The Teen Titans #41: "The White Rose" Pt. 5

“The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible, but the forces of truth and love and courage and honesty and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever before.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
-- Samuel Johnson



“I should have known.”

Punch.

“I should have known. We knew who her daddy was. She didn’t ask me for sexual pointers cuz she needed them, she was trying to get inside my head.”

Punch!

“She admitted to us straight out that her daddy wanted her to spy on us, to do what I refused to. She hid her objective in plain freaking sight.”

PUNCH!

“She wormed her way into my confidence, she pretended to be my friend and I SHOULD HAVE FREAKIN’ KNOWN--”

“Stop it, Terra,” Nightwing said, mildly.

Terra turned from the bars of their prison, breathing raggedly. Her knuckles were bloody from punching the bars. Beast Boy had his hands on her shoulders, trying to hold her back. She didn’t glare at Nightwing; instead her eyes were filled with frustration and misery.

The bars appeared to be made of gold, but of course they were obviously something more than that. Just outside the prison was some sort of machine that was dampening their powers. Some sort of field projection, Cyborg had theorized. The last time the Titans had faced that kind of power-dampening, it had been localized in bracelets that they had worn. Had the HIVE been behind that previous anti-metahuman organization? Or had they merely picked up the pieces and learned from them? Did it matter?

Each of them had tried in their own ways to use their powers. Each was helpless. Dagon was particularly frazzled; he had spent much of the trip here—wherever here was—in some sort of sensory deprivation coffin.

Nightwing, of course, had no powers, and they had taken away his utility belt, his equipment, everything except his costume.

All he had left was his brain.....and a secret or two. Secrets that the HIVE wanted to extract from him, no doubt. Those secrets that Slade didn’t already know, that was, even after he had sent Rose amongst them.

Neither Deathstroke nor Rose had appeared before the team to mock them, at least not yet. But the Titans were sure it would happen, sooner or later.

“She fooled all of us, not just you,” Nightwing went on. “Self-recriminations are pointless, at least right now. They will have to let us out of here eventually. When they do....”

Terra shook her head. “No disrespect, wingnut. But I’ve been a villain; I remember what it means to think like that. I shoulda seen this coming.”

Either Dagon or Raven could have taken this opportunity to argue the point; each of them, in their own way, knew something of the nature of evil. But neither of them wanted to argue with Terra in her current mood, and besides, she was only voicing the frustration they were all feeling.

Raven, for her part, was mostly tending to Kid Flash as best she could, which under the current circumstances, wasn’t very much. Her healing powers were blocked by the field; and his normal accelerated healing, already slowed by events the Titans still didn’t fully understand due to the catastrophe that had struck the Twin Cities of Keystone and Central, would now be slowed to a normal human rate. Perhaps mercifully, Kid Flash was still unconscious.

Starfire moved closer to Nightwing. “Lover,” she said softly, “your tactical attitude is one I don’t fully understand.”

He held her close and smiled at her. Since they had consummated their relationship, they had been....focused...on that end of things, or in the heat of battle. They hadn’t had a real talk yet. Not that Nightwing was worried about their relationship; it was just something they should have done before now, not when they were here trapped in a villain base with no apparent means of escape.

“I know how bad it is,” he assured her. “But we’ve been in worse scrapes than this, separately and together as a team. We’re going to make it.”

Starfire gave him a wide-eyed green stare. “You know something you’re not telling.”

“Let’s just say I have....reason to hope,” was all he would say.



The shadowy woman and her young associate were in a plane. This plane was headed west from New York at best possible speed.

Deathstroke had done a passable job on the abduction, leaving traces that might fool the police - he was wise enough not to leave any fingerprints, for example; and Rose’s fingerprints would mean nothing to any police database anywhere. But the woman knew his business contacts, his allies, and most of his purposes; if he was not currently hunting the Ten, then he was most likely taking the Titans to one of their seasoned enemies, the HIVE. The shadowy woman knew enough about Slade to know that the HIVE had hired him, and the fact that they would use him against the Titans was neither secret nor surprise.

What was left then, was to find the HIVE base. This, she did not know....exactly. But during the most recent outrages by that terrible being known as Eclipso, the HIVE had shown their main US base to be in the Rocky Mountain range. She did not know its precise location, but she could get close, and hunt from there.

If Deathstroke had taken the Titans to one of the HIVE’s international bases, however....She shook off that thought. None of them were that close, so far as she knew. And she had nothing else to go on.

“We have to find them, Joey,” she said softly. “Your sister, your father. We must find them now.”

Joey did not answer. He could not answer, in words. But he knew his mother was right.

Adeline Kane and Joseph Wilson flew on.



Rose didn’t like the HIVE base much.

She supposed that on some level she should; it was like something out of a sci-fi or superspy movie. Lots of high-tech equipment, red and maroon robed guards and ranking HIVE members. Mad scientists on a mission to “save” the world.

She knew that to her father they were just a paycheck, a means to an end, and that he didn’t think much about it otherwise. But she was somewhat creeped out by them, in a way that she’d never been by her father’s rather grimly utilitarian training obstacle courses and safehouses.

“Well done, both of you,” the hooded regional HIVE leader said. “Our ruling council is pleased with this result. Your payment will be personally delivered before your departure, Deathstroke.”

The Terminator nodded. “I expect no different. But do you mind if I stick around and watch at least some of the executions and experiments? I want to make sure they are dealt with.”

The HIVE leader grimaced in annoyance, then the grin relaxed into a more natural smile. “Of course, you wish to see to the vigilante’s death personally?”

“I don’t have to do it,” Deathstroke said. “I just have to see it done. And Terra, also. That one should have been on our side. Was on our side, once.”

The HIVE leader shrugged. “Some weaken. It is not unknown. But the earth elementalist will not die immediately. Hers will be a slow experimental death. We understand her powers were obtained through some sort of laser surgery and exposure to mutagenic elements; we hope to duplicate them in some of our soldiers. The vigilante, on the other hand, will be executed before your eyes.”

Deathstroke grinned beneath his mask. He knew many things, and one of the things he knew was that Nightwing’s death would be a double blow to Gotham, as well.

“The vampire and the demonspawn empath we will keep alive for a time, to study how best we might transfer their powers to others, as simple surgery will not do. The alien and the cyborg, on the other hand, will be vivisected in short order. The speedster and the amazon....those we are giving thought to brainwashing and making our own.”

Deathstroke raised a brow under his mask. “Really? Why them, and not any of the others?”

“Difficult to transfer their powers to others, if not impossible. Perhaps the Demonspawn empath will be retrained as well, but with her it is much less likely. The changeling will be experimented on briefly, and vivisected in short order. We have at least a basic understanding of the disease that made him, after all.”

Rose fidgeted. “You sure you can’t brainwash Terra, too? Like you said, she should be on our side.”

“It’s their call, Rose,” Deathstroke chided her. “Don’t weaken.”

The HIVE leader shrugged. “A fair enough question, actually. As you pointed out, child, she should be more reasonable. But she had her chance, and wasted it. Similar arguments could be made for the demonspawn, or the vampire.”

Deathstroke nodded. “In any case, while I will enjoy seeing Nightwing die, it’s really not about that. I want to make sure they’re beaten.”

Now the HIVE leader laughed. “Ah yes, avoiding the old cliché of leaving the ‘hero’ in the deadly trap and then walking away, eh?”

“Partly that,” Deathstroke conceded. “And mostly just that I like to see a job through to its end.”

“Commendable,” the HIVE leader agreed, and they laughed together.

Rose crossed her arms and looked away.



Joey tapped his mother’s shoulder and pointed to a monitor screen.

“You’ve found them, Joey?”

He nodded, and made a gesture that, in the dim light, was hard to read, but Addie had been reading her son’s sign language for years. “Good. Excellent, in fact. Now all we have to do is find a place to land safely.”

She sighed. “I just hope we’re not too late.”



“Here we go,” murmured Starfire.

The robed members of the HIVE were entering the room en masse. Deathstroke and Rose came in last with one HIVE member with them. Presumably a leader of some sort. It was hard to tell in those robes.

“At last,” the leader said in a deep, rasping voice, “the threat of the Teen Titans shall come to an end.”

“What exactly did we do to you Cult of Doom types anyway?” Beast Boy demanded.

“You are an obstacle to the progression of our world order,” the HIVE leader returned. “First you, then the Outsiders and that....laughable west coast organization, if they’re still in existence. Then your own west coast branch. And so on up, finally to the Justice League itself.”

“You’re saying that the Outsiders are more dangerous than us?” Nightwing snorted.

“And Powers freakin’ Inc?!?” Beast Boy shook his head.

Kid Flash groaned and sat up, Raven helping him.

“Not a question of more or less dangerous,” the HIVE leader said. “Question of which of you is the most immediate threat to us. There is also the question of whether we can duplicate some of your powers in our own agents.”

“Well, I suppose we should be flattered, then,” Nightwing said drily,

“It was a simple matter to recruit Deathstroke the Terminator, as he was in vendetta against you already.”

“Yeah, who were you previously working for, Slade?” Nightwing asked. “I’ve always wondered about that.”

If Nightwing expected Deathstroke to be annoyed by his casual use of his real first name, Deathstroke didn’t show it. “You’ll never know,” was all the mercenary said, and though they couldn’t be sure, it seemed that through his mask he was smiling.

“Deathstroke the Terminator,” Beast Boy said, seeming to sample the name. “Long-winded and pretentious. I like it, actually. Maybe I should call myself Beast Boy the Changeling. What do you think?”

“Silly suits you,” said Dagon. “Long-winded doesn’t.”

“In any case you won’t live long enough to find out,” Deathstroke assured them with grim satisfaction. “My only regret is it took this long to get the job done. It is a testament to your skills that it has been this difficult.”

“Rose....” Terra pressed her face against the bars. “Listen to me. I’ve been where you are. If you’ve learned nothing else in your time with us, know this: it’s not worth it. I learned that one the hard way. Listen to me now, and you won’t have to. If you survive, that is.”

“Touching,” Deathstroke murmured.

Rose made no answer, she merely stared back into Terra’s eyes without expression.

“She made her choice, Tara,” Nightwing said from behind her. “We can only hope she can live with it.”

“We certainly won’t,” Wonder Girl added, shaking her head.

“As fun as this has been,” the HIVE leader said, “it’s time to subject you to your individual fates.” He turned to one of his myriad robed lieutenants. “We’ll remove them one at a time. Start with the speedster.”

A pair of HIVE goons moved forward. One of them had a long, wicked-looking syringe. Presumably to render Kid Flash unconscious once he was removed from the dampening field.

“At last....” Deathstroke breathed. “Watch, Rose. This may be unpleasant...but also very instructive.”

Rose smiled......and almost casually flicked her staff back and up with one hand....into Deathstroke’s chin.

His head snapped back, more from the surprise than anything else. Rose pivoted, eyed the generator, and hurled her staff like a javelin.

The generator sparked, fizzed....died.

For a moment, everyone was stunned. Then the Titans were moving, busting out of their cell, powers restored. Rose whirled and attacked her father.

“Stop them!” a HIVE commander shouted.

“You knew,” Starfire marveled.

“Yeah! How’d you figure that one out, bossman?!” Terra was perhaps the happiest of all of them, hurling stones this way and that, knocking robed HIVE goons like ninepins.

Nightwing smirked. “Remember your chat with her about ‘bedroom’ tips?”



Rose nodded. “Okay...yeah, I’ll think about it. Thanks....sis.”

They hugged, briefly and awkwardly, then Rose let herself out. Gar gave her a worried frown as he went past, but she waved him off.

She trudged down the hallway towards her own room, mind and heart in turmoil, tears beginning to fall.

A twinge from her precognition made her look up, startled.

Nightwing was standing there, worry on his face. “Rose, you okay?”

“Not really.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not right now....maybe later.” She hunched her shoulders and went past.

“If you ever want to talk, we’re all here for you. You do know that, right?” Nightwing called after her.

She nodded, and then slipped into her own room, locking the door behind her.

Then she turned and buried her face in her hands, and wept.

“I can hear you, you know,” Nightwing’s voice said through the door.

She flinched back. “Leave me alone!”

“Rose, I’m not blind. In fact, I’m a detective. And I can tell you’re really bothered by something.”

She had considered telling him to go away again. But the things she had seen, especially Raven’s concern for Wally, and the Titan’s honest intent to protect the people...and Terra’s concerned friendship gave her pause.

For a moment her heart froze in her chest. She was loyal to her father, but she had only known him for a few months....and he had never shown her the warmth and kindness the Titans had.

Maybe they weren’t faking....

She opened the door.

She let Nightwing in.

She told him everything.

He sat there, blankly thoughtful, for several minutes. Then he told her to continue on as her father had told her to do....until the time was right to free them.

“You don’t hate me?” she asked.

“For doing the right thing?” He smiled. “Never.”

“The right thing....” she marveled.



“Rose, how could you--” Deathstroke began, only to desperately block a punch. He tried to grab her fist and flip her, but she anticipated him, dancing away.

“Because I’m not a tool, Daddy! Because I get it now! I know you were just using me to get at them!”

“Because they are weak hypocritical fools who--” he started again, and this time her kick connected. It couldn’t do much harm through his armor, but the sting of betrayal was worse. He tried to grab her leg and break her ankle, but she squirmed out of his grasp.

“No more lies! Mom was no saint, but you’re worse! Much worse!”

“Oh, child.” Deathstroke shook his head and struck her with the hilt of his sword. She blocked it with her arm, which would earn her a nasty bruise. She was fortunate he hadn’t broken her arm. Maybe he should have. “You’re smarter than this. Don’t let them manipulate you into denying your own strength.”

She punched him in the throat. “I’ve found my strength, Daddy. And it’s something you know nothing about. And you’re a fine one to talk about manipulation!”

“So be it then,” he rasped. “I’ll beat some sense into you.”

“Try it,” she invited. “Please, try it!”

He tensed, ready to move. He wouldn’t cripple her, but he would batter her into unconsciousness, oh yes. Then he’d teach her the meaning of pain. Deathstroke was not, by nature, any kind of sadist. But he had learned long ago that pain was a very useful tool.

She blocked his first two strikes....and Nightwing’s boots slammed into his back before he could land a third.

He staggered, and lashed out blindly with sword and foot. His blade missed Rose, but his kick landed a glancing blow to Nightwing’s shoulder.

“So. Both of you at once?” Deathstroke nodded. “So be it. I can handle--”

A huge chunk of rock smashed him aside. Terra was floating over them, rage in her eyes. “Reconsider, one-eye.”

“The more the merrier,” Deathstroke responded, pulling a pistol and firing at her.



In the chaos and confusion, Addie and Joseph had snuck into the HIVE base, and found, to their amazement, that their prospective task wasn’t nearly as hard as it might have; Rose had shown her mettle.

“She has already turned the tide,” Addie marveled. “The Titans must have freed her from his control. Wonderful! But, perhaps you can still help them, son. Discreetly.”

Joseph nodded and waited for a stumbling, confused HIVE soldier to come close; then he grabbed him, pulled him into the shadows, and pushed his hood back.

“What--” the man began, going for his gun, staring right into Joseph’s eyes.

Break the walls of the psyche down. Like breaking the walls of the ancient city of Jericho down. In that moment, Joseph Wilson accepted the mantle of Jericho.

Contact.

Joseph vanished....and the HIVE soldier turned away from Addie, and joined the battle.

But within his hood, his eyes were green irises against black retinas....and he attacked his fellow soldiers.



Wonder Girl punted one HIVE agent into another, then went for the leader himself. “Since you HIVE idiots think we’re such a threat, maybe it’s time we proved you right.”

The HIVE leader pulled a weapon from his robes. Almost instinctively, Wonder Girl brought her bracelets up.

But instead of shooting her, he smashed the glowing violet thing into her side. “We anticipated all your powers. Even yours.”

He stared as Wonder Girl got up, staring grimly, gritting her teeth, ignoring the smoldering wound in her side. She took the weapon from him and broke it in half.

“You haven’t been keeping up with my latest adventures,” she said. “Lights out.” Her clobbering overhand blow wasn’t too hard, but harder than it strictly needed to be. The HIVE leader went down in a heap.

Kid Flash wasn’t up to speed, and he was still in pain. A great deal of pain. But he wouldn’t stand by and do nothing.

“Let go, Raven.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” he answered. “But I can’t sit by, not now, not here.”

She let go and he began to run. He wasn’t at full speed. Not even half speed. He was only a little faster than Dagon.

But that was more than fast enough. Three HIVE soldiers went down in mere seconds. Now they were beginning to fire their weapons, but he was still fast enough to dodge them.

As for Dagon, he was having fun.

“Do you know,” he asked conversationally, breaking an arm here, kicking a HIVE agent down there, “that I can feed on humans without killing them? Let me demonstrate...”



The HIVE agent possessed by Jericho struck down four, then five. He waited for Rose to catch notice of him, but she was busy fighting their father. He hung back and made a few more selective strikes. This was not going to be easy.

Raven billowed over a quartet of troopers and let her soul-self fall on them.

They screamed, and went on screaming.

Cyborg was having fun, too. He was grabbing HIVE agents and almost casually throwing them into the air, one after another. Sometimes two at once. Beast Boy was with him, taking the form of a giant octopus, grabbing HIVE agents in his tentacled limbs and squeezing.



Starfire had taken to the air, and was targeting those enemies who were wielding energy weapons with her starbolts. One of them made the mistake of aiming at her. He fired at the same moment her starbolt reached him. The two forms of energy met and exploded in a shockwave that knocked him out cold and flash-burned his face.

A raucous alarm had been bleating; now, more HIVE agents were storming the room to answer it. Raven’s soul-self floated up to join her.

“There are too many,” Raven murmured through her soul-self. “The longer the fight goes on, the more likely it becomes that one of us will be critically injured or killed.”

“So let’s wrap this up, then,” Starfire agreed. “It’s too bad Kid Flash isn’t at full speed.”

“And Terra is tied up with Deathstroke. I’ll take the southern third?”

“I’ll take the northeastern third. Tell Wonder Girl to take the northwestern.”

Raven wasted no time replying, her soul-self vanishing as she teleported away to coordinate with Donna.

Starfire flew over the northeastern third of the area, and taking care not to hit Dagon, began blanketing the area with starbolts. HIVE agents dropped like flies.

Seconds later, Raven’s soul-self enshrouded the southern third of the vast chamber. Beast Boy, Cyborg and Kid Flash were unaffected. The HIVE weren’t so fortunate.

Jericho saw Wonder Girl coming and left his host to stumble into her attack. The remaining HIVE agents in the northwestern third went down quickly to her attacks.



This left Rose, Nightwing and Terra facing Deathstroke, who, with the help of a pair of bedraggled HIVE warriors, was holding his own.

The rest of the Titans closed in. Deathstroke saw them coming. He desperately went for a kill strike on Nightwing...but Rose blocked it. He went to kick Rose in the head....but Nightwing blocked it. He tried to shoot Terra again...and Kid Flash was there, knocking the gun away.

Deathstroke made one of the unhappiest decisions of his life.

He dropped a smoke grenade pellet, a tear gas pellet, and a flash concussion pellet all with one throw...and ran for his life.

Jericho gave chase, but Deathstroke was gone in seconds.

As the Titans were beating the remaining HIVE agents down, Jericho danced into his sister’s field of vision, and then quickly began to move away.

“Joey?” Rose breathed.

Joey smiled and gestured to her.

“But....” she looked back. “What about the Titans?”

“They know you were truly with them,” another voice said. Addie stepped out from behind Joey. “And I’m sure you will help them again, if not exactly in the way you think. But for now, for the moment, come home. Let us get you out of here.”

Rose frowned. “We should do something else to help them.”

“You’re right,” Addie said. “And we will. In fact, it’s something you’ve done before...”



Deathstroke’s ribs were on fire.

He slipped through the darkness, knocking down an occasional HIVE thug. He was running out of patience; the last two, he simply ran through with his sword.

He had completely and utterly failed.

He couldn’t blame the Titans for this, much as he might like to. No, it was all on his daughter, and his own failure.

No shades of gray this time, he had failed.

That was intolerable.

And it would only get worse. Not only would the Titans continue to come after him, but also the HIVE would seek his head for his failure. He would never collect his bounty on the Titans, and now he would face both them and the HIVE as well.

And he had lost Rose.

Perhaps forever.

Perhaps....though it pained his professional pride immeasurably...perhaps he should leave all this behind for a while. Pick up his unfinished business with the Ten. Yes.



“Where’s Rose?” Terra frowned.

“We know Deathstroke didn’t get her,” Beast Boy said, nursing a sore rib.

“She may have just run, after all that,” Kid Flash said. “On our side or not, I’m still a bit annoyed at her for the beatdown she gave me.”

“Wallace,” Raven chided him gently. She turned to Nightwing. “I sensed her flee, with hope and curiosity. She met someone...someone else. I know not who they were, only that they cared for her. There were two of them.”

“Dagon and I will look for tracks and clues,” Nightwing said. “I’m not about to give up on her. But I have the feeling that, sooner or later, we’ll see her again.”

The End!


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