Chapter 3: The Procedure

Batman hung up with Robin and made a call. The voice on the other end picked up, prompting Bruce. "J'onn. Do we still have details on the Khund people in The Watchtower's archives?"

~~~~~~

Robin got off the phone and came back into the room to find Keith staring at the x-ray. His hearing was disengaged, so he didn't hear him enter, but he did feel the vibration through the floor and the closing of the other room's door. Keith switched over to his speech and sighed. "I knew it was bad. I just wasn't prepared for how bad." He shut his mouth and engaged his hearing, determined to let that be all he said.

Robin hid a frown well, shaking his head slightly. He took a deep breath before he began to propose Batman's deal to Keith. "Bruce is making some calls. But he told me extend his conditions for helping you." Keith nodded as a signal to keep going. "He will help you, but in return, he wants you to join the lesser branch of the Justice League, and serve as mentor to them after your business with us is through." Robin waited with baited breath for Keith's response.

Said response didn't come until 3 hours later, Robin having left soon after the proposed deal. Keith slowly paced in the medical bay, deep in thought. 'If I join the Justice League in any capacity, then my days of vengeance will be over. With that many Justice League eyes on me, I won't be able to do anything of that sort without serious repercussions from them.' He blew a sigh. 'I would happily accept those repercussions, except I would be put away for a long time, possibly as far as in Arkham. There's a fine line I walk, and if I get put away, I won't be able to get back on that line.' He stewed over thoughts like this for about an hour and a half, before he caved. 'If I don't get this done and get fixed, I won't be able to continue my vengeance anyway.'

He sighed and left the medical bay. Apparently all the titans were either asleep or out doing something, unsurprising given how late it was. Raven, however, was still up, reading in the main living area. "Do you happen to know where Robin is?" He leaned against the couch.

She shrugged. "Nope. Might be out doing stuff with Star." She didn't look up from her book, and her hood was still up.

Keith shrugged. "I'll just sleep in the med bay until he gets back then." He shrugged and turned around, only to stop when he heard Raven begin to say something, but stop herself before. Tension in the vocal cords were easy for him to pick up. He smirked and turned around in the doorway. "Goodnight Miss Roth. Wake me when Robin is back" He closed and locked the door to the med bay then.

Of course, he didn't actually sleep. He was still a self-imposed insomniac. He waited an hour or two, his internal clock feeling it to be about 2am, before he heard Robin's voice outside the med bay. His voice was panicked, and Keith caught a brief segment of a girl's voice. Keith left the med bay, prepared to give his response to the deal, only to find himself flying back into the med bay when Robin crashed into him from a blackbolt, courtesy of Blackfire. Keith ignored the pain that flared up in his back and grabbed his staff. He charged out of the medbay, somersaulting over a blast only to nail Blackfire in the temple with his staff. She took the hit cleanly, staggering slightly, before Starfire flew in from outside, looking tired and a little worse for wear. It was a matter of seconds before the other Titans joined them.

Blindside used his staff to pole-vault again, barely avoiding another blast and kicking Blackfire in the throat hard and cleanly. He followed this with a combo of heel kicks and side kicks to the kidneys, her chest, and finally her chin.

Unfortunately for him, she wasn't as hurt by these attacks as one would expect. after the kick to her chin, she used that momentum to feed into a backflip. She then engaged in hand-to-hand with him herself.

Keith was immediately at a disadvantage. Super strength against his staff causing heavy vibrations encouraged him every time she blocked to drop his staff. He grunted in frustration, before he mentally said "Fuck it" and elected to take a kick to the leg, his costume responding to the kick by releasing its built-in flash system and blinding Blackfire, in order to slam his staff into the side of her head. Naturally, his leg was now shattered, but he kept himself up with his staff just long enough to switch to his use of speech and utter one word, "Surrender", fueled with as much charmspeak as he possibly could, before he passed out due to pain as his adrenaline died. Keith was unable to witness it, but the instant he uttered the word, Blackfire's eyes when blank and she held her arms up in a "freeze" motion.

~~~~

Batman, Robin, Cyborg, The Flash, and Superman himself stood around Keith who was currently passed out on an operating table. A team of every type of surgeon was on hand, and curiously, one or two of them were aliens. J'onn Jonzz, aka Martian Manhunter, stepped into the room shortly after with a hand to his chin, thinking. "It might just work. But I don't think we can do it...naturally."

Batman groaned. "You didn't."

J'onn sighed. "I did."

Not even 5 seconds later, both Dr. Fate and Zatanna entered.

About 6 hours later, they put Keith under anesthesia. The plan: Magically fuse a compound of titanium, Nth metal, and several samples of Khund bone marrow into a single substance. Following that, the many many many segments of Keith's bones that were almost non-functional would be replaced by this material. His skeleton would appear as a patchwork quilt to anyone who saw it. Batman provided a sample of the Lazarus Pit's waters to dip the compound into, just for general purpose and to maybe heal Keith's damaged muscles. All the heroes, save for Dr. Fate to make sure the compound stayed together, promptly left the room once all was prepared. This saved them the horror of gazing upon Keith's scars.

Dr. Fate, however, made mental notes about Keith's scars, provided here for the reader's sake:

The horribly grotesque and sickly yellow scar at the base of Keith's neck. One of the surgeons, upon Fate's ask, examined the scar for a moment and deduced the caused: Repeated stabbing. The scar was caused by a stab wound being treated and healed at a hospital, only for it to be done again. The doctor guessed that this was repeated about 25 times.

His back - good god, his back! - displayed a massive chart, scarred and burned and cut into his back, with endless tally marks within. It covered more than half of his back, probably from the nape of his neck down to the small of his back.

The surgeons, and Dr. Fate, collectively suppressed their horror, and got on with the task at hand, as uneasy as they now were. Almost an entire day later, with 3 different teams of surgeons cycling in, Keith's consciousness slowly returned to him.