I ran away before any of them could even see where I was going. None of them were going to convince me that, 'Oh, Sonic, Robin was being ridiculous. Come back to us and we'll hug and cuddle with you and play video games on the couch again!' Maybe Robin was right. Maybe I was being selfish asking them to help me. But weren't they a group that did things such as HELPING PEOPLE? That was, like, their motto! It seemed so strange of Robin to just push me away like that.
I shook my head. Whatever. I ran as far away from the building as I could, then called out, with a big, deep breath and my arms held out, "Slade! Peace treaty time!"
I was expecting him to come out and stab me through the heart as if he had been waiting for the moment, but nothing happened. Was this such a good idea? Even the thought of seeing Slade face to face made me shiver. But I still called again. "Hello? Slade?"
I dropped my arms back to my sides and sighed with impatience. Then I saw a shadow. The shadow of only one person in the world. The shadow of Slade. Nice book title. "Ah, you're looking lovely today." I said. "Love the hair."
"Still as charismatic as ever, even when I could kill you in a second?" He asked.
"Look, I'm not here for a fight." I told him. I sighed. This was my last chance to turn around. "I need your help."
"I suspected." He said. "Those Titans are not as dependable as they're made out to be."
"Yeah, I got that. Are you going to help me or not?"
He paused and looked at me. It was kind of creepy, with only his eyes showing through his mask. It was as if he was testing me through them. He made no other motions, too, which made it even worse.
"Come." He said simply.
A passageway opened up behind him in the street, and he started to walk down it. I followed, watching for sharp objects on the ground. The ground that was above us closed. The stairs (that lasted forever, by the way) were long and narrow, and falling ended in either a scary death or a never ending fall.
So what happened?
I slipped.
Walking on stone is slippery enough, and in doing it in socks makes it suicidal. Having to look out for objects makes it worse. But the surprising part about my fall was when Slade caught my arm and pulled me back up. I blinked.
"Don't let it happen again." He told me.
I nodded a bunch and was definitely more careful. Talk about intimidating.
Finally, once my feet were sore and my stomach was dropping with each step down, we reached wherever he was bringing me to. It was like a technological cave that Tails would have fallen in love with. But I didn't want to think about that.
"If you want to get home," Slade said without looking at me, "you will have to do everything I say."
"And that includes...?" Again, my stomach didn't feel so good.
"The first thing we will have to do..." He turned his head and looked at me. "Is teach you how to survive."
I didn't know what to expect after he said that. He ended up lunging after me, and I didn't have enough time to dodge it. He pinned me against the wall.
"You're not used to the way we fight around here." He said, narrowing his eyes. "So you'll learn."
"Why?" I asked.
He threw me to the ground and put his foot on my chest. It was crushing my ribs, but I wasn't strong enough to pull or push it off. "I'll get you home, but everything has a cost, Sonic."
There was something wrong with him using my name. It didn't sound natural. It sounded full of hatred and betrayal. "What... do I need... to do?" I gasped, still struggling with his foot.
"Destroy the Teen Titans."
I could feel my eyes growing with horror. Only Robin was a jerk. The rest had been fine. Sure, Raven was really creepy sometimes, but Beast Boy was an awesome friend, and Starfire was the sweetest person anyone would ever meet. Unless you got her mad. Then, she would beat you up while Cyborg tried to beat you up at a not-so-friendly game of racing or boxing. "I... I can't." I shook my head.
"Then I destroy you and you never go home." He replied, kicking me away. It was a convincing argument.
I rolled to the side when he tried to punch his fist into my head. In return, I jumped and tried to kick him in the side while I was still in the air, but he grabbed my leg and threw me away, rolling away on the ground. I felt something hard hit my leg, but it didn't hit it hard enough to break the bone, luckily.
Now I couldn't see him. There was fog everywhere, as if a pipe had broken when he threw me. I perched myself up with one arm, looking all around for any slight movement. Slade was somewhere, and he was waiting.
I did a handstand with my hand and moved away when I heard him come up behind me. He tried to grab me, but I ran behind him and punched his spine.
For a second, it seemed like I had done some sort of damage. But he got up after a few seconds, grabbing my fist and turning it upward. Even his grasp against mine felt too powerful to overcome. He turned it to the side, and I cried out, and he slammed me against a wall. "Fine..." I gasped. "I'll... I'll do whatever... whatever you say."
He released me, watching me fall against the floor once again. "Good." He replied. I gritted my teeth and slowly uncurled my hand. "We have work to do."
"You didn't... have to do all that, you know." I said, watching him turn his head.
"If I hadn't made that point, you would have left and been hunted down."
"Oh, yeah?" I coughed, my side feeling like it was being stabbed as I did. "You... don't even leave. ... You're too cowardly to do anything... anything for yourself."
"I wouldn't call it cowardice." His eyes narrowed again. "And now that I have you working for me, there's no reason to leave."
"Who would've... hunted me down, then?"
"Another traitor of the Teen Titans."
I felt guilty again for leaving them. I was another weapon to be used to destroy them. But I wouldn't be able to. Going to Slade had just been a huge mistake. I wasn't even sure I would be able to fix it, either. "Who's the traitor?"
"No one you would know."
My hand started to twitch. "I should know who... I'm working with."
He folded his arms and studied me for a moment. "Terra!" He called.
A girl appeared next to him. She was skinny and didn't seem like much of a fighter. "What?" She said, looking surprised. "Is this who you think's going to destroy the Teen Titans?"
"The two of you together will."
She folded her arms as well. "You couldn't have gotten someone... Oh, I guess he'll do."
"Help him to a room. I've got some planning to do." Slade walked away, and I despised him more than ever.
"Can you walk?" She asked sternly. But there was something in her voice indicating that she wasn't as rude as she seemed.
"Almost..." I said, struggling to my knees.
She looked down on me with disdain. "I guess I'll help you." She scoffed.
"Don't be such a jerk." I replied. "It was your..." I couldn't remember his name. I couldn't remember Slade's name. The person who was trying to destroy the world. I had almost said Eggman, but that would have made me sound like an idiot. "Mentor... thing that did this to me!"
"My mentor thing, huh?" She said. "And I suppose it's your brain thing that made the poor fighting choices."
I hugged my chest as she half-dragged me to a room with bunk beds. Other than that, the room was tiny and had nothing in it but steel walls. "You can have the bottom for tonight, but every other time, you get the top, got it?"
I nodded. I fell onto the bed, frowning at how comfortable it was. My whole body formed into it and sank into it. He couldn't make robots to constantly fight for him, but he had the heart and budget to give us good mattresses. Either that, or he wanted our backs in tip-top shape.
I was about to fall asleep when I heard a rustle of something by my head. I figured it was Terra or whatever her name was being annoying or even snoring, so I ignored it. But it came again. And then again. So I opened my eyes. She was holding an opened envelope and a pencil. What was it?
'I'm Terra, and I can move the ground.' The note said in nice handwriting. 'What can you do?'
I saw no harm in communicating for a bit besides being a bit tired, so I wrote back: 'I'm Sonic, and I can run really fast. Why do you work for Slade?' It looked terrible, because it was my right hand that Slade had decided to sprain, but I tried to write as small as possible. I had never been good at writing, though.
For a few minutes, she thought and wrote. I almost fell asleep again, until the rustling of the envelope came back. 'I have almost no memory of anything. I can only remember Slade and the Teen Titans, and Slade convinced me that they were bad. But I can't work for him anymore. I need your help.'
I almost spoke aloud, but there was a reason we were speaking via a piece of scrap paper. Slade probably had the room bugged and what not. So I asked her, 'how do I know I can trust you?' I passed it back up. It was a valid question.
The answer came back. I had to read it over and over, because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was it true? I would hopefully find out. This girl seemed legit. But who knew? Would she betray me? Or would she just totally sacrifice herself to save me in some cliche way? 'Because your friend is here, and I want to help you get him back.'