Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell – If I Had Stayed a Renegade –
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So, decided to re – work New Rules chapter from prev to a second part as I have some others. I needed to keep this from getting too bland. Inspiration? Hit Meh!
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Part Two; New Rules: Lesson One – You Can Never be Free of Me
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Similar to revamp of Series of Doubts ending. Dick ends up trying to book it while the duo are headed out of Jump to warn anyone he can. Thing is, shock collars don't work that way. Find out! Sadism at its worst….eep. Getting over Hashimoto's flare and so, pain in the neck!
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Dick Grayson; Renegade, set his head down onto the arm of the plane's seat.
Sorely so, Slade had dubiously instructed his bots to fly a rather expensive jet to some unknown destination. Dick hated this position – not the one he was currently in; with his predicament as the man's apprentice. That too, but…the collar around his throat.
It was uncomfortable.
He hated that, as Slade didn't glare too much at his forced protégé. "That is a good look for you, Robin."
Dick bolted up, hair tousled by turning and tossing like an idiot for six hours, and angry at the man for thinking he was not willing to tear his face off at any given time to get that control back. His friends' lives depended on it.
"Whether you expect me to counter one of your moods, that's all up to how you'll need to behave once we land."
"Where are we going." Dick seethed out. "Master."
Buttering this master criminal up was not going to be easy. "You saw right through me." Smirked the smug crime lord. "As you know, being here in any city is a chore when it comes to what I have to teach you still. I don't want any distractions, so I believe staying out of the country will give us all of the time we need."
"Where abouts." Dick chewed his lip and repeated.
Slade chuckled as Dick frowned at his half answer. "That is for me to know. For now, you are permitted your rest. Come here." Dick gingerly unhooked his seat belt and came before the man. "You looked like a pitiful thing, trying to get cozy on our flight. I apologize for the bots' lack of performance with my craft." Hands moved to the back of his throat as a thumb let the enabled lock, disengage. With a few small beeps and a click, Dick let out a breathless gasp as the man now held that ugly collar with the S engraved onto it in silver and pain in his hands. He held it like a delicate necklace from an era of queens.
Cold metal, but he knew the burn would stop once he got his voice back. "There. Once we arrive at our destination, it returns."
Dick froze.
"Is that clear, apprentice."
"Yes." The boy rasped and sat back in his seat. Damn, he still couldn't get comfortable….
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It was possibly half the time. He woke one time to eat, piss and return to his seat where his dreams finally came back to haunt the poor protégé of a mad man. He'd hurt them, all of them as their shouts and screaming had him waking from a nightmare.
"Calm yourself, apprentice. We're nearly to our last destination." The man was so calm, how about cracking a damn window if this dog had problems breathing?? He didn't care about the altitude or pressure…
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The jutting pressure was smoother upon entry as the line below gave Dick hope. His collar was gone. He smiled. He could get away, whereever they were, he could run far away from this man and warn anyone who spoke his language as a person of lowered circumstance. Slade was roused barely as he sat, his eye giving a nod as he'd nearly shut it for a second too long. Dick crouched, seeing the bots busy with their tech as the wheels hit the ground with an indefinite rock of this boat in the air.
He moved away from the seats, not trying to have a hand at the window, but to find the door.
The first move out, he heard his master's booming voice.
"APPRENTICE."
The bot was coming over, he grabbed it and like the first run into this thing, Dick took the bot's hand to open the hatch. A signature on its palm like the man's own that Slade also had, as Dick grabbed the manhandled bot before the other could get from the controls to tackle him. He shoved it into its twin, the door sliding back as he wiggled through the widening gap to get free.
The arm was extended, claws at his back, the man's shouting was still getting worse. A few beeps and there –
Door clinking shut; Dick was outside.
There was no set of steps, he gawked at the ground below him, his legs dangled down as he used the plane's wing and clung for dear life, until he dropped at just the right height to avoid any serious injuries.
"APPRENTICE!!!!"
The door swung back as Dick looked up.
Dick moved around the craft, a field. A rural place. He looked around and saw very few people. Skittering out of sight, Slade leaped down and caught himself far better as Dick moved to get as far from the plane as he could. In Slade's hand as before, were the collar and the trigger for the nanoscopic probes in the other.
Dick could not wait; he could not see it as he flew on his two limber legs for some extra cover. His legs were knee deep in the tall tropical grasses off to the end of the field and he refused to pant to alert Slade of his presence…. He sprinted into the taller reeds. Yep, the diversity was definitely by memory, South Asian. Maybe Cambodia, not as urban as Vietnam. not as rural as Laos. Dick gulped.
Nowhere, as he struggled through the tall reeds a few more steps. In this instance, he would hide from the hunter, his master's eye never staying away for long as he trailed forth in his boots and combative armor. Dick felt sweat dripping down his face as he moved, the man lashing out at a stray animal of the region, as it shot through the brush with its wings rather spread and irritated. Good, to give Dick the distraction he'd been looking for.
Some hunter. The boy smirked and headed off deeper into the jungle, his body trying to keep up as the humid air took his breath away.
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On the other end of the jungle floor, he took off his vambraces, his arm and neck guard if he hadn't already. The cooling touch of this daytime breeze did nothing as he tried to map out his general location. He had no idea, none. "Great –
A menacing BANG shot off as Dick's heart raced, head hurting as he kept on running and hiding upon every chance he had.
A hunter, really?
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A mother with her children was doing laundry outside a reed roofed bamboo home, as Dick crawled over to see that she was as stunned as he was to see a boy I black crawling out of the overgrowth. He walked, casually and as non-threatening as he could, as the mother hugged her children close. Dick realized that he'd need a disguise, so while she was to the back of her home a few moments later, he swiped up a few parcels of thankfully a boy's clothing, close to his age. With any luck, he'd need to get rid of one more piece. Dropping the mask in the bushes, he didn't think he'd come back to find it this time. The hero kept his boots though as he walked. The air much better as he then came upon a well and…. he was thirsty enough to risk a bellyache.
Thankfully, Gotham's occasional tap had him covered and even water in this country of what he believed, Cambodia by the geographic content had him used to biting that bullet.
Speaking of bullets.
Slade's stupid gun was miles off. Had to be, as he looked for a fruit tree to pluck down his fill. The food was so fresh he could cry, his eyes watering without a mask as he brushed his tears away quickly. "Need a phone, or something. This is going too far now." Dick furrowed his brows and sighed at his piece of juicy heaven as he took another bite, trying again not to weep over his possibly, last meal.
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He slept and woke up covered in bites, the sun baked him until he found a river to wash off and balm the pain in.
Yet on the other side of the divide, was a Slade bot.
Where was Slade??
"You look ridiculous, Robin."
Dick turned, only to lose his footing as he fell right into the water, the deeper part pulling him in as he choked and tried to resist the rushing currents while Slade watched with some semblance of pity. His bots moved first, their legs like animals on all fours as the man walked up a slope and into the trees. Was he –
"Haaa!!!" A drop down there, and he'd be roughed up by the rocks. Dick paddled as hard as he could. The water was turning murkier, swampy. He coughed and tried not to get trapped as the muck stuck to him like quicksand. This was it….
A set of hands dragged at his throat, no embrace, as he felt his body lifted by some higher force…. before completely being dragged into his own thoughts about how lucky he really was.
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A light was on, a light. Dick looked up with tears set of blues at a man. A man, on….
Shit!
"Calm down, you're running a fever."
Slade's armor was…. wait….
Slade.
Eye patch….
Dick put a hand to his temple. Who was he?
"I told you not to move from my sight, look at the mess you've created by going off into the jungle alone." The man scoffed and walked from the bed to stare out a window at the tropical space. "We were only feet from our checkpoint." He chastised. "Do you know what would have happened had we not run into each other? You would have never been found and that would have made our agreement null."
Dick's heart sunk. Just like the rest of him, fever or no fever as he shivered and pulled the white sheets closer to his chin. "I would have had full permission to kill the Teen Titans. You would have failed at freeing them, for your own death could cement that fact. Be glad I know this country better than you even might."
"Why…" Dick gripped the sheets, his face scrunched with a nasty bruise in a set of places he wouldn't dare hope Slade knew anything about. "Why did you have to use it?"
"The collar is just one reminder, Robin."
"Stop calling me that!" Dick groaned and lay back down. "I'm not him. If you put that on, I'm nothing….I didn't want to work for you and you….you had to go too far."
"I did?" Slade scoffed at the boy's little remark. "You belong to me, apprentice." He hissed and moved in closer again. "Whether you believe that fact or not, nothing else matters right now. You'll train as I want you to. Put aside the notion right now, that you have any rights to tell me how to discipline my protégé."
"Bite me."
Slade dragged his arm out to encircle Dick's throat before he even had a chance to flee. His head already hurt pretty badly. His skin was bitten up and stung like he was in the sun for too long for days. The man squeezed his trachea, the boy thrashing out of instinct as the man didn't let go. "You never needed a collar, but I don't want you to be without your leash. You're MY apprentice. MY responsibility. And while we are guest in this country, you'll act as I expect of you to. Otherwise, the collar might be best fused to your skin for life."
"N – no…." Dick trembled as he soon went limp, his resistance lost. "Having the probes alone won't keep you in line like I want. Lesson one; always have a plan B." The man waited until Dick's eyes were completely wide. He let go his hold as Dick grabbed his throat and lowered his head to his chest, coughing to return to himself. "Your mask is gone, and I think things, should stay that way."
Dick looked up at the man, saliva on his chin as he wiped it away messily. "After all, you consented to not being Robin, anymore."
"I didn –
"You can't take back what you said, apprentice." The man smirked at him, no masks on their faces to hide what their intentions were any longer. "I know better than to have you deny what you are, but in this case, you won't need to hide your face. I'm well known in my craft, and you'll learn that hiding in the shadows is more, a part time gig rather than a conversion to any unheeded faith. The Bat included." He spoke. "Wayne didn't tell you to drink it in, but that life won't suit the Renegade I intend to recreate from that image by Robin's own memory." Dick let his face drop, his hand to it as his lip was to butchered up from biting it this often.
"Bruce never forgets, he's never -
"He left you; did he even remember his partner was still a child." The man shook his head. "I'm fairly disappointed. You couldn't have called him, disowned as you technically are. He won't find you, Dick."
Richard swallowed; his throat parched upon waking, still.
"From now on, stay close to me." The man reassured with his air a bit different. More, open than the two-toned psycho Dick recalled his life still had meaning to. "With that in mind, we still have some time. So, for now, recover." The man looked at his wrist as he had a watch there, he knew more about that then Dick was permitted as the man's goddamned servant.
"The drug inside your system helped to fend off a larger fever from starting and ending, our trip." The man left him there to rest, his body still recalling that grip around his throat, before Slade moved and opened the door once more. "I almost forgot; you weren't properly explained why this has to not come off again."
Wrestled before to stay still, this time he let Slade place the collar back on as the memory of being choked grew dimmer. He had this to cover those bruises as with a hollow gaze, Dick looked up at the man with a pained glance. "It won't stay."
"It has to, to keep them breathing." The man retorted, before leaving Dick to his own thoughts again.
Richard put a set of fingers to the jagged "S" as he felt it could cut. If he could get it off, he could have a small weapon. Maybe…. but the drip was…. so, tired….
He'd eventually dozed off as the drip to his I.V at least made it easier not to panic, by what would happen tomorrow, and the day after that….
And the many more days….to follow. As he planned on a new means of escape.
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The call the woman had made was broadcasted as the signal held well to one man's radio on his own outing to the capital city of Cambodia. The man listened in closely, his brows knotted as he motioned to the driver to take him back to his hotel.
~ There was a boy, he was wearing black and looked very tired…. I did not think he spoke the language so I….I went to call the authorities. Before I knew what had happened, the line where I hung my clothing for my eldest son was ruined. Someone had taken his clothing off of the line and had gone away before I could tell anyone what had happened. ~
~What else can you tell us about this boy from the forest, miss? ~
~He was wearing black…no, and a red orange on one side. He wore a mask. It was very strange. I thought he was a spy or a –
"It can't be…"
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Bruce's face as the Bat showed up the previous few days after Dick had gone awol in Jump. Prior to his agreement with the Dark Knight, checking in with his former mentor and technically still guardian, had seized. Batman's face again swore he'd seen it before.
~What happened. ~
"We raised heck in the lair, but lost." Bb groaned and let Raven put a healing hand to stop his mini head injury from growing worse to handle. "Slade won. The dude then, blew up the whole hide out and took off with…." Cy didn't bother with the last part of that sentence.
~ I think I know where they went. ~
"Glorious!" Starfire flew up to the screen to thank "the bat that was a man."
"Robin will be found, and we shall not stop until Slade is doing the time as most –
~You won't be joining me on this trip. It's dangerous territory, and there is something you should know about your foe. Slade is not an alias, but a cover only in Jump City. To the rest of the JLA and Interpol's most wanted, he is known as the deadly hunter and mercenary or assassin, as Deathstroke. ~
"Slade…. but, why the name change?" Cy gawked and to his wonder, it wasn't much of a stretch. ~ I'm sending you the files we have on his involvement in the criminal underworld. You may want to not hold your breath. It could take some time tying down their exact location. ~
"When are you leaving to find them?" Raven raised her eyes as Bruce knew that Raven was a bit reserved with her words, more than the other teen heroes his ward had helped to wean on their own form of justice for all. ~ Today, right away as soon as the trip is settled. I'll contact you however if there is anything of value to help put that man behind bars for good. He stole my son, and that took a lot of effort for you to not put your lives on the line to explain. ~
"It did, yet we are not willing to lose, the – man – who – is the bat."
"It's just, Batman, Starfire." Raven frowned. "And we won't give up on him, only if he's truly turned on us. That won't happen." She hoped. "Not yet, he's still…. I still feel it. His resolve hasn't changed."
~We can't be too sure. Slade is a master manipulator. ~ Batman told the team . ~If anything changes, there will be a way to stop them. Right now, I'm getting you in contact with a STAR labs associate who has a machine to disarm the probes. ~
"As long as Robin doesn't blow us up first." Bb pointed.
The rest, even the Batman glared at the green teen.
"It's true! Slade's got the control. Not us, so if he like doesn't remember to spit shine the man's boots…. or he oversleeps or som –
~ Robin won't let you down. ~ Batman's face softened, the memory of Dick's own loyalty to his family still clearly there in his mind. ~ Have faith in your teammate. I won't be gone long. ~
"We again thank you for, the assist, Bat…. man?" Starfire felt like the name really didn't roll for her.
~ Until we speak again, be safe. ~
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Bruce cut the call as he sat in his batwing plane, his own fear of losing his son…. even if Dick refused to think he was still there. Working in the shadows to find him. "Slade won't get much farther in his plans, I'm coming. Hang on just a little bit longer, Richard."
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Awww! The old bat still gives a hoot! Ok, so. Yup this would have been a pre-Rose Wilson thing if you were asking. Let me know if a part three is a possibility.
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