The guards escorted Skylar to to a basic prison yard, except instead of shackles and chains and all the stuff you expect at Azkaban, there were tunnels and caves.
The caves were underground, obviously, but there were about 5 of them. Besides that, there were around 8 tunnels that led deeper underground. Seeing the mining equipment, Skylar was glad this was going to be an underground thing; what with the sky being gray and thundering, threatening to rain down all hell to the 'yard' of the palace like building.
Skylar groaned, she didn't want to mine because 1) she was being forced to against her will, that was a huge turndown for any job, and 2) her left arm was basically useless and if she used she, she'd probably fall unconscious because if the pain. To mine, you had to use both arms, as well as hands.
Damian was in the same predicament; his right ankle had a gash in it and hurt like hell, and his left thigh had a throwing star wound. How the fuck was he supposed to mine if he could barely move his legs without hissing in pain? Correct. He cant.
Sadly, regardless of injury, they were to work. And those guards seemed perfectly okay with whipping anyone who was slacking off. These people belong on am asylum if they were this sadistic! Actually, they were probably broken out of that asylum in Star City that had had a riot a few months prior...
Damian limped forward, he was leaning against Jon even though it was a single file line. Like in elementary school.
The guards were numbering off groups of 4 to each tunnel/cave, and Damian calculated that he would end up in the tunnel on the far left with Jon and the twins behind him.
When the time came, the guard smiled sadistically, seeing Damian's injuries, and assigned them to said tunnel, but practically threw all the mining equipment needed for the group at him, which he went to catch before remembering his throbbing injuries.
Because if his leg injuries, Damian fell flat on his face, his nose narrowly avoiding being broken or bruised (which he switched out for a bruised cheek, so it was really a lose-lose situation.), and had a pile of painful mining equipment on top of him that hurt almost as bad as getting shot in the back. Yay him.
In Arabic, Damian cursed out the guard, who didn't understand a thing, but saw the snarling look on the smaller boys face and assumed it was offensive. In retaliation, the guard kicked Damian in the stomach.
Jon, being sympathetic, grabbed the mining equipment off Damian and the brunette twins behind Damian helped him to his feet, to which he dug his nails into their arms to help him stand. Maybe next time he should make sure to not get hurt on BOTH legs. It would be rather helpful in any given situation.
The two twins, at least that's what Damian assumed they were, helped walk Damian to the tunnel, helping him get back up whenever one of his legs buckled.
Damian hated being helpless, his least favorite state, but he admitted (silently) that he could use the help.
Upon entering the tunnel, they saw there was already another group there; the group could tell by the faint yellow glow of a lantern far, far away from the entrance.
Damian groaned; did he really have to walk THAT much farther? The twins helping him seemed to realize this too, and they sighed softly under their breathes (in perfect unison, which freaked Damian up), though it was so quiet that no one normal would've heard it. But then again, Jon had super hearing and Damian was trained to be an assassin until his pyscho mother took him to his father.
While walking, the old-fashioned light the group was given, meaning old lantern, only provided enough light to see around 5 feet in front of them, so they couldn't exactly tell when one of them was about to catch on the edge of a spiked rock wall or anything, which Damian found rather annoying. Because of this, he had let out multiple strings of curses in Arabic, Italian, Greek, and surprisingly Russian.
The twins seemed to recognize when Damian was cursing in Italian, so he wondered whether they were from the country or descended from it. He would've known, had he been able to get a good look at them before he had tools thrown onto him. He was probably going to be sour about that for a while, knowing his personality.
After finally, FINALLY getting down the tunnel far enough to interact with the other group and mine, they stopped. Guards checked down the tunnels and caves every 5 minutes, making sure everyone was doing their job and hoping that they had someone else's skin to blister with a whip.
They set all the equipment up without saying a word, though Damian was constantly hissing and leaning against Jon, who happened to be the only trustworthy person he knew in the area.
They began using the mining tool's to hit the bed of the rock having no idea what they were mining for, but to keep anything valuable they find and give it to the guards who were on the next patrol, but only if it was a large amount. That much was told to them by the same guy who threw mining tools at an injured 13 year old.
"Scott." One of the twins muttered offhandedly, the slightly taller boy with the curlier hair and combat boots.
"Huh?" Jon asked, confused. He still keeping busy, however, as he heard the guards walking towards them before his super hearing randomly disappeared. It happened a lot; him losing and gaining powers at random. It was because he was only an adolescent, so it was already hard to harness his kryptonian powers, but also half human, meaning his human DNA constantly clashed with his human DNA. Rather annoying.
"-tt-It's obviously his name." Damian snapped, still leaning heavily against Jon, who didn't really day anything about it.
"So...Introducing now, ah?" Someone from the other group said, who apparently got the memo of talking while working. Ships really aren't good for anything, except causing pain. In which case it is a perfect weapon for Skylar, though she doubts she would ever see the weapon in the same way again.
"Well, I guess. Anyways, the 'TT' gave it away, so how are ya Damian?" Another, more feminine voice spoke up boldly, though immediately after the chipping of rock was heard.
"Depends on who you are. I don't like strangers knowing my name." Damian retorted, holding the pic axe above his head and hitting it into the rock before his legs could give any sort of say about it.
"I'm not really a stranger, however." The STRANGER responded, clearly not out of breath. "I am the one, after all, who threw a throwing star at your leg. And y'know, revealed my identity so much in the last few days that I'm surprised the Gotham Mayor doesn't know!"
Yup, that sarcasm was irreplaceable. That was Skylar Elliot, the person who sadly got stuck on this journey with the king of doucheyness himself, Damian Wayne.
"Cool! But what do you mean identity?" Jon asked excitedly, happy that someone was up for conversation. The silence was killing him.
"Well, whoever you are who is way to hyper, I'm Skylar Elliot. Though, you might want to know that I'm also Lady Knight." Skylar revealed, before her axe chipped something other than rock. How she was doing it must've took a took on her, since her left arm was limp and out of place, so she was .moving the axe with only her right arm, which seemed like a safety hazard.
"The hell?" Skylar mumbled, dropping the axe (narrowly avoiding her foot, which she was thankful for. She didn't need any more injuries, thank you very much), and using her good arm to dig out whatever she hit.
How she dug whatever it was out of rock, nobody will ever know. "I'm guessing it's a jewel?" One of the twins, Scott, guessed, except he had a rather questioning tone.
"Yeah," Skylar nodded, but nobody saw because of the dim light, "A ruby. I'll point it out to the guards the next time any of us find anything."
"Can we get back to intros?" A rough, male voice that was on the right of Skylar pointed out once she picked up her axe. With extreme difficultly and a lit if pain, mind you.
"Sure," Jon shrugged, but introduced himself nonetheless, "I'm Jon Kent! Though, since Skylar revealed that she's Lady Knight, I'll say that I'm Superboy. Superman's son!"
Either nobody believed him and didn't say anything, or these people had ties to the hero community since no one said anything.
"Scott Jordon...Also a Green Lantern, like my dad." Scott introduced, not taking his eyes off of his job.
"Eliza Jordon." The the other twin started. Since when was she a girl? Well, she's rather burly for a girl, Damian thought. "Except I'm not a Green Lantern. I'm a Violet Lantern. Don't ask."
"Not gonna..." The same voice who asked for them to continue intros muttered, except this time his voice seemed much more light and cheerful, less gravely and rough. "Anyways, I'm Colin Wilkes, A.K.A. Abuse."
"Iris West! Or Impulse. Or Irey. Or anything really!" Irey rambled on the left side of Skylar.
"Damian Wayne. Robin. Take your pick." Damian growled, hitting the tick with note force than necessary. He was really pissed that everyone thought it was 'I'm gonna reveal my secret identity right now when sadistic guards and idiotic maniacs could very well be listening in at hour.
"And to top it off, I'm Mar'i Grayson! I'm also Nightstar!" Mar'i said, right before the guards went through the regular walk through schedule.