This mini-story takes place after Teen Titans #31, but does not coincide with "Captain Carrot and the Final Arc".
It was a dark and stormy night; raining cats, dogs and everything else, and I tried to calm myself down for my annual visit. Commissioner Doggone was just as quiet as I was; my orange 'union suit' and red mask that covered my face didn't even faze him. Then again, walking the beat as much as he had would make anyone dog tired. Not that I would know, since I'm a rabbit - Captain Carrot, to be exact.
Yeah, that Captain Carrot. Formerly of The Zoo Crew, and now, just a solo act.
You must think that's some kind of sick joke, and you would be right. Only the joke was on all of us, especially me.
No one thought that Felina...I mean, Alley-Kat-Abra...would turn on us like this. Little Cheese got the worst of it, he's long past gone in that great cheese wheel in the sky. Fastback was sent off like a speeding bullet, faster, faster, faster still and then into nothing as he faded into a time warp seemingly never to return. American Eagle had a lot of his own family wiped out - no thanks in part to our identities being revealed to our own worst enemies.
Rubberduck doesn't take any of my calls, nor does Yankee Poodle. From what I hear, though, YP is running across America as a fugitive, accused of trying to assassinate Mallard Fillmore. Pig Iron left us in a huff and a puff, he was just too mercurial to begin with. But then, what did we expect from someone metallic?
So here we are, me and the commissioner. The car had already stopped, but the thunder and lightning hasn't let up, fighting for dominance as the words "BARKHAM ASYLUM" lights up right above us. Felina must be expecting us. Hell, in this place, we're all mad and I'm already running late as it is.
Both of my feet pad slowly down the hall as I'm led in by the guard, who eyes me a bit suspiciously. "You sure came to right place, bud." He growls, as his canines flash in my face right along with the dull beams from the lights above us. For just a moment, I feel a sudden chill. Colder, and colder still, until I see a door that looks almost frozen over. Beady red eyes only stare back at me, and a voice as cold as the grave comes out and croaks at me: "Good to see you here, Rodney. I haven't forgotten how you left me here, right with her. You tell her, I don't forget. Revenge is a dish, best served...cold...." Of course Cold Turkey would have to make things more unbearable; luckily, he was being kept on ice, at least for now.
Finally, I'm led to Felina's cell, and there she is in her full costume, but her hood is cloaked right over her face, so I can't quite fully see her. Maybe it's better this way. Yet I can't help but feel that there was so much left between us, unsaid, that needed to be said. That's why I came here, to end this charade once and for all.
I pause, and the lightning strikes with a booming roar that almost makes me jump right through the ceiling.
"Felina...I came...to talk. About you; about me; about...us."
She doesn't reply. Laying down one card at a time on the table, a quiet fnap fnap fnap it nearly matches my heartbeat as they read out my fortune. Not that I believed any of it, she couldn't read -that- far into the future when she left us. But who really knew her anyway? I thought I did. I thought I even loved Felina, at one time. When I lost Carrie to her though, that was it. All of it came crashing down, just like the stack of cards she was playing. And the stakes couldn't be higher; but, much too late, she was double-dealing all of us.
"Look.." I croak as I take off my mask to her. But she doesn't acknowledge that either; laying down what she has on the table, letting her hand play out to the end. So I go on. I have to. I have no choice, she has to hear me out. "I don't know what happened between you...and Chester. I don't really want to know, either. But maybe I've been there. Maybe...maybe I can help...maybe we can even help each other. So that you don't end up killing me, and I don't end up killing you. It doesn't have to end like this."
Felina doesn't say anything; she's completely catatonic, staring right at me with a menacing Cheshire grin and a blank, glassless stare as her last card lands right on the table. A dull hiss of laughter suddenly surrounds me, and for once in my life as a rabbit, I feel like I'm right in the center of her cross hares. "It's not funny, Felina! Can't you see how we're going to end up? What are you trying...." I grab her, forcefully, but that laughter gets louder, and louder, and then her cloak fell right off from her face.
My anger explodes, all at once. "LEAPIN' LETTUCE!!! WHERE IS SHE?!?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE?!?! WHAT YOU'VE LET LOOSE?!?!" As soon as I had put my mask back on, the Commissioner had run right in the door and tried to pull my arm away from her cowl; it was no small thing to control my strength that matched my rage. "...If you harm one hair of her head, Captain, so help me, I'll throw the book and then some at you!"
I laughed at that, but not with any humor that was left to spare. "You can have her hair, Commissioner." I pulled the cloak off from 'Felina', but it wasn't really her at all. A copycat actually, one of her catspaws in her employ, while she must have made her getaway from the Asylum. But, who knows how long she was missing? How far ahead was she, and who would catch who, in the end? My heart sank as I knew this nightmare was just getting started.
God help us. God help us all.
Art by don nero :B
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7 years, 1 month ago
15 Nov 2017 17:08 CET
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