Teen Titans Presents; The End – Part Omni – Armageddon
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Chapter 7: On The Road Again and Kicking
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John had helped Slade to secure supplies, a pocket in his pouch as well supplying better rags. The smell was worse than the wear…
"That only leaves a vehicle." Slade turned to John, who just looked up at the beat - red skies.
"Unless, you'd rather walk all the way to Metropolis?"
"Is that where we're going?" Raven asked her companions with a blink. "No one was left alive, so what can we expect to find there?"
"The capes aren't it, lov." John moved to get the contraband together; knotted in a great big bow. "He's right. I just have to refuel my manna and we're golden for the rest of this trek into the unknown."
"They say magic can't craft miracles." Slade snorted. "I'll get us a damned jeep if you just want to lounge around all damn day." Slade turned back to the road as John called out to protest. "Hey, bloke! What's with the stuffy attitude all of a sudden??"
"I'm." Slade huffed and kept walking. "Going to be right back, once I am driving a vehicle back to this spot."
"Slade."
Raven's voice and tone really did remind him of Rose, but she wasn't the same girl to trust her father. None of them should. "I promise." He said and then while turning his head only to her, he just kept walking. No pauses left to grant to the Prophetess of Creation and Death.
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John paced and rubbed his beard while trying to think of a way to speed things along. "Not enough magic…and I can't leave you helpless here, Raven."
"I'd probably starve, oh." She drolloed sardonically. "Or be mauled by a giant worm…yaay."
"I'd say that might be true, yet maybe you can use a bit of magic to make a line." He pointed into the distance. "I can supply the paper; you can be the ink to mark that X onto it. What do you say? Keep that mind in working order?"
"I'd like that." She gave a small smile as she saw John pull out a blank map paper scroll from under his trench coat. "I have pockets in me pockets!" He joked, her laugh a bit meeker than his as they got to work in mapping out a route without having to cast any curses.
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Slade saw a rather interesting depot, but his money was on an old warehouse from his days as a crime lord. "If only every bunker had a garage." He smirked as the switch still gave no resistance to an apocalyptic fate such as he had suffered. "Hello, road runner." He splayed out his arms as a tank of a weapon on wheels. A gift from some dumb villainous mind that had collected dust. Until now. "Ready to see some sights?"
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Raven was just as tired of waiting ad John was of reading scribbles. He looked at the sun - less air and frowned. "Where is he? Our guide isn't being very generous."
A small pebble began to bounce by Raven's foot. She looked at it, more rock fragments joining in.
"I have a feeling he had bigger ideas for a mode of transport…." She and John got up as the ground trembled below their feet. "Should we –
Up through the dirt, was a metal bit so large that Raven remembered the tech attached. The worms that she and Terra had stopped, only this was not a worm but a drill with a hatch for a person. The drill started to wind down as soon as the hatch had room to gasp to life and lift up. Slade smugly moved at a speed for the enhanced and leaped out of the craft, a palm to it as he leaned and still smiled below his wrappings. "Need a lift?"
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It had tons of room, like a mini tank. Raven was sure that claustrophobia was not bound to stay away, but it even had a toilet and a control deck. This, was money well spent as Slade took to the controls and they rode on into the next city, undetected.
"This was a finished design I had ordered one of my team to build for quick escapes. Seems it really did stand the test of the end of time."
Raven didn't respond back. The man was still crooked, even with his shiny new toys. He just kept the vehicle moving as John tried to seat himself on the floor in a meditation pose. "Are you contacting someone?" She knew he had that gift through his training years, yet he only cracked open an eye to wink. Back on the floor, a mantra formed and the breath of the gods flowed down…
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Raven wondered as they waited to reach the surface, where the two would be expecting to go when the Earth's hearos had all since vanished. They had to be dead, gone. Something far worse. She hugged her knees close and appreciated John's fashion sense in what he'd done so far for her. The clothing was like her own, only a bit less breezy. In this month it wasn't cold in Cali, but in Kansas she'd maybe see something a bit less…. than ideal.
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The jut to the top was not ideal to cat nap and sleep through. Not to Raven's; whose powers were still too weak to leave her a threat. John had his mouth hanging open and was leaning over after his séance had since ended. He snorted and the droll by his lip was sucked up with a slippery pop. "Whu…. aren't we just a tad early….five more –
The next rock of the boat that Starfire might have called it, was also enough to have their captain who WAS awake, groan and growl at the wheel of his enhanced mechanical contraption. "We're nearing the surface…hold on, brace –
"UGN! Yourselves…" He grunted as Raven held onto anything she could touch. The drill went up, high enough that the light they saw was not red, but blue with flakes of snowfall…. still forever grey.
"Ashes. But snow? Got any idea why it's not like our Death Valley of a home?" John snorted to Slade who was just trying to find someplace to park. This wasn't all snow, but a mix of light grey ashes coming from the sky. And mountains of it!
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"Why did we even stop here if –
"I didn't think we'd be in Kansas anymore." Slade took to letting up the hatch as John stood by, heavily insulted by the joke. "Is this funny to you, mate? That we're in a city with snow like hail on our heads?? I'm not –
"John." Raven looked at both men as she acted once again as their mediator. "Maybe we should ask Slade why he wanted to come here, to this city." She turned to look at every facet of this world. "It's so dark. We had more light like it was still the west coast."
"This is the mid – west, my dear." Slade sighed and made sure to mark their time here, not stopping over a foot or more of fresh, frosty powder. "There is a north, south and west and east point. We can have rain, sunshine or a snow warning or two in these areas unlike, unlike California. The further north one travels –
"More traverses." John frowned. "So, what's here to search for? Do tell, Deathie." He hissed with a smug grin. "Will your brotherhood of the mad and deranged be in a bunker awaiting their general? Has Armageddon finally found an answer after only a week of trekking through the muck that is human existence?"
"A sanctuary, and a few who might help." Slade sniffed. "But, no. To answer your ridiculous question, there is no such society for me here, or anywhere." Slade moved ahead as Raven raced to keep up, John in back with his hands in his trench pockets. "If this turns south, I'm taking her with me. Hear that, Death?"
Slade shrugged as John clicked his tongue, Raven ignoring the rest even if John was technically no White Knight. She didn't want that; she wanted a team. Her team….and, she missed them more each passing hour.
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The place they trekked to was a waste as much as any shrine to the city itself. It stood in metropolis as a spectacle of hope. Much like the T tower, this was the very first from before the Titans' time. Raven didn't even know if they could go in.
Only mortal gods had ever stepped upon that now coated stonework path. She looked about and saw it as nothing but a forgotten temple of the past, not now. Not their present. John made a scrutinizing sound with his voice, as Slade only silently lumbered on towards the entrance. "No one is here, but maybe –
A shock of sound and rock cracking beneath their feet had the three jump back. "Are those their defenses?" John asked the bigger man of their group. He looked to squint though a cloud of ash and dust. "You're not welcome here. Any of –
Her voice was suddenly lost. A purple jacket over a black body suit and boots, her hair a mesmerizing and spicy blonde but not now. She looked, beaten.
"Can I help you…" She didn't recognize Slade, yet john was a pest who'd discarded his card for the Hero's legion. As in…
The Hall of Justice.
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She looked them up and down, her lip curling as Raven was forced to wait. Slade was not one to kill, but he'd fought this shrieking wretch. She was only good to the good of all, but not to those rotten to the core.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and ask if there are…any surviving members…." John seethed into his teeth as this heroine know as Black Canary scanned over the few three who knew her occupation from the get go. Perhaps a rumor, or just John blowing smoke. "A few, only a few of us made it…and, you I'd imagined fled to another dimension."
"Sorry, but I am not from this plane, actually."
Slade, Raven and Dinah glared daggers as the man put up his hands to elaborate. "I told you that I'd dropped by…. doesn't mean I wasn't a part of it, but –
"Which Earth." Dinah crossed her arms.
"Earth…." John stopped and shook his head at the question. "Y' know what? I'm not even sure I recall it! Funny, eh? This is not my first drop in on the Titans' wor –
"You're not spying for your own sake." Dinah got into a fighter's stance, yet her right side looked a bit battered on by something akin to a club. "You're hurt." Raven moved forward as Dinah recognized the cursed girl. "What – Why is she even here? Was –
"My father did this, through actions that had to happen. Hold still. I can hel –
"You…. Then this calamity is all your fault –
"And she has the power to fix our world. She's a savior over it, not a destroyer." Slade stepped in to defend. "If you'd let us through to check the data collected on that red giant's last attack on any other earths, we might have a shot at reversing all of it. Right now, all of it is real and at the same moment, fabricated. We are figurines inside of a glass snow globe."
Dinah barked and tossed her head at the picture. "What is this garbage?? We're in a crisis whether we want it or not. And if she has the power to fix it, where is Trigon??' She shouted. "What the hell was that explosion??"
"He left, said there was nothing left and…. My powers failed me…" Raven took in a breath as the light in her hands helped Dinah's rib to slowly mend and quieted the ache. "You, might be a hero to the Titans…by the way –
"The Titans." Slade started to say. "They didn't make it out alive, or in one piece. All because of us…"
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Dinah practically thrashed Slade into the ground as the rumble had her aggressive as she was with her partner. "Because of this crappy reality, Oliver is dead! Bruce is dead! I don't know if Hawk Woman is still alive…but if you have anything to add –
"I DO." Slade gripped her wrist as Dinah tugged it away before he had to let go. Slade quickly unwrapped his bandages as her face changed to pure horror at what Raven was all too used to and this, reaction also was no issue to John. Zombies were the norm, but bits of skin and hair poking out, were not.
"Dear gods, mate…. I guess that gamble on the big ogre's utopia of fire, backfired, eh? Am I right?"
"What, does this mean." Dinah hugged her arms to her chest, petrified without knowing just why.
"I made a deal, and like John said….it was far worse than you could imagine. Instead of granting me my flesh and blood as promised, he handed me the inability to be fully, deceased, even as a stand and rot here. Never make deals with an interdimensional demon without some protection. The Ring of Azar contained the curse so…here I am. An undead looking to live again, in pieces."
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Ah, so Slade was going to get data on Trigon by breaking and entering into the Hall of Justice while the members left are there in hiding to guard it? Will Slade ruin their chance or give them time to explain the rest of the late prophecy? Find out!