Sladin or bust! Explicit One Shots from the Vault of Sladin –
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LA PETIT MORT
WAS WATCHING RON PERLMAN IN CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, DECIDED TO MAKE THIS AS A ONE SHOT BUT WHAT THE HEY. MOVIE STILL ISN'T OVER….
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~ SLOWLY, SLOWLY, YOU LET OUT YOUR LAST BREATH…. GASPING AND FLEEING THE DREAM OF WHAT MAY NEVER BE. AND UPON YOUR UNTIMELY DEATH, I SHALL BE…. ~
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"SL…ADE..." Robin could not breathe; he had tried to escape the tormentor in his dark room yet the signs were everywhere.
"I am the thing that keeps you up at night…."
"I…can……. not…. lose –
"Loss, what is there to gain from giving up, child." Right here, he was to his bed, the cool breeze of a window a true warning that death had come to claim him. A dream? Was it not a dream of his death from times they'd fought?
"When you do wake, I won't be there…. not until you continue to dream, will I then have the right."
The grip had him finally black out, lasting words turning his words to naught.
"To do away with who you are, outside in the waking world…"
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"Not a demon." Raven scanned over all of the aura he kept, not a crack in their psychic affair as Slade's message had never been. Robin crinkled his brows and hugged his arms to his chest. Slade was his reaper in a dream, he'd died and they had stopped the revival of a demon then. Back then, this was never the source to any outcome.
"He doesn't have Trigon's curse anymore…it could be a manifestation, but you have marks." She pointed out. "Hands, around your neck."
Dick clutched his throat, the bubbling chill returning as he felt his lungs burning as before. "It was a message, but not from…our world then?"
"Did his ghost come this time, Rae?" Cy asked as the machine reading Robin's brainwaves buzzed in the background.
"I can't tell…. After tomorrow night…. the next time we'll measure for any changes. Beast boy."
"Y – yeah?" The green teen bounded over, shaking by the words "death" and "Slade" being in the same sentence. "I need you to stay by Robin. You have the ability to sense any presence through your strength…. Cyborg? You and I will stay in the room. Starfire? I want you to watch outside if anyone gets through to Robin's window."
"There is none of the ways of the other??" The alien princess bit her lip as Robin gave his head a shake. "It could be some special force…maybe an omen." Raven rubbed her skull and knew this would pull her into a dark place. "By nightfall, we shall only home it was…but a dream…" Kori sighed.
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Dark walls layered by a memory as Slade's was since lost to evidence boxes and old photographs of his true face, still yet to be caught on live candid. Robin knew of his fears, of toxic trust and malnourished stomachs. Day after day and night had that hour plagued him. Of the enigma, the phantom in his memories, of a mad man grinning behind a copper mask.
Supper, patrol, all of that was over as he tip toed to his own door, his own sacred space while others had entered right before to investigate.
"Do what you always do, Raven an' I won't leave you unprotected."
"Thanks, I'll try to rest right away." Robin smiled to the co-captain of his small squad; Raven levitating only once soft folds of breadth came directly from her leader's lips. REM sleep had taken him, she nodded as Cyborg readied his scanner and eye.
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~ I hate to disturb your rest, my child. ~
Two voices merged into a single identity as the boy wonder jolted up, only to find himself in a dark void. This was not his room; it was not inside his head – it was not the scent of rot that made him cover his nostrils. Nor was it the smoke and ash that led his eyes to water down his domino mask imprinted cheeks.
~ Bargains are easy to wriggle away from, yet how might one know of their time remaining…do you not agree? ~
"Who…." Robin coughed as he tried to focus on his question cautiously. "Who, are you?? Why…. cough! *….do you keep…. coming back?"
~ The stench of death has touched you. ~ The phantom did not show itself as the smog grew thickly to coat the whole room. ~ I wish to know why. I am the border between here and the afterlife. A manifestation in the form of man's work antagonist that he may remember…you remember the face I've sought to grind to dust by my power… ~ The form began to change, the cloaked carrier of black with a scythe about its grip had Robin slap another hand over his lips. ~ Why, you ask am I so terrible to your human eyes? I was a god, once long ago. Now, I spread the omen of loss and decay as well as I may. You have been sought by another, one that dared to escape my palm again and again. Do you know why this is, dear hero? ~
"No…you…. you have no idea who. Then why?"
~ You cannot have forgotten! ~ Scoffed Death in its disbelief. ~ Boy hero, he was right at your throat – that character is your worst SHADOW! My worst enemy as well, for his body will not rot. I wish to relay all I must, for only you may do away with this coward of the art of the dead – that - do – still – rise. ~
The form swapped again, clouds rising as one solid eye looked at the boy wonder, eye cocked to the side as the mask was lifted to reveal…an empty black hole where a normal face should be.
~ Sell his soul back to me, with the death of this man who truly claims himself…a demi – God. Do so, and I shall have what need be done, and your shadow too…shall be properly vanquished. ~
"I can't do that…. I'm not a killer." Robin removed one hand from his lips as the smog was now only the faceless god in his dreams. ~ You can, you must. You will be the only warrior in spirit wise and willing enough to do this. ~ It replaced the copper two – toned mask back onto its face and chuckled in Slade's voice. ~ Maybe not today, tomorrow or the next year, but soon…you'll want your enemy to vanish. And when the day comes that he finally gives you what you'll deserve, it won't be a dream. That mark will remain, when you might have ended it all…long ago… ~
"Heroes don't end lives!" Robin protested by the message, the threat from a reaper from some other reality. "I'm not like him. You are just trying to trick me; I'm not going through w-
~ You will, stray song bird…and when you sing that sad, sad tune…. ~
The reaper's visage returned, scythe in hand as it was raised back up, ready to cut the void and free them both from this ominous space. Robin got his fists up; the dream world theory of materialization however was ineffective in this part of his nightmare. ~ Be it today or tomorrow, you won't ever defy a god…not when you've been cursed by my power as well…return to your waking dream, dear child…. Return to your present, as I shall allow it! ~
The crescent blade fell and Robin saw a pure white, before glimpsing up at the celling and at a winded Raven as he dragged himself to go to her side.
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