Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell: If I Had Stayed a Renegade
/
Kick In the Teeth
/
Cutting back to apprentice part two; Robin's chance to infect himself with the Nanos is thwarted. Let's see what comes up….
/
"No."
As the boy uttered this, Slade had anticipated a rebellion from the start. The boy would rather die than save his so – called team?
The kid dashed, yet Slade's arm was swifter than the boy's hurried steps.
"Stop! NO!!" He thrashed and cried out in Slade's grip as the boy, Robin was forced to watch h the beating hearts of his friends; sprawled on the cold ground of the haunt…
Flicker into oblivion. Tears fell, they burned his cheeks as Slade waited for the shaken child to still his tantrums.
He'd lost his parents at such a tender age.
The girl he loved was in pain, sickly colored with orange and red white splotches against her exotic skin.
The rest of the heroes, Robin's adorning crew were lost to him as he never looked up.
He never eyed the man who had punished his apprentice in such a way.
When he was good and ready, Slade dropped his poor student to his knees, the kid's fists still clenched at his sides.
"That is why you'll obey me from now on." The man stood, looking down at the boy under his control.
"This…went too far –
"You deserved it, Robin."
"I never wanted this!!!" Robin swung back out, fists and tears a terrible combination as the boy openly grieved through his rage.
"They still have a chance!"
"Yet you won't reject them long enough….to pay attention!" Slade grappled the kid and smacked him to the floor, foot soon colliding with the child's cheek. Robin skidded with a sickly scraping of his metal guards on his uniform, a few inches from this angered mastermind's lone boot. Now covered in a bit of the kid's blood from that shallow cut, more so a gash...
Unmoving, but still breathing.
Slade left the bots to finish the rest. He scooped up this bloodied, tear-stained little soldier and walked over to a dial placed conveniently right by his throne.
"Time to go." He turned it and the place, the expensive project in this city's underground, came toppling before the mad man.
Slade slipped away, as this city's last hope for the future was left to be buried beneath her unholy walls.
This lesson was wrought with pain, yet Robin had been warned of the implications. He'd purposely tried to fight their agreement, so Slade had fought back. Plain and simple.
With the haunt now diminished brick by brick, this meant that Slade could lay the groundwork for a greater design. One with a more personal touch. If Robin was to break off his current relationship with his mentor, or later ones without the Titans…then there was always reason to celebrate in the aftermath.
As Wintergreen had called him crazy for doing this at all, Slade reveled in the chance to test his own limitations. To stretch Robin's as far as they would go. And to finally be taken seriously by the Justice League.
He had a reputation to uphold, as Robin was stuffed into the back of a jeep, kept out of the way as his head would have quite a nasty mark on it for a few weeks.
Yes, this was just turning out to be a very interesting development.
So much so, that Slade hoped Robin would wake up soon so that he could test that theory.
His apprentice, no. His, legacy, as the man drove off into the new morning light down the highway, out of sight.
Yet never of mind.
And to the future, they went.
