Damian was, as always, in a bad mood, except this one was amplified by 100 and then doubled because sore muscles and broken bones did more than just HURT.
He may have snapped at Irey, but once again, could you really blame him?
"Uhh...How long was I out?" Damian muttered, looking down to the ground in shame that he didn't even know long he was taken or uhh...Beaten, he guessed.
"5 days. And that's counting how long you were with Count Dracula " Was the simple answer the came from above him. Looking up, he saw Scott, apparently one of the lantern twins.
"Shit..." Damian cursed, hating that he worried his team for that king. And the twins. "What about Skylar?"
"She's beside you, if you wanna know," Colin butted in, nodding his head where, true to his word, Skylar lay still, pale, and unmoving.
"Is she okay?" Damian asked worriedly. No, it wasn't because you liked her at all; he could really only stand her presence for a prolonged amount of time.
"I dunno..." Irey mumbled, obviously not her usual happy-go-lucky self, and for completely obvious reasons.
"Have you felt for a pulse?" Damian questioned, narrowing his eyes.
"Yeah, it's there it's way slower than usual; it was a miracle you woke up in the first place. You were close to going into a coma," One of the twins, Eliza, Damian recalled, recapped.
"And by the way, you might not want to move for a while." Mar'i added, "Jon scanned over your injuries when his X-Ray vision decided to work; you have a gash in your ankle, a gash in your other thigh, a broken rib, a bruised rib, a gash going across the length of your stomach, and a dislocated pinkie. Miraculously, you have no brain damage." Damian was surprised that the Grayson Jr. Could even go a sentence without being optimistic like her father, but, here she was, acting completely out of character. And just as well, he didn't need to know what injuries he had; he already knew.
"Oh, and can't forget about Skylar!" That was Colin, with obvious fake enthusiasm, which eluded Damian since his companions were usually so optimistic. It was weird when they weren't. "Skylar had...What was it again? Oh yeah; she has a dislocated shoulder, broken wrist, a broken pinkie, a few broken ribs, and, of course, no brain injuries!" Now Skylar's injuries were more interesting than his own.
Hopefully, those broken ribs didn't puncture anything AND that was why she wasn't waking up. Hopefully, she wasn't waking up and her pulse was slow because she had given into exhaustion and there wasn't enough blood going to her heart (which is still pretty bad.)
"It's almost like magic that neither of you are dead. And especially that your awake, Damian." Scott pointed out, clearly hinting something that no one picked up on.
"And what are you hinting at?" Damian narrowed his eyes; he may not have picked up on what the other boy was hinting to, but he got that he was hinting to something.
Scott sighed, but answered nonetheless, "Magic. Magicians. You get a my drift yet?"
Yeah, Damian got it. But he didn't like it. He always knew magic was real -not the pull a bunny out of a hat trick-, but he had found it rather disconcerting. Magic may not have been his favorite, but it explained a few things. If this was the case, though, who was behind it.
"Are you implying that a magician -whom we have no idea who might be-,.is the one to blame for my waking and the fact we aren't dead?" Damian questioned, his eyes still narrowed. He attempted to sit up to make his glare more menacing, but was immediately pushed back by his surrounding teammates. Needless to say, he really didn't like not being able to do anything.
"I guess. But I might know who's pulling the strings..." Scott shrugged, which really made Damian want to punch him in the face. If there was anything you do NOT do when you want people to trust you, is to say you have sensitive information, and then shrug and not say what the info is.
"And that would be?" Damian hissed impatiently, not in the mood to deal with this lanterns bullshit. Maybe the ring will find an actually WORTHY person if Damian were to have a...slip of the hand of his katana in battle...Don't you think? Because this guy was seriously starting to piss him off.
"Alex Constantine." Scott then elaborated when he saw the deadly glare Damian was sending him from his position on the ground, and the confused looks from the others. "She's the adopted daughter of John Constantine, who's one of Earth's most powerful sorcerers and stands with the likes of Zatanna and Doctor Strange power wise. Though, she looks and acts just like Constantine himself, so we usually call her that to piss her off."
Eliza rolled her eyes, which was noticeable even in the dim lighting, "They didn't need to know that last part, you idiot. Anyway, Alex went missing a little while after this trafficking ring started, so there's a good chance that she's here and pulling the strings that'll lead us to escape."
Thank god! Damian seriously was wanting to scream with joy? Someone finally realizes that you get to the point and don't beat around the bush! It was a miracle!
Despite the happy dance Damian was doing his head because of the reliable info, his face remained monotone and he spoke, "-Tt-, well, them this Constantine girl better be able to find us when we escape, because I am not risking am entire groups safety for just a person that we don't even know for sure is here."
Around that time, the guards went by on their usual 5 minute patrol, and snapped at them all to get back to work or they'd get the same treatment that Damian and Skylar had gotten. The guards didn't even say anything about the fact Skylar was unconscious or that Damian was as well, 'unconscious'.
"Their right; you better get back to 'work'" Damian gave them a pointed look, and gestured to Skylar's limp body as an example, "Oh, and, if you didn't know this already, there is such a thing as working while talking, though I don't know if any of YOU have heard of it."
Yup, mortally wounded and not even supposed to be awake, Damian Wayne was still a rude twat. It was just on his blood, he guessed.
"Rude..." Irey muttered before they all grabbed pic axes and started to hit the bare rock.
For the next few hours or so, this went on in silence. Whenever anyone found a jewel they would elect someone to oust them all in a like by the entrance for the guards to grab (it was a very small pile each time), and whenever the guards ever decided to actually check on them, Damian would play limp and the guards would only kick him around a few times before they left.
Of course, the kicking cause him a LOT of severe pain, especially in the stomach region.
And then, about at dark, Skylar started to stir. Jon had informed Damian that they had all been stuck in the tunnel since the first day, the day that both Skylar and Damian had mouthed off, and were given a breakfast and dinner, however scarce. Damian had then noticed his thin they were all getting, and it irked him that he was almost completely unable to do anything in his current position.
The cages and cells they had been in originally when they had gotten to the hell hole, those were probably holding the newer children, and they were to be assigned tunnels and suck that were on the other side of the island, and the pattern would continue on until Dragon said otherwise. Or at least, that was how Damian would do it.
Snapped out of his revere by a snarky voice, Damian slightly wished Skylar wouldn't have woken up. And then he remembered that if she hadn't he would have gone through with this mission with a casualty on HIS side, and not the enemies. That was the one thing Damian was NOT okay with.
"The hells going on?" There was no mistaking that attitude; that was definitely Skylar.
"Well, Elliot, you just woke up after being taken by idiotic guards and tortured, even though both you and I probably shouldn't even be alive right now, to sum it up." Damian answered; he could see that Skylar had questions, but she just nodded her head and tried to sit up.
Key word: tried. The moment that Skylar's elbows even propped themselves up to sit herself up, Irey and Mar'i were at her sides in an instant pushing her back down.
"They've been doing that to the both of you," Jon informed the irked girl, without taking his eyes off of what he was doing, which was a miracle in itself considering how hyper the boy usually was and how boring the rock was.
Then, Colin called out. "Eliza, your turn. I think I found an emerald."
"Sure, I think it's about the time they announce 'lights out ' anyways," Eliza sighed, taking the small emerald from Colin and taking a lantern (no pun intended) before walking up the painfully long trail before.
Just as Eliza had predicted, the lanterns that gave them light went out; it was a trick Dragon used to make sure they went to sleep, Irey had informed.
"And when is the cavalry coming?" Skylar muttered to herself as she stared at the completely dark ceiling.
Unbeknownst to everyone else, there was a tracker and an SOS button on her shoe (it was a nifty gadget she had insisted upon using), that she had activated the moment she had come to the dreaded compound. The gadget sent the signal to either the nearest (hero) friendlies, or the friends of a superhero that was near her and also in trouble.
You would think that would be the justice league, considering the fact that there was two lanterns with them; that would send the signal to all the green and violet lanterns of earth, the daughter of Nightwing; that would send the signal to both Nightwing and Starfire, a speedster; that would send the signal to any good speedsters (which was quite a lot), the son of Superman; that would, obviously, send the signal to Superman, and the Batman's biological son; THAT would send the signal to anyone and everyone in the Bat-Family. Including the fact there might be a magician (Damian had informer her of this) near them as well, that would send the signal to all the friendly magicians that said magician knew, so where the hell was the cavalry? In total, there was at LEAST 20 people who got that SOS signal, which also had an attached tracker, so they didn't have to go through that part, it just didn't make sense the signal didn't send...