A/N: God, I hate not having a steady computer to work with anymore. It sucks. But, I do what I can, because you guys love me. (Evil cackle.) So, updates will be sporadic, but long chapters will hopefully make up for that. It takes time to perfect a story, my friends.
Chapter 3
To say that the last place Raven expected to wake up was on a cafeteria table would be an understatement. And a gross misjudgment of character. With the last thing to fill her vision being a padded room, a place she had always feared she would find herself in, to wake up to the smell of cheap table cleaners and bad office food was a relief. Having a Hostess Cupcake balanced on her nose? Well, that was just par for the course.
She sat up slowly, her pack popping as her spine remembered how to bend, and she groaned. "What the hell kind of bunny explodes in blood?" She asked no one in particular.
"Ask C. S. Lewis," Mimic grumbled. Raven looked around from her sitting position, and saw most of her teammates sitting around her, munching on vending machine food and otherwise being gloomy. All except for Stray, who lay unconscious on a table parallel hers.
"So, what? Did everyone pass out? Or just us?"
Robin gave her a grave look. "You passed out. Stray... well, Stray was knocked out afterwards." He gave the tabby a once-over, and moved to wake him up. Raven could tell he wasn't telling her everything, but given what she had learned about Stray earlier, she decided against asking. Better to talk to Stray one-on-one.
"So, what do we do now? Did that crazy blond girl give us any leads? Or are we sticking to floor-by-floor detail?" Raven glanced around, not sure who she was asking. She started to worry when her teammates started giving her awkward looks.
"Um, Rae?" Beast Boy asked, helping her down from the table. "What little blond chick? All we saw was the bunny rabbit of bloody doom."
She looked around at her teammates. All of them were giving her the same "Are you sure you didn't imagine it?" look. "You have got to be kidding me? I'm the only one who saw her? Let me guess, none of you got washed away into a sea of blood, and fell into a padded room?" She instantly regretted asking, as the others looked a little frightened now. She decided a cheap cover-all excuse was in order. "She must be sending me these visions, then. That might be why I can't use my powers, at least well."
Most of the concious team looked relieved. They could deal with psychic visions. Hallucinations, nuh-uh, but tell them 'I was having a prophetic dream', and they're cool. Raven marveled at one more convenience of her powers.
At that point, Stray decided to return to conciousness. "Uh... Ok, what happened? Last thing I saw was a creepy blond girl and an exploding blood bomb shaped like an albino Peter Cottontail. Next thing I know, I'm here..." he stopped, wary of the looks his team was giving him, then Raven, then back to him. "and you're looking at me like I just started chanting Raven's mantra in Tamaranian. What the fisk, guys?"
Raven wanted both to strangle him and hug him in the same move. Hug, because she wasn't truly going crazy, not if someone else saw what she did, and strangle, for poking large, gaping holes in her albeit flimsy cover story.
Robin spoke up first, "Ok, Stray, what EXACTLY did you see? Details."
"Well, I was holding point on the elevator on the left, or right, not sure... the one the creepy kid walked out of. By the way, I'm going on record right now in assuming that THAT was Caroline. I heard both elevators ding, but mine didn't open right away. So I turned around, and saw the bloody elevator room with Mr. Bunny in it, then heard the doors behind me open. I didn't see anything at first, it was, like, pitch black in there. But then she stepped out. Walked kinda slowly, too. Like she was sleepwalking. Then she pulls a Sadako Yamamura and flickers right in front of you, Raven. Swear she was going to kiss you or something, then, and I couldn't see her face from where I was standing... couldn't move, either. Like some crappy out of body experience, but I'm still right here, you now? But she must have opened her mouth to say something, but I couldn't hear it, cause my ears starting ringing like church bells, and the bunny exploded. Next thing I know I'm swimming in a room... full... of... blood. Oh god. Oh goddammit, I hate this mission. Don't tell me I--"
"We had to shock you, and drag you out of the elevator. You were licking the walls, man." Cyborg chipped in. "You wouldn't let anyone near you."
"To be truthful, we had to shock you after you assaulted Beast Boy, who had gone to see if Raven was ok," Starfire muttered. "You wouldn't let us near her, either."
Stray glanced around, and finally looked at Raven. She figured her expression wasn't good, because Stray looked almost hurt by it.
The tabby laid back and groaned. "We're so nuking this place when we leave."
"So much for keeping our compusure," Beast Boy muttered. Stray didn't look at him, just batted a hand half-heartedly at him.
"Eh, come here so's I can kill you."
*--*
The Titans had opted to just move on to the next floor, keeping Stray in the back of the group, in case they made their way into a bloody room again. Beast Boy opted to keep up a string of witty banter, namely revolving around renaming Stray, now that he was wearing a collar. Nobody was in the mood to tell him to shut up, mainly due to the fact that walking in silence just served to freak them out.
"So, I was thinking something like Tabby Cat Kid, or Catscratch, or--"
"Beast Boy, make some different jokes, I'm begging you," Stray moaned. He felt in necessary to cut BB off before the kid got to 'Fluffy.' "Or better yet, let's talk about something useful. Like this blond freak Raven and I saw. You never did answer my question, anyway."
Raven gave him a sideways glance. "You never asked one."
"Oh, yeah. Heh. Ok, what did she say to you?"
Raven's shoulders slumped. "Save me."
"Oh, come on. It's an honest question."
"And that was an hones answer, fleabag. She said save me. Really, really loud. Now I get to ask you a question. What the hell is with the guard cat thing?"
Stray's ears twitched. "What guard cat thing? You mean the whole going feral and attacking Beast Boy for getting near you? Hell if I know. Maybe Caroline planted some weird ass hypnotic suggestion in my head. Maybe she wanted you to stay unconcious for awhile, see what you needed to see. Maybe... nah, all out of ideas."
"That's not what I meant, although that's part of it, and you know it," Raven glared at him. The rest of the team had stopped to listen in, if only to get a short rest in, before they found someone or something-- or it found them.
"Ok, you're going to have to spell it out in crayon for me, I'm lost," Stray scratched an ear with one of his metal claws.
"One, you practically demand to go on detail with me and Cyborg when we split up. Two, when my spell failed and I hit the ground, you practically ran the three feet between us. And I've never seen you run that fast. Three, you've been walking directly behind me the entire floor. And yes, four, the attacking Beast Boy thing. If you've got some kind of sad crush on me, then-"
"Whoa, there, little blackbird. Don't make me bake you into a pie. Look, it's nothing so cheesy, I assure you. It's just, right now, you're as good as human. No powers, no combat abilities, and you're barely armed. I just figured, with you being the best connection we have to this place-"
Robin coughed. Stray just glared at him.
"-that it's in our best interest to keep you not dead. I just figured I'd do it."
Raven gave him a once-over. "Are you sure that's it? The last thing I need is for tonight to get awkward, of all things."
Stray scoffed. "C'mon. You guys just found out that I eat people. Doesn't get more awkward than that."
Raven just kept moving.
"Coming from the girl who destroyed the world," Stray muttered. Raven resisted the urge to spin around and kill him standing.
After a few hallways of nothingness, save for the bloody rooms, and random scattered munitions and medical supplies (which they enlisted Beast Boy's kangaroo form to carry), Cyborg decided to break the tension. "So, why ARE you the best equipped to deal with tonight, Stray?"
The feline quaked in his snap-on claws. "Robin, if we live thorugh tonight, remind me to kill you. Dead," he growled.
"Whoa, easy, man," Cyborg waved his hands and backed up a step. "I just thought, y'know, we might want to get things out in the open. I don't want any nasty surprises from my teammates, who knows what this buildings gonna throw at us-" And as he spoke, as if waiting for a cue, the team heard the ceiling above them rattle.
"Titans, on guard!" Robin barked. The sound seemed to carry across the hallway, and they noticed a few ceiling panels fall out, soft clucks made as they hit the carpeted hallway. Stray ran after the sound, not wanting to be near the team right now, and chased the falling tiles down the hall. Hooking a right, then a left, then a few more corners that he lost track of, the sound came to a dead end at the double doors to what appeared to be a procedural room. Stray could see an operating table and trays of medical equipment through the murky glass. A quick flash of movement in the corner of the room caught his eye, but the door was jammed by a few overturned tables. He could also see blood in this room, although nowhere near as much.
"Remind me to kill you back," an aggravated Robin spoke up behind Stray, who turned around to see his team catching up to him.
"Noted," the feline grinned. "Hey, Cyborg, can you blast these doors open? I saw something moving in there."
"You want me to what?! Dude, we just followed you at your highest pace down like five hallways, and you barely caught up with the thing. You want us to fight it?!"
"Noooo... I want to fight it. Him. Whatever. I saw claws."
"Oh, and that's SO encouraging," Raven drawled.
"And yet, notice me not being your human shield at the first sign of trouble," Stray snapped, turning back to the door. "Please," he added to Cyborg.
Sighing heavily, and with a nod from Robin, Cyborg leveled his arm at the door. The team took battle stances, Beast Boy pulling out all the (now gooey) supplies being kept in his pouch, and turned cheetah, preparing for a speedy opponent.
At that point, stray noticed the blonde haired girl step up to the window, but too little too late: as he turned to yell for Cyborg to stop, the shot was fired, the beam missing his face by inches. As the door exploded, Stray's world went black.
*--*
Dull light was all that filled Stray's vision at first, as he sat up, leaning a hand against the floor...
Then recoiling it back, a heavy coat of fresh blood painting his hand print, and something else, like a black tar, dripping from his fingertips. Stray quickly surveyed the room, which appeared to be a horrible hybrid of an old Victorian hotel, and the procedural room he had just tried to break into. The room was elongated, a hallway, he surmised, and looked to be coated in rust (or was that dried blood?) as well as the floor. Every few feet, large wooden doors were chained shut, except for the ones at the end of the hall, and, turning around, the ones behind him.
Then the smell hit him. It was blood the room was coated in. And it wasn't dry. Fresh as if Stray had killed them himself moments before, the bloody walls deepened in color, the hot liquid slowly pouring into the room.
Stray kept himself sane just long enough realize that this was exactly what Caroline wanted. In that moment, he realized his place here, and how horribly, horribly wrong Robin had been...
*--*
Several hallways away, Mimic heard a frighteningly familiar roar. But as quickly as it had come, it had gone, leaving him in the silenced room with an unconscious Cyborg. Mimic's current power set, Raven's, wasn't doing him any good, as he soon discovered, after a few minutes of testing his abilities, that he was reaching the same barriers she was. And they hit him harder.
"I can't afford to be Stray right now, lord knows what this shithole is doing to him..." he trailed of, trying to block out the unpleasant thought of who that roar most likely came from. "Robin doesn't have powers, and I'm still unpracticed with Beast Boy's. Starfire? No. Her powers are based on emotions as much as Raven's, and I'm not feeling the joy or righteous fury here. Ok, what Hive members have I copied?" Mimic continued to ramble to himself, debating who's powers he should settle into, and whose he new well enough to use effectively here. That was one of the drawbacks to his power: he could store away any number of abilities, just by touching another meta, but could only draw one at a time to the surface. And all he got was the power; not the know-how.
He decided to settle on Kid Flash's abilities. He would have to deal with having much less stamina than Kid, but he could still use the extra boosts here and there. Would help his reflexes, too, if some... thing tried to surprise them. After a couple quick dashes up and down the hall, to make sure he was in good enough shape to make use of the superspeed, he decided to kick Cyborg awake.
Then he noticed the metal Titan already up and running, standing off against the wall, waiting for him. "Ready to go, speedy?"
"Speedy doesn't have powers. And yeah, let's see if we can find a way out. Or back. God, I hate this place," Mimic groaned. Cyborg just nodded his agreement, and readied his sonic cannon. Mimic gave him a look. "Are you sure you want to use that? That's what got us in here in the first place. And lord knows the others are going to remind you of that, later."
Cyborg paused for a moment, then reformed his cannon into his hand, pulling out a combat shotgun clipped to his back. "Stray told me to do it," he grumbled.
"If Stray told you to pants Robin, would you do it? Nevermind," he added, as Cyborg opened his mouth to respond. "I don't need an answer to that, but you get the idea. Look, only two of these sets of double doors," he motioned down the hallway, a room with much less blood than Stray's had had, although they wouldn't know it, with similar padlocked double doors. There was actually some white tile poking through the red stains on the floor. Which wasn't very comforting, since the rest of the floor seemed to be carpet. The tiles just led to a Jekyll and Hide-ish decor. "Are even usable. I don't know what it is, but I cant break these locks. It's like they're molded into the doors or something. Which is just cheap. See if you can blast them open. WITH THE SHOTGUN." Mimic emphasized his words with a hand on the arm Cyborg normally fired with.
Cyborg just mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "You'd have done it, too," before leveling the barrel at a padlock, and opening fire. The shot seemed to spark off of the lock, but there didn't seem to be a scratch. Cyborg yelled in frustration, and blasted a few other locks.
"You know, we don't have infinite ammo-" Mimic started, as the latest lock Cyborg blasted broke apart, and fell to the ground. The chains soon followed. "Huh. American style shooting it is."
Cyborg kicked open the door, and let out a yelp, as a small, humanoid shaped leaped out at him. Mimic saw a gleam of metal...
*--*
Beast Boy awoke to find himself much in the same position as Mimic. His powers proving less than useful, and with an unconcious Starfire on the ground next to him, he was left with little option but to explore the room he was in. Unlike Mimic, however, he had awoken to find himself in the lobby of some corporate building he didn't recognize. He certainly wasn't in Jump City anymore. He shook Starfire's elbow a few times, and she slowly rose to conciousness. "Star? Star, you ok?"
"I... uh... where, where are we? Where is Robin?"
Beast Boy rolled his eyes at her programmed response to ask for her leader/boyfriend/whatever they called it. "Don't know, Star. Haven's seen anyone expect you since I woke up like a minute ago. Any idea where we are?"
Starfire surveyed the well-decorated, if almost completely dark, sitting room they were in, with glass double doors leading to a main hall with a winding staircase. "No, I do not. And I do not like this place. It is most... unwelcoming."
"Well, let's see if we can walk out the front door, and find out at least what city we're in," Beast Boy stood up, and took a few steps for the main entrance. He had just enough time to register the lights on the other side of the glass, before the door was blown inwards, sending Beast Boy flying into a pillar. As his world blacked out, he heard a righteous scream, and the familiar charge of a starbolt..
*--*
Robin was not happy. He had woken up strapped to an operating table, and was currently struggling to break free. Years of keeping tools and weapons hidden in his gloves paid off, as a small switchblade appeared in his hand, and he sawed through the leather straps on his hand. With one arm free, he tore himself out of the rest of his bindings, and leapt off the table. Now free to roam around, he surveyed the room he had woken up in. It looked to be the room Stray had wanted them to blast their way into. Robin made a note to kill him harder, then run him through stress training for a week. Halfway through plotting his revenge against a certain tabby, he noticed something that turned him pale white.
Raven, hung from the ceiling by hooks: one in each shoulder, one through the back of each hand, and one, it appeared, through the back of her neck. Her eyes fluttered, and she groaned lightly. SHe looked like she was in shock from the pain. Forgetting almost all of his training almost instantly, he rushed to the other side of the room ready to pull her down in a second. Reaching out for her, he made to grab her cloak-
And reached nothing but air, as the illusion of Raven dissolved, and reformed to show an unharmed, yet unconcious Raven on the floor. Robin, now refusing to trust damn near anything in this building, kicked lightly at her heels. SHe groaned, and rolled onto her back. Her eyes fluttered open slightly.
And she shot bolt upright with a violent scream, and Robin was thrown sideways into the operating table he had freed himself from earlier. Pain shot up his back as his spine met an egde of metal, and he slumped to the ground, graoing in agony. He looked up to see a very shocked Raven standing ove rhim, and he heard some of the instruments rattle.
"I'm ok. God, I thought you were dying," Robin moaned slightly as he stood himself up again, leaning on his teammate's shoulder for support. Raven walked him over to a chair, and sat down beside him.
"Where are we? The last thing I remember is Cyborg pointing his cannon at that door, then a splitting headache, and then nothing. After that, I wake up with hooks through half my body, and nearly pass out from pain. After that, the nexty thing I'm aware of is blowing you across the room," she motioned to the center of the operating room, where most of the equipment and furniture had been blasted towards the walls, or on top of each other.
"Raven, if I knew, I'd-" Robin was cut short by the sound of a tremendous roar coming from a door that he hadn't noticed earlier. It looked to be old victorian, covered in rust, right where he would expect to see one of the glass double doors of a normal hospital to be. Soon after, he heard murmuring from the other side of the wall, and inched to the door to listen. Raven took up arms with a pistol, and Robin leaned his ear against the door. He couldn't hear much, but one sentence stood out: "With the shotgun." Soon after, Robin heard, and felt, a blast against the door. SOmeone was trying to break in. He leapt back, and pulled out two birdarangs. Slapping them together to make his longsword, he poised himself fr the forced entry. He motioned for Raven to hide behind something, and waited.
The door burst open, and Robin lunged, bringing his sword in a downward arc, just as he saw a glint of metal pointing up at him. He braced himself for the shot, then felt a soft, but sudden thwack as his blade hit a mark, and he heard a gunshot go off next to his ear-
And he saw the edge of his sword embedded in Mimic's shoulder, who was standing facing who Robin was just now realizing was Cyborg, holding the barrel of Cyborg's shotgun to the wall. A split second later, Mimic bellowed in pain, and hit the ground, clutching his shoulder, and growling to himself to keep from screaming. Cyborg and Robin both instantly dropped their weapons, and Raven, realizing the situation, ran to join them.
"You guys... suck... at your... jobs..." Mimic hissed between breaths. He saw a slight glow over his shoulder and hand, and turned his head to see Raven healing him. The pain was subdued slightly, both in his hand that had held the heated gun barrel, and his fileted shoulder. "Thanks," he muttered, then stood up, leaning against a wall.
"I've done what I can, but you're going to need a sling. You can't move that shoulder for a while, Robin-' she glared at him, and he cast his stare at the floor "-cut into your shoulder blade. Your hand should be fine, though. And how the hell did you do that?"
"Let's just say Kid Flash has NOT left the building," ge laughed halfheartedly at hisown joke, while Raven tore the bottom of her robe off, tying the fabric around his shoulder, and resting his arm in it. "I fucking hate this place as much as Stray does."
Robin gave him a look. "Have either of you seen him? Or Beast Boy or Starfire?"
"No, but we heard him. I'm guessing, with you right next door to us, that you heard him t-" Mimic was cut off by a large crashing sound behind him. He whipped around, wincing at the pain of movement, and saw a rather large mechanical suit in what was now a crater in the operating room, followed soon by a large flash of green light, and a tremendous gladatorial cry. Smoke filled the room, and a few moments later, Starfire stepped out, an unconcious Beast Boy over her shoulder. She took a moment to register the group in front of her, and soon glided over, handing BB to Cyborg, who laid him down on the carpet, and kissing Robin, gripping him tightly. Mimic could see tears streaming down her face.
"Friends, Robin, it is good to see you. Have you by chance found a way out of this horrible facility?" Starfire hugged each of them in turn, pausing at Mimic when she noticed his injury. "Mimic, you are injured? Has Raven not done the healing?"
"Yeah, she did, but I have some damage to my shoulder blade," he grinned, and hugged her with his good arm.
"Yeah, thanks to-" Raven started, but Mimic cut her off.
"Thanks to my hero complex on auto-pilot. I got careless."
Starfire beamed at him. "It is good to see you all well. Tell me, where is Stray?"
Mimic frowned at that, and Robin and Cyborg exchanged worried looks. Raven leaned over Beast Boy, working her magics on his back, and said in a low voice, "We're not sure, Starfire, and I don't know if we want fo find-"
"Why, I'm right here, Star!" a cheerful voice echoed down the hall, from the door at the end that hadn't been locked. Raven stood up quickly, and the rest of the team followed her gaze: there stood Stray, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, and a wild grin on his face. Raven noticed, however, that he didn't seem himself--
"Robin, look at his eyes. I don't know if that's Stray or not," Raven whispered to him, loud enough for the rest of the group to hear. Robin met Stray's gaze, and noticed what Raven had; his eyes were silver rings around enlarged black pupils, and the normally whites of his eyes were blood red.
Mimic spoke first. "Oh, that's Stray, all right. But not our friend. That's Ravenous talking."
Stray- now Ravenous- grinned wider, if that was possible, and clapped his hands. "Three points for paying attention, bro! DOn't worry, I'm not here to hurt you guys, I just have a little job to do," he held a hand in front of him, and the metal claws on his fingers clicked... then elongated.
"A little job involving the four and twentieth blackbird. Ready to get baked, Raven?"
A/N: Just one thing to say: THis is so much fun.