Our Time in Reverse – What it Takes –

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Chapter 16: This Irrefragable Norm

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Unavoidable, as in happening. It did.

Slade looked calmly at the boy's performance against his hired hands from his massive screens. Jinx had the magic of a circus performer in her back pocket. Cartwheels, a couple of flips and that smirk with teeth.

She was a born leader, should her direction become stable in time to accept the fact.

Gizmo had taunts galore. Robin easily acted the part of someone who could handle those words…. whatever those faux words…were?

Mammoth. Mammoth could take Cyborg out.

Finally. Slade leaned into his hand and set the screens to zone in on the tower. The bugs in the inside if those fortified walls started to beep red, their eyes ready to start the party.

"Security. Deactivate. Reroute controls." He spoke into a mic that was inside his mask.

~ REDIRECTING…RECALCULATE. ~

Cy's arm beeped, yet no one saw it in time. Too much of a…distraction.

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Dick watched the ground shift. His new team was losing badly. This was how Slade wanted him? Bb was the one who hit him as they sprawled back. Starfire and Cy tried to push back Mammoth and Jinx while Bb recovered from getting his butt kicked. Dick shoved him off and pulled out his staff, catapulting himself into Jinx with a swift kick as Raven helped to redirect the flow of that shot. She blocked half way, Jinx seeing the domino mask and the standoff. She made a hand signal that Slade had taught the boy. Heroes didn't know those. He gasped.

She wanted him to –

Gizmo swapped with Mammoth who held back the muscle crowd. Raven was too late as Jinx broke the ground apart, the heroes and Robin…. falling…. Gizmo electrified the shot and Mammoth in one stomp, buried the body.

Robin…. had hit the sewer waters and he tried to swim where he had no watchers. No….so…gross!

~ Slade wants you to vanish for a while. Got the plan, Renegade? ~

The message was clear as the teens looked everywhere. Robin put on his cloaking tech and Jinx helped to keep that working fine.

Robin, was gone.

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Part one: completed.

Now…

Part two.

Slade moved from his seat and worked his way to the other side of the screens. He saw the boy sputtering in the cold weight of slime. He then made sure to move quickly. Out through the hatch, up a few stairs and to the grates as he pulled those back, to see a shivering brat in his midst.

"M – MASTER…."

Slade beckoned his apprentice inside. He looked deathly a mess as the man had the boy shower off and decontaminate himself in a nearby chamber. The boy had instantly returned to life, just before Slade handed the kid a replicated uniform of Robin's. "You'll be going back."

Robin looked at the suit, only in his new boxers and tank. "Sir, is it too soon to show up?"

"Jinx is a clever girl, though vain. When the heroes find that losing you can't keep up their spirits, you'll surprise them." The man assured. "By, a pep talk? I'm not their leader –

"YET." The man pointed out. "If you show strategic diligence in your field, they may take to it not as a threat to their security, but a sense of real hope. You could lead them, and then I'll have my chance to shatter Robin's momentum. The Titans will aid you and again, you won't fail. They'll come to trust you as a leader and a true friend. Maybe, even the Tamaranean…You could keep her humble."

"I…but I'm still this, antisocial twerp to them." Robin protested. "How will it all be gradually done in one year? I –

"You have less than one hour to find out." Slade mentally checked the clock. "Get dressed, make your suit look dirty, a bit patched for this to work. You fell into deep, contaminated waters and had to swim to the surface." He reminded, "Find the heroes at their lowest state of confidence. They'll try to get their tower back, and when that attempt fails, you'll be there to remedy that same over-confidence." Slade smiled at the idea of Robin making a monkey out of a bunch of unprepared heroes. Teens, unlike his logically inclined mind. Robin was leagues ahead in the department they were hoping for.

He was going to pamper them, make them feel…. safer?

"I can do that, but what about any contact with Jinx's team."

"They know the plan, so will you. Later. I want to be sure you're mentally prepared for whatever is to be expected of the rest of your performance, right now. Twenty-three minutes remaining. Well done in letting that signal through; Jinx's message met your eye?"

"It did, and I was shocked at first. You wanted me, to vanish."

"Never for long." The man put a hand to the boy's shoulder. "If you do all that I ask, you may even get to pay her back for the scare. Wouldn't that do you some good too, my apprentice?"

Soothing words. His ego stroked again. Robin slowly nodded. She was a bully. Maybe he could yell at her, tell her how she was doing more harm to…

"Stop thinking so hard. Get dressed. Twenty-one minutes; time for us running short. The duct will fill up higher before you've reached the surface. Not that you should have to worry about knowing how to swim, upstream." The man chuckled; Robin being waved up to complete step two of their ingenious plan. A leader, Slade was actually going through with it. After all, he was a mastermind. A collective thinker and doer. Dick was just his prop in a play of the man's formulation. He had a say, or that meant losing the very thing that had kept the boy up all night. The tower would be fine. They would….not care once he took for his master. To have the right to be called more than just the perfect apprentice.

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Slade waited. Now, the screens showed the boy masked and limping in a beat-up sprint. He was that close. Perfectly rehearsed. The Titans on the other hand…

He saw them lying around, eyes distracted by what was not in their grasp. Foolish, every last one. Even her. Her…she'd be expected to play a part as the girl next door. He could use Robin's charm to sweep her into a blissful calm. Or, an abusive relationship that went one way could form. Crushing her joy and delusional sense of hat trust.

All of it.

His way.

There was no end in sight.

Changing his outlook, Slade checked the news from Gotham, just to be safe. The new Robin…he'd not told the boy about Jason. Why would he have to, yet? Jason had dug his own grave by tying himself to the boy's tragic history. The real Robin's anger towards the bat would have the man glad he'd kept them apart. Even Bruce knew this. Dick was in a constantly maintained, fragile state forever. Shards of glass could splinter and he'd be to blame. Bruce Wayne's unwavering guilt…, or it was time to come back into the spotlight. To talk some sense-

"Sir, you have a telephone call. Should I patch it through to the screens?"

Wintergreen had his thanks.

"Do, I'm ready to listen." Slade sat forwards and watched the face of Addie bring him to his senses. Damn, that woman's glare...

"How's the publicity on your end, Headmistress?"

~ Doable. Your boy is quite the actor. ~

"I agree. A bit more polishing and you'd never know what his real face looked like behind the mask. Sound familiar..."

She winced, the idea of that one eye merely keeping a window though…how Grant wasn't so willing to dig out his eyes for a little praise. That boy though, showed signs of not stopping.

~ Praises aside, the Titans are bound to win. Your original plan for my students was to leave a "message" and nothing more. ~

"That it was, and I know it won't fail. My calculations show that once Robin gains the lead, this time will count down to zero. He has only to show his face and open up our avenue for further collaborations in the future. I'm surprised that Jinx wasn't appointed as the team's leader yet."

~ The teams our group picks is done electronically. So, naturally the students will pick a leader once they've graduated and have formed their own teams... I suppose you think she's somewhat more, qualified than her teammates? ~

A deadly question to ask. Slade had enough lives ruined. She'd be sure Jinx stayed away.

" Hardly a thought. She has the only mind to act and strike, as well as to plan her next attack. She has potential. Though she's your problem to deal with…. While, the rest…" He seethed, eye setting back, as if to groan at the choices. "Better luck next time. Gizmo however has his attitude, that mouth could use a washing."

~ Agreed. I'll see to his correction. Anything else? ~ Food, predictable as she remembered. He wasn't a fan of raising more kids.

"Just wanted to know you were still there, Addie."

His puppy dog eye set onto hers as he moved to stand and glance at her bewildered expression. However. She didn't step out of line. This man…

Not this time, Wilson.

~ Whoever you are expecting to address you, they have important business to attend. So, naturally I must –

"I understand perfectly. You're looking into the culprit that took our boy from us. The headmaster who doesn't show his face. Blood, the same monster I should be out there ripping to pieces."

~ I don't want the unheeded attention. Not again. That life wasn't meant for our... This transmission is –

"At least consider the benefit of erasing him before he strikes again." Slade exclaimed. A hand to his chest, his pride was what she hated the most. ~ No, there is nothing more to say. Go back to your new life. I'll not need you anywhere near mine. ~

The screen went to black. Then, to his new life. A possible new clone of the original. The kid had found the hatch. The waterways making him sputter as the sea breeze by the pier refreshed the kid's mind. He shook his head of the droplets like a dog. Slade's watch dog.

The man chuckled. "We'll see, Adeline." He tapped his fingers to the arm of the Dias throne. To his right, was the one Robin would soon earn. "We'll see, just which new life was hopefully worth, the long wait."

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(Ron Perlman did classical theater, so the dialogue shows it. I wanted my Slade to be a cocky sore winner with a manipulating personality mostly verbally until he acts rashly and uses force. This is so important to him that he'd hurt anyone to get what he wants. Even if Robin has to suffer to be told that he might be "the one" Slade is hoping to adore with the title of hid finest work or, his son. Slade isn't so easily the man to forgive failure. If Batman thought he was up against a mad man once, then think again. Slade, is a total mastermind in this with a God complex.)