Teen Titans #36: "Mission to Zandia" Pt. 3

“War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.”
--Unknown

“I felt something shift to murder in me. I felt that I was an outlaw, a psychic outlaw, and I liked it.”
Norman Mailer


Roy saw the kid peering into the smoke and turned to look himself; he wasn't exactly sure who it would be.

It turned out to be a smaller contingent of government troops than the ones they had fought at the airport, with an older, more battle-scarred man in command.

Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw Starfire prepare to attack, and Donna put a hand on her risk and shake her head. He agreed; somehow, he didn't think the commandos knew they were here. Yet.

The commander cleared his throat. “Pardon the interruption, but the government—which allows you to have your playground—believes there may be a significant number of Church members in the immediate area. We need to search for them.”

“Bull!” someone shouted back. “This is a shakedown, pure and simple!”

The commander smiled unpleasantly. “You are always welcome to leave.”

“You are always welcome to die,” sneered a blade-wielding woman close to the guards.

The man shrugged, unimpressed. “If you wish a battle, you will have one. We will die, but so will many of you, and that will encourage reprisals....and the end of this little sanctum for your kind.”

Silence as the massed villains pondered this.

“We truly do wish to search for Church members,” the soldier went on more politely. “If we find them, you are more than welcome to participate in the bloodletting. By all means, make them suffer.”

Now there was a ragged cheer from the crowd.

Roy knew what was going on, all right. The military didn't know specifically where the Titans were, but knew they were around. So they would be found, falsely accused of being Church members, and then exterminated.

“Stay down, kid,” he muttered to Robin, sotto voce. “Stay down.”




Tim nodded to Speedy. There wasn't much he could do, really. In one fell swoop, the guard commander—or at least those that had sent him—had shown excellent grasp of crowd psychology. What could they do?

Not far behind him, he could hear Terra whispering to Beast Boy that she could drop everybody into a pit, but Beast Boy advised her against it. She ground her teeth in frustration.

But the soldiers had forgotten someone.

Kid Flash.

In a golden and scarlet blur, he shot into the group, dropping half of them in four seconds. By the time they realized what was happening, he had taken down the rest, leaving the commander for last with an uppercut that lifted him off his feet and sent him on a short trip before he landed on his back.

Of course, this gave the villainous mob a focal point for their anger. Kid Flash wisely ran away, and they demonstrated their comparative foolishness by chasing him. There were no true speedsters in that pack; certainly some that could run far faster than any normal person, but none who could tap into the Speed Force.

Tim knew what to do from there; Dick had trained him in mob psychology, too. And the Titans had the experience relevant. They got up with the crowd of shrieking, ranting villains and ran with them...but slowly allowed themselves to fall behind.

“Well, that was great,” Terra said, “But what the flying blue freak do we do now?”

Tim had no idea.



Fortunately, Roy and Donna did.

They agreed that the soldiers probably weren't really looking for the Church of Blood. But they further agreed that the new government was keeping the Church in check, and using the resident villains to help them do so. It was a neat little paradigm, a self correcting loop.

So their purpose now, Roy reasoned, was to ask around about the details and logistics of how the current criminal cabal worked; how it brought the villains here, or invited them here. What sorts of deals were made?

This proved harder than expected; for the first time on this trip Roy truly missed Dick. Having him along as Batman would have even accelerated matters. But the kid said that Dick was busy with a number of cases. He was tired and burned out all the time. Roy had to admire that. When he had been low, he had turned to drugs; when Dick was low, he was Batman. He shook the thought away.

They harangued the whores, the drug dealers, the ordinary citizens. He felt little guilt over doing so; clearly they were complicit in this corrupt society. He did feel guilt over interrogations generally, though, so he let the others handle that end of things at the moment, Donna and Victor particularly. Although Beast Boy did a terrifyingly effective boa constrictor. Terra was amused by that. “Finally showing your edge, greenie!” she cheered.

But one person was not so amused. Roy looked back at the kid. His face was pale behind his mask.

“These things have to be done,” he said sympathetically.

The kid nodded. But he didn't say anything.



He knew Speedy was right.

But it didn't make him feel any better.

He had seen Dick in full “Batman” mode, interrogating a subject. As Nightwing he had his own ways of scaring people, but Batman was something else again. The Titans also had their own ways of scaring people, but Batman was not the same. Not by a long shot.

Even so, it made him uncomfortable. As Robin, he wasn't expected to do much of that. Yet.

But watching the Titans do it made him remember afresh that they weren't just teens on a lark; this was serious business. Of course, he knew that intellectually about Gotham anyway; the death of his own father had a lot to do with that. And he had seen action as a team before. But he had never seen anyone outside of Gotham get into the serious, gritty underside of superheroing. He had known it was there. But knowing something intellectually and understanding it viscerally were two very, very different things.

They found out a number of things about the infrastructure of the country, such as it was. How the villains “paid” for their accommodations, how eagerly the dark citizenry of this place welcomed them. If there was any hatred amongst the ordinary folk towards the costumed evil-doers, it was hatred born of envy; wishing that they too had powers and could rule over others. And there wasn't even much of that. Most of the population, it seemed, saw the villains as welcome protection against sanctimonious invaders from outside. What outrages the villains committed on their society that they didn't like (and these were few) were more than balanced out by the outrages the debauched citizenry willingly participated in.

It was like wading through sewage. How could anyone endure this? How could anyone revel in it? Part of it, of course, was that they had born into a society of darkness. Part of it was that some people always enjoyed doing sick things. Tim knew all of this. But otherwise he was horrified and repulsed. Even villains, he thought, would surely want a nicer society around them, all the better to have easier victims. But these villains, the ones the government had willingly chosen to attract, were not exactly the brightest of the breed.

That, at least, was Tim's thought. Some of the others expected some higher-ranking villains to be sneaking around here somewhere. Speedy seemed surprised and disappointed that Lex Luthor wasn't here, or hadn't left some trace behind. According to official reports, Luthor was still in prison. But Speedy seemed honestly surprised that the man hadn't either secretly escaped and come here, or at least had operatives still loyal to him here. But they could find no trace of such.

Finally, Speedy turned to Wonder Girl and said, “I know this will probably vetoed, but....I think we need to take it to the enemy government itself.”

Tim expected Wonder Girl to say no; in fact, to get angry at Speedy again. But instead she smiled. Behind her, Starfire was nodding.

“Now you're thinking like a warrior,” the Tamaranean said.

“Finally,” Wonder Girl agreed.



The military forces of the criminal consortium were based in several installations throughout the island. Some of them were watching for attack by outside forces, some were scouring the island for the Church of Blood, and some were given the thankless task of keeping the villains in line.

All of which was to say that while the capital city of Gamenn only had a relatively small garrison of “National Defense Troops.” The consortium that ruled here did so without pomp and circumstance; they were shadowy figures who attended what government business they had behind closed doors. Not that the Zandian public would be interested in any ceremony they would have come up with anyway, as it would have paled compared to the carnal glory of the Church of Blood era, and the Zandians were weary of such besides.

Kory flew high and blasted a tank, which exploded. Roy fired arrow after arrow after arrow. Robin lashed out with a kick and took an officer down. Dagon broke an arm or leg here or there, slammed the occasional soldier into the ground.

“Look out!” Cyborg called, as a man knelt and fired a bazooka. Terra and Beast Boy got out of the way, and Cyborg returned fire with his white noise cannon.

Kid Flash hurled himself hither and thither at speed, knocking down soldiers left and right.

The fight had brought them before the capital building itself, still in the garish, ghastly style of the Church of Blood, though redecorated in the more somber dark blue and purple colors of the current government. Wonder Girl smashed into a tank and rendered it useless.

Roy had hoped that between Kid Flash's speed and the powers of the team as a whole, that the fight would be relatively quick. But given how long the battle was taking, the Zandian government was almost certain to raise the alarm and call in not only additional troops....but also villain help.



“Here they come!” Tim shouted.

He had to give them points for style. A small group of soldiers on motorbikes, of all things....and a quintet of powered villains.

One of the villains had what was a woman who either wore powered armor or had cybernetics. Tim couldn't tell which just by looking. Cyborg grinned and took that one. The next was a woman wreathed in purple flame. Raven took that one. Then there was a girl who looked remarkably like the joker, right down to the laugh and outrageous clothes. Tim felt his blood chilled....then he recognized her. She was from Gotham, all right. Fancied herself Joker's daughter, the 'one true Harlequin'. Apparently Joker couldn't care less, but Harley Quinn had been less than amused. The fourth was a grim-eyed hatchet man; he had been in the crowd in that market plaza earlier. The last was someone else he recognized from the Batcave files; his called himself Backlash. Part of a white supremacist group that had been smashed by the Justice League like so much kindling, he had elongated elastic, whip-like arms, which he used as weapons to entangle and strangle.

Tim went for Harlequin. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Speedy shooting arrows at the hatchet man, and Beast Boy went after backlash. Terra and Wonder Girl were still busy with the ordinary soldiers, though Kid Flash was cutting their numbers down considerably, more and more each second. Starfire was working on the tanks. Dagon was taking out a bazooka-wielder.

Tim ducked the first motorcycle riding soldier, but he came back around again, firing his machine gun. So the boy wonder ducked and felt the bullets impact against the ballistic armor in his cape. He waited...waited...waited....hearing the bike come closer and closer.....if the man decided to simply run him over, this wasn't going to work....

He stuck out his quarterstaff at the critical moment. He didn't use it every night, of course, but it was one of the weapons Dick had trained him in, and certainly it did a fine job of forcing motorcycle-bound thugs to dismount.

As it did now. The man went flying but rolled. You didn't want to risk killing them. Even so, every time Tim did it, he was scared to death he'd break the rider's neck. But the man, while landing hard and rolling a few feet, was clearly only injured, not dead.

Sighing in relief, Tim ducked another near miss from a rider's bullet, then leapt up, quarterstaff extended, knocking two cyclists at once. He closed the gap to Joker's daughter, who saw him. She continued laughing, but her eyes blazed with hatred.

She threw something at him; it could only be a bomb. He leapt and rolled away. It went off behind him and something slapped wetly into his cape and began to make a sizzling noise. He grimaced; acid bomb. The ballistic armor in the cape would handle it, but even so he chided himself for his carelessness.

He closed with her, and ducked her first two flailing punches. He swung in with his quarterstaff, but she kicked it away. He sucked in a breath; he had underestimated her.

He dodged her next two flailing punches, then delivered a snap-kick to her face. She was many things, but one thing she was not was conditioned. She was out like a light.

His first costumed villain. He should feel triumphant. But all he felt was exhausted.

He looked around; Raven had dealt with the purple girl rather easily. Cyborg was slowly bending the cybernetics woman backwards. Speedy had put an arrow into each of the hatchet man's knees, and that worthy was down, teeth gritted in pain. Beast Boy was a giant ant, and he had Backlash down and squirming.

In the distance, Terra, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash were mopping up the remaining troops as Starfire knocked a rider off his motorcycle with one of her starbolts. The vampire broke a soldier's arms.

Absently, Tim realized he had a thin cut along one arm. He didn't even remember getting it. It wasn't deep, but stung like hell. Contact poison, maybe? He swallowed a systemic antidote pill and then, swallowing nervously, moved into Raven's shadow and quietly spoke of it. Her eyes looked into his, she nodded thoughtfully, and waved a hand at him. He swayed a little on his feet and felt better.
“Is it over?” he asked uncertainly.

“Almost,” Wonder Girl said.

“Almost?” Starfire frowned.

Speedy grinned. “We've still gotta hit the little cabal that runs this place...”



There were twelve men and two women in dark business suits gathered around a table. One or two even had the sort of headgear one associated with the Middle East; certainly there was a Muslim minority here. But that was a cultural affectation, not religious. Everyone here was in it for the money, and faith was, at best, an inconvenient concept. They left that to the Church of Blood that they had helped to depose..

They were discussing business in low tones, there were some murmured words about “vigilante incursion” but mostly they were talking of profit and loss, world opinion, and of “satisfying the metahuman community.” English and French were the primary languages spoken. Roy noted this distantly; the Bat-clan weren't the only ones with an eye for details. Much to Roy's delight, there was some mention of Luthor having been one of their financiers before his downfall. Useful information for later.

They couldn't, of course, duplicate Batman's surprise appearance. Not even Robin could do that, yet. But between Kid Flash's speed and Raven's teleport, they could fake it pretty well. Raven and Dagon, of course, were terrifying specters in their own right, when they chose to be.

“Three...two...one....now,” Donna whispered.

There was a golden blur that whipped through the room, and several of the council members were knocked out. Several others were thrown from their chairs. All were shocked.

Then Raven was there, in a puff of black smoke atop their table, staring down at them with her haunted eyes.

The others stepped in.

“We are watching you,” Raven intoned in her most sepulchral voice.

“Both Checkmate and the superhuman community are aware of your activities,” Roy said, with an arrow knocked and pointed at one man's face. “And we are not amused.”

“I can summon more guards,” blustered one man.

“Try it,” Terra said, “And I'll bring the house down on your head.”

“And besides,” Roy added, “We'd take them down anyway.”

“Keep quiet,” Raven said. “And we might leave you alone. Perhaps.”

“Or,” Wonder Girl said, climbing on the table, “Perhaps not.”

“We won't forget this,” another man snarled, then recoiled as Dagon loomed over him, displaying fangs.

Speedy smiled thinly. “I should hope not.” He nodded to the kid, who threw several flash pellets onto the table. The blinding light covered their departure.



Their plane had been unmolested so far. Even if it had been destroyed, Raven and Kid Flash would have been able to get them off the island, but it would have been a hard business.

“Wait,” Kid Flash said, then blurred into the plane. Seconds later he was back out. “Bomb,” he said, holding it up, then throwing it away at super-speed. “On a timer. Had about another twenty minutes.”

“Great, wonderful,” said Speedy. “Can we please go now?”

“Roy,” Wonder Girl said, glaring.

“Sorry. But let's get out!”

“Agreed,” said Raven to quell any further trouble.

Once they were on the plane and had taken off, Tim heard Speedy talking to Terra, asking her if she recognized any of the villains. Apparently one or two were familiar to her. Time was too tired and burned out to pay attention to the details.

“Zandia,” he murmured to the window. “Nice place to visit, but I definitely....wouldn't wanna....live here...”

He fell asleep.



The Church had never left Zandia; it had simply gone underground in the most literal way possible. There were hundreds of such catacombs, left over from the old pirate and smuggling days. The Church of Blood—still over seven hundred strong—was spread through three of these caverns. And their spies had long since learned to be discreet amongst the crowds of sheep on the surface.

“They are leaving, Master,” one of the loyal members of the Church reported.

The newly resurrected Master of the Church of Blood nodded in satisfaction. “That is good. We will battle the Titans again in due time. But first things first....”

He clenched his fist and his eyes blazed with hate. “....first we shall return to Vegas....and deal with that foolish traitor of a son.”

“As you command, so we shall obey,” the Church members chorused.

Blood smiled a maniacal smile.




Finally.

In the Pyramids, he found what he had been looking for.

He was no magician, but had a razorsharp, absolute intellect and had done his research. He knew what he was looking for, and he had finally reached it.

It hung, softly glimmering silver, between two stone columns. A small medallion, already on a necklace. Perfect. The Amulet of Sutekh would be ideal for his needs.

Slade had seen enough of the world to know that mummies and other forms of undead were indeed real. But he was certain there were no such here. At least not any more. Perhaps once, long ago....but they had either finally given up their unlife or been defeated by others, or were simply absent at the moment. There were no such guardians to go up against.

There were, however, certain to be traps. The very way the amulet hung between the two columns smelled of a trap to him.

He approached slowly, testing each stone before he trusted it. It was only when he was just in front of the columns that he felt the final stone begin to give way underfoot,

With his enhanced reflexes, it was no trouble to jump back in time. What was unexpected was that instead of the columns slamming shut, a pair of daggers shot out and crossed in the air, less than a foot from his face even after his dodge.

So there must be at least one other trap. Slade smiled under his mask and nodded to the cunning of the ancients.

He stepped carefully over the previous stone and onto the first step. No trap yet. Second step, third.

Then he looked up and saw it.

“Oh, very clever,” he murmured.

The columns would slam shut only when the amulet was removed, thus squashing the would-be thief. His reflexes might be up to the task....or they might not.

He could fire a grappling hook and swing past to get it; that would be how those Gotham idiots would respond to this particular puzzle. While he wasn't against such tactics if they were useful, he didn't think they would work here.

So instead he drew a throwing knife from his belt. Aiming carefully, he threw to sever the right hand cord. It snapped and the columns slammed together, the amulet clattering harmlessly to the floor.

But as he scooped it up he realized there was another problem. The ceiling above was creaking and groaning. Without the columns placed where they had been, the ceiling was giving way!

He grabbed the amulet and bolted. While he was no superspeedster, he was still three times faster than an Olympic athlete. Even so, it was a very close shave. He only barely escaped the chamber time, the room filling up with rock behind him.

He held up his prize, then frowned thoughtfully. It glimmered oddly when his flashlight shone on it, and it seemed slightly slippery in his gloved grip. For a moment he wondered if it was acid. Then it hit him; of course, there was a contact poison all over the amulet. It only made sense. A final, fatal blow to a thief who somehow escaped the previous traps. But his gloves protected him, and cleaning it off would be no great matter.

“Finally, Titans,” Slade breathed. “The last piece is in place. This is the beginning of the end, for all of you.”


To Be Continued...[/b]


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