DianaLaura &KaliAnn: That's for saying you like the flashback! I loved doing them, I love building Starfire's culture. And yes the Starfire/Superboy friendship is starting, and it will be good for both of them as by looking after Star like a big brother Superboy will grow in a way he couldn't with Miss Martian, and Star will have some one to take care of and teach.
Amyanime4: I think Blackfire will have black hair for reasons I'll mention later
S.Y.G-14:thank you for saying you like the warrior part in the last chapter, that means a lot, God Bless you and the serving member of your family!
TitansFire: Been a while since you reviewed welcome back and I hope you review again!
I own zip zero nada nothing
Chapter 12
Happy Harbor, Road Island
The Town
'X'hal bloodily bones…no…'
How had the Hunters found her so quickly?
By the World's Soul, the Gordanians were surely in the middle of a full fledged Battle-Royal!
Surely it made more sense to have every hand on their front lines to break Earth's defenses. Especially if they were anything like the boys she previously thought of as her opponents.
But no more… if any of them had any hope of defeating these monsters and protecting the town-folk, Koriand'r would have to call them allies, and find a way to convince them to consider her the same.
Because if she didn't…
If she couldn't…
The results would be worthy of horror tales.
Against her will, visions of torched houses and slain bodies filled her mind, alternating between the earthen village before her and the destroyed ones back on Tamaran.
If her war-breed people hadn't been able to withstand Gordanian brutality, then this frail settlement of fishermen and boaters would be utterly exterminated.
And just as before, the fault would be solely hers and hers alone.
Y+J
The first seconds after the roar pierced the air were filled with wide-eyed confusion and (though Robin was loathed to admit it) panic.
It was so menacing, so wild, so down-right bloodthirsty that for a spilt second everything Batman had ever taught him flew out of his head and the thirteen year old found that he had to fight the urge to flee.
And if the Boy Wonder could be so shaken, how were the others managing?
Not so good, as a quick look up would prove.
K.F. was a ghostly white, contrasting drastically with his carrot-top head. His eyes were large with fear behind his goggles, larger than Robin could ever remember seeing them…save for back when they had first become friends, and eleven year old Wally still lived with a father who had seen his child as an acceptable punching bag.
Robin didn't enjoy seeing that look again.
Aqualad was some what better, though he too was as tense as a trapezes wire. His jaw locked, he had a white knuckled grip on his water-bearers, and bore a striking resembles to a cornered shark.
And as for Superboy…
The Kryptonian was half standing, his face drawn into a snarl as he glared down the street…
Following his friend's gaze, Robin swallowed hard.
'Oh crud.'
Standing at the end of the street was a trio of machines-androids he was sure.
They were ridden by a trio of green aliens that had been a part of the attack on the Capital, teeth bared, and fists clutching long staffs that were crackling with electricity at both ends.
And as for the androids themselves… they were something out of a sic-fic, futuristic Frankenstein horror story.
They were the size of lions, though considering that they had four eyes, it looked as though they had been cross breed with some sort of spiders, among other species… and everyone of them had to be lethal.
They were killers, of that Robin had no doubt.
So what the hell were they going to do?
But fortunately-or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it-that decision wasn't his to make.
When the lead alien-and wow they were even uglier up close- raised his staff and screamed a war cry that its mount echoed; a cry that froze Robin's blood.
It was a horrible, unearthly shriek.
And that wasn't the worst part of it.
Something in that long unnatural sound had the power to summon every bad memory to the forefront of the Boy Wonder's mind.
In chronological order.
And suddenly he wasn't Robin anymore. He wasn't the Bat's Brat, wasn't thirteen, wasn't the kick ass sidekick that had laughed his way fearlessly through the streets of Gotham.
Suddenly he was eight years old again.
He was a much loved circus brat… his mother's Little Robin.
He was young and innocent…and powerless and helpless.
That was why he couldn't do anything when those trapeze wires snapped.
(And the sound bounced around his head, then and now, because sometimes he dreams he's in the dark, with that sound and only that sound…a sound that he will never forget).
Couldn't do anything but watched as the people who loved him, and cared for him and protected him fall more that three stories to their deaths, their hands just barely grasping each others before the hard, early March ground broke their bodies.
(That's another sound that he will never forget).
That is his first truly bad memory, and from there they just keep coming.
After his parent's murder, there came the days spent in Juvenile Hall at the orders of a social worker, who for…personal reasons…was prejudiced against his Romani (or gypsy as her bigotry labeled it) background.
The images of his days and nights there rocketed across his mind-with the feeling of pain, loss, and fear.
Fear of the roommate who threatened to break his jaw if he cried for his parents in the dead of night.
Fear of his social worker and her hard cruel eyes…fear that one day she might just do something worse than call him names.
And above all else, fear that the nice man with blue eyes that are amazingly similar to his own, who understands the pain and how it hurts, will never come to free him from this hell, and he'll have to stay there the rest of his life.
Thankfully, that last fear was unfounded.
That nice man did come for him, and freed him from Juvenile Hall.
And not only that, but he made him his son.
And he gained not only a second father, but also a grandfather (who is a strange combination of James Bond and Mother Goose) and he also gains something back-his freedom.
(As said in one of his favorite movies, '"gypsies don't do well inside stone walls"').
And with that freedom was power granted through a persona that honored his Mother.
A persona that was created to be the light to another's darkness, a yin to a yang.
A force for good.
But as said in another of his favorite movies, '"With great power comes great responsibility."'
And pain.
The next four years held some of the worst memories of his life…along with some of the greatest… but thanks to whatever these aliens had done to him (he knows that they did something because this is not normal), those happy memories are beyond his reach.
Which meant he was stuck with the bad.
Now he was nine years old and facing the Joker for the very first time. Robin can't stop laughing due to the Joker gas that is in his lungs, despite the fact that he really wants to because no mater what the clown thinks the situation is-not-funny.
And then the clown has him by the throat, and is running a blade over his cheek for no other reason than because he likes to draw blood.
But what truly scares him is the aura of pure madness that seeps from the man, the realization that Joker either wouldn't or couldn't tell the difference from right and wrong...
And he wasn't the only one.
He received his first bullet wound from Penguin three mouths into his career (just a glaze wound, though both Bruce and Alfred absolutely lose it).
He was being smothered by Poison Ivy's plants two weeks later.
He first endured Scarecrow's fear toxin at age ten (And this little stroll down memory lane has nothing on that).
He is almost eaten alive by Killer Croc.
And the next night he is frozen alive by Mr. Freeze.
And then there is last year, when he was twelve, and Two-Face all but beats him to death with a baseball bat.
And between all these events are the crimes committed by the non-crazy crooks of Gotham.
There's the time he saw he first murder victim (besides his parents that is).
There is the night he first heard a woman scream for help because a man is hurting her. And Batman makes nine year old Robin sit out for that one, and for about two years he doesn't understand why.
Then he is eleven and breaking up his first gang fight, and despite the rush he feels about half way through, and the fact that he will be laughing by the time he is done, the first five minuets were terrifying.
And that is all he is permitted to remember.
"Enough!" Robin heard himself snarl, and the sound is as though he is at the end of a long tunnel, away from himself.
Through sheer will-power he forces himself to return to the present, to be thirteen, to be the kick ass hero he has grown to be.
After he takes some ear plugs from his utility belt, and shoves them into his ears, his first thought is to check on his friends… and what he sees is heart-breaking.
Superboy and Aqualad were frozen, eyes wide and hands over ears as they try to fight off whatever was being done to them.
For once it was Wally who had been hit the hardest, who was unable to dodge a crucial strike.
Kid Flash was in the fetal position; his eyes squeezed shut and his hands covering his head as though he is trying to ward off blows. And that's not the worst of it; because his mouth is moving, and while Robin can't hear his friend's words, he can read his lips.
Stop, please stop.
I won't do it again, I'll be better; I'll pay attention in class.
Please don't hurt me.
Robin doesn't want to think about what K.F. is being forced to remember. Though if he had to guess, he would say that the speedster hasn't left the torture he endured as a young child. He hasn't even gotten to whatever happened after he became a hero.
Those aliens are going to pay for this.
But any and all thoughts of revenge were wiped from his mind within the next five minutes, and were replaced by wild terror.
Because now Kid had somehow forced himself to his feet, clearly fleeing an unseen abuser, and had stumbled away from the relative safety of the position he had been in, tumbling into the open street.
Right in front of aliens who have the real ability to hurt him.
"KID! KID GET AWAY! RUN!" Robin hears himself scream as he tried to get up and go after his friend, because unlike with his parents, he is no longer helpless, he has the power to protect the people he loves.
Which meant he would have no excuse if he failed now.
But his normally graceful body is not fully recovered from the shock it has undergone, and so it refuses to obey his commands, and he finds himself sprawled across ground.
"No!" he growls low in his throat, because this can't be happening, he refuses to believe this is happening.
But it is. It is happening, and Robin can only watch as the lead alien-whose mount is still shrieking it's torturous sound- takes note of the speedster that is cowering before him on the street…and smirks.
Turning his head upward to where the Alien-Girl is still hovering (Robin had completely forgotten about her) the green alien smugly calls out something to her before digging his heels into his mount's metal sides and riding towards Kid-his staff held high and crackling with volts.
Robin honestly thought his heart stopped in that moment.
'…no, oh God please no!'
Humm… I think I've been reading too many angst fics. But nevertheless I wanted to try to write the Dark Side of Robin. And that isn't an easy thing to do I'll tell you, because his role to Batman is to be the light to the dark. But this kid has had it rough. He is a survivor… And here is a fun fact… Did you know that in some parts of Romani culture the robin is consider a lucky bird? Some parts in this are based of paganpunk2 fan fiction Fireworks. I highly recommended it. Also I admit that the whole Hunter's scream thing was based on the ring wraiths from Lord of the Rings.
