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Tim grunts in pain, struggling to his feet as he glares at the ancient man, his teeth bared in defiance as he stared Ra’s down.
“They’ll find me,” he snarls, hissing as his veins burn in response to the mountain ash pushing back against his magic.
The djinn smiled indulgently, as if he was nothing more than an unruly child who needed to be taught, “If you say so, Timothy. But I assure you, before you make it out of this room, you will become my talons.”
“So you want me to become your weapon?” he demanded, claws unsheathing and piercing into the plush ground below.
“There’s no need to sound so upset. Think of it more as a... statement,” the door begins to close, and it takes everything Tim had within himself not to lunge forward and make an escape, “who better to act as my personal weapon than the prodigy of than the Wanderer of Paths herself?”
“She’ll find me,” Tim hissed, wincing as he realized beneath the padded floors was a layer of iron, “they’ll all find me.”
“Through this iron-lined compound?” Ra’s had the nerve to laugh, “We’ll see. You’ll be reborn, Timothy. That, I promise.”
The door slammed shut, and Tim was alone.
Tim had been careless. He had thought that the area was free of civilians when he’d fought Killer Croc, but the street wasn’t. A child had stowed away behind a few upturned crates to hide from the scattering debris, and now Tim will have to pay for it. Really, it was no fault but his own.
The Revenants had dragged the kid into the open, the boy kicking and wailing while the undead creature bore only a flat and solemn expression.
“The Demon Head orders you to follow,” the Revenant says, its voice even and steady, a strange juxtaposition to the wailing and sobbing child, “lest you wish to see this child dead.”
The Fox cursed, his eyes darting between the child and the Revenant’s before his shoulders slumped in defeat. Tim’s comms were broken during the fight, and he was the last one to leave since the others had sustained worse injuries than he had. Now, Tim was severely regretting every decision that brought him to that point.
He was forced into an iron collar and blindfolds, those items effectively turning him from one of the most dangerous creatures alive, to nothing more than a feeble fucking lamb.
The cries of the child fades as a smoke fills his nose, forcing into Tim’s esophagus and then his lungs. He hacked, shoulders shaking as his chest struggled to expand, to inhale as an overwhelmingly dizzying sensation overtook him. And then, with a faint clicking, the Fox’s awareness fades.
He doesn’t know how long it has been. He- he doesn’t- he doesn’t know how long it had been. How long has it been? He hadn’t talked to someone in ages- it had just been white- only white. Nothing else.
There, in the center of the room was an inconspicuous bowl of plain rice, but he hadn’t touched it since it was brought in. He doesn’t know how long it had been sitting there, but it was long enough for the grains to grow hard and solid.
His stomach snarled, everything within him ached and screamed with pain, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. His limbs shook and trembled as eventually, the pain faded away to a dull, barely-there throb.
He was hungry, so hungry. But- but he couldn't- he could make himself eat it.
The bowl was taken away sometime while Tim was asleep. It was never brought back.
He wakes up, mouth filled with a coppery metallic taste as emerald chases the edges of his vision.
Slowly, he feels talons drag through his hair, a burning sensation tearing through his veins- at complete odds with the now-biting chill of his mist.
“W-what happened?” he rasped, eyes slipping shut as something deep within his chest settled at the sensation of talons gently dragging against his sore scalp.
“You,” said the man with emerald eyes flecked with gold, “have been reborn as my right hand, my Teimuraz.”