"Who are you?" Jason asked, eyes wide in confusion. "And who is Jason?"
Did they somehow have the wrong person, Roy wondered.
But it had to be him. The scarred face and crooked nose, the skunk stripe in his hair, those strange eyes… they were uniquely Jason.
"Jason's a buddy of ours," Roy explained, not a little sarcastically. "Looks exactly like you, should be hanging around here somewhere, maybe you've seen him?"
Jason's eyebrows remained scrunched.
"No?" he said. "It's just me, the Essence, and the Archivist. Maybe you have the wrong mountain."
Kori's mouth was hanging open in disbelief. "You are joking, right? This isn't funny!"
But Jason's face betrayed nothing. "Why would I be joking?"
"If you are not Jason Todd, then who are you?" Ryand'r asked.
"I'm…" Jason shrugged. "I'm nobody. I don't even have a name."
Roy was pissed enough for all of them. He turned around and walked out without a word. Kori was right behind him.
"Are we about to go harass a child?" she asked, most likely referring to the Archivist.
"Yup."
"Excellent. I can't imagine that Jason did this to himself, no matter what he went through. Running and hiding has never been like him."
"He did this himself," Siaru explained, far more patiently than he felt. "I'll even allow you to view my memories of the event, if that would help convince you."
"Yeah, that's a definite yes," the obnoxious human man snapped.
"Excuse me? We seem to have wildly differing interpretations of social protocol."
A small gun sprang out of the man's prosthetic arm, pointed directly at Siaru.
He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.
"By all means," he said, "murder me. I assure you, it will be entirely counterproductive. I won't help you as a ghost, either."
The alien woman pushed the man's arm away.
"Please," she beseeched him. "We understand the inconvenience, be we only want to help our friend. We're beginning to make ourselves sick with worry, causing us to act rashly. Please forgive us. Would you please help us understand what's going on?"
Silently, he regarded her just long enough to make it frustrating.
"Were you the only petitioner I had, I would gladly accept your kind words," he said. "However, I'm feeling incredibly insulted by your friend." He stared directly at the man, switching to addressing him directly: "Do you honestly think you deserve my knowledge?"
The woman leaned over and whispered, "Do it for Jason," in the man's ear. The man sighed. Heavily.
"Please accept my humblest apologies. I'm mad at the Universe, not you specifically, and acting like a dick. I will… make efforts to improve."
Siaru rolled his eyes again. "Good enough."
"I can't handle what's coming," Jason said, shaking his head. "Not like this. Usually, I can handle distractions, but now I'm too scattered. The intrusive thoughts are… too much."
"Have you tried Adderall?" Siaru drawled.
Jason glared. "I'm serious! You have to take the memories. Anything connected to what happened to me. Please."
Siaru sighed. "Very well. But the more I take, the harder they will be to recover."
"I know. I understand the consequences, and I'm fully ready to deal with them."
"Doubtful," Siaru scoffed under his breath.
Had Roy been Tamaranean, his hair and eyes would've been blazing at that point. Kori's certainly were.
"You!" she spluttered. "He… he asked you to remove the memories relating to what the Joker did to him! Not every memory in his head!"
The child's face remained impassive. "And be glad that I didn't. Otherwise, he would be a quivering, infantile mess."
"You know what she means!" Roy interrupted on her behalf, slapping the desk in fun of Siaru. "He has no idea who he is!"
Siaru steepled his fingers and stared the pair down over them.
"Personal memories are interconnected," he explained. "Leave one, and it would be like knocking over a row of dominos. He would fill in the blanks far too easily, and taking the memories in the first place would be essentially useless."
"Then what was the point of taking our memories the first time we met?" Kori asked. "If they would just come back anyway?"
"True, they likely would have come back, but it takes time. Especially the small memories. Bigger memories are more eager to restore themselves. I don't expect you to understand."
"That's it," Roy huffed. "We're going to see your boss."
He turned and stormed out of the archival building. Kori turned to follow him, but Siaru pointedly cleared his throat behind her, so she stopped.
"And how is your own restoration project going?" he asked.
Kori frowned. She had the shape of it now, but details were still missing.
"Stolen memories always return. Repressed memories are up to you to return to yourself. Maybe you just fear what you'll find."
"So, do you really not have a name?" Ryand'r asked, regarding the Earth-man his sister and her friend seemed convinced was their Jason.
The Earth-man scratched his head, a frown twisting his face. A face which, Ryand'r observed, was even more interesting than most Earth-people's – especially his eyes. The spots of black in the center of white was normal, but the rings separating the black and white were fascinating. Mostly, they were brown. But green also radiated out from directly around the black, and each ring had a splotch of blue at its base. His eyes held galaxies.
"If I have a name, I don't remember it," he said.
Ryand'r tilted his head to one side and blinked slowly. "Then what do they call you?"
"'You,' 'him,' sometimes 'boy,' but I don't mind. I don't need a name."
Ryand'r felt his eyebrows shoot upward.
"Not to offend you," he said, "but that makes no sense."
"I have a simple life here!" the Earth-man explained. "I don't really need an identity."
He did not sound at all sure.
"Isn't it boring, not knowing things?"
The Earth-man's expression changed immediately.
"I am so bored!" he declared. "I hate sitting still, and waiting, and all this… busy work!" He gestured wildly with the large spoon he'd been stirring the pot with. "I wanna do things that require effort, for once! Please, even if I end up not being the guy your friends are looking for, let me come with you."
Ryand'r smiled. "I doubt that will be a problem."
"Mother!" the Essence complained. "Surely you cannot be serious? If the Twice-Born's friends take him, his memories will return in no time! They do not seem like the type to not interfere. They will try to 'fix' him, and when they succeed, we are all doomed."
Ducra sighed with the endless patience of the dead. "Dear, whatever happens, Jason has to make his own choices. His friends can't force him to go with them, but we can't force him to stay. Whatever he chooses, we'll just have to make it work."
The Essence squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Remind me again why we could not just train Talia for this?"
"Talia is certainly experienced, but maybe too much so. She is set in her ways, sticking to the patterns she's traced through the centuries. Even taking her memories couldn't change that. Jason, on the other hand, is still so young. He's still deciding who he's going to be. He may be thick-skulled, but, to quote Miss Dickinson, he 'dwells in possibility.' He actually stands a chance."
"I am definitely going with them," he said. "I appreciate everything you've tried to do for me, but I've learned everything you'll let me learn from you, and I have to know more. Please don't be upset."
The Essence looked sad. Or frustrated. He couldn't quite tell.
"We are just trying to keep you safe," she said. "There are things out in the world best left unknown, and my personal belief is that you are unprepared to face them."
He felt his own frustration rising to the surface.
"You've never believed in me! The entire time I've been here, you've been watching me out of the corner of your eye! Is there something wrong with me? Please, tell me something!"
The Essence sighed. "You have a soul that has known incredible sorrow. There is a great light within you, but the darkness that sorrow brings would extinguish it if given the chance. I am not at liberty to tell you what is coming, but I can say that you will need every bit of light you have if you want to survive it. You understood this, and chose to cut away the darkness."
"I don't think I would've chosen this if I had known it would leave me like this." He gestured to himself.
"Believe me or not, you did understand. You made the most difficult choice we could ask you to make, even knowing what it would do. Your heart is noble, and I can say that with confidence. But if you leave now, as you are, you are in grave danger. We cannot protect you beyond the mountain."
He squared his shoulders and looked directly into the voids of the Essence's eyes.
"If I am everything you say I am, then trust me. I can handle the world beyond the mountain. Tell me, the people who came after me, did I trust them?"
The Essence nodded slowly. "I believe so, but –"
"Then I trust them now. I'm going with them."
The Essence sighed, defeated. "You are still beyond stubborn. Mayhaps nothing I do will make a difference. Go. But know that you are always free to return."
"How ya doing, kid?" Roy shouted at Jason over the wind.
Jason was clinging, wide-eyed, to Ry's neck for dear life as the Tamaranean carried him through the air with the speed of a fighter jet.
"Don't like it," Jason replied as quickly as he could. He appeared to be focusing his efforts on not puking. Roy knew exactly how he felt.
"We are nearly there," Kori reassured him, inadvertently shouting directly into Roy's ear.
Kori's island actually came into view sooner than Roy thought it would. As soon as she set him down on the deck of the ship she'd turned into a home, he collapsed, chest heaving. Ryand'r touched down with Jason a second later, and it was at that point that Jason started throwing up as if his life depended on it.
"First time's always a killer, huh?" Roy couldn't help quipping once the retching died down, because technically, Roy supposed, it was the first time Jason had flown, as far as Jason knew. The memory loss was giving everything a tint of Twilight Zone. Jason just groaned.
"I'll get you two some water," Kori said.
"Awesome." Roy waved weakly. "We'll stay here and try to return to solid form."
After "returning to solid form," everyone seemed to be in agreement that popcorn and a movie were the only matters in need of attending to.
"Why," Roy groaned, sinking onto the couch beside Jason and Ry, "did we not just do this in the first place?"
"Everyone kept needing to be saved," Kori replied playfully, curling up next to him and turning the TV on.
"I thought I was gonna quit doing that?"
Kori ruffled his hair. "You're too caring for that. You cannot help yourself."
Oof, right to the heart of matters.
"Just find a movie and stop reading my mind."
Kori giggled, but logged herself into Dick's Netflix account without making any more comments.
"Hey, what's that one?" Jason piped up as Kori scrolled through suggested titles. "Go back."
Kori scrolled backward as requested.
"Stop! That one. Stardust. It sounds… familiar, almost."
Roy and Kori exchanged a look. Was Jason remembering something?
"Do you want to watch it?" Kori asked.
Jason shrugged. "Sure, if you guys are okay with it."
Roy skimmed the description. "Hmm. Lighthearted, family friendly, sounds like just what we need right now."
"I'm fine with whatever!" Ry chimed in.
"Sounds unanimous to me!" Kori said, then hit play.
Ryand'r wanted to stay. He truly, deeply wanted to spend more time with the big sister he barely knew and her friends on the strange planet they called home. But the war for Vega's freedom would not end just because one of its warriors was homesick, and he had been away from the Omega Men too long already. So he thanked his sister for everything, told his new Earth friends how glad he was to have met them, and sent out a signal to the mothership that he was ready to return.
Within the hour, he was back with his crew. Kalista informed him of her happiness at his return, and it felt good to be back.
The only thing that would've felt better was staying on Earth.
After Ryand'r left, Kori's heart felt a little heavier. She longed for more time with the only family member she had left.
"You'll see him again before you know it," Roy told her, voice soft in order to not bother Jason, who had fallen asleep on the couch.
Kori sighed. "I wish you were right. But he's fighting a war. Wars are not won overnight."
Roy opened his mouth to say something else, but the lights went out, plunging the room into ink-black darkness.
"That would be the generator having a tantrum," she said. "It does that. Wait here."
"I can't exactly see to do anything else," Roy's voice said.
"Right…"
A small halo of Sun-fire flared up around Kori, not fully illuminating the room, but providing enough light for Roy to find the emergency flashlight on the wall.
"You are good?" Kori asked once he'd flicked it on and made sure it worked.
Roy nodded, flashing her a crooked half-smile. "We'll manage."
Kori returned the smile, then headed toward the electrical utility room. Her footsteps echoed loudly in the darkness. She always hated when the generator went out; the dark was eerie and made the whole place feel haunted. She could almost imagine the yawning mouths of empty doorways and dark halls were moaning, sorrowful with their lot in life…
She hurried on.
The generator room was no better than the hallway. Shapes seemed to move and flicker in the soft glow Kori cast, darting around in corners or crawling across the floor.
As Kori reached the generator itself, she noticed something very strange. The generator hadn't shut down on its own, it had been shut off. Deliberately. Kori switched it back on, and with a hiss, something sprayed her in the face. Her skin and throat burned, and when the lights came back on, so did her eyes. She coughed, clutching her throat, and stumbled backward, directly into another person.
"Hiya," a woman's voice said. Then, a blade slashed across Kori's chest and the burning worsened.
Kori turned to face her attacker, and her vision started to blur. All she saw was green. She launched a starbolt at the green blur, but it danced out of the way, its laughing echoing her coughing.
"I'm not here for you, sweetie," the voice said. "So I don't have to kill you unless you force me to."
Kori tried to respond, but all that came from her mouth was more coughing. She fired another starbolt, and something stung her in return.
The voice was becoming distorted as it said, "This is getting pathetic."
The room was tilting and spinning. Kori wasn't quite sure when she hit the floor, but she knew it would be a while before she got back up.
Roy was starting to drift off when the lights came back on, startling him awake. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, flicked the flashlight off, and got up to put it away.
After restoring the flashlight to its spot on the wall, he started cleaning up the popcorn, dumping the little bowls back into the big bowl and chasing down the stray kernels. He crouched down to get the ones that fell on the floor and groaned internally when he saw how much had been kicked under the couch.
Footsteps echoed as someone came back in the room.
"Kori," Roy announced, brushing himself off as he stood up, "we're gonna have to vacuum."
He looked up. The woman standing in the doorway, arms crossed, was definitely not Kori.
"Jade."
Jade Nguyen flashed him an emotionless smile as she informed him, "I'm not helping you vacuum."
The gun sprang from Roy's arm as he stumbled back in surprise. "What do you want, Jade?"
"Preferably, you dead and our daughter alive, but I'll settle for just the first part if I have to. Ooh, nice upgrade on the arm." She clicked her tongue as she walked into the room. "Chill, honey. I'm not here for you. I just want him. Or, more specifically, the League does."
She nodded toward Jason, who was starting to wake up.
"The League? Of Assassins?" Roy thought he knew Jade better than that. "What are you doing with them?"
"None of your business. Now let me at Jason or get hurt."
"You. Can't. Have. Him," Roy growled.
Jade rolled her eyes. "Please. I'm not going to kill him. This is strictly a kidnapping unless it goes completely sideways. Don't do anything stupid."
Unfortunately for her, "stupid" was an important part of Roy's vocabulary.
"Jason," he said, making eye contact with the now fully-awake and scared shitless Jason on the couch, "run."
He fired a shot at Jade and she flipped out of the way, Jason dove to the floor, and the chaos ensued.
As Jason scrambled for the door, awkwardly adjusting his crutches as he moved, Jade grabbed a throwing knife from her belt. Roy launched himself over the couch, knocking her out of the way. He grabbed Jade's wrist, trying to wrestle the knife away.
"Let go of me, Harper!" she grunted as she punched him with her free hand.
Roy allowed the punch to knock him to the floor and grabbed Jade's ankle, tripping her as she ran for the door. She remained on her hands and knees for a second, then turned to look at him with murder in her eyes.
"Okay," she said. "You wanna do this? Then we'll do this."
They both got to their feet, eyes locked. Then, Jade lunged, catching Roy by the throat and slamming him into a wall. He grunted as all the air left his lungs.
"I hate you," she spat, squeezing his airway shut. Roy struggled to pry her hand loose, but she was determined. "We had a chance to get our daughter back. And you threw it away because you want everyone to be just as miserable as you are! I will never forgive you for that."
Roy tried to form a response, but all his words were being choked away. Jade held up her free hand.
"What do you think you deserve?" she asked, flexing her fingers. "Because I'm thinking slow and painful."
She held up her middle finger, then carved a shallow slice down his cheek with her nail. Only then did she let go of his throat.
Roy gasped for air, throat – and cheek – burning.
"We could've been so good together, Roy! But you are such a dick." Her voice cracked with emotion.
She grabbed his face and kissed him. Despite himself, Roy leaned into the kiss, caressing Jade's jawline with both hands.
The tingling he felt in his lips confirmed his suspicion that she had some kind of paralyzing agent in her lipstick. He was used to this. He could try to fight it, keep going after her, trying to stop her with everything he had left. Instead, he sank to the floor, giving in to the numbness spreading through his limbs.
"Goodbye, Roy."
He burst through the door into the light, panting slightly from the effort of running with crutches. Hearing footsteps behind him, he picked up his desperate pace across the deck, until he reached the edge.
What now? he wondered as he stared down into the waves lapping at the hull of the ship. Could he jump? Or would that mean certain death?
"Don't do anything stupid," a woman's voice drawled behind him.
He turned, trembling, to face her. The woman wore a green headband that kept her long, black curls out of her face. Her tunic, leggings, and boots were all green, as were her long, sharp fingernails. The wicked blades that hung from her belt were a well-polished silver. She was like an emerald nightmare.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, doing his best to keep the trembling out of his voice.
"War is coming," she said. "And you owe the League of Assassins quite the debt, as I understand it."
"Assassins?" White spots danced in front of his eyes. "What kind of person am I?"
"Doesn't matter. Now, we can do this the easy way…" She unsheathed one of her blades. "Or the hard way."
He didn't see many options.
Still, he felt the need to ask, "What did you do to the others?"
She smirked. "I knocked the princess out. Roy is dying."
Deep inside, he felt something twist. He didn't remember anything about them, but he hated to just leave them to die. Surely they didn't deserve that?
The assassin seemed to gauge his apprehension, and scoffed, "Don't look at me like that. I'm almost one hundred percent sure they'll both be fine. They're annoying like that."
Jason nodded at the reassuring(?) words. He had found a note in his book, written in his own handwriting, that simply read "Go with her." At first, he thought it was about Koriand'r. Now, he wondered if it was actually about the assassin in green, a hint of a warning about claiming responsibility for the past he had chosen to forget.
"Okay. I'll come with you."
"Roy? Oh God, Roy what happened? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Roy?"
"Please tell me you packed your antidote kit."
"Yes I packed the – Oh, I should probably be using it, then."
"That would be my suggestion."
Roy moaned in pain as feeling slowly returned to his body, burning like when your leg falls asleep and the feeling just starts returning to it.
"It's okay. You're gonna be okay, just hang in there."
"Don't. Want. To," Roy ground out. The antidote was almost as bad as the poison had been.
"Yes you do."
"Try opening your eyes."
Roy forced an eye open, followed by the other eye. Oliver Queen was leaning over him, watching him intently.
"You had us really worried, kid. Knew you could make it."
Roy nodded, trying to blink away the tears in his eyes that were forming from some combination of pain and relief.
Dinah Lance was sitting on his other side, holding his hand with both of hers.
"We are about to have a very long talk."
Kori pushed herself to her feet, angrily inhaling as deeply as she could. The green blur had made her look like a fool, and if she were still hanging around, Kori would make her pay.
Still catching her breath, Kori shuffled into the corridor, her blazing hair lighting the way back to her boys. She blazed even brighter when she saw someone dressed in green kneeling over Roy.
But he must have sensed she was there, because he looked at her right before she could blast the green person and shook his head.
"Kori!" he exclaimed, a smile brightening his face. "It's okay! Cheshire's gone."
The green-clad person turned, surprised, to look at her. Green Arrow! Oliver Queen! And, on Roy's other side, Dinah Lance! Kori exhaled all her anger, letting cool relief take its place.
"I think I'm good to sit up without throwing up," Roy informed his parents. Gently, they helped him sit vertically with his back against the wall.
"How did you find us?" Kori asked.
Oliver waved his hand. "Mia did some kind of computer voodoo you'd have to ask her about. Thank God she got it right."
Kori noticed the empty space in the room for the first time.
"Where is Jason?" she asked.
Roy turned white, while Dinah and Oliver shared looks of confusion.
"She took him," Roy muttered, trying to get to his feet. "Jade took him. Shit. Shit."
"Roy, sit down," Dinah cautioned, grabbing his shoulder.
"No, we gotta find him. We… he… I feel very lightheaded, but the point stands!"
He slid back to the floor and groaned, burying his face in his hands.
"I will find him," Kori decided. "You are going to stay here and take care of yourself."
She couldn't be sure, but it looked as though Roy was pouting.
"I think that's the smart thing to do," Dinah agreed.
"I don't wanna do the smart thing!"
"You sound like Ollie."
"Hey now!"
"Sorry honey, but nobody – including yourself – can deny that you can complain."
"Excuse me!" Kori interjected. "Do you know where they went?"
Roy nodded. "Jade's working with the League of Assassins. She's taking Jason to them."
"Then that's where I'll look."
Dinah held up a hand. "Whoa. Excuse me. That is the worst idea. You are not taking on the League of Assassins by yourself. You need a plan."
Kori tossed her hair in the most regal manner she could come up with. "I do not plan. I do."
She turned and strode from the room, feeling ready for anything and afraid of nothing.
Roy pulled his knees into his chest, feeling like he was fourteen years old again, getting dragged into the headmaster's office for the first time after punching a bully.
"I don't want to talk," he said. "I want to find Jason before he ends up dead."
Ollie not-so-subtly exchanged a look with Dinah.
"Jason Todd?" he asked.
"Priorities, Ollie," Dinah replied.
She pulled Roy into a hug he couldn't resist returning. "We've been so worried about you. We thought we lost you so many times."
The guilt he felt was horrendous. Now that he was thinking clearly, he remembered the things he had said to Dinah and Ollie. And to Mia. And to all his friends; especially to Donna.
Donna… She'll never forgive me. And I don't deserve her forgiveness anyway.
"You did, a few times," he said. "But I'm here now."
"That's good," Ollie replied with a smile. "I miss my partner."
The hug they shared was a little awkward, but much-needed.
"Now for the not so sappy part."
Of course. Here comes yelling.
"You need to come home."
Roy shook his head. "I can't do that. Not now."
"Roy," Dinah said, a warning in her voice, "we found you half-dead on the floor of a beached naval cruiser in the middle of the Caribbean. You need help."
His panic levels rose to red-alert status as memories of forced hospitalization surfaced; abandonment, confusion, chaos, and despair chasing each other around inside him, repressing every other emotion.
He shook his head harder. "I know I'm broken. But I have to fix myself. Everyone else puts the pieces back together wrong. I'm working on it, I swear. I'm getting better. But if you stick me in a hospital, I won't. That's not what I need right now."
Dinah and Ollie both seemed surprised by this.
"Roy…" Ollie began.
"… we never thought of you as broken," Dinah finished.
"And we won't take any measures without your consent. We just want you to come home."
"Let us help you find Jason. Five heads are better than one, and with Connor and Mia on board, we can resolve this in no time."
"C'mon, pal. For old time's sake?"
Roy weighed his options. If he stayed put, he'd be working solo with no way of contacting Kori and no way off the island, plus the fact that Ollie and Dinah would never be satisfied. If he left, he ran the (however unlikely) risk of getting double-crossed, but if Ollie and Dinah were telling the truth, then he would be back with his family, working with them to find Jason.
"Okay," he agreed. "Let's go home."
Kori came to the realization that it probably was a bad idea to take on the League herself pretty quickly. Instead, she had a different idea.
She only had to adjust her course slightly to get to Tibet. The mountain was snowy, but the Sun was shining this time. The mountain was waiting for her.
"Do you know why I am here?" she declared as her feet touched the ground of the All-Caste.
In a plume of smoke, the Essence appeared. "Yes."
"I know you don't want to hear what I have to say, but you need to. Jason was taken by an assassin working with the League of Assassins. His life, and whatever plan you have, is in danger. You need to restore his memories, no matter the cost."
For once, the Essence sounded sympathetic, instead of condescending, as she spoke.
"Princess," she said, "Jason is where he needs to be. Twice-Born by way of the Lazarus Pit, he has been imbued with a particular set of abilities which make him one of the few mortals capable of diffusing the coming conflict. But he can only do that if faced with the conflict. Surely you understand that?"
Something about the immortal being's entire manner was pissing Kori off.
"I understand," she said. "But I do not understand how you expect this plan you have to work? He remembers nothing. He will almost certainly die!"
"Jason fully understood the possibility of his death when he undertook this mission. As a warrior, I am sure you are familiar with the concept of making the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good?"
"Do not patronize me," Kori growled. "I fully understand the concept of sacrifice. And if Jason's memories of consenting to a mission that could mean his death are gone, then so is his consent. He no longer understands what's happening! He is not choosing a mission, knowing he could die. You are sending him to certain death."
The Essence's face blanched as white as her hair and robes.
"Mayhaps," she said, "it would be best to have this conversation with mother and Oskar."
Home. Home had never been a place – Roy moved around too much for that, and Ollie's place had a tendency to get blown up – but with the right people, anywhere could be home.
Roy paced the kitchen, drumming his fingers against his legs. Connor was at the stove, working on a dal tadka recipe. Ollie and Mia were finishing a quick patrol, and Dinah was dropping Sin off with Scott and Barda. Everyone insisted they would help Roy after they finished what they needed to get done, but it felt like it was taking forever.
"Dude," Connor said, very kindly, "you look like hell."
"I've been spending a lot of time there," Roy replied.
Connor snorted. "Go get some rest. The world will still need saving half an hour from now."
"I'm not tired!" Technically, he was exhausted. Poison, jet lag, and anxiety were a horrible combination.
"Yes you are."
"Yeah, I am."
"I won't let the world end without you."
"You're a good man."
Roy shuffled off to the other end of the house and collapsed on the living room couch. It felt as though he had barely fallen asleep before someone was shaking his shoulder.
"Roy," a voice said. "Roy, wake up."
Roy opened his eyes, and for a second thought it was Connor standing over him. But wasn't Connor's skin darker?
Roy blinked. Connor also didn't have green eyes.
"Joey?"
"There's no time to explain," Joey replied. "You're not safe here. They're coming for you, you need to run."
"Who? Joey, I don't –" he rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, Joey was gone.
"Joey?"
Roy stood up, fighting back a yawn. He looked around the room. It was starting to get shadowy with the afternoon light coming through the windows. But there was no doubt that he was alone in the room.
He went to the door, but the moment he touched the handle it flew open, almost hitting him in the face.
"There you are!" a man said, his mouth curling into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Roy took a step back, but the man stepped toward him.
He smelled like tobacco and looked like he smoked a lot of it, with graying hair and thin features that made him look older than he probably actually was. Nothing about him seemed exceptional, but he radiated an energy of hopelessness.
A woman stepped out from behind him. She seemed less snakey than the man, but she had a real Evil Art Teacher vibe about her.
"I told you the other one wasn't who we were looking for," she said, giving the man a sideways look.
The man cracked his knuckles. "I know, Three. I could tell from the way he practically radiated light."
Connor. They had to be talking about Connor.
"What did you do to him?" Roy snarled, fists clenching.
The man and woman exchanged a glance, then turned their stares at him.
"He's asleep," the woman replied, smiling sweetly – though it was more of a fake, Splenda sweetness.
"We even turned the stove off," the man added. "So don't worry."
Roy punched him, not caring that it felt like punching a wall. The man grabbed Roy's arm and effortlessly flipped him off his feet. Roy's back hit the floor hard, knocking all the air out of his lungs.
As stars danced in front of Roy's eyes, the man grabbed his arm again and the woman grabbed the other, pulling him to his knees. Roy struggled, but their grip was like iron.
A third uninvited person strolled into the room then. Roy's eyes traveled from polished shoes to a perfectly tailored suit to another face with an icy fake smile plastered on. He struggled harder, but the results were the same.
"Let him go," the newcomer ordered casually, inspecting his nails instead of looking at the people he was talking to. "Even if he could hurt us, he won't want to when he realizes we are the only ones who can actually help him."
The first man and woman relinquished their holds on Roy's arms.
"That's better," the second man said. "We're civilized people. We could try and act like it."
"Civilized people don't break into people's houses and make thinly veiled threats," Roy countered. "So I'd say you're doing a shitty job of 'acting like it.'"
The man laughed. "You have a lot still to learn about the world. But you have time for that. I should introduce myself. You may call me Five. I am about one thousand years old, and not quite what you would consider human. You've met Three and Six."
He offered his hand, but Roy ignored it and got to his feet on his own.
"Just tell me what you want."
Five still had that used-car-salesman smile on his face. "Very well. We both have business with the League of Assassins, as I understand it. My siblings and I, for example, need access to a Lazarus Pit, but the League doesn't like to share. They have wards in place to keep my kind out. Luckily for us, your human blood allows you to walk right past the wards, and once inside, you can dismantle them for us. The reason I'm confident you will help us is that the League has taken your friend. Get us into the compound, and the two of you walk free."
"Three," Roy corrected.
Five's eyebrows knit together. "Hmm?"
"My other friend went after him. There would be three of us."
The smile returned, full-force, to Five's face. "Of course! Help us, and the three of you walk free. We will gladly provide everything you need. What do you say?"
He held out his hand, ready to close the deal. Roy stared into his eyes. They flashed gold for a split second, and they were consistently hungry, but there was no sign he was lying.
Roy weighed his options. If he said no, there was a distinct possibility he'd get murdered. Or, even if they left him alive, he'd have to wait for his family to get home, come up with a plan that would probably have chances of total success somewhere within a single-digit percentage, and then have to deal with people having the audacity to care about him when it was all over. The whole thing was a lot to deal with.
Roy sighed as he shook Five's hand. "I'm in."
A/N:
Hi guys! *waves* I've missed you! I've been backreading through the original comics and... I really hope my adaptation is more coherent than the source material. That's all I'm going to say for now.
-fun fact from the History department: a good number of Archivists are Like That in real life. not being a grad student, I haven't had a reason to visit any actual archives, but from the stories I've heard from people who have, I've gathered that: A) archivists are often pricks, and B) you should never spend a significant amount of time in the archives if you haven't brought your own toilet paper, because you will regret it.
-This will not be the last time I reference Stardust, because it's a damn good movie.
-I'm sad to say goodbye to Ryand'r, too. Maybe he'll return someday!
-Jade Nguyen wears pants that actually cover her ass because I said so.
-"I do not plan. I do." -me, on my way to find Thai food in a city I'm not very familiar with and have only a vague sense of the direction of.
-Oskar is the ghost of that German guy from a billion chapters away. I don't want to admit where I pulled the name from.
I say this every other chapter, but this is officially the longest chapter I've ever written. 19 pages! I'll try to make the next one shorter as a breather before the finale. Love yoooouuuu!