Onto Chapter 11! I'm tempted to apologize for a shorter chapter, but it's really not. It's just short compared to the last three.
This chapter sees an appearance from everyone's favorite Caped Crusader! Yay!
Now for the reviews. Man, do I love reviews. They taste like lobster (which is delicious)!
To FelynxTiger- the good thing about Slade is that he does impressive entrances so… well. It's a part of his coolness.
To Guardian of Night- thank you! Cliff hangers are so deliciously evil.
To black thorn angel- I'm glad you want to read more. It shows I'm doing my job as a writer :)
To Linzerj- Slade's behind EVERYTHING! He always is!
To listen2music4ever- Wow, thank you! I wish I had fast reading skills. So far, I only have medium-slow reading skills. Not quite as impressive, I must admit.
To luna827- It hurt me inside, to do what I did to them. I was crying man tears.
To Gingerstorm101- it's one of the fattest hints I've ever dropped… wow, that sounded gross. Btw, do you want blood, as in the character, or blood, as in the liquid that runs within the human body?
To RavenBeastboy19- SUPER TWISTINESS! Lol.
Well, I should let y'all read the story now… I've got nuthin else to say.
Oh, wait! Yes I do!
Remember that story I mentioned last chapter that my friend is writing? Crashing Down? On fictionpress? YA GOTTA READ THAT! There's also another story by my other friend, ehitch1, on fictionpress, called SOAR. YA GOTTA READ THAT TOO! Super epicness is contained within both stories. Read them!
Well, time to present the part of this chapter that I actually worked on.
Enjoy…
Beast Boy practically fell over then and there.
"Wh-what?" he gasped.
"Twins," Raven said again, smiling in a very uncharacteristic way. She then cocked her head to the side, staring at Beast Boy. "That means two babies instead of one."
"I know what twins are, Rae," Beast Boy assured her, rubbing his forehead. "Wow… twins."
"Oh, what joyous news!" Starfire squealed, in a very characteristic way, and flew over to them. "I am so happy for both of you!" She then proceeded to wrap Raven in one of her infamous bear hugs, squeezing until a vein began to show in Raven's neck.
"Hey, way to go, green bean!" Cyborg laughed, slapping him on the back. Beast Boy, still being rather dazed from the news, almost fell on his face from the blow. Bumblebee, laughing as well, helped him to find his balance again.
"Congratulations to both of you," Robin said, smiling. "I can only imagine how happy you must feel."
"Happy… shocked… scared…" Beast Boy laughed, scratching the back of his neck. "What's the difference?"
Raven shot him a look, didn't stop grinning.
"Although… Raven's right," Robin said, scratching his chin, serious look on his face, even behind the sunglasses he was wearing. "The government will be angrier than ever, now that the 'threat'" he put air quotations around this word, "is twice as large."
"Oh, stop being so serious for once!" Bumblebee sighed, pulling out of her hug with Raven to talk to him. "How can things really get worse, honestly? What haven't they pulled out on us yet?"
"Atomic bomb," Cyborg muttered, but his words were as clear as church bells.
"This is a happy time," Bumblebee insisted, trying to skip over the morbid observation made by her husband. "Put your paranoia away."
The Robin of the past would almost certainly have gotten defensive and started spitting venom, but all he did now was shrug and laugh. "Blame Batman, not me."
"Speaking of Batman," Starfire said slowly, "and I hate to stay on this topic, but… where is he, anyway? Why have we not received help, or even any contact, from him, or any of the league?"
Everyone fell silent, pondering the answer to this question. Where was the league?
"We can figure that out later," Robin decided. "For now, we celebrate."
The rest of the Titans nodded, agreeing. It was a feeble attempt at happiness, after seeing all of their teammates arrested, and so soon after the certain deaths of Flash and Jinx, but no one was going to turn it down. Anything to forget the nightmare of the past month.
Raven, despite her excitement, was the least willing to throw a party. She still had to deliver the important information she had learned from Arella, and it seemed wrong to her to celebrate when they should be preparing for the army that was almost certainly coming. They would never be able to stay hidden; she didn't see how they would even make it out of this alive. The odds were staggeringly hopeless. It would take several days to open a portal to Azarath big enough to fit all of them through, going overseas was out of the question, and even Atlantis seemed like a long shot at best. The Atlantean government would probably be on the same side as the rest of the world.
Beast Boy, who had gotten over his shock and was now holding Raven in his arms, shook her out of her pessimistic thoughts. He smiled warmly, brushed some of her violet hair behind her ear, and planted a passionate kiss upon her lips. It took Raven only a second to return the kiss, deepening it. The rest of the Titans cheered.
(…)
Robin sat alone on the bluff above their campsite, staring out into the desert night. It hadn't been much of a party in the standard sense; they were in the middle of the desert, after all. Mostly they just sat and talked, recalling old missions and telling jokes. It had been a welcome dose of normality.
Another wave of hunger gripped Robin's stomach, and he winced. These reminders of their lack of food were coming more and more often. They hadn't eaten since the night before they had been forced to flee his house. That was… was it only three days ago? It seemed like months. And in those three days they had fought two massive battles, each time barely getting away with their lives. The scars from their last fight still hadn't healed- yet another reminder of their dire situation.
What most concerned Robin at that moment as he stood watch over his friends and family as they slept beneath him, though, was Starfire's words from earlier in the day. Where is he, anyway? Why have we not received help, or even any contact, from him, or any of the league?
He intended to find out.
Taking care to leave his Titans communicator untouched, in case the signal it sent would be intercepted, Robin reached deep into his pocket and withdrew a small device he had not used in years. The Batwave. The device was so secretive that not even the government could read it's signal. Taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, he pressed the contact button.
There was a light beeping noise, a flicker of static, and suddenly the face of the Dark Knight filled up the screen.
"Dick?" he asked, sounding as surprised as the Batman ever did. "Are you okay?"
"I need answers, Bruce," Robin said bluntly. "Where is the league?"
Bruce Wayne sighed heavily, running a gloved hand over his face, careful not to disturb the cowl.
"I'm sorry, Richard, I truly am," he confessed, his voice slipping out of its rough disguise to that of the real man. "The league has been forced to take a stance of neutrality. We are forbidden to help."
"Why?" Robin spat, outraged. "We're practically members!"
"But you're not," Batman pointed out. "And anyway, even if you were, we may have taken the same course anyway. Ultimately, the Justice League serves the governments of the world, and it seems that not a single one is willing to stand beside you. It would be blatant mutiny if the league were to step in."
"But that's stupid!" Robin growled. "What about justice?"
Batman sighed again. "And I'm afraid to say that not all of the league is eager to help, if they could. Several of the members truly believe that what the government predicts is true."
Robin refused to speak.
"Superman feels that it would be safest if the government's wishes are met. He is afraid that, if Emily does become a vessel for chaos, that all life will end. It will make Trigon's initial ascent look like a child's firecracker of the Fourth of July."
"And I suppose you feel the same way?" Robin said darkly, eyes cruel and accusing.
"No. I am one of the few who does not support our lack of action."
"Then do something," Robin insisted.
The Batman looked stuck, which was a rare thing. "I can't. If the league interferes at all, even if it's only one member, then our reputation will be shot. We will be taken out systematically, just like the Titans were."
"Some of the Titans were league members."
"And we feel the loss, we truly do," Batman confessed. "But we cannot do anything. I'm sorry."
The connection was cut, and the screen went black.
"Fat lot of help he was," Robin snarled, throwing the Batwave away from him, where it bounced off rocks loudly until it reached the desert floor. "Idiot leaguers. 'Must maintain our public image.' What a load of shit."
All of Robin's anger suddenly left him, however, and he stared at the moon, a feeling of helplessness growing within him.
"What now?"
(…)
Below Robin, sheltered beneath the makeshift tent, Beast Boy and Raven lay in silence. Beast Boy had his arm wrapped protectively over his wife, and while he was able to drop off within a matter of minutes, she was laying wide-awake.
"Garfield?" Raven whispered, her voice so soft it could barely be discerned from the light wind blowing about them. Even so, the green changeling stirred.
"What is it?"
"I have to tell you what I found out," Raven breathed, trying her best to look like she wasn't talking. The effort was unneeded, however, for everyone was asleep.
"Okay. Shoot,"
"First off, I found out why I passed out for so long," Raven began, eyes roaming to the arm that was draped over her. "It's a natural instinct for demon mothers."
"Raven, you're not a demon," Beast Boy pointed out.
"Maybe not mentally, but by my blood I am," Raven explained. "That's why they're chasing us in the first place, remember? I did manage to override that, though. It shouldn't happen again."
"That's good news," Beast Boy said, gripping Raven's hand. "What else?"
"I found out what's blocking my powers so much."
Beast Boy waited as Raven figured out how best to explain.
"It's also an instinct. My body knows that my powers come from Trigon, and therefore have evil roots. If I use my powers as much as I used to, I will taint Emily."
"And whoever else is there," Beast Boy added.
"Yes… both of them," Raven said softly.
"And what would tainting do?"
Raven swallowed. "They would turn into exactly what the government says they will. All existence will end."
Beast Boy tensed up. "But wait, we've been teleporting almost nonstop recently, have we already gone too far?"
Raven shook her head. "No. We're not there yet. It would be best if I don't use my powers from now on, though."
"Robin will be overjoyed," Beast Boy laughed softly.
"He'll have to live with it."
They lay in silence for a couple of minutes, staring out into the darkness that sat thickly at the edges of the fire's glow.
Beast Boy suddenly reached over and gently turned Raven's head towards his own. Before she could ask what he was doing, he pulled her lips into his own. The kiss lasted for several seconds before Raven pulled away.
"Way to change the subject," she laughed. "Although it wasn't unwelcome."
Beast Boy shrugged. "I'm not sure how many more times I'll get to do that. Might as well cram in a few extra."
Raven bit her lip, and two thin tears leaked out of her closed eyes, staining the sand beneath them.
Beast Boy noticed that she was crying. "Rae… are you…?"
He didn't have time to finish. Raven suddenly twisted and rolled on top of him, kissing him passionately. She made sure to wave a hand at the fire, extinguishing it with a spurt of black energy and plunging the campsite into pitch darkness. The only thing that remained was the light sound of scuffling against the rough ground.
(…)
It was one-o-clock in the morning, and the desert landscape was still caught heavily under the think blanket of night. Clouds were surprisingly heavy, blotting out the normally vivid stars, and the moon, which had been hanging enormous by the horizon earlier, was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, a bright flash cut through the ink of the night like a bolt of lightning, burning the darkness away like a match to gasoline.
It was a searchlight.
It scanned the sand, which turned white and dead under its gaze, until it came upon a rock formation jutting up out of the flat ground. The light's movement immediately ceased, and soon other lights flickered on, in a rough circle around the camp, all locked onto the same spot. Together, they illuminated the whole area, and revealed the slumbering forms of six young adults, two of them beneath a feeble excuse for a tent.
There was a muffled voice from a speaker beside the first spotlight, and suddenly thousands of pairs of red eyes clicked on, glowing maliciously in the shadows surrounding the powerful bulbs, completely encircling the campsite. There was just enough light to see that each pair belonged to some sort of creature, the same height as a man. They wore simple, black, form fitting outfits, with dull metal guards on their shoulders, forearms, shins, and hips. Simple, intimidating masks obscured their faces. Half black, half copper. They stood perfectly motionless, gazing down upon the campsite, completely unaffected by the stinging winds throwing sand at them. Not creatures at all, but machines. A sleek, stylized 'S' adorned each of their chests, over where their heart would be, if they were human.
Another grainy order was broadcast through the speaker, and smaller, dimmer, lights ignited behind the ranks of soldiers, just illuminating the forbidding, blocky forms of rocket launchers. As one, all of the shots arced into the sky in a puff of acrid smoke, sailing down from all sides into the center of the campsite, in which the five young adults were only just beginning to wake up. There was a bright flash, outshining even the lamps, followed by a dull thump that disturbed the sand, ruffling it around as if something was moving beneath it. An enormous plume of smoke erupted from ground zero, enveloping everything, the searchlights, and the motionless soldiers, spreading out like a deadly miasma.
The five men and women were down in a matter of seconds. Their starved, exhausted minds were no match for the knockout gas.
One by one the lights shut off, their loud fans whirring to a stop as a nondescript black van drove backwards across the sand through the cloud of gas, manned by another featureless drone. It stopped just outside the camp, and eight more drones sprung out of the back, setting about the task of dragging the subdued heroes into the back. The half-mechanical one would be a challenge, he almost weighed more than the rest combined.
The gas was already beginning to clear, and the army of robots that had encircled the camp began to file away, dragging the lights with them. Their purpose had been to keep anyone from escaping, had anyone overcome the gas. Their master always planned ahead.
A singular gust of wind blew across the desert, dispersing the cloud and diluting it. The van was gone, the army was gone, and all that remained were the dead ashes of a cold fire, a mess of footprints, and a single man standing on a faraway dune, surveying the scene with his single eye.
Yet another dramatic ending. It keeps y'all guessing.
I went to Disney World! Epicness abides there! I rode Expedition Everest for the first time and it ROCKED SOCKS! I also rode Tower of Terror, and by the end of our wait in line my group and I had a small girl singing Michael Jackson with us. Good times…
READ SOAR AND CRASHING DOWN! I PUT THESE NOTES IN ALL CAPS SO THEY GO STRAIGHT INTO THE "IMPORTANT MESSAGE" PART OF YOUR BRAIN!
Btw, I was listening to the soundtrack for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as I wrote this, and it RULES! It's got some of the best music I've ever heard in it. That's how good it is. Even better, since I just went to the Harry Potter World at Universal :D
The next chapter is where it gets confusing, so enjoy the simple plot there has been thus far while you can! And BATMAN!
More episode ideas for my season 6 project are always welcome, and REVIEWS ARE NICE!
Yoink.