A/N: Sooo, here's the prologue for my most recent story, All That's Left. I've been debating on and off whether I should post this or wait a little longer because I'm still working on my other story (Gone to Madness for any of you Harry Potter fans).

In a backwards, twisted kind of way, this was inspired by Wynja's amazing story, 2060, or at least my musings about said story. *sigh* You'll see what I mean later on I suppose. If not, I'll explain it when we get there.

Read on,

A/N2: Slight modifications made as of 9/10/2010. Not a huge deal or anything, I just changed some of the wording to flow more easily.


All That's Left

Prologue

Robin glared angrily around his small prison, panting after his last failed attempt to break the glass. There was no way out, no cracks, no weak points. It seemed that the Brotherhood of Evil had left no room for error in their plans and the keeping of the Titans' leader.

He sighed and sank to the floor, cross-legged with his palms pressed angrily to his masked eyes, trying to just think; there had to be a way out of this - no plan was completely fail-safe as countless had proved before now. Perhaps Beast Boy and the few heroes that had yet to be caught could pull a rescue plan together and stop this from happening.

Robin glanced around the dark room outside the glass unhappily. Bruce had once told him that, were he to be captured and in an unfamiliar place, the first step to formulating an escape plan was to examine his surroundings and commit them to memory.

He could see nothing outside of the illuminated cylinder he was trapped in and he had no idea where he was. Madam Rouge had knocked him out for the trip from the Brain's main room, where he had been presented with his friends' unconscious bodies, to this… cell and he had woken up about twenty minutes ago with a roaring headache, in the same predicament he found himself now, only slightly less exhausted. He could be buried underground for all he knew.

Regardless, he looked up and scanned the room once more with tired eyes and - his entire body froze as he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, a shifting shadow, a glint of light reflected off of some metal, about six feet above the ground. Someone or something was in here with him.

"Who's there?" he demanded, jumping to his feet in a ready battle stance, instantly alert. "Show yourself!"

"…"

"…Why, Robin, I expected better of you…"

Robin's eyes widened comically at the sound of the man's voice, unable to completely hide his shock, then narrowed in anger.

"Slade." he growled, "Why are you here?"

Slade ignored his question and continued, "Completely helpless in the midst of your enemies, when your dear friends need you the most, the little bird finally caught in a cage. It's almost poetic."

Robin glared. "If you're just here to brag, you might as well clear out now. Plenty of people have already beaten you to it and I'm getting kind of tired of the same bad puns."

"Then I suppose I'll spare you. No need to be redundant." Slade chuckled. He was obviously enjoying the situation immensely. Robin rolled his eyes.

"So, what, are you working with the Brotherhood too then?"

Slade actually laughed at that. "Dear boy, I have absolutely no interest in the little plot the Brotherhood of Evil has cooked up for you here. No doubt it'll make my job easier to have all the little children rounded up nice and neatly for me, but I have my own plans already set in motion." Slade paused, malicious triumph coming off him in waves.

"No, Robin, I have come here for the sole purpose of serving my own devices. You're here after all." Robin could practically hear the smirk behind the mask.

"What do you mean?" he asked, uneasiness creeping up his spine. His utility belt had been taken from him, he had no weapons, and he was completely and utterly trapped. The other Titans were either busy fighting off the torrent of villains that had come after them or already frozen, unable to help him if things here went too far. Slade was right: he had allowed himself to be made defenseless.

"Oh, the usual…"

Suddenly, Robin heard the tap, tap, tap of fingers on a keyboard, could see a glint of light, and there was a mechanical hiss followed by several beeps growing in frequency and a red flashing light. Robin's heart skipped a beat.

"What did you just do? What do you want?" Robin pounded a fist angrily into the glass, furious at his own helplessness. He couldn't believe he'd gotten himself and all of his friends into this mess. If he hadn't given the imposter Hotspot that communicator, the Brain wouldn't have been able to track their every move, stop their every plan, and capture so many of them. It was all his fault.

"You'll find out soon enough, Robin." Slade said silkily, a small laugh at the end betraying his amusement.

Something was wrong. A strange smell was drifting up from beneath his feet, filling his cell with the pungent fumes. Robin coughed once… twice.

The air within the cylinder was quickly thickening and had turned a faint, sickly yellow as billowing clouds of the gas drifted up from the vent in the floor. Slade was going to poison him! An outburst of hacking coughs tore from his throat before Robin seized the edge of his cape and clapped it over his mouth and nose in an effort to filter some of the gas.

"What - is this?" he gasped, choking and gagging. He could no longer see past the yellow gas to the darkness that lay outside his prison. He couldn't see his own hand. Completely enveloped in the thick stuff, Robin felt his heart rate pick up once more as small amount of claustrophobia seeped into his mind.

"A simple knock-out agent. Should be harmless." Slade was sounding far too smug for Robin to feel reassured by his words. And even if he wasn't lying, the last thing Robin needed was to be unconscious in his hated enemy's hands, at the man's mercy.

"Why - do I have the feeling - I can't trust your word?" Robin fell to his knees no longer able to support his own weight under the onslaught of a painful coughing fit.

"Relax, Robin. I have no reason to kill you. The Brotherhood of Evil would have easily done that themselves shortly if I hadn't come along and saved you." Slade walked calmly up to the glass and knelt beside him on the other side of that thin layer, grey eye narrowed in satisfaction. Robin could only see a dark shadow.

"No, I have much bigger plans for you, my boy, much bigger."

Blackness was gathering at the edges of his vision and Robin absently tried to blink it away, moaning his discomfort. His arms and legs felt like so much jello, unwilling to obey the commands his brain was screaming at them. The contaminated air was straining on his lungs, sliding down his now raw throat in painful bubbles.

At long last, he lay unmoving on the floor but for his wrenching spasms as the last dregs of consciousness were forcefully pulled from him and he finally gave in, allowing the darkness to swamp his mind. Robin welcomed it, the promise of oblivion, of escaping his agonized body even temporarily.

The last words he heard before he felt himself slip away chilled him to his very core: "Don't worry, Robin. I'm sure that with time 'you'll learn to like it.'"

Then there was nothing.


A/N: Well, there you go. Drop me a review if you enjoyed it or even if you think there's something I could do to improve it. I'm all ears.

Until next time, Everwild out