his middle.
"Stay," Argent whispered. "Stay with me."
"Argent . . ." Robin turned around in Argent's arms, looking into her eyes with his own mismatched ones.
"You're our heart, Robin. You never give up, so don't start now. Please don't start now, or I'll kick your ass. Got me?"
Robin found a smile making its way onto his face. "Yeah. I got you. Always."
Starfire watched Robin and Argent with no small feeling of jealousy in her heart. Why was it that she could not comfort Robin, after knowing him for all this time, and Argent – who was almost a stranger – could? She felt guilty for her thoughts, but she had loved Robin first. He had freed her from her chains and she had claimed her first kiss from him. Why could they not be together? What was it about the silver-skinned plasma wielder that made Robin gravitate toward her? What could they possibly share that was so much stronger than what she and Robin had?
Raven watched Starfire watching Robin and Argent with some sympathy for Starfire and some sadness for herself. She knew Starfire still loved Robin with everything she had, knew that Robin had been her first and possibly truest love. She knew how much it hurt for Starfire to see Robin with someone else, but it didn't hurt as much as knowing that her own love had been subverted by his monster of a father and now she was forced to be his jailer. She knew the twisted thing that had once been the boy she loved was simply biding his time, waiting patiently, recovering his strength.
She clenched her fists. Slade would pay for this. He would pay for what he had twisted Jericho into. She would rip that payment out of his blackened heart and she would make him choke on her pain. If it killed him, so be it. She bowed her head, her eyes faintly crimson with her repressed wrath.
The boys watched with varying degrees of worry. There was a lot of emotional tension that had built up over the past week. Robin was pushing everyone away again, just like he did when he was obsessed with Slade. Starfire was pining away after Robin, tortured by the knowledge that he would not love her the way she wanted him to. Raven was straining to contain the warped creature that was once a Titan and the object of her secret affection and it was starting to show. Sooner or later, that tension would burst free and then they'd be in for it.
Robin heard the sound of a hypersonic jet approaching. He looked up, his eyes zooming in on a bat-winged fighter jet approaching Titans Tower. He looked more closely and saw a very familiar face in the cockpit. His eyes narrowed angrily.
"Robin?" Argent asked.
"Batman," Robin answered.
The jet hovered above the bay and the cockpit opened, allowing its pilot to climb out of the jet. Said pilot was garbed in dark gray body armor with black gloves and boots. A black bat symbol covered his chest and a dull yellow utility belt rested securely on his hips. A scalloped black cape wrapped around his shoulders and a bat-eared black cowl covered his head, leaving only his mouth and jaw exposed, his eyes hidden behind whiteout lenses.
"Dude!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "It's Batman! It's frigging Batman!"
"Now's not the time to act like a demented fanboy," Cyborg advised, "but man, does that guy have some sweet tech!"
"Yeah," Beast Boy agreed with proverbial stars in his eyes.
"Robin," Batman greeted tersely.
"Batman," Robin answered just as tersely. "What do you want?"
"I'm worried about you," Batman responded.
"Why? I thought you'd be happy to be working alone again."
"I'm worried because armed men and women attacked you and your friends in your Tower. That means your security is lacking."
"No, it's not lacking, it was broken into by a cyberpath."
"No excuse. Even cyberpaths can be circumvented. The fact of the matter is that you were caught unguarded. You're lucky you didn't lose any of your teammates."
"Don't lecture me. I didn't need it then and I don't need it now."
"Like it or not, you still have a lot to learn."
"And I've learned more from being here with a team, with friends, with a real family, than from being with you."
As the exchange went on, the other Titans and Mai watched, with Mai voicing what was on some of the Titans' minds: "Geez, what a prick."
If Batman heard her, he didn't react; his attention was focused on Robin, who was still holding Argent. "And you're getting involved with your teammates."
"So? We live together, we've bonded as teammates and friends; things like that happen when you don't dedicate every nanosecond of your life to self-repression."
"And you're not wearing your mask."
"Do I need it around them?"
"Do you want to protect your identity? You're not untouchable, after all."
Robin glared at Batman. "I'll wear the mask when I go out in public, but not when I'm alone with the Titans. And I'm going to ask one more time: What the hell do you want here?"
"I said I was worried about you."
"That's what you said. What do you mean?"
Batman stared into Robin's mismatched eyes. "I don't want to lose you."
"Then why did you fire me? Why did you tell me I couldn't be Robin anymore?"
"Because I didn't want you to die. If it meant clipping your wings and putting you in a cage, so be it. As long as you were still alive, that was all that mattered to me." A regretful chuckle issued from his mouth. "But robins were always meant to fly. I should have known that."
Robin smiled slowly. "Yeah. You should have."
"I've been looking into the people who attacked your Tower last week . . . and tracking certain movements in this city."
"Whose movements?"
Batman smiled. "With a little help." He turned to the jet, looking into its cockpit. "You can come out now."
Immediately, a lithe figure sprang out of the cockpit and landed agilely on the island. He straightened up to his full height, visible as a young man garbed in a skintight black suit with a red X slashed into the left breast. Gray gloves with red X's on the palms and backs covered his hands and forearms and a gray belt wrapped around his hips. A black cape with tattered edges rested on his shoulders and his face was concealed by a black mask with a white skull plate decorated by a red X.
Robin was so startled that he pulled out of Argent's arms. "Red X. What are you doing here?"
"Relax, kid. I'm on your side today."
"He's working with me," Batman stated. "I picked him up after he attempted to rob Wayne Enterprises' headquarters here."
"And how did you persuade him?" Robin asked.
"He's keeping me on a huge retainer and supplying me with refined zinothium," Red X replied. "In exchange, I steal from the real crooks and keep my ear to the ground on what they're up to."
"Such as a terrorist group named Millennium," Batman filled in. "They have bases in Germany and Brazil and they've linked up with the Fourth Reich here in this country."
"Fourth Reich?" Robin asked.
"Metahuman neo-Nazis, which makes a certain amount of sense when you consider that Millennium was originally a Nazi military organization."
"What does Millennium have to do with us?" Kid Flash asked.
"Everything," Batman replied. "They have a biotech modification process that enables them to transform humans into vampires."
"Like those Initiative wankers creating artificial dhampirs, only they're going all the way," Argent supplied.
"As far as I've been able to deduce, it's some kind of genetic re-sequencing," Batman said. "Some scientists have theorized that the real source of vampirism may be linked to segments of junk DNA that are starting to manifest themselves, triggering mutations similar to what humans have historically defined as vampirism." He looked more closely at Robin. "Jason Blood and Dr. Mid-Nite want to see you."
"Then I'll go see them," Robin answered.
"I can take you to them."
"Thanks, but no thanks. I can get there by myself. Just don't stay here and try to order my team around. Speaking of my team . . ." He looked at his teammates. "Cyborg, Raven, you two are in charge while I'm gone. I won't be long, though. And keep an eye on X so that he doesn't swipe any more of my stuff."
"I'll be good," Red X piped up with mischievous joviality.
Robin zoomed away from Titans Island, reaching Gotham City in the space of fifteen minutes and putting on a pair of motorcycle glasses to conceal his identity. He went to Jason Blood's secluded home and knocked on the door. "I see you, young man," a voice spoke from the intercom. "Come in."
The door opened and Robin walked inside, seeing artifacts from various bygone eras and all looking extremely authentic. It was as though the owner had owned them in the times they had been made and had preserved them for all those centuries. In Jason's case, Robin knew that was probably.
"Hello, Robin," a man's smooth voice greeted him. Robin turned to face a man dressed in a khaki jacket over a black shirt and gray slacks. The man had very short dark hair with a white streak running through it and dark eyes. "It's good to see you again."
"You wanted to see me," Robin said. "Is this about my powers?"
"Yes, the source of them to be precise. And also the origin of the monstrosity you faced when you took on Deathstroke."
"Deathstroke?"
"Known to you as Slade. Deathstroke was his title in a former life, one he has resumed since coming into his new powers."
"What's going on here?"
"The vampires and the Wamphyri are connected. When L'andira created the first vampire and that vampire began to create others, some humans grew envious. The only ones that could be converted were the ones who showed loyalty to L'andira and had noble hearts, as L'andira's worshippers did not want those with greed or other such evils in their hearts to gain the power that came from L'andira's essence. Those avarice-filled humans used dark magic to summon a leech from another world, a leech the leader infused into himself to become equal and opposite to the vampires L'andira had created. But the leech corroded the last vestiges of morality in him and he created others like him, other perverse excuses for vampires, the vampire shadows called Wamphyri.
"In response to this, the vampires battled the Wamphyri plague, learning how to contain it and stop it from spreading over time. In the realm of the gods, L'andira fought a war against her fellow gods, who had seized the opportunity to turn on her. She fought valiantly, but the Wamphyri managed to take many of her worshippers and without their faith, she weakened just enough for the traitorous gods to trap her in the Silent Zone. The remnants of her worshippers scattered, but they would wait, they would bide their time until they found someone with a body strong enough to hold L'andira's essence so she could lead them on Earth."
"That's what happened?"
"Yes, and now in addition to the resurrected Wamphyr threat, there is Millennium."
"Batman told me about them. Nazi military organization turned terrorist group and they're using artificial vampires."
"Yes, they are inducing mutations in ordinary humans that make them gain abilities similar to those of supernatural vampires." Jason looked at Robin. "I would like to communicate with L'andira for a moment. Would you let me?"
Robin nodded, removing his motorcycle glasses. "Yes."
Jason reached out to Robin, touching his forehead and looking into his indigo eye and silver eye. Instantly, Robin found himself in his mindscape, with Jason's mental image there as well. L'andira's mental image was present before them, garbed in the same way she had been when Robin first saw her. She smiled at Jason and Robin.
You wanted to see me?
Yes, Jason answered. I wanted to meet you. I wanted to see if you could be trusted to remain inside Robin without trying to subvert him.
The way the Wamphyr leeches subvert anyone they possess? I would not do such a thing to Robin. There are certain things he must realize about being a vampire, but that does not mean I want to see his free will utterly subverted. And . . . I'm rather fond of him, despite his shyness about sexuality and his rather silly desire to abstain from killing.
I suppose I should be grateful for that, Robin remarked. And it's my "silly desire to abstain from killing" that separates me from monsters like Deathstroke.
If you insist. A coy smile found its way onto L'andira's lips, the glimmer in her eyes promising . . . something.
Having culled all he needed to know from L'andira's mind, Jason pulled himself back into the real world, Robin soon following. "I'm going to have to see Dr. Mid-Nite now," Robin said. "Still, it's good to see you again."
"Likewise," Jason answered.
Robin departed from Jason Blood's home and broke into a run toward the Justice Society's headquarters. Once there, he climbed up onto the rooftop and opened the skylight. He slipped on the motorcycle glasses once more and jumped through the skylight, landing in front of the assembled collection of veteran and not-so-experienced heroes. His cape closed around him like a cloak, enveloping his body as a smirk came to his lips at the startled expressions on their faces.
"What the hell was that about, Bat-brat?!" Power Girl, Superman's cousin from a parallel universe, asked furiously.
Robin chuckled. "Sorry about the surprise, Power Girl." He looked around and found Dr. Mid-Nite. "Just the man I wanted to see. Or who wanted to see me. Makes no difference now; we're in the same place now."
Jay Garrick, the original Flash, looked at Robin with a scolding expression. Robin shrugged. "I said I was sorry," the Dark Squire grumbled.
"Come with me, Robin," Dr. Mid-Nite said, escorting Robin into the medical lab. "Sit down on the medical table."
Robin sat on the medical table and pushed back his cape. "What now?"
"I'm going to take a blood sample so I can examine your DNA," Dr. Mid-Nite replied, taking out a syringe and swabbing a spot on Robin's arm. He plunged the syringe into that spot, the needle puncturing the vein and the syringe taking blood from that vein. Once it was over with, the small puncture wound closed, prompting Dr. Mid-Nite to look at Robin curiously. "I know that was probably only a small example, but that was an impressive feat of healing."
"You don't know the half of it." Robin got off the medical table and onto his feet. "Thanks, Dr. Mid-Nite."
"I'll call you when I find something worth noting, and I think I'm going to be calling you a lot."
"Just make a list and call me when it's full."
Dr. Mid-Nite chuckled softly. "You have a better sense of humor than your mentor."
"Everyone has a better sense of humor than him." Robin walked out of the medical lab and back into the midst of the Justice Society. "Sorry about my intrusion and I'm going to leave now."
"Not that way you aren't," Wildcat grumbled. "Come with me, kid." He escorted Robin out of the Justice Society's brownstone. "And don't do that again."
"I'll try not to," Robin muttered, running back to Titans Island. As he approached it, he saw Alucard waiting for him along with the other Titans. "Alucard. What brings you here?"
"The fact that eventually, I'll have to kill you," the Victorian-styled vampire replied.
"Why's that?"
"Cohabitating with vampires, for one thing. Then going and losing them all. Highly incompetent for someone of your leadership caliber, but then you're young and inexperienced when it comes to maintaining a vampire clan, so I suppose that can be forgiven. Not to mention that you bested this city's clan leaders' best Death Dealers, the so-called Seven Deadly Sins. Not that deadly, were they? And you've taken the power of one of them, haven't you?"
"How do you know all this?"
"I'm not just a highly efficient killer of vampires. I'm also very skilled at observing, although I much prefer the killing." He smiled, but there was no mirth in it. "And you've gone and converted your lover. Never a wise thing to do, to make a vampire just because you want to hold onto them forever. Time has a way of changing things and would you want an ex-lover haunting you into the centuries to come?"
"I had no choice. It was either that or she would become an even worse creature."
"Ah, the Wamphyr menace has returned to rear its unsightly head. And your worst enemy has become one of them and allied himself with Millennium."
"I've heard a lot of talk where Millennium is concerned. We already know about Millennium joining up with Slade, but why?"
"Because their objectives are the same! A world of chaos, a world of madness and bloodshed! An endless nightmare of a war!" Alucard threw his head back in a mad laugh. "Come, Robin! Do you not see the opportunity presented to you?! Enemies who might actually be worth crushing! Can you truly bear to wait for them to come?!"
"You're insane!"
Alucard calmed down to a mere chuckle. "You sad, sad boy. Still so new to the joys of vampirism. Well, you'll experience the opportunity for battle soon. Very, very soon." With one more laugh, he stepped onto the boat that had guided him to Titans Tower and steered it away, leaving Robin scared out of his wits, both of Alucard and of himself.
End Notes: That's a good point to end this story. The cat-eared boy that appeared to Slade is Schrödinger from the Millennium Organization in Hellsing, as this still is a Hellsing crossover. The characters affiliated with the Justice Society come from DC Comics, as do Jason Blood and Batman. Alucard I'm sure you know if you're aware of Hellsing to any degree.
Anyway, things have gotten awfully fierce. Now we know some of L'andira's background and Slade has teamed up with Millennium, who in turn has recruited some neo-Nazi super-villains to act as their arm in America. And Alucard's in the mix, as always . . . man, oh, man, is this going to be a cauldron of hellfire or what?