The silence was heavy enough to press into bone.
Wildcard sat back on the edge of a med-bay bench, hands loose on his knees, eyes still locked on Raven's containment field. The indigo light pulsed faintly — steady now, but it felt less like calm and more like a predator's slow breathing.
Jinx leaned casually against the wall, chewing the inside of her cheek.
She hadn't spoken since she walked back in, but her eyes flicked between each Titan like she was measuring them for odds in a fight.
Robin broke first.
Robin: "We move her. Out of the city. Far enough that no one else gets caught in it."
Cyborg: "And if Asmodeus is tracking her like Wildcard says, then we're delivering her straight into his lap. You really want him joining the welcome party the second she wakes?"
Starfire: "If she loses control here, Jump City will not survive. We must limit the harm."
Beast Boy: "Limit the harm? She's our friend, not a— a bomb."
Jinx (dryly): "Right now she's both. Pretending she's not just makes clean-up uglier."
M'gann glanced at Wildcard. "What do you think? You're the one who's worked with both options before."
Wildcard didn't answer right away. He let the voices crash and ebb for a few minutes before speaking.
Wildcard: "Both routes are ugly. Outside, Asmodeus gets his opening. Inside, the city burns if she breaks bad. This isn't about a perfect choice — it's about which disaster you can survive."
The room went quiet again.
That's when Sage cut in — voice smooth but edged with steel.
Sage:"Statistical projection: Moving her to a remote location — high likelihood of early Asmodeus intervention. Keeping her here — high likelihood of mass civilian casualty if containment fails. Remote probability of no casualties is higher outside."
Beast Boy winced. "That's… not comforting."
Sage: "Wasn't meant to be."
Robin: "So neither is safe. Great. That means more control over who's in the blast zone."
Starfire: "Then the choice is clear — we must protect them, even if it puts us in greater danger."
Beast Boy: "…I hate this. But fine. Better us than the city."
Cyborg: "…Yeah. I'm in."
All eyes turned to Wildcard.
He studied them for a long moment, unreadable.
Then — a small, humorless smirk. "Outside it is."
Jinx whistled low. "Brave or stupid. Still can't tell which."
Wildcard's smirk didn't fade — but his voice cut in, sharp and cold enough to slice right through the thin calm.
Wildcard: "Alright, let's skip the pep talk and be honest — what then if Asmodeus attacks?"
The Titans glanced at each other, but no one volunteered an answer.
Wildcard leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, gaze sweeping across the room in quiet judgment.
Wildcard: "He's not going to stand there twirling his cape. If he shows, he's coming for blood. And you know what's funny?"
His tone darkened into something razor-dry.
"He doesn't even need to raise a finger to end you."
Beast Boy opened his mouth, but Wildcard kept talking.
Wildcard: "Last time, you fell exactly how he wanted — fast, clean, like puzzle pieces slotting into his little game board. He didn't break a sweat. You crumbled before he even started playing for real."
No one argued. The silence said enough.
Wildcard: "And that's the best part for him — he could end you just with illusions. Not fire, not claws, not power beams — just your own minds turned inside out. And if you think those nightmares we dragged you out of were bad…"
He tilted his head toward Raven's containment field.
"…you haven't seen anything yet."
Cyborg's jaw tightened. "We learn from mistakes."
Wildcard chuckled — humorless.
"You'd better. Because if Asmodeus attacks while Raven's waking up, you won't be fighting just him. You'll be dealing with that—" he nodded to the unmoving half-demon, "—crashing out mid-rampage."
His voice was quiet now, but it carried like a gunmetal blade:
"If that happens, the situation will be worse than you can imagine. And imagination…" he smirked faintly, "…is all that'll be left of you."
The room felt heavier.
Even Robin's stare dropped for a fraction of a second before he tightened his fists again. The decision stood — but Wildcard had made sure they all saw just how lethal the road ahead could be.
The room stayed quiet after his last warning.
Too quiet.
No one moved. No one wanted to break it.
Raven's containment field pulsed gently in the center of the med-bay — slow, steady, almost peaceful.
But every faint flicker of light felt like a heartbeat counting down.
Wildcard's voice cut in again, casual on the surface, razor-edged underneath.
"I don't mean to pressure you all…" he said, pushing off from the bench and taking a step closer to Raven's bed, "…but we don't have time."
He pointed directly at her.
The crimson coat sleeve fell back just enough to expose one gloved hand, relaxed but ready.
"Our precious little time bomb here? She's just about to explode."
The Titans tensed almost in unison — Robin shifting his stance, Starfire's eyes narrowing, Beast Boy's shoulders squaring.
Wildcard's next words landed like a hammer:
"Think about what's going to happen if we keep hesitating. If you want…"
he let the sentence trail casually as his hand hovered over the containment glyphs,
"…I can kill her right now."
A stillness slammed into the room — heavy, brittle, like the air itself might shatter.
Robin's gloved hands flexed and curled into fists.
Cyborg's core gave a faint, uneven whine before stabilizing again.
Starfire's fingers hovered, trembling slightly, an unspent glow building in each palm.
Beast Boy's eyes flicked to the containment pod, then to Wildcard's face, jaw locked as if swallowing back words.
No one was breathing evenly.
M'gann took a sharp step toward him, shoulders stiff. "Wildcard—"
"Don't," Beast Boy's voice was low, but shaking.
Starfire's glow flared faintly, an instinctive show of defiance.
"We will not allow—"
But Wildcard cut them all off with a raised hand. His gaze was cold, calculated — but not entirely cruel.
"Relax. I'm not about to do it."
His voice was even again, but every syllable hit with weight.
"I'm telling you what's at stake. She is a threat right now — to you, to me, to anyone who gets in her way. And the longer you drag your heels, the more likely it is I won't be exaggerating next time."
He scanned the room once more — Robin's scowl, Cyborg's grim focus, Beast Boy's stubborn glare, Starfire's fire barely restrained.
A faint smirk returned to his lips.
"So—decide fast. Because I make most of my decisions without asking permission."
Sage's voice chimed in over the comm — bone-dry but tinged with something heavier.
"For the record — if you did mean it, odds of survival for the rest of the planet would increase by 14%. Just saying."
M'gann shot a death glare at the ceiling. "Sage—shut up."
The room was still wound tight from Wildcard's blunt ultimatum. No one looked happy, but no one had moved against him either.
Wildcard exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly, as though resigning himself.
"So… the easy way's out then, huh?" he muttered, straightening his coat.
A thin grin curved his lips. "Shame. I've always wanted a demon skull mounted as a trophy."
That earned a few tense looks from the Titans — none sure if he was being morbidly funny or perfectly serious.
From her spot against the wall, Jinx finally decided to weigh in.
"Can I at least keep the jewel on her forehead?" she asked, almost hopefully.
Without missing a beat, Wildcard shot her a sideways glance.
"No. Without it, half the charm's gone."
Jinx narrowed her eyes and stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.
"Meanie."
Before anyone could roll their eyes, Sage's voice floated in through the comms — smooth, dry, and ever-unimpressed.
Sage: "Are you two actually negotiating souvenir rights while sitting three feet from a catastrophic psychic detonation?"
Cyborg groaned quietly. Beast Boy muttered something about "priorities."
Wildcard smirked faintly, tilting his head toward the ceiling. "What? We're multitasking."
Sage: "You're stalling."
Wildcard's smirk didn't fade. "Obviously."
The room stayed tight with unspoken tension.
Robin's gaze moved from face to face — Starfire's taut stance, Beast Boy's unsettled expression, the firm line of Cyborg's mouth, Jinx's raised brow that dared him to commit. His eyes lingered on Raven's containment field, the faint indigo light washing over the room like a slow heartbeat.
He remembered the crater from the last time she lost control. The screams in the comms. The silence that followed.
Only then did he speak, his voice measured but firm:
For half a second, there was silence.
Then Wildcard blinked… and let out a low, disbelieving laugh.
He tilted his head, looking at Robin as though the Boy Wonder had just sprouted a second beak.
"Wow."
He even clapped his hands once, slow and mock-admiring. "Brilliant. Absolutely inspired."
The sarcasm in his voice was thick enough to cut with a blade.
"Tell me, bird boy—do you even hear yourself? This is not your Saturday morning TV show where the villain always loses to the 'power of friendship.'"
Robin's jaw tightened, but Wildcard didn't stop.
"Asmodeus isn't some two-bit thug you chase around rooftops. He's patient, he's older than every stone in this city, and he's playing a game you can't even see all the rules to. If he gets the jump on you—especially out there—your 'stop him' plan will boil down to a cool fight scene before you all end up wearing collars in his throne room… or worse."
Wildcard stepped closer, enough that his shadow stretched over Robin in the med-bay's dim light.
"So unless you've got a solid, bulletproof, gods-damned plan for dealing with him if he shows…"
he leaned back slightly, his eyes narrowing into cold crimson slits under the Sharingan's spin,
"…you can say goodbye to your city and put a big red bow on the world-ending threat you just handed him."
The room went still again.
Starfire's eyes slitted into narrow emerald blades, unblinking.
Beast Boy shifted his weight from foot to foot, his hawk-form feathers beginning to prick through along his forearms like a subconscious defense.
Cyborg's gaze moved back and forth between them, the micro-motors in his neck servos clicking faintly — the sound of someone tracking a fuse burning toward the powder.
Even Jinx, perched with one hip against the wall, arched an eyebrow. "Hard to argue with the guy when he's spitting facts."
Sage's voice broke the moment, clinical as always.
Sage: "Recommendation: produce an operational plan that accounts for worst-case interference before removing the asset from high-security containment. Or, you know… roll the dice and be remembered fondly."
Wildcard turned his head slightly toward the containment field again, hands in his pockets.
"Tick-tock, Wonder Boy. I don't move explosives without a map of the blast radius."
The med-bay felt smaller now. The air was thick, and every heartbeat from Raven's containment sounded like a ticking clock.
Robin didn't flinch under Wildcard's glare.
"Fine," he said. "You want a plan? You get one."
He motioned to the others to come closer, the conversation shifting to tight, low voices.
The Plan
Robin: "We take her to Blackridge Quarry — ten miles east of the city limits. No civilian presence, natural rock formations for cover, and only two access roads. Cyborg, you jam surveillance drones and block any remote magical scanning once we're on site."
Cyborg: "On it. I'll set up a scrambler net on the way — gives us a thirty-minute interference bubble."
Starfire: "I will take to the skies. If Asmodeus approaches, I can intercept before he reaches the ground."
Beast Boy: "And I'll run aerial scout in hawk form. Someone's gotta yell if his ugly face shows up."
Wildcard leaned against the med-bed rail, arms folded. "Good. Keep talking."
M'gann: "I'll prepare a psychic cocoon around Raven's mind before we wake her — it won't stop her powers from manifesting if she crashes, but it'll give us a few seconds to redirect her focus."
Jinx smirked. "And I'll be the one setting traps. If Mr. Horny shows, I want him eating hex explosions before he even gets close to her."
Robin nodded. "If she wakes violent, we go non-lethal. Immobilize her with telekinesis, lock her down with Wildcard's suppression, and keep her contained until she burns it out."
Wildcard cut in sharply: "Correction — minimal lethal force unless she goes nuclear. If containment's failing, you better be ready to make a call you can live with… or die from."
No one liked the reminder, but no one argued either.
Robin drew a breath. "That's the plan. We keep him away from Raven and we keep him in the open."
The room was quiet except for the low, electric hum of the containment field. No one spoke, but Robin could feel their stares pressing in, waiting for the next move. He squared his shoulders, tightening the plan into a final order.
Wildcard's pressure after "That's the plan."
"Not bad, Boy Wonder. Let's just see if you can keep it together when things start bleeding."
End of chapter.
Author's note:-
Check out my new Book:
Spider-Man: Legacy of the First Hokage