Our Time in Reverse – What it Takes
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Chapter 33: Switched With a Glitch – Own Your Pain
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He couldn't go and connect to the Titans' line. Slade was watching from a sate , far distance. His instructions were vitally important but felt to Richard.
Wholly, an impossibility.
~ Do it. The Titans will be too preoccupied to listen in on the struggle. Go. Don't disobey this time, apprentice. ~ Slade's tone was to a near hiss, a whisper. Jason heard it and seemed to mock the two's dynamic. Almost sympathizing with the former wonder brat if Wayne's aiding arm, he introduced himself properly once the third wheel was put of the big picture.
"Ah, so nice to meet –
Richard pulled out his staff and didn't talk. This was a trial. Throw this nobody into the bay fir Slade's bots to send to Bruce as a message. He hoped alive, but a part of him didn't mind the symbolism of defeat marred upon the other boy's ego.
"Hey, hey! I'm on your side!"
Jason dodged as he did with training robots. He knew that Robin here, was still neither of those; he was a person. Trapped into an agreement that stood round his bones like quicksand.
"Listen. I came, B is trapped in locating another –
"Stop talking and hold still." Robin swung out again. Precise and his emotions stunted behind the domino mask, Jason found the way out as he shoved the door, Richard if it were him, took onto the hunt - he wasn't interested in being ignored.
"I'm getting cut loose, bat boy –
" Hyya!!" Robin number one Jason would call Dickie bird, flung himself to catch the brat's cape. Jason threw himself through the door, up the stairs as Robin number one was decisive enough to stick with his scent a bit longer.
Jason seethed and kept running. The lights flickered a strange glwing white as the boys both stopped. "What was –
"Gonna come quietly?... or do I have to bring you in, by myself…" Robin took out a freeze disc as Jason danced down the hall. Robin number one flung the disc at one exit, the other until Jason used his flip to get to a vent.
Like before, he'd have to be quick.
"You can't make it out. I'm coming –
~ Robin !!!~
The boy wonder dropped his latest rang as he turned to see Raven and Star being chased by –
Cy and BB??
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He'd failed. Jason was gone and Raven –
"Friend Robin! Something is very wrong with…. our friends! Run-away now, please!"
Robin didn't at first. Not until he squinted and saw their eyes, both empty and glowing different colors.
"After them, my puppets! Do not let anyone escape my spell…"
Jason put a hand over his mouth as he saw a toy; a nutcracker marionette with big eyes and a turned grin. He was…
Walking. Alive.
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Slade sighed and turned to Robin number one and the titans he'd fled with to the roof. ~ We cannot…. I do not know how to fly in this dreadfully uncomfortable body! ~
~Ditto. ~ Grouched the empath in some teeny – bopper's skin . ~How will I ever survive with nine stomachs and perfectly flat abs? ~ She sighed, sarcasm dripping out of her lips as Slade ignored his sense of humor for a second.
The girl was explaining a curse, Slade rubbed his masked chin. "What will you do now? Ask for help when there isn't any?" Slade didn't talk to Richard, he had to figure –
Slade's eye turned to Jason, who was ready to lay low and…Was that a bat - comm?? No!
Slade turned on his link. "Get to ground level and away from that tower. Apprentice, do as I –
The titans had flown the boy up, up, as they were in the air, together. The comm went right into the water as Slade's ears boiled. He pressed a button on his wrist. In the background, metal bodies began to shift into line. "Retrieve my apprentice and the device." He ordered. "This fight was not , highly anticipated."
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Jason scuttled through the ducts until he'd found a room that was the main one. He used a disc to pull a cat woman and cut the glass, rushing the job as he flung himself via grapple to the ground. It was time to sink or swim as B's voice never once graced Robin number two's presence. He waded into the water and held his breath. Once the threat was no longer an issue, he put his rebreather for underwater fun on and swam like a fish without end. Yet at the pier, he wasn't alone. There, looking down was a masked threat – a cluster, as Jason was hoisted up and knocked out while being carried somewhere that taste of metal screeching pipes, and sewer water.
Underground, far from his target. Yet closer than he needed to be to the real enemy.
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Robin number one now as Richie, waited to land – even while Raven NOT as Raven, dropped him into the sidewalk on his tush. "Your landing needs work…" Richie rubbed his sore side as Raven looked back apologetically, before falling onto her own butt. "I do not wish to fall! Raven! Your magic is…not what I would have expected…"
"I…can't help it!" Raven in Starfire –
Robin gawked. "You…you both…what happened to you two?? What was that light; Cy and Beastboy went –
"We must save them, but…but…" Starfire fretted as best she could in her own body, yet in Raven's…She looked more helpless than was made necessary.
"Raven, hang on!" Richie got up and swung an arm out to grip Star's long boot. She tried to press down, yet ended up falling onto Richie's waist as he was pushed off by a nervous teen a year younger than him. "Who…who was that? How did this –
"The puppet king was what he called himself when he attacked us." Raven as Star helped Robin up nervously. "I was near the wooden crate and he was inside it; we were not able to call out in time when he'd started…to move..."
"Oh…Then…We must then learn what the puppet man is…is…I do not know what we can do!" Starfire moaned into the empath's hood and crouched onto the ground like a kid in an identity crisis.
"Calm down, Starfire." Raven in the other woman's body bounced back and confronted the groaning titan. "We just have to lay low, have some control over ourselves before we can lead ourselves after the, toy that did this to us. Where were you, then?" Raven turned to Richie as he looked behind him and was concerned that there was still that all knowing look in Raven's…Star's eyes.
"I, went to vent….to just get some space. I thought something was in the hall so I found you while tracking it. That's it."
"Then…" Starfire as Raven frowned and clutched her cheek. "Why was the direction you were from, down in the basement? Not in…the "up the stairs" area?"
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"I cut it off, chased whoever it could have been. But it could have been an attacker like you faced."
"Who else? We saw everyone, and there are no other members that could have been "switched" like this." Raven as Starfire shook her head, looking back to the tower out of their view now, at what they couldn't bare to leave behind yet had to. For now. "Starfire, you can't gain control of my powers like that. You need to find your center. Remember our meditation session. It was the same. You can't lose control or others could get hurt."
Star as Raven puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. Richie found soon that the two had a cat and dog complex, yet never as he'd witnessed behind closed doors. Not like this…
"I am in far more of the control of my flight! You crashed into the ground and were not the least of all cautious at ALL of anyone we might have hit along the way." Star sassed back, "At least my powers do not work for someone who only feels rage and not the Tamaranean way of righteous strength and fury…your powers are too "the" complicated –
"They are DANGEROUS ." Raven as Star shoved a finger into the empath's own chest. "You have to be more careful or else other's lives COULD be at stake. Your powers are also destructive, in the wrong hands -
"Then return them to me at ONCE if you no longer wish to continue this trial –
"HEY! Knock it –
"NO." Raven growled in Kori's voice to Robin as he fell onto his side.
Robin tried again, carefully to diffuse the situation. "This isn't helping. We're sitting ducks. You two -
"We shall settle this trial fairly, then." Huffed Kori with her royal air of superiority showing. "The first to use any attack properly, shall lead the march in destroying and defeating the king of puppet's evil spell. And…I will not be spoken down to by a…. a…. -
"Say it…" Raven as Kori egged on her teammate and raised her fists to her sides, wanting her eyes to remain a bit wider for what she had to do. " Say it! Get it off your chest, already!"
"A…. a…. Clorbag baarblernelch!!"
" A- ha !" Raven as Kori watched as Raven's powers poured from Raven's own eyes. Starfire in that body spoke the mantra, while Dick tried to grip onto the ground as Kori lifted stone by the powers of the dark interdimensional half demon's arts.
"AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!!~
Raven as Star grabbed Robin to duck, the rock flying over and hitting a Slade bot in the process.
"Wha…. what??" Star as Raven looked at her own palms and gasped aloud. Raven was obviously smug for a second about her win, her stance not at all as she looked half the time since they had met.
"Good work, Starfire. You got your very first hit in. But…." Raven as Starfire walked briskly over to the wounded bot and took a breath before punching into it and pulling out a camera. A small one, integrated separately.
"That was… very "the" underhanded!" Exclaimed Star as the empath, excitedly. "I do not approve of –
"Star…" Richie pulled the bot up and studied it. "It's the same one as the ones we've fought before. I can't belie –
"Stop." Raven as Starfire put a hand to the boy's arm. "It's not worth it now to figure out this, mystery yet. We still have work to do, or we have to hide. There could be –
There was no doubt as Robin pulled out his staff. "More, you were going to say?"
"I…. this is not the right…" Starfire had her back to Robin, while Raven flanked his other side.
The three were surrounded by Slade bots with laser guns in hand. Robin didn't know how to get away, but the camera was worrying.
"This way!" He tore down the streets as Raven and Kori took flight after on foot, together.
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"What are they after? Why did they come here? Is this from –
"I don't know!" Robin ran faster and grumbled unhappily, the others feeling lost to him as Star briefly screamed out.
" Help! Let go now, your claws are "the" too sharp!! Let…...go…."
Robin panted and turned. In one hand, one of the bots had without Raven seeming to see it, his wet comm unit that had fallen into the bay earlier. Robin was afraid, he didn't feel the gun at his neck as it was set to stun.
The titan women there were not their target tonight.
He was.
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I'm doing another chapter for Switched since this is my take with Robin being pulled out of the cluster. Raven and Star now have to get along without his assistance, so what will that mean if Slade is royally peeved about his Renegade losing his toys in the middle of a fight?? Not good. Strike two, is he out or is Slade going to give Robin one more chance to prove himself?
Find out!
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