This chapter is gross.
They walked just down the street and around the corner, not very far from the church at all.
"This is it," Jim stated.
The building was comprised of three storefronts, though the signs were blank and the windows and doors were boarded up. It looked unassuming and completely blended in with the derelict section of the city they were in.
"The broken window is over this way," Jim guided them down the alley. The window was obscured by junk left in the alley, but the glass was broken out.
"I called out to him from here," he explained. "And I remember him singing back to me, 'I'm better off dead'. I kind of assumed I was dealing with a botched suicide at that point. But I climbed down there."
"'Prove Yourself,' Beast Boy said definitively.
"...excuse me?"
"Sorry. We figured out that all the songs that Black has been singing have been Radiohead songs. He created a code using the titles. I've been listening to all the songs since we figured that out, to pick up on it quicker."
"You think he was trying to say something else that night?"
Beast Boy shrugged. "He did on the card you sent us, but I think Robin came up with the code, and now Black just has all the songs in his head and can't turn it off. Like a broken record."
Raven used her powers to remove the window frame and all the broken glass. "Can you lead the way?"
Jim nodded, and let himself down into the room.
Beast Boy followed shortly after, as a mouse, and then Raven went in.
Cyborg frowned. "I can't fit in there. I'm going around the front."
"Alright." Jim took a little flashlight out of his jacket pocket. "I'm not sure what the layout of this place is though. Good luck finding a way down."
Cyborg nodded and went back the way they came.
In the beam of the flashlight, the basement of this place looked disgusting. Water dripped from the ceiling, as piles of plaster laid crumbling on the floor. There were abandoned mattresses, chairs, and cardboard boxes strewn about.
"This place is way creepy."
"Agreed," said Raven. "Even for me."
"I found him over here," Jim stated, taking careful steps through the rubble. There was a trail of bloody footprints on the ground. "I think it was kind of a miracle I did."
"Perhaps," Raven began, "your compassionate nature compelled you to investigate. I don't think many people would have followed a singing voice into an abandoned building at night."
Jim chuckled. "You make it sound like I have no self-preservation." He shrugged. "You're right though. I did feel compelled. It might have been the Holy Spirit. I don't know if you guys believe in Him, but that's the best explanation I have."
"Spirits can be very compelling," Raven agreed. "I'm only happy you had a benevolent one on your side."
"Are you very spiritual then?"
"...you could say that."
"Here," Jim stopped. "This is exactly where I found him."
There was a mattress on the floor, covered in filth and blood. Balled up next to it was a bloody hospital gown.
Beast Boy let out a low whine. "I'm glad Starfire isn't here. This would totally break her heart."
"No doubt about that," Raven agreed. She took out her communicator and took a photo, then she rang Cyborg. "Cyborg, did you find a way in?"
"I did," he answered. "I took a lap around the building and found a back door with a hackable keypad."
"Jim showed us where he found Robin. We're still in the basement, in the same room. There's a mattress on the ground."
"Take a picture for Batman?"
"Already did."
"Good, then I think you both should come up here and see what I found."
"Is it safe?"
"...I don't know."
Raven turned to the Pastor. "Do you know how to get out?"
"Yeah. I'll go back and wait with Black and Starfire," he said, grateful. "I know you all are capable of protecting yourselves, but be careful." He handed his flashlight over to Beast Boy.
"Ready?" Raven asked, once they were alone.
"Not really, but let's go."
—-
Beast Boy turned into a bloodhound when scouring the basement proved rather futile in finding anything helpful. With his newly enhanced nose, he quickly found another trail. It started faint, but it was a foul stench mixed with human blood.
"Raven, I found something!" He said, turning into a human.
She was quick to catch up with him and follow him as he ducked into a hole in the wall. From the front, the hole looked like the plaster had crumbled and revealed the brick underneath, but when you looked in, there was space to walk. She had to walk sideways through the narrow passage, but with the light of the flashlight, could see the walls were smeared with blood. There was a narrow piece of wood covering the passage, and they pushed it aside.
Then they were spat out into a dusty hallway, with more prints on the floor. The walls were made up of cement blocks. Every ten feet or so, there were dim, stark yellow floor lights on the walls.
As they walked, Raven scrutinized the path. "I've seen this place before."
"Where?"
"Can't place it."
He sniffed the air. "Ew, what's that smell?"
Raven sniffed too, and found a sickly sweet smell permeating the musky, moldy air. "Don't know. Sewer line?"
"Nah. I've smelled the sewer and that's foul, but not like this."
The hallway was long and dark, despite the nauseous yellow light. And they could only barely make out a door at the end.
Raven's communicator rang.
"You guys coming up?" Cyborg asked.
"I think so," Raven responded. "But maybe not. Beast Boy found a blood trail. What did you find?"
"Also a blood trail. Biometrics match Robin. And of course several others. Looks like whoever was here is long gone. No documents, no forwarding address, and no free floating samples of the poison cocktail. But, there's a lot of other answers to Robin's wounds."
"Start taking pictures. We'll try to be there soon."
Beast Boy shifted back into a dog, and then immediately back into a human.
"...are you okay?" Raven asked, as she watched him recoil harshly.
He shook his head. "It smells way bad in here. Overwhelmingly bad."
"It is getting worse. This place was abandoned. Maybe it's an old fridge or a dead animal."
"I don't know…" He took a few steps further, then noticed a ladder hiding behind a column on the wall. "Hey, I bet this leads up to where Cyborg is."
"Nice eye. Let's check it out after this door." She progressed onward.
He could still smell it. It only got worse. Yes, it smelled like feces, but not just that. It was a smell he wasn't quite able to place, just that it was the most foul he'd ever smelt.
"Ugh," said Raven. "That's putrid."
They reached the end of the hall. There was one door in front of them, and one on Beast Boy's left. Both were a discolored white with rusty knobs.
Beast Boy and Raven shared a look, both covering their mouths and noses with their hands.
"Check that one," she commanded, gesturing to the one next to him.
"What if…we didn't?"
"Beast Boy."
"Right, fine, yeah, okay." He turned the knob, but it simply clicked. "Oops, looks like it's locked. Oh well!"
Raven rolled her eyes and went for the door in front of them.
It was not locked, and opened with an eerie creak. The inside was pitch black, and the smell doubled. The air was dank and damp, and a faint buzzing sound kept everything from being absolutely silent.
Beast Boy whined.
Raven bravely took a step forward and felt along the wall for a lightswitch. It was a cold steel box raised against the wall. The switch flicked with a heavy snap, illuminating the room with one singular, stark, naked bulb.
In the hero business, you see a lot of unpleasant things. You see broken bones and grievous wounds. You see your friends manipulated against you, or hurt in horrible ways. You see your friends tormented with figments of enemies that aren't there. You see your friends fight against their family. You might even see hell itself.
This room was none of these things. It was worse.
There were flies. They came alive as the light went on, and the noise of their buzzing only doubled.
Three disgusting, threadbare, stained beds on rusty frames. Off white walls marred by handprints cast in blood and other bodily fluids. The floor was dusty cement, just like the hall, but soiled with slick pools of all sorts of putrid colors.
On the bed across the room, sat the headless body of one of Slade's bots, propped up and presumably watching the room.
The bed on the left was empty. The bed on the right—
"Oh god…" Beast Boy recoiled, his eyes watering. "I knew it, I knew it…"
"Damn…" Raven whispered, dread rolling over her body.
A partially decomposed, bloated and festering corpse laid out on the bed, wearing a soiled hospital gown. His arms were folded over his chest, like a body laid to rest in a coffin.
The communicator rang.
"You find anything yet?"
"Yeah," Raven choked. "Justin Krieger."
"That's…the other boy. The face boy?"
"Yeah."
"But…in the video, didn't Robin…?"
"Yeah."
"Oh." He took a deep breath. "You okay?"
"I'm going to take pictures for Batman," she obviously avoided answering. "This is the room from the videos. The rest of the Sladebot is here." She hovered into the room, setting her jaw as she set to work. She glanced back to the door to see what Beast Boy was doing, but only saw his back as he was turned away, bent over, dry heaving and crying.
She didn't blame him.
As she snapped photos, she came closer to the bed with the bot on it. Behind the robot, she saw the letter 'e'. A word was obscured.
She moved the bot without touching it, revealing whatever had been written.
In blood, and in Robin's handwriting, was just a single word.
'Starfire.'
Raven was soldiering fine until that point. But seeing that made her powers flare as she sent the bot flying across the room.
She took a photo with a hand slightly shaking in barely controlled rage.
Then she fled the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
"We find out who did this, and we return the favor," Raven growled.
"I'm with you," Beast Boy grabbed her arm.
Raven returned the grasp and pulled him into a hug, one that was fierce and sure. He returned it, not commenting on the out of character action. He desperately needed a hug too.
Raven begrudgingly pulled away and looked at the other room.
"Dare we?"
"It's locked, so it's up to you."
They had to. If they wanted to find out the rest of this mystery, they needed to explore the whole building.
"Azarath…metrion…zinthos…" Raven raised a hand, and forced the lock on the door. With great hesitation and dread, she opened the door.
Again, it creaked unpleasantly, and the room was dark. She reached in and flicked on the light.
There were the rest.
This room was a workshop, and had a large table on one wall. The table was stained red and had large cuts in the surface, presumably from the many knives resting on it.
On the opposite wall were several blue barrels with warning labels on the front.
On the wall opposing them were several wide shelves, which simply displayed skulls. Each one was numbered. Number 2 and number 8 were missing.
"I'm ready to go back to fighting Mad Mod and Control Freak now," said Beast Boy, in a poor attempt at humor.
Raven ignored him and hovered into the room, snapping photos. "These barrels are full of acid," she stated, all emotion fled from voice.
"Yeah," said Beast Boy. "That tracts with these psychopaths."
She called Cyborg, "We found another room down here, presumably with the remains of the other boys. And we found a ladder, so we're coming up now."
Cyborg just responded with an unenthused, "Roger."
They abandoned that room as well, and turned to the ladder in the hall. Raven opened the hatch at the top, and they ascended.
It was brighter up here, though not by much. Sunlight shone through the tiniest cracks in the windows. Walls were crumbling and the interior brick was exposed.
"Cyborg?" Beast Boy called.
"Yo!" He called from a room over.
They followed his voice, weaving between empty shelving and display cases before they pushed on the swinging door to reveal—
A bloodbath.
"Dude, this just keeps getting worse."
Cyborg stood off to the side to avoid the gore. What looked to be a dentist's chair with stirrups and restraints stood solidly in the center of the room, a dried puddle of blood underneath it. A table next to it held an assortment of tools; from hammers, to pliers, a cattle prod, and a circular saw. Chains hung from the ceiling, as well as nooses and giant meat hooks. One wall was riddled with bullets and blood splatters.
Truly, everything a psychopath could want to torture someone was in this room. And it all looked like it had been used.
"Here," Raven handed her communicator over, showing the photos. "This is what we saw."
"Jesus…"
Beast Boy stood, looking around. He stared at the chair for a while, a memory of Robin coming to mind. At that time, they had restrained him because he had been sick with a toxin from Slade, and was hurting himself in the process of seeing him.
Back then, Robin had escaped the restraints in only a few minutes.
This time, he hadn't escaped. He had only survived.
"Wanna call the police?" Raven asked Cyborg.
"I gotta report this to Batman. He'll know what to do, because I certainly don't. We don't deal with this crap. And…this is his son."
Beast Boy continued his observations as they talked. It seemed rather straightforward as he looked. A torture chamber. That's all it was.
But then, on the floor, he spotted something that didn't belong. A doll. If you could consider it one. It was a lump, with a smaller lump for a head, and four smaller lumps for limbs. It was made of cheap white fabric. Beast Boy picked it up, and decided to hold onto it. He'd show Batman in person. Maybe it meant nothing.
"He's calling me," Cyborg sighed. "Hi Batman."
"Good work Cyborg. The photos should suffice for evidence, but if I need anything else, I'm sure I can go back after forensics clean up. It's more important at this stage that those bodies are laid to rest."
"Can you glean anything from what we saw?"
"Sickos, that's what I glean."
Fair enough.
"I watched the first videos. I have to do them in segments. I have the Batcomputer analyzing them for any info I can extract. So far, I haven't found anything that you guys didn't. So…good work."
"We think Slade may be involved, but…last we knew, he was dead."
"What's your evidence?"
"The videos were recorded on one of Slade's commando bots," Raven said. "And Slade is the only villain we've faced that is this cruel. And he has a thing against Robin specifically."
"I don't believe whoever did this knew that Richard Grayson was Robin. Robin joined Project: Duality under his real name, by association with his volunteer work. He wouldn't have let it slip who he was. I think he joined with the intent to end it the same night he went in, and uncovered a bigger can of worms than he was expecting." He set his jaw tightly and shook his head. "But I'm bothered by Dr. Jack White."
"What about him?"
"Jack White is an alias that the Joker has used for a long time. But I think I'm just…projecting maybe. Joker is loose from Arkham, but why he would go to Jump City and do this, when it's not anywhere near his M.O. makes no sense."
"Watch the last video," Cyborg urged. "There's two people involved."
"Who's the Joker?" Raven asked.
Before Batman could answer, Cyborg and Beast Boy both chastised her. "You don't know who the Joker is?!"
"Dude! He's only Batman's greatest enemy!"
"My worst enemy," Batman snipped. "The self proclaimed Clown Prince of Crime. He's one of the world's worst psychopaths and he has a theme. Clowns, playing cards, carnivals, that sort of thing. Human suffering is a joke to him, and he loves jokes. His actions led Robin to Jump City. He was shot and so I…suspended him. He wasn't happy about it, so once he healed, he left."
"I mean, getting shot is a valid reason for suspension."
"Robin would say I fired him."
"Oh."
"I will watch the rest of the videos and then get ready to come to Jump. If that's where Joker's been, I need to be there. But there is the possibility that this is a copycat. Call the police and get that building canvased." And he hung up.
"The man does not mince words," said Cyborg.
"Or say goodbye," joked Beast Boy.
"I'll get you a t-shirt that says 'Batman hurt my feelings' for Christmas."
"Enough," Raven snapped. "Let's call the police, pick up Starfire and Robin, and go the hell home."
—
Back at the church, Black and Starfire were sitting on the steps outside. Pastor Jim returned, took his family home, and locked up the building.
Now they just had to wait for the others.
"…and he realized that the necklace I wore was from the Centauri moons, the very same place that these police officers were from."
Black reclined on the steps, resting his head in his hand as he stared at her, almost with hearts in his eyes. "Oh! So he figured out that Blackfire was trying to frame you!"
"Exactly. Had he not come out to stop me from leaving, she would have gotten away with it too. It was heartbreaking to lose my sister, but I have found a new family here. Raven is a better sister than Blackfire ever was. Did I tell you she tried to arrange a marriage for me?"
"Raven tried to set you up?"
Starfire laughed. "No no, Blackfire did."
"Well, you aren't married now, are you? How'd you get out of that?"
Starfire smiled softly. "Robin."
"Of course," a sad smile appeared on his face. "He must have really loved you."
Starfire's heart leapt at the thought. She was talking to Robin! He was there! He should know! But it was all obscured by a poison cloud. "Perhaps."
Finally, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven returned to the church, looking downtrodden and troubled.
"Did the search go well? Have we found clues?" Starfire asked, and she and Black got to their feet.
Instead of an answer, they were both surprised by Raven and Beast Boy rushing to Black and catching him in an awkward three person hug.
"This is the weirdest Oreo I've ever seen," he quipped.
Raven just dug her fingers into his shoulder, trying to pretend that this was Robin, one of her best friends, and not a clown replacement.
Beast Boy just clenched his eyes shut tighter, trying not to imagine Robin in that horrible room.
Cyborg rested a hand on Starfire's shoulder. "We found where Robin was being kept for those three months. They saw it firsthand."
"Wasn't pretty," said Beast Boy.
Raven let go first. "Put things into perspective. I wouldn't want to be the person that lived in that room either."
Black stared at her, her declaration stirring something up inside him. She was trying to see his side. All of them were trying.
He should try too.