Teen Titans – Severing Old Ties – Sibling Rivalries –

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Chapter 8: Making My Point Clear is Rather Tasking…

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Pressing on, the Authority wasn't exactly very out there- but in another universe, altogether!

Dick did not know how to approach Eli after that; the idea of exposing their secret and whom Dick had gotten to speak to…He was afraid he'd stumbled into a new set of events that would tear he and his team apart like with Slade going after Brother Blood.

(Rekindling old bonds arc, read how Robin and Slade work together to free their allies.)

And now Grant was doing what he had to his brother, joey Wilson. A.k.A: Jericho.

Slade was probably formulating a take down and recapture while Richard slept like a baby and no one said a thing for over an hour, until Raven had the hero jolt upright in his seat.

"I found it!"

Eli snorted and sat up, knowing while it was a team effort…Well, she could have some of the credit. He'd shine only once Slade was taking into custody by Interpol.

And this Grant, fellow of his as well.

"We need…a ship?" She tried to find it again, in…oh…!"

"What, Rae?" Cy popped up from behind a bowl of ramen and a rather great slurp. Bushido ignored and continued to meditate on his own. Dojo hours were not short, but he wasn't fond on letting his lessons go slack all of a sudden. His sensei would be coming by tomorrow to see the trainees' progress.

He had to –

"We have to fly !?" Gar gawked as Raven told them with a nod, yes. The craft wasn't on land.

Eli on the screen beside Grayson was sure this had to be no better than one using the HIVE's delicate technology. Which could go " kablooey" if left in rather, reckless and incompetent hands…

"Ah…. I believe Raven meant "a ship that is in the air," is that correct?"

" Yes, Starfire." Sighed the empath, seeing this explanation as a great big waste of time. "We are going back up, just like with Brother Blood."

"Only this time, he's not making the threats on us." Cy huffed and took in a runny, ramen egg while Bushido cringed in the background. Headphones. Noise canceling. He had to add that to his list of items to pick up in town later.

During the day, he was simply a normal instructor, but at night, Bushido oversaw a village of Shinobi and samurai or ninja to the very death. He had a long history and this was…. embarrassing. Even if they were his allies, he felt it was out of place for him to kick them out. They'd be leaving so –

Cy slurped up another noodle. To Bushido, the distraction was unwarranted behavior. Completely disturbing to his culture, and slurping too loudly was…. not bad but Cy? Was LOUD at it!

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Dick nodded to his team as they made a plan. Eli raised a brow and drank tea from a rather common mug he'd asked the attendant for, for cultural reasons. Tea in a paper cup was an insult! Honestly…

"So, will the group I am currently to hold to the utmost secrecy be revealed, or might I trust you to keep –

"I won't tell. Batman can handle that case." Dick shrugged and stood to go to the mini fridge. Water was stocked and he'd just put it on the next tab anyway.

"Oh. That's rather sporting of you." Eli took a sip and pondered what a mess they'd be in once arriving to the new base. He didn't like it. The fact it was reveled that way it had been, as if a preview of what was to come…

Such a bother, as he let his chest exhale a stale breadth. "Robin; if the team is able to take the two siblings of that man down as you said to my superior, then what of your team? The Titans and the control he probably will have over their powers?"

"We fight, and we just try to save as many as we can, before anyone else gets hurt."

"And if the baboon, Wilson shows up?"

Dick took the water bottle, chugging it before crinkling the plastic in his hand. He was still in his shades, his suit right now not on to bring up the reason for their being here. Not like in the Titans' last visit to Japan. Not while things had changed since them. Time had treated them less than well as heroes to this country of fantasy and science fiction combined in the media.

"I want to avoid any conflicts as much as possible." Dick paused, knowing Eli would think it off to think like a coward. "Slade is, after Rose and Grant to make them into the same people who will just end up betraying him like I did, like Terra. And anyone else he's worked with. Slade is not a good teacher because he is controlling. Sociopathic, and as a father…. he can't be one if they are being hurt. Rose was not always in control. Slade did something to her, but then she just…went along with it. Even when we thought she'd been let go."

"Clingy." Shrugged the telekinetic of frost with a kink in his neck left to iron out. "Slade; you have a history and we spoke of it, so will it be alright if Jenny and I step in?" Eli asked. "To deliver his sentence with the aid of the Authority's rule?"

Dick wondered if it was right. If Eli even had that sort of jurisdiction, when the Titans had only let Slade slip off into the shadows every single time.

"I don't know –

"He's an enemy, a damned abuser of human rights!" Eli spat and chugged down the last of his drink before setting the cup down onto a coffee table beside his seat. "You can't bloody pity a murderer, Robin. You have to let the higher powers take –

"NO." Dick looked at Eli, expecting to see a fourteen-year-old, white haired meta from another time.

He instead saw his reflection staring back. Same fire, same spark. It really bugged him to no end with how he'd felt the same…. that Slade needed to be stopped.

"He's gotten immunity for his "work" outside of Jump." Dick swallowed and watched Eli turn his nose up to those words. "Slade, is actually valuable as a mercenary in political –

"He's a cut – throat buffoon who needs a good –

"HE'S HUMAN!" Dick shouted, knowing his words made as much sense as a cuppa tea drunken out of the toilet.

"You…are as twisted as he is…" Eli went to pass Grayson, to get to the door and just go out. "I'm not bothering with you lot, any –

"You can't go out! You'll be captured –

"I can protect myself!" Eli barked at the hero, who was just not sure if his temper was to blame, or the scare of losing a junior member of his team. Even Argent would box his ears for being less than firm.

"I don't want to have to do this…" Dick's eyes lowered as he reached for the kid's coat.

"Hey! Let off me, mate!"

Eli let his powers spark out to give a warning, the door his only exit to this cowardly lion's den for the while as it sat and moped.

Lashing out, the men's face off was short. Eli had ice powers, while Dick was mentally drained by the little vampire. His baton was whacked away and froze stiff as Dick discarded it. His eyes wider as Eli just glared with his frosty blues at the masked ally. Now a complete stranger.

"If you run into trouble –

"I won't call you." Eli shot back, before shutting the door behind him. The ice on the handle just as frost bitten as Dick's now frozen baton.

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Eli walked by neon signs at night in his trench, just as a light drizzle had led his mood from the hotel to sizzle. Was he even defending a criminal? Robin was a hero; he didn't pity kidnappers or killers? What gave?

He's hiding something…Was all Eli believed. He'd fought the man before, worked with him, but always. No how much Eli had tried to get into the head of psychos like Slade on his world, he was never right to find out the "core" reason for their violent tendencies.

~Men like that are mentally guarded to the point of being unbreakable. ~ Eli looked to see a few college students posing…

A man with a white eye patch. Faking a Russian accent.

"Yaa! Are you a spy, sir?" The college women were enthralled by the muscle of this military marvel – and then, Eli smirked to himself.

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"I am sorry, misses. I must be going –

"You can take one more photo; Oneigai?" The second with large glasses had her pink cell up and faced the male with a fan girl's energy.

"Wow…. are you, an actor??"

A gyaru; he'd sunken that low, as her loli – outfit and Harajuku sass was enough confused the "supposed mastermind."

"Uncle Dmitri!" She whined, as if Eli had to come to HIS rescue.

"Wow, you know each other?" The girl with her cell took another close up of the faux Russian male's patch.

"I do. I am in town to have a meeting, and this is the daughter of the man who will be hosting my stay in your lovely city."

" Ohh, such a flatterer, can we –

"No, thank you and Arigato!"

The patched man's arm was grabbed as he was ran threw a traffic of cars to cross over, down an ally as Eli reverted in face to that of a male at sixteen. He didn't want to be fourteen when this coward called him out.

"Are you bloody aware of the lawsuits that those women's families can place on you as a foreigner, bloke?"

"I'm aware, and yet they wouldn't exactly listen to reason." The man blinked back, his one eye mocking Eli, smug as it had been below a two-toned copper mask.

"I want you to tell me, what is your relationship to the boy wonder." The rain had started to pick up its pace. Umbrellas popping out of school and office bags faster than could be implied as normal for any city to deal with a spell.

"You really can't guess, but that's to be expected of a novice detective." Slade shrugged as his body was pinned to a wall by ice shards. No one else would see him squirming as Eli's eyes were blue flames reflected off of his working one.

"You really want to know, kid? What I do for a living? You should have a clue by now. Thanks to the group you work for and the ones who brought you to survey the Titans, I'd like to ask how you know Deathstroke, from experience."

Eli felt his hands shake a bit, as the man in front of him knew a whole lot more than he'd bargained to take. He sighed and kept the man there, not trying to think up a good comeback.

"He's the anti – hero on my world, in my universe. And a killer for hire who is barely trusted by my long time ally. Nightwing."

"Nightwing?" Slade cocked a brow. "How so?"

"You wouldn't know." Sneered the teen. "Nightwing has kept you from taking your fair share. He made it his business to keep you out of his way on missions that require a hero –

"Did we ever meet, in this time?"

Slade crinked his neck, feeling it become stiff as ice as Eli leveled out his aim. This man was no good to him quiet. "I don't want to spoil it, but you cannot face your children –

"Will this "Nightwing" be the one to stop me?" Scoffed the villain. Anti – hero…was that even a thing anymore? No good or evil as it had been in fairy tales?

"I'm serious, wanker. Back away from this mission and let the Titans –

"Are you serious about telling me…." Slade sighed, his arms moving and muscles tensing below his burly flesh. "What to do now, Frost?"

"You know too much." Eli let the ice encase that wrist. He could lose the man's word. He could take it. That memory he wanted to see. "If you want to play games…then let's try a maze…I want to know." Eli licked his lips and stepped closer to his prisoner's snarling face. "I want to know what you are to him, to my teammate. Robin."

"Suit…. yourself…" Slade grunted and let his body go slack as Eli, finally had gotten his wish.

/

~ You betrayed our trust. ~

~ Slade! I will stop you! ~

~Why, Robin…That was vicious, dishonorable and ruthless; excellent work…~

~Addie!~

~Sorry, Dad. But I've decided you aren't worth my time…the Titans…they offered me what you never could. ~

~Rose! If you turn your back on everything I've done for you –~

~Father…..pop….you are becoming your worst self. Please…do the right thing. ~

~Joey. It's not that easy for people like us to have the option to change. I've done too much to go back to being what you want me to be. ~

~You…are just, human…how? I thought that you didn't care…. ~

~I got lucky, I guess. Don't think this will become the new Deathstroke. Go! ~

~Grant, you died already. Why risk what this is? It's a chance to actually make something of yourself! Don't you walk away! ~

I…. have only to keep going. I'm only human, after all of that…change is not the same for metas, so why not now? ~

/

Eli gasped and came back up.

Pity.

Sorrow.

A memory of loss, all for the sake of a warped form of justice.

This man, was a walking contradiction.

Eli held his skull, but now he could understand why Robin wanted this creep alive.

"I want you to help us."

"Why should I." Slade narrowed his gaze at the teenager.

"Because." The boy in white knew how to keep this tiger from lashing out. He had a bunch of measures to try out.

"Because, you have our way up. And I want you to make amends with your brats, before you can both safely say, farewell."