Chapter V: The Lab
The party pounded on long into the night, switching through different songs. They were mostly by Korn but there were a few exceptions. Slowly, the teens trickled out of the warehouse in ones and twos around three in the morning. Either too tired, too drunk, too high or too partied out, they stumbled their ways to their cars to probably crash and die. Seth and the other Titans eventually made their way back home, Seth drove the car with cold, calm efficiency. This was only because Robin was passed out, Starfire did not know how, Raven had no wish too and Cyborg had accidently sent himself into a far deeper depression when he had tried a bit of weed. It was around five in the morning before the Titans finally arrived home, Robin was dragged, feet first, by Cyborg into the tower and to his bed. Raven went to her room almost immediately, Starfire was acting calm and strange and laughing too much, Seth could tell that she was being affected by being in such close proximity to weed at the party. Cyborg went to his room and passed out almost immediately. Seth watched them all go and stood outside, his frighteningly efficient internal system allowed him to operate with only one hour of sleep a night; so sometimes he chose not to go to sleep at all and it had no aftereffects. With great gifts came great plagues.
He had gone to the top of Titan Tower, sat on the very edge of the hundred foot drop over the other hundred foot plunge into the ocean and watched the sun rise. It was around eight in the morning when he finally came back down to the messhall to get a bit of food. The only one awake and coherent, of course, was Raven. She sat quietly at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of steaming contents. Their eyes met and silence reigned, something crackled on the air, something strange and unfamiliar to both of them. Then a small screen mounted on the wall of the messhall chimed silently, Raven gave Seth a final look, then lithely rose to her feet and stalked over to the Audio/Video unit. Someone's face appeared on the screen, probably the police forces' contact to the Teen Titans. There were strained tones as the man explained a situation to Raven. In the end, she simply nodded, informed him that the Titans would be there quickly and shut down the unit.
"I need your help." Raven said, turning to Seth.
"What?" Seth replied.
"Go and wake Cyborg, inform him that we are needed for a mission." Raven explained. Seth nodded once and they both turned and headed to the elevator. The ride up towards the living quarters was silent, before either of them could say anything anyway, the lift arrived and the doors slid silently open. The two dark beings left each other and strode off down the hallway towards their respective tasks. Seth found Cyborg's room easily enough, and once he did he knocked on it rather loudly.
"What?" Finally came the reply.
"We have acquired a mission, be ready quickly." Seth replied, then turned and left. He headed towards his own room, to gather up his things. Now it was time for possibly a little bit of action, time for battle. Seth lived for battle, quite literally. He had been born and raised for battle, bred for combat; it was his life. He saw things like friendship and comforts and commodities as trivial things, there was only battle for him. Seth arrived at his room and entered it, then swiftly went about gathering up his things. He pulled on his trenchcoat, slid his weapons into their respective places and then headed back out of his room. When he arrived at the elevator, he found that Cyborg was already there. He looked rigid and almost stood at attention. There were suddenly noise from somewhere in the hallway and the others came down the hallway, Robin stumbling down the hallway. He groaned and clutched at his head.
"Thought you held your alcohol well." Seth said.
"Go to Hell." Robin replied, stumbling to a halt before the lift.
"Been there, done that." Seth replied calmly. They all finally came into the elevator as the doors slid open again, the place seemed somewhat packed. Robin finally took note of Cyborg's rigidness and sharpness.
"Why are you so uppity this morning? You had at least as much as I did." he asked.
"I flushed everything from my system using a special drug called Purge. You want some?" Cyborg replied.
"Might as well, we've got a mission coming up." Robin replied, holding out his hand. Cyborg handed him a small pill as they stepped out of the elevator.
"I must warn you," Cyborg said as Robin put it into his mouth. "You might want to be near a toilet or sink." That's about when Robin swallowed it, he suddenly pulled a face and vomited all over the carpet floor.
"Goddamnit!" He yelled in anger, wiping his mouth.
"Tried to warn you." Cyborg replied, grinning in a smug fashion.
"Whatever, let's just get outta here." They all headed towards the exit. As they stepped out into the brilliant sunlight, Starfire picked up Robin and Seth and Cyborg were picked up by Raven's strange, dark energies. With that, the team headed into the city.
They found the place that was being broken into easily enough, one wall was blown open and smoke rose high and billowed up into the air; the building was a research laboratory. There were a dozen cop cars on the streets and more on the way. SWAT teams and local law enforcement officers were surrounding the building as to make sure that nobody got out and two helicopter units flittered about in the air, keeping an eye on the whole scene from a bird's eye view. As the Titans landed, a police officer approached. He came up to Robin and they talked about the situation.
"What's going on?" Robin asked.
"From what we can tell, its an army of Slade's robots, they've broken in and we have no idea what they are doing in there." The man replied.
"Alright, we'll take car of it." Robin turned towards the others and suddenly Seth was off running. He was already reaching into his trenchcoat and extracted the two Berrettas as he entered through the hole in the wall. He came into a rather large room that was obviously on of the labs within the building. Tables were overturned, glass was everywhere and the place was just generally a mess. A trio of robots that all looked exactly the same from which this 'Slade' must have looked like, approached Seth with an almost calm speed. He raised one of his pistols and fired off three shots, all of them headshot. The robots' heads blew apart, they were torn away by the immensely powerful bullets and the three headless bodies fell to the ground. 'Pathetic things.' Seth though as he continued on into the lab, and then it all went to Hell in a handcart. Dozens of robots began to pour in through a few doorways along the back wall. Seth grinned; now this was more like it. He raised his two specialized pistols and opened fire. The twenty one bullets were each headshots, each instant kills. Once the berrettas were out of ammo, Seth did not feel the need to reload them. So, he simply shoved them back into his pockets and extracted the knife; time for a little dirty work. The first of the surviving robots came to him, and he went to met them with grim determination and his blade. This is what he was meant for.
The first one that came to Seth was cut down in an instant, he brought his combat knife down with savage fury and slammed it into the top of the things head. It cut through the metal with ease and hit the central computer system that ran the robot. Seth yanked the knife out and spun round in a circle, the more then razor sharp blade sliced off arms and fingers and bits and pieces of the robots. One came at him, missing an arm, and he kicked its chest in. While the robot was on the ground Seth brought his foot down with a sort of calm rage, completely smashing the things head. He replaced the knife in its sheath, intent on getting his hands dirty. Seth grabbed two of the robots' heads and banged them together, crushing each of them. A hand came at his face, seeking to do him harm, but he merely grabbed it and ripped it out of the socket. He then began to be the robot with his own arm until the limb was too smashed to be used anymore. Seth grabbed another robots head and ripped it off, then smashed it into another one.
And then, as quickly as that, it was over. Seth stood in amid a sea of dead robots, detached limbs and severed heads and broken bodies lay all around him and still he stood untouched. The ultimate fighter, the unstoppable warrior, the psychotic killer. Seth killed and killed and loved every minute of it. The Titans, unnoticed until now, stood well back, in the hole. They had stood there the whole time, for fear of getting in Seth's way and being injured. Silence reigned, and all they could come up with was Cyborg muttering, "Goddamn."