Disclaimer: Slade, Robin are copyrighted to DC COMICS. Sariel is mine tho! No stealies!
A/N from FF: Here's another chapter for ya! Hope you enjoy! I'm gonna try and update more regular from now on, but I've also been doing a lot of art lately. I posted a pic of Sariel is anyone is interesting. It's on me dev account .com
Anywho let me know what you think! I want to say thanks to everyone that has reviewed and is following this story. I'm just glad people are liking it. =) And I hope you find the story as rewarding as I do. XD
So PLS PLS Review guys, let me know what you think!
EDIT: 01/09/2022 - Slowly fixing edits as I swap chapters over from FFnet to Ao3
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Two days, and they had finally arrived at a city known as Sa'dah. It was apparently one of the capitals of Yemen or at least it once was until the capital was moved to Sanaa. Sariel explained that it was dangerous territory here since Sa'dah was currently under control of The Houthis. A group that's been going around and taking city after city. Bad thing was as Sariel also explained, that they had tried to take Aden a few months back. Also he noted that the girl said something under her breath about something else, another group. The one that funded all this? He could ask, but she probably wouldn't answer. Sariel kept a lot of things to herself, and never shared anything to anyone.
Although, from the little he did know of her, she seemed to have a lot of intel on her surroundings at all times. Perhaps she had some sort of operatives working on the inside to get her the info. "Sounds like something Slade would do." he thought to himself. Or maybe she just heard if from the grapevine. Either way the girl didn't seem like she wanted to get involved with this matter. Not to enthusiastic about helping out a side to win... And awhile ago she was preaching about Superman coming to save them all. About what a glorious idea that would be? But instead having to deal with the problems all on their own because no one would come to their aid. What was her deal? Now she wanted to stay out of it. Now she didn't want to help others... Or she really meant it when she said everything had to be done on your own out here. Meaning she was going to leave them to fight their own battles. She certainly wasn't going to help them. Not when no one came to help her all those years ago.
Did she want pay back? Revenge? "Who knows?" he thought as he shook the thoughts away.
The city was all hustle and bustle, but what disturbed him the most was walking past families and people trying to rebuild after what looked to be remnants of bombings. The stone houses were in ruins. These people had nothing to begin with and now it seemed they had nothing at all.
Robin almost lost himself in the thick air that filled itself with the sadness and grief of those that surrounded him. This was no city, it was the remains of a war zone. And if there was any indication that it could continue, then he was certain it would. And these people would be caught up with it. "This isn't right..." he muttered to no one but himself.
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The city wasn't large and it wasn't long until Sariel's tongue started speaking in that foreign language of hers again. They had stopped outside a old wooden door, painted green for color he supposed since the rest of the buildings were brown and rather dull.
She and the men dismounted their horses, he himself following suit. "We're gonna sell the horses, and we'll go by car from here on out." Sariel gave Robin a thoughtful glance. "We should be able to find you a place where you can call up your friends here to."
Robin simply nodded.
"We'll spend the night here, get some extra provisions... You ok?"
Robin jerked towards her. "Yea." he muttered. "I'm fine."
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That night Robin found himself amongst the company of Sariels men more so then herself. They spoke little english but that was fine by him. He liked to be left alone... for the most part. Right now however he really missed the Titans. He would love to have their company, but they thought him dead. Which presented him a new problem. It took him awhile but he found an American newspaper. The front page was evidence enough that the Titans were going on without him. "REVERED HERO ROBIN DECLARED DEAD" The mere idea sickened him. But it was something he could fix. His main concern however was how were the Titans doing without him? He had trained them well, he wasn't to worried about them handling the city. He was worried about their welfare. He knew that if he had lost anyone on that team he'd be grief stricken, he couldn't imagine how they were feeling right now.
The article itself was actually more then a page or two, he was pretty pleased with himself. Boy were they going to be shocked when he came home. He could almost imagine their faces light up when they saw him and he could almost hear the zombie jokes Beast Boy was bound to make.
"You from America?"
A man sat down across from him. An ageing man, probably about mid fifties he guessed. He had grey hair and a goatee that gave the man a bit of a rugged look. The eye patch however, that did it. It fit in with the whole assemble of the uniform he was wearing. Some roughed up veteran soldier looking for a place to rest his bones.
"I suppose...?"
"Ahhh that is why you cling to your heros eh?" The man eyed the newspaper. Robin just looked at the man, his eyes narrowed a bit but reminded himself to play it safe. He calmed himself down before answering.
"I live in that city... reminds me of home."
"You a soldier, boy?" His accent, was this man Russian? Would make sense. Yemen and Russia have a lot of mutual understandings at this time.
"Not really." Robin answered uneasily.
"Ah a tourist then?" The man smiled down at the boy, there was something odd about this man. Robin shrugged if off however. Probably just some old vet looking for someone to talk to.
"You could say that. What brings you here?"
The older man smiled at the boys question. "As you may or may not know, my country and Yemen are good friends. We have a little base on the side of town. I come here to drink. It's pretty good, for being all the way out here in a desert. Although, what I would do for some of my own vodka from my liquor cabinet back home... but I suppose this will do." The man poured himself a glass from the bottle he had purchased.
Robin smiled at the Russian, not wanting to give away that he was suspicious of the man. Try and act friendly, best way to uncover what they could be hiding. The rest of the night the man kept him company, only occasionally talking to one of the servers. It wasn't until about midnight that the man had said his goodbyes and Robin had said his.
He dragged his feet up the stairs into a tiny room. When he crawled into the bed that was prepared for him he felt exhausted. The old man really took a lot out of him. He wasn't expecting that sort of encounter at all, but overall it wasn't to bad... he had to admit though there was something about the man he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Robin let out a yawn. Right now it didn't matter much now that he was in bed, everything can wait. He hadn't slept in a real bed in weeks. It felt so good, it wasn't his bed in Titans tower, in all honesty this thing was old and a piece of crap but as of right now it was the best thing in the world.
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The next morning he was told that Sariel had indeed sold off the horses. And she was supposedly in the process of buying vehicles. One of her men had spoken to the innkeeper and paid for a long distant call. And Robin couldn't help but put a smile on his face. He was going to call the Titans.
He started to enter the number for the tower, but all was cut off when an alarm started blaring. "What the hell is that?"
"BOMB!"
"What!?"
All around him the locals started running for cover. "Bomb?" he questioned. Could they be dropping bombs? Why not? They had before? And recently if his suspicions were correct. "Shit!" he spoke up. "Why now?" He needed to find Sariel and quickly.
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"Boy!"
Robin had run out onto the streets, not a smart move he had to admit but he needed to find Sariel. Her 'errand boy' didn't know where she was, but the two were determined to find her. It was then the old man from last night had found them.
"Over here!"
Robin and Asif, as he soon found out the young soldiers name, headed over to the older man and took cover from the chaos that seemed to erupt before them. "You two need some help?" The older man looked down on the two and shook his head. "This is no place for a tourist."
Something seemed to click inside of Robins head. What Sariel said earlier about heros not being welcomed here. What she said started to make sense. This place was utter chaos, and not just once in awhile, it was all the time. They didn't want outsiders here. It didn't matter if one was a hero or not, if you were an outsider you didn't understand the turmoil, you didn't understand the sorrow. To them you wouldn't nor couldn't understand their situation because anyone from America that lived there happily and freely didn't understand the sacrifices these people had made day in and day out.
He was labeled as a tourist and automatically labeled an idiot. Someone that didn't understand the world, someone that just wanted to see the view and not intake the richness of the land. Someone that didn't want to help them, but they were wrong. He did want to help, but how? The stage was already set, he was to little to late.
"Asif, we need to find Sariel."
"Ya ya!" The young soldier tried his radio again, while waving off Robins concerns.
"Friend of yours?" The older man had asked the younger. "More like an acquaintance." Robin answered.
"I see, sometimes I find those are more handy then actual friends." Robin wanted to lift an eyebrow at the man. But didn't, he had to keep his cool. Besides he still didn't know what it was that rubbed him wrong with this Russian. "We got to get to the temple." Asif pointed in the direction and the two men followed closely behind. Robin having no weapons, but noticed that the older man and Asif were both armed. If only he had his bo staff.
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CLIFFHANGER! Sorry... . Wait no I'm not! =P
So yea next chapter, lots of explosions and action! I know! I know! I've been promising some action for the last few chapters but next one I promise!
Anywho let me know what you thought, review pls and thank you! =D
-Fangs