Saint's Log- Ladies and gentlemen boys and girls I regret to inform you that the rumors of my death have been greatly exagerated, I am alive and well... sort of, anyway after much delay, dicking around, and general procrastinating.. I HAVE RETURNED! and I just want to say sorry for neglecting you. Anywho to all and sundry I give you another chapter of Thomas' continuing oddessy. hopefully I have some more inspiriation and won't leave this one on the shelf for another six months, ugh!
-My infintite love to you all (Especially you, Bergles you rascal you ;-)
It felt like months, though it may have only been hours or even minutes, thats the problem with being in a dream, very little makes sense especially the passing of time, the cloud dotted skies never darkened for more than a moment as a cloud would soften the glare of the sun, it was neither hot nor cold and it was surprisingly noisy birds chirping, the odd clucking of the escaped chickens pecking away at the ground, and a single pig joyously wallowed in the thick mud surrounding the heavily leaking cistern beside the house. Thomas surveyed these happenings with a dissatisfied frown, "Maaaaan this blows" he whined, for perhaps the fiftieth time as he sat naked upon the stoop of the family farm.
Around the back of the house, in the long shadows that seemed to point every which way, sat a crate, made from weather worn planks, and wrapped in rusting chains with a heavy padlock perched on top like a mad bow, upon a demented gift. In the deeper shadows of the crates interior something was breathing, waiting.
Robin slipped around the corner in hot pursuit of the injured criminal, his chest ached as he kept up the staggering pace, he palmed his grapnel gun and switched out the adhesive projectile and cord lining up a shot on the small of the rapidly fleeing criminal, whom moments ago wrenched his arm back into socket and giddily laughed. Robin was grimly reminded of the joker, shaking off the momentary thought the masked teen hero fired and was startled when the giggling man seemed to trip, roll onto his injured shoulder and come up with a trash can lid, hurling it back at the pursuing titan, Robin's eyes had barely a moment to widen before the hurled projectile collided with his face.
Ren sighed and jogged back to the reeling titan, watching as the titan's eyes focused, "you suck at this hero thing guy" giggled the slightly maladjusted crook as he cart wheeled away from the recovering titan, Robin thumped the side of his head with the heel of his hand as he lurched after the gamboling criminal palming an explosive disk he hurled it two yards to the right of his quarry. Ren didn't even flinch as the small metal disk struck the ground far to the side, he half turned to taunt the teen hero mid stride when the explosive went off and flattened him against the adjacent wall. "tell me how to do my job..." muttered Robin as he rubbed his nose and called the JCPD to pick up the mess.
Raven watched as the chitinous behemoth bore down on her, her fear came unsurprisingly, but the realization that the creatures weapon was in fact fear was equally obvious to her, she focused her energy and softly chanted as the creature obscured Starfire and herself, the power that the pale sorceress called forth from the endless blackness of the dark half of her soul and the mind rending horror of realities beyond, and with a soft gap the creature un-made itself dispersing like a wisp of acrid smoke.
Raven opened her eyes and exhaled slow and soft as she rubbed grit from her eyes and popped her stiff back, she swayed to her feet and looked down upon her extraterrestrial friend and was relieved to find the princess floating above her bed curled up and smiling raven brushed her sweaty hair out of her face, and pulled her cloak from her shoulders in an effort to rid her self of the sticky heat that seemed to follow her from the depth of that rotted tree, Beastboy was sprawled out on the floor snoring softly having abandoned his canine form sometime earlier in the day. Raven shielded her eyes as she gazed out of the infirmary's only window, the sun was sinking into the ocean, she had been under for hours, her throat felt like sand paper, and her limbs like lead. She turned and closed the blinds behind her as she turned back to the room and surveyed the scene, she gathered Garfield up with a slight exertion of power and walked out of the room with her friend in tow intent on depositing him in his room and sequestering herself in the bathroom among scented candles and hot water until she felt like rejoining the rest of the world once more.
As Raven reclined within the steam filled bathroom neck deep in hot water and suds, and a new book floating lazily above the tub, an intruder made his way through the half familiar halls of the Titan Tower, he walked slowly and silently each measured foot fall as controlled and calculated as his own thoughts, every shift and movement carefully scrutinized and cast aside or acted on as was necessary to get him closer to his objective, his body was as a vacuum absorbing air but displacing nothing, he drifted to the doors marked "Infirmary" his hands instinctively tapped out the entry code, the doors whisked open and allowed entrance to the anomaly, Starfire blinked awake momentarily as the sudden chill of his passing seemed to jar her still sensitive psyche with its unnatural symmetry, her eyes took in the tall lean form, the golden robe and strong angular features of Brother Blood, her eyes widened and she gasped, raising her hands to flatten her foe, the aged psychic barely offered her a moments consideration before overloading her central nervous system and rendering the extra terrestrial titan unconscious.
Raven frowned as a sense of unease washed over her sending a chill through her body that even the hot water of the tub couldn't mask, she slipped from the soapy water and donned a terry cloth robe before making her way to the infirmary leaving a trail of water droplets behind her, the first thing she noticed as she arrived was that the infirmary door was in the process of closing, she clapped her hand on the door pulling it open to reveal the infirmary exactly as she had left it, Starfire was calmly sleeping, and Lunatic was still unconscious, his healing was taking longer than anyone had expected, though the doctor they had called in to help put him back together assured them all that he was recovering with remarkable speed. Finding nothing amiss and shaking her head at her own paranoia, she drifted back down the hall towards the bathroom intent on soaking away the chill from her little trip down the hall, from the corner of the infirmary Brother Blood relaxed his stance, the stillness of his thoughts brought with it a pleasant calm making this little trip to retrieve one of his wayward students an almost pleasant diversion from his daily life of paper work and balancing the little power struggles that took place within the Hive, "now then mister Thomas I think you've been napping long enough, I have need of your particular talents" the aged headmaster exhaled and leapt into the blue static labyrinth of the sort of hero's mind.
Lunatic frowned and got to his feet, something was wrong... more so than usual, he didn't have long to wait before the source of the strange feeling made itself known to him, "Hello Thomas" soothed the headmaster of HIVE academy, there was a long silence as Lunatic struggled to wrap his head around the presence of Brother Blood within his mind, "don't try to understand the particulars of how? and why? simply accept that I am here and listen to what I have to say." Lunatic nodded dumbly as the headmaster continued his lecture, "I need you to find the girl that did this to you and free her from the holding facility outside of jump city, certain parties are offering substantial monetary compensation for her release, and of course you would be entitled to a significant percentage" Brother Blood smirked and let the offer hang in the air for a few moments looking over his student's mental landscape, the general destruction and the abundant animal life was telling to say the least. Thomas mulled over his options before replying "how much exactly is a significant percentage?" Brother Blood rolled his eyes "well if we deduct the cost of returning your consciousness to your body I think you'll have about ten grand left over" chuckled the headmaster "my rates are high but your options are pretty much non existent, so what will it be Mister Thomas?" Lunatic frowned and gave the headmaster a hard stare "why me exactly? You have access to people with a great deal more power than me, Billy could infiltrated the outer wall easily enough and swarm the place, hell Kyd Wykkyd could be in and out in thirty seconds, I fall into under whelming when it comes to sheer scope of power at your disposal, if she was *that* important couldn't you organize the HIVE into a strike force and attack enmass?" Brother Blood shook his head slowly "Lunatic i don't have the time to explain the complex power balance that is in place between all the factions within this world and parts beyond, suffice it to say that the nail that stands out is introduced to the hammer rather hastily, perhaps after you have done as I've asked I shall explain the hierarchy of this world in a bit more detail, for now will you do this or do I turn your brain into cottage cheese and look further down the line? or do you wake up and make a bit of money?" Loonies' face colored hotly a he struggled to restrain his temper "I don't like being backed into a corner headmaster, but I can't see a whole lot of choice here" growled the part time hero. "Excellent" purred Brother Blood triumph singing though the three syllable utterance, then the world imploded and Lunatic was suddenly and violently aware of the sensation of being slapped in the face.