Delirium | Titans

Chapter 5

Katarina groaned quietly and opened her eyes. Her wrists were tied tightly together and hung above her head, the rope attached to the ceiling above. Everything ached and she didn't even spare the energy to look around. She hung her head and her eyes flickered purple for a moment.

She raised her head and took in her situation. The dim lighting, the ropes holding her wrists to the ceiling, and the strange kid in a costume hanging across from here. There was a strange set of computers and electronics also sitting around the temporary lair.

"Where the fuck are we?" She asked, sounding more pissed off than worried about their situation. She raised an eyebrow at the person across from her. He seemed about her age, and his costume made her want to laugh. What sort of circus had this boy crawled out of?

The boy across from her looked in her direction. "We got our asses kicked by Deathstroke and now we're stuck in this part of the train tunnels with Lightbulb." He answered, sounding more angry than anything.

"Well shit," she muttered, rather pointlessly.

She looked around the underground lair, searching for the door. It was up a small set of stairs, but it was across the room. She began to wiggle and twist her hands and wrists around in their ropes.

A man in a strange vest with a glowing center walked into the room. He picked up a lamp that was missing its shade and pulled the string to turn it on. The bulb lit up, but only for a short amount of time. The man held his hand over the bulb and the light traveled from the bulb into his hand. He absorbed the last of the light and set the now dark lamp down.

"Oh Dr. Light," Jason started to talk. He chuckled, smiling. "Did you come up with that shit on your own or did your parents saddle you with that bullshit?" He continued, a wide grin on his face.

"I mean come on, what a lame fucking name." He said.

Katarina grinned, getting an idea of what he was trying to do. It wasn't a bad plan, and it would be fun whether it worked or not.

"You could've had any sort of a cool name," she added, "but no, of course you had to go with Dr. Light. Very original." She mocked.

"Shut it!" He yelled, glaring in their direction.

"What? Is my talking annoying you dickweed?" Jason asked tauntingly and then chuckled. "Cause that's the thing. I can do it all day, all night, and if you're nice, twice on a Sunday."

Dr Light stalked over to them, the metal pieces of his vest making slight clicking sounds as he walked. He stopped right in front of Jason and the twos grins widened.

"I said shut the fuck up." Dr Light repeated, glaring at Jason.

Suddenly Jason's legs shot out and kicked Dr. Light in the stomach. He fell to his knees and Jason wrapped his legs around the mans neck, squeezing. Katarina twisted her wrists out of the rope holding them to the ceiling and picked up one of the discarded lamps. She violently slammed it into the side of Dr. Lights head and he dropped, downed by a combination of not being able to breathe and a lamp to the head.

"Night night asshole." Jason said to the unconscious man before removing his wrists from their restraints.

Jason made his way across the room and Katarina followed quickly, glaring down at the unconscious man before she walked away. Jason had just made it to the top step of a the stairs, Katarina right behind him, when the door at the top of the stairs opened. The two froze in place. A sword stopped right in front of Jason's face, the tip barely an inch from his nose.

———

Back at the tower, Gar and Dick stood in the control room. Dick stood at the computers while Gar paced back and forth behind him.  

"We found out that Dr. Light was in the train tunnels. Jason wanted to prove that he wasn't a reject." Gar explained, "He got Katarina to come with us."

Dick was looking up at the main screen where a map of the city was pictured, the computer system searching for Jasons tracker.

"We were gonna come right back, and then Jason wanted to split up. I heard Jason scream and I ran. He was gone. I tried to search for Katarina, but she was already gone too." He continued.

"Why were you out there in the first place?" Dick asked, "on your own with no weapons and no backup."

"I'm sorry." Gar said.

"I just need details. Specifics." He grabbed a notebook and handed it to Gar. "Just write down everything you remember."

"I'm searching for Jason's tracker right now." He said.

As if on cue, the computer beeped.

"Subject offline."

Dick closed his eyes and looked down. Gar looked at the screen, searching for any sort of answer.

"If they're still down there, all that stone and concrete, it would mask the trackers signals from the satellite." Gar suggested hopefully.

Dick got an idea, "Yes, it would." He agreed.

"Also, while I was searching for Dr. Light I found a little time to run facial recognition on Katarina." Gar added.

Dick turned to look at him and then gestured at the computer.

"Pull it up and tell me what you found." He instructed.

Gar sat down at the computer and after a minute a picture of Katarina appeared on the screen. A name and a few other pieces of information appeared beside it.

"Full name, Katarina Vlahos." Dick read out loud from the screen.

"There was an article from years ago that came up when I searched her name. I didn't have time to read through it yet." Gar said, still typing on the computer.

A picture of an old newspaper article appeared on the screen, covering up Katarina's face. The top line dated it as 11 years ago. The headline read "Fallen Angel kills 6 police officers and escapes."

Gar began to read the first few lines of the article out loud.  

"Theresa Vlahos, self proclaimed to be 'Fallen Angel' escaped custody yesterday afternoon and brutally killed 6 officers in the process. Ms. Vlahos was recently convicted of..." his voice faltered and his eyes widened in horror as he read the list of the woman's crimes. He forced himself to keep reading. "Over a dozen accounts of 1st degree murder and...oh god...one account of child abuse."

Gars voice faded away and Dick finished reading the article and turned away from the screen. Gar closed the picture of the article and returned the screen to showing the map of the city. Dick walked out of the control room to gather the old team.

Gar looked over the map again. "Where are you guys?" He whispered, as if the map might answer.

It didn't.