Our Time in Reverse- What it Takes
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Chapter 41: Sewer Rats and Uncooperative Kids
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Bruce took his time scoping out the warehouses surrounding the dockside of Jump. Robin would be hulled up in the tower.
Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that the bat had company to keep on this boardwalk…
Bruce turned to a high security lock that wasn't as the others. He chose the Plaines one and saw a warehouse not as it should be.
There was something strange as he shone a light over the edges of the walls. The catwalks and the floor; nothing. But there was a tarp, and under that …
Bruce stopped himself. Whatever was under there, was goading him, obviously. It was too easy to break into the compact room. Not at all a challenge. What he wanted, still wasn't here.
Bruce grumbled and kept a hand to the floor, kicking it a slight with his toe. The thing didn't lead to concrete and the water below.
A ruse, as he started to tap other spots. Some were well hidden with the precise notion of a genius. This had to be the spot, so Bruce reached and pulled one tile out. Like a brick wall and its hidden secret that lay beyond, the switch revealed itself behind a metal plate. Bruce checked over the room, still feeling that eerie calm that meant an ambush. Normally, goons would be there to pop him one, but not tonight.
This was a trouble, ywt Bruce took the latch up as he saw a code input screen. Taking out a nifty piece of tech, he hacked it in seconds. World's finest, the green light was supposed to be a positive. With Jason out of commission, there was no turning around until Bruce knew that his suspicious nature wasn't unwarranted by confusion. He'd confirm that Dick's "boss" was here, in this city.
Slade's last take had been over three years ago. After that, he rarely even used his identity to be heard. He got paid, but thos was through a generous fund of a former client and the fact the man's wealth was won from that contract. He had acquired a company of his own, so it kept him fed and secure, along with the man's student. Dick thought Slade was a changed man, but one thing mercenary life was about, was that you never clung to that which made you vulnerable and weak.
Bruce burrowed further through the wall as it parted partly, just a crack. He was in. The dark lead to a platform with a ladder that stretched far down below the base of the pier. To that base as he scaled it, flashlight and night vision in hand, was a speedboat. The man saw that it had an autopilot function, so he tweaked the device, ready to board as the man hopped on. Not realizing that his boat was not the only one in this sewers water ways.
Bruce made sure the boat took his command and traveled down the dark tunnels to where he saw many grates, many hatches but one he could not t –
The man's head turned.
His vision picked up something as he saw it in a split, like a jumping spider, then not at all.
Bruce stayed where he was, the boat left to go slowly now. The way wasn't clear, not by the sides where he could walk the rest of the way.
That didn't happen as individuals using cloaked tech with metal claws for hands, leaped onto the boat and bombarded the startled bat. He shoved them back, using his infrared to sense them as their faces didn't show up on the screen. Metal. They were robotic. Bruce used his arms to block the next hit as he caught himself along the wheel, turning it to scrape the side of the boat to the edge as he leaped off. The vermin falling into the water and layering the tunnel in bits, their cloaking setting turned off. Bruce dusted off his cowl as a set of running footsteps had him gasp. Turning for the shadow he spied down the tunnel walls, Bruce's radar picked up no heart beat but a different sort if technology.
A bomb in its chest. So, he ran after it.
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Dick and the Titans that night slept without further complications. No one ran out to say hello to the city scum bags. No one had to consider shock anklets for Bb for going to the kitchen for a late night snack. But in a way, they should have.
Bb had his tired fave glued to an explosion as the alarms blared off.
"Dudes!! The pier is under attack!!"
Bb flew as a crow and cared his way to Cy and Starfire's hallway. Dick had a pillow over his head as he got up and flopped out of bed. Shit. The pier…that meant.
~ Keep calm.~ Slade wasn't there. Dick paced to the closest and got into his uniform five minutes tops.
The tremors of explosions at the docks made his body beat to its core. Slade was under attack. Slade…was going to be found out –
~ Can you hear me, boy??~
That, that wasn't-
Dick pulled at his mask to change the frequency. "Win..Wintergreen, is Master –
~ Slade is peachy keen. Now listen; go to the computer and input this code. It will change the level of emergency in the tower, it will delay those children from gathering more than their eyed needed to know. Hurry!~
Dick nodded and sweat his way over to his lap top. "Who is…I mean, is he handling it?? The lair, is safe?"
~ For the record, we expected a rat to come snooping about ~ Muttered the older male. ~ Slade is currently having him forced outside of the area from a maze; the rest is fine, bot. Don't dawdle. Delay the Titsns as you're told.~
"Sorry, I…I'm in!"
~ Robin!! ~
Still, he set the code in as the speaker sang a different tune. ~ Crisis averted. Crisis averted. ~
Dick raised his eyes to the door as Starfire and Cyborg both checked their devices. "Just a ….fire underground caused by some homeless dude, it says. That's…~
Dock bit his lip and tried not to giggle. ~ Quiet. Tend to them and keep your blasted mouth shut, do you hear? Your teacher is most displeased that your attitude isn't formal for this time… and I'd advise that you keep your relationship ENTIRELY professional. Understood, Robin?~
Dick sighed. " Yes, Will. Tell Slade that…I'm on it." The boy left the chair and swapped faces of disbelief to one's of distress.
"Sorry, I had to find –
"You, you are not injured?"
"Why?"
Dick saw Cy and…wait, where was Raven?
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Her head bled red as she sat up and saw visions of a shooting star under their feet. ~ Best you can throw at me? ~
A…a child….
~ WHERE…..WHERE IS –
She screamed as her body went out of that stasis. " Ang…." Her vision, was unclear, but it wasn't now, as she groaned…then, someone knocked on her door. "Raven…I…I smelled you in trouble. Let me –
"NO." Raven got up and made sure to breathe out her mantra. "I'm safe , go…go look for the others." She ordered the green teen.
Her eyes went for the mirror as she saw the red ones she' banished from her face. Shaking her head, they vanished. Trigon's power couldn't win. Whatever was throwing them hint, it wouldn't be a prophetic story of their demise, she promised. Crawling back into bed, Raven messaged the heroes and then, then drifted off into her sentimental thoughts.
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Tara moved the walls as planned. Slade had the place on the dais seat as his controlled worked omg enough to get the robot copies to explode a path back to the opposite direction of the city. The barred passages were now covered in rubble as he worked the devices as one of the green teen's video game consoles. This was real life, he'd add. Tara was having fun, despite blowing her hair out of her face five times over – he would reward her with a day off from training. Richard too, if he could make the man turn to look at him ever again. Will had helped with that.
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Bruce spun his Batarang after a shadow. He was sure that this was a trail off from the destination that he'd come across. Yet the tunnels were easily caving like popcorn popping on the stove. Frantic abd desperate to find a man hole cover, he climbed the nearest ladder up and breathed out a puff of freedom before the last rattle of a dynamite bot had the male putting his head to the sidewalk.
"Lost…damn…"
Slade was a strategic mind with the thought of losing the bat as a criminal to his sentence. Desperate men did desperate things. Through his struggling, the bat directed the craft he'd arrived in to remain hidden and airborne to the outskirts. He'd make it halfway, long distances if ten miles were what he did well before breakfast anyways.
The comm in his suit came up as Alfred seemed tense, maybe because this was a risky endeavor as he'd thought it would be. Slade was no caged animal and jump was his playground to tamper as he wished. Slade.
~ Sir, I've just managed to get ahold of the record if the man in question..there is…nothing!~
Ah…
That was why. A distraction.
"Wilson sent robots to lead me away from the hide out. I'm starting to think I'll need more time here in my townhouse."
~But, sir! Jason had one piece of information that even I was highly un aware of. ~
"Shoot, I'm heading to it." Bruce waved fir Alfred ti go on abd tell him what was amiss. ~ Slade Wilson on his register is not that same man. In fact, the name itself has completely vanished. He doesn't wish to be heard from, yet Master Todd spoke and said that Robin may have the only copy. Fixed to a laptop in his room…~
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How could Jason know all of that? Bruce slunk into his sagebrush just outside of Jump City. On his unit there was a message. A loud one that had no way to be traced this time.
~ Scurry off, let the cat and mice play. Check your sources wisely, pull punches and watch. Just, watch. The lights that fill the air, will blow you away. And after, time may move forwards by the decade. ~
Clues, but not. A cursed few words made the bat stay up late to organize what he did best.
~ Scurry, rodent. Animal. …criminal. ~
Part one.
~ Cat and mice. Chasing. Race. Run…guilt. Steal. ~
Two, a criminal would be stealing. Stealing where? What? What was Slade doing with his words?
~ Check your sources wisely. ~ His sources included those through the police in Gotham, his benefactors and…and his company.
~ A criminal was going to steal from him? There were no alarms going off. It had to be a predetermined heist. Bruce honesty thought of Dick, in the shadows and pushing to break as his body melded into the nighttime crowd with a band of pearl –
Bruce shook his head. Next part.
~ Pull punches and watch, just watch. ~
A performance, to not intervene. And on whom?
So, a criminal was going to steal from his company here in this city, or one associated with the Wayne brand. He was told to let them get along to watch the show, to just observe from a safe distance. That someone was going to interact abd stop the crook themselves.
~ Lights that fill the air, blow you away. That was obviously going to mean an explosion. Right? ~
~ And after, time may move forwards…~
There was a plan, a ploy to progress the individual with this heist. Bruce swallowed, knowing what it meant as he gripped the end of his seat and growled in a low voice. "No more running, Wilson."
~ BY THE DECADE. ~
ROBIN. ROBIN, WAS GOING TO REALLY FURTHER, BETRAY THE TITANS.
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Slade likes wordplay. I LIKE wordplay! Bruce is in a pickle now! Masks is next up. I wanted to pull in Raven seeing Tara attacking in the next year since she'll be really close. Bb saw an explosion of a pothole and fire, so to him it looked like an "explosion "underground. The fact that Slade has that much technology at his command. Wow. Tara is playing along fir kicks, and Dick is actually, ok? So, he's not crushing. Just a nervous Nance staying some dumb things…at least, possibly.
What comes after? Will Bruce find out what tech sector is going to be hit, and why is Slade's identity gone from the entire world over and the JLA's files? What did Jason have to tell Bruce? Find out!!