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THIS IS NOT MY STORY

This story was written by adorable pragmatism. I am not associated with adorable pragmatism in any way, but when his/her account was deleted, I felt that the loss of this story was truly a shame because, in my humble opinion, it is the best Young Justice/Teen Titans crossover ever written. There are 24 chapters. This story is not complete, and will not be complete. If you notice any formatting issues, leave a message on your way out since I'm just copy/pasting from my copy of the story. adorable pragmatism, if you're out there and you want this story removed, just shoot me a message.

Chapter One

—The Team: Robin—

—Friday: Outside Gotham City—

They all dealt with disappointment differently. Conner closed himself off, Artemis lashed out, Kaldur found some way to blame himself, M'gann got big-eyed and sad, and Robin? Robin usually ignored it and found something else to be 'appointed' with. Even he had his limits, though. Tonight they were being stretched.

Overall, they were a pretty quiet bunch when disappointed. Except for Wally.

"Three times! Three! When are we going to get some action for once?" He tugged at his red hair in frustration.

Wally was an agonizer.

The Team had been called to the hazardous materials disposal facility on a report of suspicious activity. Restless and hoping for a villain or some sort of super-creature to fight, they were far from appointed when all they found was the aftermath of a battle. Again.

Rubble littered the asphalt. The thick concrete wall that surrounded the place had a large chunk torn out of it. Most of the destruction was focused around this wall; Robin deduced that this was where the fight took place. Acrid red slime pooled on the ground and clung to the nearby buildings.

All security cameras were out, fallen and smashed or limply hanging by a few wires from their perches. The security guards had been knocked unconscious and intentionally moved behind a building, sheltered from the fight. Robin could smell the traces of knock-out gas in the air.

Someone had been here before them, and that someone hadn't stuck around.

Miss Martian floated higher in the air. Her eyes glowed white as she scanned telepathically for any people hidden. "I don't think there's anyone here." Despite her words she looked unsure, biting her bottom lip as she returned to the ground. With a mental command she morphed her black jumpsuit into a colourful dress of red, white, and blue. Similarly, Kid Flash pressed the lightning-bolt logo on his chest to change his uniform from night-time stealth to his usual bright yellow.

"Who keeps doing this?" Artemis was lowering her bow. Weapons were being put away all around as it became clear they weren't going to need them.

"That is what we need to find out," responded Aqualad, sheathing his water bearers. The tattoos snaking his arms faded from electric blue to black against his dark skin. He addressed Kid Flash. "Do you see the same type of energy residue as before?"

Ruby-tinted goggles covering his eyes, Kid Flash indicated a seemingly normal patch of ground. "There it is," he confirmed. "Still don't know what it is... it's not dangerous though. Looks kind of like the energy from zeta beams." He'd spent over an hour (a long time for a speedster) analyzing the energy samples from previous occasions and hadn't been able to give them any conclusions—only grumpy retorts—when they asked.

Aqualad turned to Robin. "Do you believe it is the same person?"

"Try 'people'." Robin looked up at the much taller leader. "And, yes. The smashed cameras, the patch of energy, any possible spectators knocked out and moved away from the scene—definitely their MO. They're fast, strong, and they don't want to be seen."

"What makes you so sure it's a group?" asked Artemis.

"Yeah," mumbled Superboy. "Couldn't it just be one really powerful guy, or something?"

"Or girl," Artemis snapped, one hand on her hip. Pure attitude wrapped in green spandex. "It doesn't have to be a guy, it could be a girl. Or a woman."

"I said, 'or something'." He jabbed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and kicked a piece of rubble irritably.

Robin cut in before things could get ugly. He could see Kid Flash just itching to join in and change the tense comments into a full-blown argument. "I'm sure it's a team. A very organized team. Trust me."

And they did. They always did. He was the youngest, but the most experienced. He'd been around the block a few times, to say the least. With all the time he spent with the world's greatest detective, those powers of deduction had rubbed off on him. Right now, those powers were being put to the test.

A pattern was emerging. This marked the third time they'd been sent on a mission only to find a freshly abandoned battleground. The events didn't have much in common on the surface, except that whatever was supposed to happen never seemed to happen. A shipment of electronics, some crates destroyed from fighting but most untouched. A bank broken into but not robbed. And now, a perimeter wall down but inner buildings unbreached.

The obvious question was the one he kept hearing his teammates ask: "Who?" Their mystery people weren't giving that answer up easily. What Robin found more pressing was the 'why'. He didn't understand the motives, and that disturbed him. When the motives weren't clear, that always meant something larger was at work.

Aqualad split the team up. "Miss Martian, Kid Flash, and I will revive the guards and see if they can remember anything. Robin, Artemis, Superboy; search for clues that may shed light on what happened here."

Kid Flash rushed ahead—a blur of yellow—causing a gust of wind that almost lifted Miss Martian's skirt in a way that could only be completely intentional. Especially since he doubled back to 'apologize', making it happen again.

"'See if they can remember anything', right," said Robin under his breath as he watched the group of three round a corner. He knew Aqualad's questioning was a dead end. The guards they'd encountered the past two missions hadn't been able to tell them much. They hadn't even seen who hit them with the knock-out gas. These mystery people knew what they were doing.

Then again, it wasn't like Robin's own investigation held much promise. Whoever these people were, they didn't like to leave a trail. A careful survey of the area revealed nothing new. He paused to watch his investigation partners.

Artemis had been examining the hole in the wall when some red slime from above dripped onto her head. She was now angrily muttering and trying to wipe the sticky stuff from her long ponytail.

Superboy was standing still, arms crossed over the "S" insignia on his black t-shirt. His fierce, ice-blue eyes surveyed his surroundings as though trying to scare any evidence out of hiding.

Artemis walked over to where Robin was half-heartedly checking the shattered remains of a video camera for something salvageable. She was still fussing with her hair. "What is this red gunk?" she grumbled. "It's not toxic or something, is it?"

He straightened up and tossed down a cracked lens. "No, not really. It might give you a rash if it's on your skin too long, so I'd be careful."

"You've seen it before?"

"Yep. It's from Plasmus." Worried lines appeared on his forehead as he thought about the slime creature. "Who is currently supposed to be in a top-security prison on the west coast."

She jumped onto his train of thought. "Kind of like at the bank." She was referring to the second time they'd been beaten to the punch (most literally). "When all the evidence was pointing to that LeBlanc guy, but he was in jail in Europe."

"And more patterns emerge," mused Robin. He looked over at Superboy, who had snapped out of his staring-into-thin-air trance and was now shifting through some slime-drenched rubble by the wall.

"What about the first time?" Artemis asked.

The first in this string of disappointing non-missions had taken them to a docked ship full of electronic devices for transport, where they had found some busted crates and a strange haze of electrical interference along with the typical smashed surveillance cameras, knocked-out guards, and patch of zeta-like energy.

"I don't know," Robin said truthfully. "That one could've been a few different people."

Superboy joined them. "Found something." He held a golden arrow clutched in his large fist. Robin was taken aback. How could he have missed that? Then he remembered: he didn't have superhuman vision like the boy of steel. Right.

The arrow exchanged hands. Artemis held it up, examining it with an expert eye. "Energy arrow." She indicated the end, which was cylindrical rather than sharp. "Must be a dud, or it would have gone off when it was shot."

"Or it wasn't shot," Robin offered. "It could have been dropped. We know for sure they don't know it got left behind. They didn't want to leave us any clues."

"Well, I could always test it out." Artemis pretended to reach for her bow. "Not. The others would kill me for blowing it up."

Robin snickered. "Anything else?"

"Yeah..." she trailed off. Her dark eyes were troubled within her mask. "We make our own arrows, you know. Me, my uncle, and... whatever. So they're all slightly different, and if you know enough about arrows you can usually tell something about the archer. I know this is crazy, but this one kind of reminds me of Red Arrow."

"But, it's not even red!" blurted Superboy.

"Yeah, I agree with you, Artemis," Robin said, drawing a raised eyebrow from the girl. "That is crazy."

"I didn't say it was his. It just reminds me of one of his," she said hotly. "I know it can't belong to Red Arrow." She pointed the arrow at them so they could see the 'S' inscribed on the face of the cylinder. "You think he'd be caught dead using one of these?"

With a sharp intake of breath, Robin took the arrow from her for a moment and looked at it more closely. "You think we've got a copycat?" He handed it back. "Or has Green Arrow taken another new protégé since the last time I checked?"

She scoffed. "Not that I know of. My money's on the first one."

Superboy spoke in a low voice that sent chills through both his teammates and had them instinctively pulling out their weapons from the first word. "We're not alone."

Robin scanned the area, birdarang in hand. He breathed silently through his nose, listening for any out of place noise, however small. All he could hear was the distant murmuring of Aqualad and the others from the other side of the building.

And then—there, in the shadows on the right. Was that movement? He took a step.

"There," said Superboy firmly. He pointed to the left. Perched on the top of an intact portion of the concrete fence was a small squirrel.

Artemis let out a held breath, lowering her bow. "Just a rodent." She tossed back her blond hair, thoughtful for a moment, and then took aim again. "Unless you big heroes think it's a threat?" She gave a wry smile.

Whatever the shadows had been hiding was gone. It vanished in the split second that Robin was distracted. He didn't kid himself into thinking it was just his imagination. Trusting his instincts was often the difference between life and death.

On top of the fence, the squirrel was leaning forward intently. It was watching Robin. He was struck by the feeling that the creature seemed recognize him. But that wasn't the strangest thing about it, he realized.

"Hey!" Kid Flash skidded to a stop in front of them, talking fast. "We woke up all the guards. They don't know anything except that Plasmus was here, which is pretty obvious if you look around—but isn't he supposed to be in jail? Wait, is that squirrel... green?" he asked, following their gazes over his shoulder.

It was. Hard to notice at first, because of the lack of light, but upon closer look it was a deep, even green. Aqualad joined them, following Kid Flash, and even he—who had grown up in Atlantis and didn't know much about land animals—narrowed his eyes at its strange colouring.

"That's just not natural," Kid Flash continued. "Think it got into some toxic ooze and now it's some sort of mutant? It's freaking green! I— I mean," he stammered, seeing that the green-skinned M'gann had just floated into earshot and was frowning, "what a great colour! Don't see that everyday. I wish all squirrels were green." He grinned at her beseechingly.

Miss Martian kept frowning. Robin could see he wasn't the only one who noticed the odd intelligence in the small creature. "M'gann," he projected his thoughts at her, hoping she would pick them up with her telepathy, "scan it."

His suspicions seemed to be sensed by the squirrel, because it vanished behind the fence before Miss Martian's eyes even began to glow white. Hands to her temples, she concentrated, searching for its mind with hers. After a few seconds her eyes faded back to their normal amber and she shook her head. "It's gone."

Their chances of finding the animal were miniscule. It was too dark, and just beyond the wall lay a far-reaching area of dense trees. And really, chasing after a squirrel? Goodbye dignity.

Kid Flash stood by his claim that it was harmless—just an ordinary squirrel that got into some radioactive sludge. He was more interested in the discovered arrow, once Artemis and Robin showed it and explained their theories, claiming it as his souvenir.

Artemis eyed him with distaste. "That's evidence! And don't you already have an arrow?"

"I did. But you stole it from me, if you recall." He tried to clean the slime off the arrow by wiping it on the arm of his canary-yellow costume.

"It was mine to begin with. And if you recall, I used it to save your life. Something I am seriously beginning to regret."

Robin walked over to the spot where he'd seen the shift in the shadows. He took off a glove and placed his palm on the ground. It felt a few degrees cooler than it should. Behind him, he heard Miss Martian ask Aqualad what they should do next.

"We go back and tell of our findings," said their leader in his calm, deep voice. "And after that we contact Red Arrow."

Robin followed his team back to the bio-ship, giving the shadows one last backward glance.

oOo

Once under cover of the trees, the squirrel changed. Mid-stride, it became a sprinting greyhound. The sleek green dog ducked branches and leapt the hazards of the forest floor. It kept running long after it felt the invading tug leave its mind, until it was certain it was out of range. It eventually slowed to a trot and made its way down an incline, panting, until it stopped in a clearing.

The clearing was a small valley between two hills. A few stars were visible through a gap in the leafy canopy overhead. The moon could be seen too—thin and sharp like a hook. It threw very little light to the world below.

Trickling through the low area was a stream of water, narrow enough for a human to cross in one short step. The dog sniffed at it curiously.

"We're beside a building full of toxic waste. I wouldn't drink that."

The dog was caught off guard. Startled, it jumped, changing in mid-air and landing back on the ground as a slight boy with a green complexion and pointed ears. He wore a uniform of purple and black.

"Jeez, Raven," he said weakly, holding a hand to his heart. "Did you have to sneak up on me like that?"

A midnight blue cloak melted out of the darkness. It glided above the leaves and earth towards the boy. The hood was pulled back to reveal the face of a young woman. She seemed to glow a dull white in the darkness. Her hair was short and the same cool violet as her large eyes. A blood-red gem adorned her forehead.

"That girl was a telepath." Her voice sounded tired. "Did you get away in time?"

"Yeah, just barely. We, um, don't need to tell Robin that they saw me, right?" When she didn't respond he seemed to take it as agreement. "Did you see that one guy? The really big one? They called him Superboy. They have a Superboy!"

"I know. I was there."

"It's so weird that their Aqualad isn't our Aqualad... Do you think something happened to him?" he asked, ears drooping.

"Beast Boy, our Aqualad might not even exist here."

"Yeah, but Robin does, and so does Kid Flash. You saw them. And we know Speedy does... well, kind of. It sucks that we aren't allowed to talk to them—there's so many things we could tell them."

She put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes in frustration. "For the last time, they're not the same people. They might look like them, act like them, even think like them, but they're not them. They might have similar pasts, but that doesn't mean they have the same futures."

"You don't know that. I mean, what if they do? What if we could warn Kid Flash—"

"Do you really want to tell him? Do you think it'll help him if he knows?" she asked darkly, putting her hood back on. "We don't get involved—we've been over this with Robin. We should get back to the others."

"Wait," Beast Boy moved closer to her. "Raven, I know it bugs you, too. I mean, what if you exist here, but you're younger like Robin, and none of that... 'gem' stuff happened yet?" He winced, as if expecting her wrath in exchange for bringing up the topic.

She just sighed. "That's not the case. I'm not from our dimension to begin with... Pretty sure there's only one of me that you need to worry about. Why don't you just tell me what you're actually getting at, so we can go meet up with the team?"

He admitted it, with a sense of finally dropping something that had been weighing on him for a long time. "That blonde girl, at first I thought it was... her."

"It isn't. She's an archer, not—"

"I know! But what if she's around here somewhere, alone, and she can't control her powers? What if she needs our help?"

Raven placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Beast Boy, you need to stop asking 'what if'. This isn't a chance for us to change everything we regret. This world can solve its own problems; we're just here to clean up the mess we made."

They were silent for a few moments, and then:

"Raven?"

"Yes?"

"How mad is Robin gonna be at Speedy?" he asked gleefully.

"Very."