Teen Titans Renegade's Last Resort; Finding Pandora = Hope
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Chapter 23: Digging Up The Truth
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Dick stayed in his room just as light was filtering in through a barred Victorian style window. The iron now truly resembled prison bars as Slade's hand at the knob had Dick bury his head and neck right under the covers.
Bruce had found him, but now what? He'd sent his S.O.S.
It would be up to him to stay alive until Slade snapped. His knuckles tightened around the comforter as it was yanked up. In his pajamas, he truly felt disempowered by this giant prick.
"Time to get up. It's morning, apprentice. You're going to like where we'll be going."
In a week, yeah. He'd be fifteen finally. In another year, another country, he'd be old enough to be married off to a man like Slade.
His stomach curdled as Slade had the groaning kid push himself off the sheets and rub his eyes. A warm hand calmly came to sit at his scalp as that scalp was rudely ruffled briefly, before Slade set off to the doorway, expecting Richard to follow without complaint.
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Slade had thought he was tough enough. Ivy spoke to Harley while she was detained in the protest of Duarte's case. Behind glass ceilings , Black gate knew Ivy wasn't insane. They had seen her progress chart over a year through Arkham's records, while Harley continued to masquerade as her reinstated therapist. She'd saved her job by making Harlequin and Harley two separate people. Batman had done this to allow her the chance to start over, to claim that the Joker had her in a pavlovian response as his assumed "victim." It was risky, but he was in arkham half the time to get im and out. Off enough, he'd also….somehow become even more wild, less preserved as his classic moniker.
( Using the 04 batman as the way he became when his days if fame faded, after Harley dumped him but he is still as sly as any fox. Make no mistake.)
"He wears a straight jacket as his accessory of the week, and don't get me started om those dreds! I thought the old we was crazy, talking. But, Ivy bean…we will work on getting justice. You and I, we ain't a bunch of kooky ladies, and Batman owes this one."
"Harley…what did you do…?"
Ivy gawked with a brow raised as her voice signaled a bit of worry.
"Ahh, don't give me that look, I feel bad now! Batman is gonna get us outta this." She winked at the security camera as Batman took to one room where a man was turning back into one and an old friend, Dented.
"You'll see, schmookems."
Dent.
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The greatest asset to life on the planet, and everyone wanted it.
Silas in Central right now had it down pat. He'd flown out here from Star city where his actual life was, to take a look at the last remaining feat.
It was….not all to different from the girl "Crystal." The Titans still had no idea how well into this mess that he had been with even a hero on the JLA. The only ones here right on and off were the Flashes. Kid and senior.
Barry Allen had taken over the enterprise with the reluctance of a hero. He'd seen the project of the key developing and it was a young boy, maybe nine or so years of age. The hair was white as snow and the skin had a chameleon like appeal to it when provoked. They called the project "Shifter."
It had needs, spoke through both human speech and telepathy. They also believed that it had been spotted outside of its tube as a hallucination, yet that was difficult to decipher.
The JLA's Manhunter believed that this being was searching for something.
Scientists said it was the orb it was after, yet that was locked up tight. They wondered if their extra funding thanks to Waller should have been questioned after Lex's fall by the device. By his own desire gone haywire.
Waller had warned that contact with these beings was to be monitored throughly and with a discerning eye. That these beings wanted to control human lives to find something , maybe to assimilate.
The boy however, had already bonded with two of its victims amidst the chaos.
Shifter had asked for a new name, and Silas had taken pity on the kid which made him smile like the sun.
"Andrew, it is."
A human name, and the controversy did not cease there.
Silas did more for it, as did Barry allow this, making the teams think that it had already gotten to the two heads of staff.
"No, he's a kid from another planet and if we make him mad, we can't get anything done. Right? So, he's a guest, sort of. If Lex wasn't corrupted by his key, we can do one better and not act so rude to another life form."
Even as Amanda's warning stuck home, there was disturbing reason that this was partly if not all true.
The child then one day, hot out of his room and left the facility. Causing mass panic.
/
The being could fly, or so levitate. It found that the orb it had in the same facility was not the orb it wanted to see. It decided to find that orb, and to its displeasure, it had to fly farther than simply a building above its head. Looking for a host to hop along onto, it found one very fast one. Another boy, a teen called Wally West.
He was very nosy, like Andrew. The kid came up to Wallace and was as coy as ever; since Wally had not seen the project, he wore a cap and changed his appearance psychically to a little blonde child who was now in tears and could not find his mom and dad.
"I…I….I want my mommy!"
"Hey! Whoa! Whoa. Okay, um…where do you live? We can look into the aut –
"YOU'RE KID FLASH!"
"Sheeuuush!!!" Wally dragged the kid with a yank around the corner with the speed his uncle had. If not stronger.
"NO. BODY." He reprimanded. "Knows Flash, or senior or junior. So, you can't just say it."
"But, you can take mw to my home….I think…they went back without me…Got….gota…"
"Gotham??"
The grinning kid hopped up and down. "Yeah! They were on the train. I wanna catch the train, can we??"
"No, wait….what about…" Growling and rubbing his scalp anxiously, the red headed speedster bit his lip. "Can I talk to my un –
"I'M GONNA LOSE MY MOMMY! NO!" The kid pouted. "You will do it, heroes do for people. It you stall, I'm not going to see her again."
"That' not true, kid. Don't pressure me into giving you a free lift. I'm not a Mach six or whatever."
"But…please! I'll be good!" His crystal eyes shone as Qly was pulled in easily.
So easy, the kid smiled as his head bobbed in a, yes.
"Thank you, thank you!!" The kid hugged him, collecting his new specimen to see to its very assimilation with his way of being. "Name's Andy. Yours?"
"Wall….Wallace." Wally floated on this, strange feeling. It was, so hard to pull away. He took the kid's hand and they went for the station. The boy had no idea, well…that this him was sort of well off? Why…why was he just going along with it?
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( So, the kid is after a different orb since he has a secret. He's a split twin so the other orb is an identical twin! He does nit want to share it. Watch what happens to the key in the other core. Oh boy. Pure tech – cannibalism to come! Mwa ha ha!!)
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In Gotham, the stakes were ever higher as the bat did a look over of the interrogation room he'd be placed in with this "old face in the crowd."
His stitches needed no reprieve as the man was quiet, yet cool but something of morally distrusting og the entire set up.
"TWENTY." The staff told the bat, holding up a two and a zero with his fingers. Both thought it was a way to pass the time here in Black gate.
"I need time to negotiate. I'll set the limit." Bruce huffed under the cowl.
"F – fine. Give us a….you know. Call, if he gives, ya any trouble." The troublesome guard hunched his shoulders and locked up the door as Harvey Dent's eyes remained on the bat. "You came to see me, the real me." He was in his seat, looking in his eyes as Bru e knew the mask was useless between them.
"I did, Harley. I know you've been fighting this deep inside and, I'm glad your not gone from Gotham, from Bruce's life." He had to smirk as the other snorted, looking more human than he had in more than five years since the accident made Two Face come to life. "They keep him down so well, no idea. Like magic, Batman." He kept up the nane as Bruce had asked before coming. Gordon would see to anyone else seeing otherwise.
"It's my, partner. Ex – partner. A man by the name of Slade showed up –
"We know all about that ' two toned tyrannical dictator." Snorted the mobster gone clean of his crimes, for now.
Bruce hoped it was forever. Harvey deserved a good life for what he'd been before Joker had come into the picture.
The Joker too…he'd gone bananas while Harley could speak without a two-faced retort.
"How do you know him, exactly."
Bruce had to answer this with caution. In case the Two-Face wanted revenge on Slade , as it had on the clown prince of crime.
"He blackmailed and abducted Robin. He's made him an accomplice through fear and….we know he's in this city under a new alias. Duarte. Does the name ring any bells?"
The jump suit wearing adult grumbled as he scratched his head, thinking back to his days as the finest young D.A in the city. Even up fir mayor if he didn't ….
Mayors always died here. It was safer away from the spotlight.
"Duarte…Manfred….Gertrude….ah, I remember em." He snapped his fingers. "They say they ran down the Mississippi and cane to Gotham in nineteen hundred to strike a deal. Got rich quick, stayed very private and had a few a few kids who didn't really do less than their mommies and daddies." He thought to more present matters at hand. "Your Duarte, ya got a photo?"
"Yes." Bruce took out the video as it played. ~ Mr –
"That ain't him." The man say back as Bruce eyes the expression with coarse interest. "Your thoughts?"
"Fake beard you have ta like the accent though. Is he outta Kentucky? I knew a guy from there, nice chap."
"My thoughts, and I even met Duarte to learn the truth. Yet the video of that." He swapped out the drive as it played only static. Rain on their parade as Harvey raised a curious brow at the bat. "He used a scramble, huh?"
"I saw him, and I know Slade will do what he can to take my name out of the picture. He also did something…Dick isn't…"
"I'm sorry."
Bruce looked at this, crime lord and it didn't even feel real.
"I'm sorry I shot at em. If it was two face or my anger, I wanna make it up to you both. A son like that …"
"She still has not forgotten, we stay in touch. I wanted you to know that…when you get out in a cleaner state of mind, who you were then, was never forgotten." Bruce put a hand out as Harley clutched it while tears ran down his face.
"You're still you, Bruce. But, can I still be me?"
"We have tobtry to make it a bigger possibility. If you report as you need to and become my voice, the top D.A in a case against this mam, we can both have back what we lost. Even if we don't, there is still hope. Harvey? I need you."
"I need this more than anything." Chuckled the relieved crook gone soft. "I don't wanna be a rat no, more. I wanna get back a little of my pride. The pride he took from me. The other side of what I was, is dead now." His smile looked like the friend Bruve had graduated with. Had brought along to see the city from a big overview. They'd been told to go back to class, but that was soon ago that friends like Harvey….damn.
He didn't want to lose them to his own wants, insanity.
"But…we need one more player. I see it in you, Bruce. You have a bigger plan than just making me get up on that stand."
"I do, but you have to trust me….So, where…"
He let out a breath. "Is the Joker."
/
Silas had no chance to fight it as the other sentient from the orb's key was another twin. They had only met on and off, but the first twin pouted and sat on a table while Silas put the lab back in order. "You mind explaining how he god loose, Ed?"
Edward was what the other had chosen but he just pouted and threw his head back, another persona entirely from the bubbly brat on its way to the next orb. "Can I tell you something, professor?" Same age, hair, outfits of white cloth like children in a laboratory under surveillance, he asked.
"Did you ever learn about what we can do besides take, professor? I know, but I won't get to tl you. That orb was too cramped! I don't wanna go back in."
"You won't have to –
"Yeah, I will. If my dummy brother – type gets the new key and erases it, then will I still be on your side?"
"Other…." Silas gasped and locked down the room. "You're gonna tell me right now, Ed. Where is your brother headed to??"
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So, Bruce wants Joker in on stopping Slade now?? How and where?? Also, bring the 04-batman style to this partly because, and the Harley and ivy modern talk is naturally here too…. Similar to the film with her which….ugh.
So, Silas KNEW about the key! I'm basing the two boys on similar looking kids as Divine Gate Anime by go – hands as far as them showing up. My one weakness for the kid being the villain. But what he said about the "other" key that Slade has?? Find out!
Also, where is Slade taking Richard out to this morning?? Find out that too, and is Wally hypnotized by the other twin key? On his way to Gotham??
You'll wanna stick around. Gets messy by far. Love it! ~