Hey everybody! Sorry for the delay again, hope you had a nice Monday xD

Now, before we start I have an important announcement to make. Due to the lack of time I've been having to write lately, I've decided to change the update rate to one chapter every two weeks. This is mainly because chapters are getting longer and taking more time to be written, so I need more time to revise them and things like that. So… according to this, next chapter will be up for Monday 25th (yes, still on Mondays).

Well, that was all. Let's begin!

Unfair Justice

Chapter Eleven

A deal with the wicked minded

"Phantom and who?" asked the startled atlantean as he observed the two annoyed figures, and no one could blame him from openly staring at them.

The two teenagers could have passed as twins. They shared facial structure and body built, But differed mostly in clothing and color scheme.

One of them had stark white hair and green eyes, and was dressed in a black jumpsuit with white boots, belt, gloves and collar; and in the center of his chest the boy had a strange drawing that made the heroes reminiscence of some of their seniors' logos, only his was a white stylized D with what looked like a small P inside. Overall, he looked like a healthier—and completely dressed— version of the teen they had met in the real world before 'the change'.

His counterpart on the other hand, didn't look to be in such a good condition. The black haired teen was leaning most of his weight on his doppelganger's shoulder as the white haired one supported him in a strong hold. The boy was pale and looked as if he had been in the middle of a battle, one that had somehow damaged his right leg, since he was trying to avoid placing any weight on it, his blue eyes wincing slightly when he moved. This teen was wearing your average civil clothes: a pair of faded blue jeans, a white t-shirt with a red neckline, and a green plaid shirt that was left unbuttoned, covering part of the view of his t-shirt. The clothes were stained in some places with what looked like blood and the boy seemed to be sweating a little while he glared at Kaldur for his question. This one looked like a healthier version of Phantom after 'the change'.

"Uh! Fenton, like with F-E-N…TON? You know like… well… like… like Fenton!" growled the black haired boy as he waved his left hand around trying to get his point across.

Kaldur couldn't help but feeling slightly bad for having made the clearly tired teen feel insulted by his confusion.

"My apologies. I didn't… hear well…" it was still weird though, he couldn't really get who Fenton was. The boy simply huffed in annoyance.

"Phantom and Fenton?" asked the dumfounded archer from the leader's right side.

"Uh, yeah?" answered the boy with the particular inflection that lazy teenagers would use when communicating. Or at least that's what Robin thought, because he used it sometimes to bother Alfred back at the mansion.

"Megan?" asked the boy wonder turning to his Martian friend, by now his tears had stopped and left dried tear trails on his cheeks. Still, he wasn't even aware that he had been crying in the first place, he was THAT confused at the time.

The green faced girl simply offered her still staring friends a small sheepish smile.

"Um… well… seems we found our guides," she said while rubbing the back of her neck. Her answer simply made their bewilderment grow stronger.

"THOSE are the guides?!" questioned Artemis in disbelief.

The sound of someone clearing his throat made the girl turn to look at the one that had called himself 'Phantom'.

"Those? Correct me if I'm wrong human, but I do belief we've already told you our proper names, it's only common courtesy if you call us by them. I shall not tolerate to be called anything other than that!" declared the teen as he gesticulated dramatically, accidently jostling his counterpart in the process.

"DUDE!" growled the other boy as he pointed to his wounded form. "LIKE, OooUCH!"

"Oh… Sorry, Fenton."

"Yeah… you better, dude…" whined the hurting teen.

"Hey… Megan… did that Phantom-guy just called me 'human'?" asked Artemis while the 'guides' were distracted with each other.

"Yeah… he did," said the embarrassed martian.

"Why would he do that?" she asked again, their two male companions shared Artemis' confusion.

"Well, I'm sure you can guess it if you look at them for a little while." The four turned to the bickering pair with curious eyes. Phantom was currently advising Fenton about something related to emphasis in his actions… and Fenton was just growling that all he wanted was a few hours of rest and a bowl of… did he said nachos? "Ok, perhaps at the moment they look too different to actually notice. But the thing is they represent each part of the real Phantom's psyche: the human and the ghost side."

Looking at the two of them again and noticing the glowing green light that was coming softly from Phantom's eyes and the red blood staining Fenton's clothes, they all nodded. Yep, definitely a human and a supernatural creature, no doubt.

"Ok… so we have two halves of one whole… are they really the ones that helped you out last time?"Asked Artemis, looking at the two teenagers still bickering by the side of a closed door. Somehow their topic had changed to the fact that one of them stole the other's hat and the other took his counterpart's… cape? Ok… officially too weird for her to even care.

"Yeah… they were actually very useful last time. But…" she turned to look at them with concern. "Last time I saw them they looked a lot younger, like around Robin's age… and Fenton wasn't in such a bad shape…"

It was at the mention of one of their names that the two guides finally shut up. They took on somber expressions as they avoided looking at the girl that had spoken lastly. Phantom's eyes roamed the team while Fenton's just lowered them to the floor, as if his old red shoes where really the most interesting thing in the world.

Suddenly, the glowing pair of green irises found their way to Robin's still disheveled looking figure. The boy wonder had to flinch at the intensity of the ghost's gaze. Why would he look at him like that?

Phantom tapped his counterpart on the shoulder and then pointed to the other black haired/ blue eyed teen in the cave. Fenton followed the indication and soon his eyes were fixed as intensely as Phantom's on the nervous looking teen.

"W-wha—?"

"Stop it." Ordered Phantom cutting Robin's question in the middle, his green eyes shining in warning.

"Wha-?"

"The rubbing thing, he wants you to stop it, dude," said Fenton as he pointed to the other teen's chest. It was then that Robin finally noticed that his hand had been —unconsciously— rubbing at his chest in soothing circles; strange he thought, I didn't even feel that.

"When…?"

"Since the 'you are trespassing' part," declared the human guide.

"You need to stop it. If you don't, the memory will take a hold on your subconscious and you'll become its host and be tortured by nightmares that will bleed into reality," explained the ghost boy, his voice resounding ominously with the natural echo that seemed to come from it.

"What?" asked Robin, troubled by his warning.

"You'll go nuts, dude," explained the other half, eyes half lidded in a bored expression. "As in… completely and utterly coo-coo," he even made the classic 'crazy sign' with his index by the side of his head to make it clear.

Looking at how serious they were at the moment, Robin couldn't help but shiver slightly at the prospect of going crazy over a simple motion. With surprising difficulty and reluctance, he forced his hand away from his chest. That memory… what he saw had definitely screwed him a lot in the head.

"It was a particularly bad memory, of that I'm sure," the boy wonder raised his head to see that the two guides had gotten closer to their small group that was still huddled on the middle of the passage. "That of being open up while you slept."

The teen cringed back as he felt everyone's' stare fall over him. His friends were obviously worried about this not so subtle description of what he went throu— of what PHANTOM went through! AH! His mind was playing tricks on him. He wasn't even planning on telling them what happened to hi—Phantom, to Phantom. With narrowed eyes as he tried to recover his bearings as he asked the two guides:

"How?"

"Oh, come on, dude! We are like, part of this whole thing!" said the human boy closing his eyes before moving his green shirt a little to allow the boy wonder to see the middle of his white T-shirt clearly. There was a huge red stain on the middle of it and small spots all over the clavicle area. "Besides, we're not just the 'guides' like Meg's said. We also act like your escape goats. So when you reacted to being cut… well… I kinda got the wound…" the boy grimaced as he pocked at the bleeding mark and muttered. "Dude, am I glad I'm only a figment of my imagination… this could seriously get infected if I were all real…"

Aqualad could only watch the boy with confusion for he seemed to take this thing on a stride. He also noticed Phantom's face showed a deeply rooted concern for his doppelganger as the teen messed around with his dirty shirt. Fenton seemed to have forgotten the world around him and was completely focused on his new wound with childish curiosity. Kaldur didn't miss the protective way in which Phantom seemed pull his other half closer to his body, as if he wished to hide him from the world… and perhaps, even from his team.

"So… every time a door opens…?" asked the atlantean trying to break the weird mood.

The ghost turned to look at him, eyes shining brightly in contrast with the half-light that seemed to cover the whole maze, giving a fleeting glance to his companion —who was currently looking at his chest through the collar of his t-shirt and making disgusted noises— before turning back to the leader with a sigh.

"No, only every time someone gets trapped in them. The original me made us to carry the emotional and traumatic load that comes from the memories in order to protect the 'intruder's'," at this part he send a sharp glare at the nervous martian by kaldur's side. "mental integrity. Of course, we can't help the phantom feeling that is left on you after going through that, but at least we can avoid you from getting 'physically' hurt. After all, your lives are all at stake here, when you enter a door you could easily get damaged in those mental bodies of yours." His eyes then fell on his still distracted twin, and he frowned slightly. "Unfortunately, since the original is in his human form, Fenton is the one that receives most of the damage in your stead."

The black haired boy raised his head at the mention of his name and laughed a little.

"The way you say it, dude, you make it sound like we are almost like extra lives for this guys… you know, like in a video game?... that's so totally sweet man…" The group of teens watched Fenton's reaction thinking he was a little too at ease with the idea of being an escape goat. "Oh, by the way dude… like… how many ribs does a person have? Cause so far, I've only seen three…" The team flinched back at the comment; perhaps Fenton was a little more than just at ease… he was probably slightly crazy as well.

The ghost half sighed in resignation, seemingly used to his counterpart's antics. Simply ignoring the human teen when he went back to looking at his chest, Phantom turned to the boy wonder once more.

"In any case, you human boy, are perhaps the most unlucky lucky person to have entered a door so far."

Robin lowered his sight for an instance and picked up his glasses before placing them on. He didn't like the feeling of Phantom's green eyes seeing directly at his blue ones, he almost felt as if he was being chastised.

"Why?" he asked, unable to think of how someone could be even slightly lucky of having gone through that.

Phantom balanced his human half towards the wall delicately, making the surprised boy yelp and send a pretty nasty scowl his way, but that was understandable since the movement must have really hurt a lot. Once his hands were free, the ghost took a thinking pose, ignoring the growls that came from the boy leaning on frozen rock.

"Well, from what we have found so far, you got one of the worst memories. So, you are unlucky. But, from all the worst memories, you got the best one. So you are lucky," the teen explained as he moved a hand for emphasis, his voice making funny inflections every few words.

It was then that Robin, for the first time, noticed he was actually listening to Phantom talk. The boy that was mute in the real world was talking to him, right here, right now… and he couldn't help but wonder if the original Phantom talked this way too.

"You are talking," it was a stupidly obvious statement, but Robin had to say it. Unfortunately, his comment was awarded with twin curious stares directed at his blue eyes, and even though he had covered them with glasses, he still felt as if he was only a little kid and an adult was making judgment of his attitude. Robin hated that feeling! And yet… couldn't help but apologize… why was he being so docile now? "I'm sorry… I… I wasn't really paying attention…"

"Well, duh." Said Fenton, pushing against the wall to try and straighten himself up a little now that his twin had left him to fend for himself. "With a nightmare like that, who wouldn't? I mean, this wound is no joke, dude," his comment made Robin wonder if under that t-shirt there really was a wound like the one he had seen in a memory… but he doubted it. If Fenton had a wound like that, it would bleed profusely and his insides would be at risk of falling out of place, as disgusting as that mental picture may be. "Hey! Bird boy, don't think too deeply into it. I'm not real, remember?" And how the hell was he even able to know what he was thinking? "Dude, it's like written all over your face." No, it was not. "Yes, yes it is." No. "Yes." No. "Yes." No. "Yes." No. "Yes."…

"Enough!" called Phantom before turning to his damaged half. "Fenton, we don't have all day, so stop fighting with that human like a little child!" the black haired boy answered his ghost counterpart by blowing him a raspberry. Ignoring the immature reaction, the ghost turned to Robin and added. "And you, I hate to tell you this, but inside our head we make the rules, and if we say you are easy to read, then you are, understood?"

The other teenagers watched as Robin nodded back at the ghost, not even completely sure what had just happened between him and Fenton, but finding it amusing that Phantom had reprimanded the two boys. Artemis looked at Robin's slightly flushed face and was glad he had gotten over his mental breakdown so fast. Unaware of it, her right hand began rubbing at the point on her arm in which she was given the shot in the memory she saw. But this all stopped when she felt someone looking at her, gazing up she met a bright pair of shinning green eyes focused solely on her and couldn't stop herself from gulping out loud. Why was he even looking at her for?

"Hey, Mr. I'm-a-responsible-and-mature-guy, didn't you say we had things to do? Stop staring at the archer chick, and get on with it!" Hearing the voice of his counterpart, Phantom turned slightly to look at him before nodding.

"Right," the white haired teen then turned to look at the martian, making her nervous once more, as he crossed his arms over his chest, with that look an annoyed parent would give to their child when they've done something bad. "Megan, care to explain why you are here again?" he said before pointing at the rest of her team. "And why did you bring them along?"

And before the martian got a single word out, Fenton beat her to it.

"Yeah. Didn't we like, I don't know… told you not to come back again before sending you out?"

Megan looked at them for a second, a little worried with how serious they were when looking at her, knowing that it was never good sign from her last experience; but she also knew this was the moment that would decide the rest of their stay in there, she had to make the guides help them or they were all doomed, cause —admittedly— she had no idea of how to navigate this intricate maze, and even if the two teens weren't really aware of all the details, they were in sync with the environment because they were part of it.

"Phantom, Fenton, we need your help. Can you guide us to the center of your mind?" she asked, directly to the point, no beating around the bushes, they had to move forward.

The two guides looked at her, then looked at each other, and then at her again, and finally, they simply shrugged. Megan wanted to smack them in the heads for such a strange answer.

"Was that a yes, or a no?" she demanded, a little flustered by their antics.

"Whether that was a yes or a no, depends completely on why you want to know," answered the two at the same time, their voices following each other, blending in one.

Megan felt herself tremble, there was a strange kind of power when those two talked at the same time… when their voices united it was like all signs of Fenton and Phantom disappeared and a single new voice was created… she somehow believed that was how the real Phantom would sound if he was able to speak.

She tried to retort, but before she said anything a hand took a comforting hold on her shoulder easing her nervousness. Turning a little she saw Kaldur looking at her, her other two friends by his side, sharing with her their determination.

"We have come here on our own will, not by Megan's doing. And our purpose is to try and help the real Phantom to wake up from the deep coma he's fallen in," explained the atlantean warrior with steeled resolve.

"You entered, to try to wake us up?" asked the human guide.

All the members of the team nodded.

The guides blinked at them a few times, before closing their eyes and sighing deeply.

"Then the answer is no. We can't take you where you want to go," they both said, making the temperature around the passage lower a few degrees, causing the four heroes to shiver slightly.

The teens were startled by their denied request and the sudden change in temperature.

"What?" asked the bewildered archer. "You are the guides here! You can't say you can't!"

But either guide wasn't perturbed by her outburst, they simply crossed their arms over their chests and looked at them in silence.

"Unless," said the boy wonder, reading into their imperturbable demeanor. "Unless you are saying you won't," he saw the guides blink at him. "you can, you just won't."

Phantom sighed as he ran a hand through his white locks.

"What you are asking from us will be going against the will the original infused Fenton and me when he created us to serve as guides. We are meant to help the intruder out, not take any mortals deeper into this trap."

"But—" Megan was cut once again by Fenton, who threw her a tired glare.

"Meg… you do understand how much effort it took the real me for you to get out of here safe, right?" and for once, the boy seemed as tired as his body looked.

"Each second you spend in this timeless void you gamble with your lives. If the original dies while you are still here, you will all go down with him. And it doesn't matter if we are or not still here, we won't be able to help you if that happens," the ghost boy begged them to understand as he looked into their eyes.

"You all dying with me… now that is like the worst possible last memory one could take to the grave, you know?" commented Fenton in a nonchalantly way.

"But…"

"But what, Megan? What could you possibly do to help us in the condition we already are?" Asked Phantom as he shrugged his shoulders tiredly.

Megan found herself trembling a little, feeling feeble against the guides' demands, not knowing what she should say… what she could do…

"We will wake you up!" said a cheery voice from her side. Everybody turned to look at the grinning boy wonder, smile that looked slightly weird with the tear tracks still present on his face, but that wasn't less cheerful because of them. "That's the plan, isn't it? Megan said that in the center of your mind there is a representation of your subconscious sleeping deep into the coma. So, we just have to wake that dude up, then you'll get a fighting chance!"

Phantom looked slightly taken aback by the cheerful attitude of Robin and was baffled at the proposition, his body moving closer to his other half. All the while, Fenton simply leaned against the wall, cautiously inspecting the boy wonder.

"Fizzling Phantoms! Are you out of your mind?" asked the startled ghost. "Of course you are, you must have gone through a lot more trauma than you appear if you think it'll be as easy as walking into that place and just shaking the original awake!"

"Well, we won't know unless we try it. Perhaps we could scream in his ear or something," said Artemis, feeling Robin's cheerfulness infecting her, it was so great that the boy could overcome his traumatic experience so fast! She felt motivated.

There was a soft chuckle from the wall were Fenton was leaning. The human boy forced himself away from his support and limping badly, he moved closer to the group of friends. The instance he separated from the wall, Phantom moved to stand by his side, shadowing his every move ready to catch his human half if he fell. The team members could only marvel at the devotion the ghost had for his human partner.

"Scream? Nah, sorry. Tried it, didn't work, so I went back to waiting for death to come. But thanks for the feeling… is nice knowing someone actually wishes to help us for once."

"You tried?" asked the perplexed atlantean.

The two guides shared a glance before the raven haired teen nodded slowly.

"Not really us, you know? We kinda were stuck being Meg's guides for a while… It was a few other memories that escaped imprisonment… it's just natural instinct —or something like that—for the mind to try and save itself, so they went to the original all 'wakey-wakey' like but he didn't even listen to a single one of them. And you know why?"

The teens shook their heads slowly.

"Because the original doesn't want to wake up. Real Phantom is all like 'let's wait for death', so we all decided, well, what the hell, let's wait. After that, every single memory but us got trapped in those freaking doors." The boy chuckled a little at the weird expressions that the team was giving him. "See, even if you get to go to the center and stand a few meters from the original's form, there is nothing you can actually say or do to wake him up, so you better let that idea go now, while you still can."

Kaldur had to clench his teeth at this… he was used to saving people, but people normally wanted to be saved, Phantom seemed to have come to terms with his own demise, making them be the ones making things more difficult for him. Now it made more sense why Megan said they were and weren't viewed as enemies here. Even his memories were willing to let him die… how were they supposed to help someone that didn't wish to be helped?

"You are lying…"

The leader turned to look at Megan, whose lower lip was trembling as her eyes stared intensely at the two guides.

"Am I?" asked Phantom, looking at her with the same strength, Kaldur took notice on how he seemed to use his own body to shield the other boy by standing slightly in front of him.

"Yes, you both are." The two boys couldn't help but sharing another glance before raising one eyebrow each… now, looking at them so much in sync, the atlantean could see that they were obviously part of one single whole.

"What would make you say that, Meg?"

The girl took a deep breath to calm down her shivering down and —renovated with the positive energy her friends were pulling— she faced the two of them.

"Cause if Phantom really wanted to die, he would have ended everything the moment I left his mind." The two guides straightened a little at her declaration. "There is no need to 'wait for death', if he allows the barrier to fall completely there will be no turning back. The fact you actually have to 'wait' is clear proof that, till some point, you are still fighting to survive."

Noticing the slightly uncomfortable reaction in the guides, Kaldur felt his confidence renewed. His friend was right; Phantom had to be trying at least in a small part.

"Are you declaring that you understand the situation better than we do?" said Phantom, his eyes shining with a toxic green light, the aura around him flaring, causing soft vapor to rise around him. But the girl wasn't deterred by his display of power.

"I'm just stating a fact. If you are still here then it means part of you is still trying to survive. Besides, the first time we saw each other both of you told me you didn't understand the situation that well either."

A soft chuckle from the side made the ghost turn to his counterpart, who tried to hide his smile —and was failing miserably at it— as he laughed, holding his side in pain.

"Dude… haha… ouch… she totally got you there," the ghost's anger seemed to fade away as he looked with his other half with childish annoyance. "But you know, Meg?" said the black haired teen turning to look at her. "That small part you are talking about is simply natural instinct, not conscious reaction. And even if it's still there it doesn't change the fact that nothing you do will be able to wake us up. The original is too far gone and has no real reason to live anymore. So what could you do to help us, huh?" he said, spreading his arms and somehow keeping himself balanced, a taunting smirk on his face.

"I… I…" Megan took a deep breath before looking at the boy completely, she could feel her friends backing her with their strength, she wasn't going to back down now. "I'm not really sure what, but I'm sure that once there we'll be able to come up with something. All we ask is for a chance to try!"

Phantom moved slightly, his eyes recovering that menacing light that made the heroes' bodies prepare for a possible attack, but it never happened, for he was stopped after his counterpart extended an arm, silently asking him to back away. "Fenton?"

With a bigger smirk, the human boy turned to Megan and her friends.

"Ain't that interesting?... soooo you think you can wake me up?" turning slightly to his companion he added. "Say Phantom, do we give her a chance?" the ghost looked at his human half with clear confusion on his face before simply shrugging. "Ok! We'll make a deal Meg."

"A-a deal?" asked the startled girl.

"Yeah. We'll take you guys to the center of our mind and let you try to wake the original up." Then his eyes narrowed dangerously. "And when you fail," he made it clear that it was not a supposition, it was a fact. "you'll allow us to take you out, no complains, no second chances, admit defeat and leave. Got it?"

"Fenton, are you sure about this?" asked the obviously concerned white haired teen.

"It's ideal, don't ya think? Cause dude, If we try to reason with Meg and her little buddies we'll end up discussing for liiike… a long while 'bout who is right and who isn't… but if we take them there, they'll see for themselves and leave. See, ideal, no wasted time, not as much energy. I can do my homework too you know?" The ghost half simply sighed and nodded in return, making the other teenagers wonder who was really in charge here, Fenton or Phantom.

Then the human half turned to Megan again, his mischievous smile making her nervous.

"So Meg, your choice?"

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

It was really fun working with the two guides. If you felt Phantom wasn't so 'hero-ish' well that will be addressed in the next chapter.

So, see you in 13 days!

R&R