Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell; If I had Stayed a Renegade –
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DIGGING MYSELF OUT OF A HOLE – BURIED ALIVE
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DICK GOES THROUGH INTENSE TRAINING AS RENEGADE. HE ENDS UP IN A SWAMP WITH A LIGHT AND LEECHES, AND HE ENDS UP STUCK, ALMOST BURIED IN A HOLE LIKE A SCARED RABBIT. SLADE DOESN'T HELP. TRAUMA ENSUES.
THIS IS POST APPRENTICE ARC. DICK STILL IS NOT INJECTED FULLY BY SERUM SO HE IS IN PAIN A LOT IN THIS.
I had a dream last night that involved leeches because lo – I looked up an article recently that night. The mind is wild. Find out!
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DAY 1…
SWAMP FROM HELL; I JUMPED RIGHT IN
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Dick waited. He had a light on his head like a headband. An army jacket and his cargo pants were not the style he'd expected to go in. Dick had suggested his uniform, yet his….master I rejected the proposal.
~ There is an important artifact at the bottom of that lake, apprentice. You are to get it and avoiding any casualties, making it out and to the fort where you'll drop off your first find. Think of this as a survivalist scavenger hunt.~
He sounded glad that this was happening right now. Only problem?
This lake was infested with squirming leeches in the UK. They'd flown out to British soil to design this little project, after Dick nearly post his shot in the Rockies. They had a contract here in four days which involved the woods and a socialite who had reached out his gun to Slade's help. Slade didn't much approve abd the tech giant was his ally now. So he'd taken the hit.
Ywt the socialite knew how to hunt, track and Dick wouldn't have such luck with that slippery bastard. Why not get creative?
Why? Well, leeches looked like worms with sharp teeth that would suck you under. Slade could handle it without default, yet could his apprentice since going through the new trial of denouncing the bat?
Jason's return had the kid kick himself big time. He would try to get out, that was surely his goal once Slade required the kid to physically change.
He wanted Dick to face his fears of death because very soon, he'd be longing for it.
No more going back. Slade would flip the script. He'd make Dick hate death, then he'd offer it as the carrot – only with cold realization, to snatch it back once the deed of changing his apprentice, had come about. To the Bat's shock, and the Titans. There would be no more first bit wonder. Jason Todd had returned as sixteen, as willing to get help as Red X had been to seek his newest partner. Terra hadn't worked because well, Slade hadn't needed the extra power yet. She was still completely unaware in Markovia with her mom and dad.
To be young and dumb enough to run into your failures….
Slade set the timer, the stopwatch clicking away as he remained at the fort to greet the boy, a radio in the kid's ear as the headband would be waterproof in a tar like pool of leaches.
He hadn't told the boy that he'd upped the amount from an old professor of the little, suckers.
Dick walked up and rolled his shoulders over the side of this dangerous wading pool. It had to be the test of seeing if he'd crack. The socialite knew these woods so well. Dick was supposed to kill the man, and that killed him more than a lake full of leeches.
Fevers, infections. Slade had drugs from the military to fix him up. He just didn't want to feel while he was trying to partly commit himself to a goal of any assassin's fault. He wasn't even seasoned as he dipped a wet suited foot in. His boots were left there as he didn't want any gravity to wear him down. His army vest, his tools, all would be useless except a knife.
Little bastards were also in recent years, going extinct. They were a wild foods ounce for wildlife here. Dick swallowed and warmed up his muscles plenty on the hike. Slade made sure he was good and tired, yet ten miles was a cake walk. He was ready to dive in as Dick held his breath only lightly while his light did a favor. It would float to the top once he stripped himself of it. It had about an hour until it….well, it would be a stretch, not a deep dive to get that trinket.
They called it the Lake Bottom Ruby. The won artifact of Knights if the round, yet Dick knee Slade had stolen that pretty gem to put the boy through hell.
He said he was an owed favor, yet Dick decided to add that to the list off Slade's offenses once Bruce found out he was napped.
The water was marked, shadows splayed by the light on his headpiece as no fish swam about. Some frogs, some not exactly the healthier specimen and floating greens atop the water had coated him. He could taste earth and a surprise of….
Blood.
Dick went deeper into the pool as his body felt a bit lighter. He had to keep going.
He squinted and looked at his water proof watch.
Four. He had time.
He pressed on and with grace to his movements, no bites yet.
Dick turned to a rock of the base to this pond and looked around, touching something that made his hand strike the stone. A floating black worm, as a devil's tongue. It wriggled as he saw back, pushing himself and leaving it. They were close. The deeper he dove, maybe the safer he wasn't.
There were bubbles as he checked his breathing. Steady. Only four more.
Winding down in a corkscrew motion before going straight, he saw a blob of dead leaves and a sheen that Dick knew wasn't a natural occurring force inside these depths.
He further struggled and moves the leaves, only to have a visitor. As the host to the ugly worm. Not shouting, he tugged it off, not yet set unto his free hand. His gloves had protected him, yet his arms were partly bear without the vest. He didn't like needles, and this would hurt.
The squirming brat was swatted away as Dick moved the leaves.
Bingo. Red, brightly shimmering in the shape of a design to a toad. As if in plaster, the thing was lifted off the muck bottom floor, Dick turning to see that he wasn't alone. Feeling them and wanting to scream. He just kept padding upwards.
Four, come on….
He went faster, the light in his eyes dying. He had little time as the weighted object was doing him no favors. A giant ruby toad as the leeches liked red. If they could smell, they could. He moved by the rock where a twig had latched its hold. Dick moved too fast as a scrape formed over his skin. A light of a drip of blood made it through, Dick wincing at the antibacterial solution he'd get, and a firm talking to be Will.
The scent was in the water. As a shark swarm on his back, Dick swam faster. He could see the top, and so could his little friends from earlier. Dick moved as if he had to. No, he did!
He swam, the top so far as he didn't stop once he SLAMMED into the top, the blanket of muck made his hairstyle coated in green and browns. And one leech as he ripped it off.
"No, get away from…that!" He kicked and they simply didn't stay. Maybe the time it took was longer to 'leech."
Dick wondered how much had been exaggerated, that abd romance languages lived to lay on the dead obvious.
He checked his watch, his very skull. No leeches, as Dick got into his boots and started to head for a nearby hill.
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Slade had a cordless pot of coffee and a few granola bars at hand to taunt the boy with, should he say no thanks to his kindness. The kid would certainly need to dry off. A towel and a shower stall fir soldiers with a fine trickle was all available to this mess hall of a camp fortress. He simply waited, hearing from a mile on, panting and…
Smelling iron.
Slade frowned, taking a sip of his cup as Dick's weary ass was carrying at least the ruby toad in his arms.
Good. He wasn't completely worn after the hike up here.
"Slade, sir….have your gem…" Dick panted, his brow coated. Slade lifted himself slowly from the seat his butt was plastered to. He didn't need to be Deathstroke right now in face to tell that the boy was weak. Maybe not in the way he'd planned.
"Boots, take them off."
Dick swallowed and did as he was told, placing the toad down to remove both.
"Jacket."
Dick scrunched his brows as Slade didn't allow negotiations in his demands. "Now, apprentice."
Dick nodded and removed it, each arm as he suddenly did feel kind of dizzy.
"Thought as much. Turn around."
Dick did as Slade pulled up the kid's shirt. On the small of his back were two leaches, one by the kidney as Slade ripped them off.
"Foot."
"I –
"Now."
Dick got on the ground as his back stung. He undid the footing part of his suit, all separated as Slade saw on the base of the foot, a smaller one. Just a babe. He tore that off to. "Lean your head towards me."
Dick stuttered as Slade snapped his fingers for Dick to listen. "Now, Richard. This could be life or death if you faint on me. I don't want to dose you with any drugs before your next task. If I have to, you'll be trekking the wilderness by nightfall."
Dick shut up and bowed his head, the crown hiding a set of two as Slade ripped them out, along with a short tuft of his lock of hair. Dick gritted his teeth as a second one was done in the same manner, maybe harder.
"It's done. You were lucky I could smell your blood and distress."
Dick nodded, Slade coaxing the kid to go and shower off while he got the dose ready for any bacterial outbreaks. "You'll see that this is necessary. A little pain can go a long way. Not all leeches are pets of monsters, Dick."
Slade had collectively reared them and then ripped them off without care. That skin would take a week each ti fill back in. The boy nodded, not muttering a prone thanks as he dropped his arms and went to clean himself right up.
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The injection, salves and such were enough as Dick felt sore. Slade threw a sleeping bag at the boy and pointed to a wooden spot on the floor. "We'll stay here tonight. You'll need to cover your arms up for a few days. The next task will be throughout the whole day tomorrow get some sleep, apprentice."
Slade threw the kid a word search abd a pen to override his idiotic scratching.
The drug would work over his system for that time he did get some rest. Fast acting, they had a contract to uphold.
Dock stayed at his quest of words for about an hour before brushing up in the tiny sink and using the toilet. He was tuckered out as Slade already had stayed half away to keep them both alive tonight.
Wolves he'd found were protected in this area. Good for them. So, what would protect his apprentice if he were out in these woods all day tomorrow?
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DAY 2…
BURYING PETER RABBIT; THE HOLE
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Slade had won this old outpost in a card game a few years prior. When the name Wilson in his ranks wasn't an old hat – Dick was still wondering less likely how a toilet had been installed, yet that was no trade secret. At least he had the Wayne family education to realize that. Slade wasn't about to waste the boy's mind over a few silly speculations in the framework.
"Morning. You'll be eating, doing your business and setting off quick."
Slade was not wearing the mask, yet his face. That scar and the patch above it looked to be concentrating on something important. On his knees, was a shot gun as Dick flustered and woke. He body jolted as his heart hammered.
Gun, OK…this didn't feel like a usual breakfast in bed situation.
"You'll have until nightfall. By morning, if you've managed to evade capture, then I'll call off the whole thing as a win on your end. You'll have bested me at running scared, boy." Slade loaded his toy as he had some other….bolas, a knife or three, was that a flare gun??
Dick wasn't up in ten, but five seconds to the toilet. He rocked into his hands and thought. Slade was taking on his very first love. Hunting down prey. As if Dick had never tried to hack the man's files to find that face amid the aimless questions during his entrapment. He only faked staying and remaining a soldier in status to the man to find and warn Bruce. The Titans were off limits. He'd done that much by telling them off. The bots in the man's old haunt had aiding in a distraction while Dick escaped. Yet Raven, Kori. They all saw his eyes and waited to find Batman to tell him.
If they had a clue now, more than ever…he was trying to stay awake in these woods. This long days felt to make him numb as his adversary couldn't get cocky.
He'd try, every hand to hand. Every angle. He'd take Slade down through that loyalty. But, killing?
That crossed it, so this was what Slade did. Was going to do, Dick gulped down dry lungs. He knew he'd become further embraced in a life he'd never wanted. Would Bruce ever flinch to drag him out of it in time?
"Time's up."
Dick flinched and pulled on his things. He needed the knife, right. He had the light but it was…
He saw how it was full if water still.
He cussed under his breath and saw that a few granola bars were in his pocket.
Had Slade done that to kill time this morning?
Dick opened the latch to the door frame and walked out, gingerly seeing that he was alone. Oh, no…
"It's begun, boy."
The hit to the back of his skull as his re- entry into the main room wasn't easy to spot. He'd missed that as Slade lifted up the boy's body and carried him to where they'd begin their game of tag.
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Day two is murder - hunter tag. Day three will also be something pretty intense. Not a slash!