"Aqualad, what's going on?" Miss Martian asked as she looked upon her leader's face. He seemed worried about something.
He looked up from the floor, "Zatanna has gone missing…"
Both Superboy and Miss Martian gasped in surprise, "When?!" she asked.
The Atlantean turned from his two teammates, a sigh escaping his lips. His thoughts wandered for a moment on everything that had happened in the last couple of months. First they lost Kid Flash, Tigress discards her old persona, Nightwing takes a leave of absence and now Zatanna was missing. It seemed that so many things were determined to tear their team apart! He knew that he would need to inform Tigress of her best friend's disappearance, and as a courtesy, Nightwing as well. That conversation would not go over well.
"Aqualad!" Superboy's voice boomed, bringing the hero out of his thoughts.
"Oh yes, forgive me. I seemed to have been lost in thought," he replied.
"So do you know what happened?" Miss Martian asked, as her hands wrapped around her boyfriend's arm in concern.
He shook his head in response, "I do not. All I know is that she went looking for the missing Dr. Fate by herself and she too ended up disappearing."
It had been two weeks since the disappearance of the all powerful magician and a week since Zatanna disappeared. Many Leaguers had been sent out to look for them, but with no luck. Although none of them were showing it, they all knew that the disappearance of the two most powerful magicians in the Justice League wasn't a good sign and something powerful was on its way. Without a way to find them, or with any knowledge of what happened, there was no way to find out what was in the works. Without any magicians powerful enough to find their location, the Justice League was searching blindly and had nowhere else to turn. They were stopped dead.
"Well we have to go searching for them!" Miss Martian exclaimed.
"No." Aqualad stated firmly, "We have other objectives to oversee and take care of. As much as I would like to search for our friend, we have duties to attend to and cannot."
"You're wrong." Batman's voice came from behind the Team leader.
"Batman…" Aqualad began to question.
The veteran hero put up his hand, "I've already recalled Tigress. This is a job for The Team, mainly you four. You grew up with Zatanna and maybe a fresh, young pair of eyes will have better luck then the rest of us."
Aqualad nodded, "Thank you Batman."
A Batman was walking away Tigress came jogging up to them from the zeta tubes. Her blond hair swayed against her back and flipped against her shoulders as she came to a stop in front of them. She looked a little battered from her mission, but otherwise unharmed. Superboy pushed Miss Martian's hands off his arm and greeted his teammate with concern for her injuries, although she brushed them off as nothing. Miss Martian looked to Superboy with confusion as to him brushing her aside, wondering what his problem was. This type of behavior had been going on for a few months and he refused to tell her what was on his mind. As a promise to him, she no longer read his mind and thus allowed herself to be kept in the dark about his thoughts.
"I heard what happened," Tigress said, "Where do we start in looking for Zatanna?" she asked sternly, upset that some villain had the audacity to abduct one of her friends.
"We start at Zatanna's last known location," Aqualad replied quickly.
The Team appeared in the burned down forest Zatanna had last been. The four of them looked around from where they stood; it looked like nothing was left. A barren wasteland of what used to be a beautiful forest on a small island. The air was still teaming with the radiation the fire burned with. Never again would plant life live on this island; it was destined to be a wasteland of decay and death from now on. The dirt beneath their feet almost felt like mud, only more dense, yet not like clay. Ashen trees stood, black and barren as if death was all they knew. It was a shame that no matter what anyone had tried, nothing had been able to grow here. On the instruction of Aqualad the four spread out to search for anything they could find.
Miss Martian followed Superboy, hoping to get some answers, "Conner, what's wrong?" she asked floating next to him as they searched.
"Hm? What'd you mean?" he asked.
"You've been acting strange the last few months, ignoring me, brushing me off…stuff like that," she replied looking a little sad as she moved a large rock with her telekinesis.
Superboy looked back at her, "You're really going to ask me that now? When we're in the middle of searching for Zatanna who is in potential danger?"
"I'm just worried that something's wrong!" she retaliated, a tree uprooting because of her small outburst.
"Nothing's wrong alright," he huffed, brushing off her feeling of anxious insecurities and walking away from her.
Dropping to her feet slowly, she watched his back as he walked away from her. M'gann put up the hood on her cape and let her head drop in silent depression, slowly walking in the opposite direction Superboy was going. She knew now that something really was on his mind and she had to keep telling herself not to pry into his mind. He knew her mental touch and would instantly know she was rifling through his thoughts if she did. It was so hard to keep herself from knowing and waiting until he was ready to tell her, she was going crazy!
Superboy let his eyes wander over his shoulder at the alien walking in the opposite direction as him. Sure, he felt bad for hurting her feelings but he wasn't ready to talk about things with her. It was probably a mistake on his part, considering he wasn't the best about talking about feelings, but he just needed his space. Why didn't he just say that to her? Was it easier for him to just push her away rather than talk to her? For him, it was. He was so confused! He felt bad for hurting her, but at the same time he didn't. With a grunt of annoyance at himself, he kicked a boulder as hard as he could shattering it to pieces. Tigress looked back at her teammates and almost instantly knew something was up between the two that had seemed to have the rockiest relationship out of their whole group.
"This is useless!" Tigress shouted in anger. "We can't find anything here!"
The four of them regrouped, "You're right," Aqualad stated, placing a hand to his chin in thought.
"What we need is Nightwing," Superboy suggested.
"You know as well as I that he has taken a leave of absence," their leader replied.
"Yeah but he's the best detective we know, next to Batgirl, but she's busy on a mission so we're stuck," Miss Martian agreed with Superboy. "We need to ask for his help. I'm sure if he knew it was about Zatanna he would help us," she added.
"Okay, but even so, he's probably busy with school or work," Tigress stated.
Aqualad sighed heavily, "We'll just have to give it a try."
The four of them boarded the Bio Ship and set off for Bludhaven without a word. Things were strained between the group now that Kid Flash was gone and they knew he was never coming back. Sure they had tried to search for him, thinking that maybe he had just been zapped to another dimension or somewhere else in the world. There had been no such luck. They knew for a fact that he was gone, and gone for good. Artemis, now dubbed Tigress, had grown bitter, angry and increasingly distant from The Team since the news of his permanent disappearance. There was no bringing him back and it hurt her to the very core. She loved him with all her heart and soul; now she was going to have to walk through this world without him. She wished, more then anything, that she could just feel his touch again. His comfort was all she wanted. A tear slipped from her eye, getting caught by her mask. Shaking her head, she pushed, with great effort, her thoughts of Wally away. She needed to stay focused.
With the sun still shinning overhead, they could see Bludhaven coming into their view. None of them knew Nightwing's personal schedule so they had made the unanimous decision to wait for him at his apartment, having been there for his birthday months before. Parking the Bio Ship on the roof of his apartment building, the four of them got of the ship and made their way to the fourth floor from the roof. Standing in front of apartment 414, Tigress picked the lock to allow them in, locking it behind her so Nightwing wouldn't get suspicious and attack them.
With a tick of the clock, it read five o'clock. Aqualad looked out the window and saw the setting sun illuminating the sky, silhouetting the bodies of Miss Martian and Superboy who had stepped out to talk privately. They had been waiting for about an hour and all but him had made themselves at home in their friend's apartment. Tigress was making herself something to eat, just as Dick walked through his front door.
"Caldur? Artemis? What are you two doing here?" he asked as he placed his keys on the small table near his door and threw his backpack on his couch. "And why are you eating my food?" he asked, looking at Artemis with a raised brow.
She shrugged, "I got hungry waiting for you."
"Waiting…How long have the two of you been here?" he asked.
"We are not alone," Aqualad replied, motioning to the couple on Dick's balcony. Dick looked in their direction, wondering why they were outside.
"They needed…'alone time'," Artemis said through her bite of the sandwich she had made, reading Dick's expression of curiosity.
Dick nodded and sat on the nearest chair, "Okay, so why are you here?" he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
"We need your help," Aqualad replied.
"Whoa." Dick put his hands up, "I told you six months ago that I'm not doing the hero thing for a while."
Artemis rolled her eyes, "Yeah we know, but this is serious otherwise we wouldn't be here."
Aqualad stood up from the seat he had taken, looking at his friend with intensity, "Zatanna is missing."
Dick instantly stood up with eyes wide, "What?!" The sound of his voice caused the couple on the balcony to come back inside.
"She's been missing for a week now…along with Dr. Fate. We've been sent in to investigate but don't have the proper detective skills required to find any solid clues," Aqualad continued.
Without a word, Dick walked out of his living room and into his bedroom. The four of them looked between each other, before looking down the hall. Miss Martian commented that he must be really upset about Zatanna's disappearance for him to just leave the room without a word to them. He was the best at hiding emotions, but even they could tell the visible display of anger. Moments later he came back dressed in his Nightwing costume.
"I know where to start," he stated as he put on his mask.
