I didn't mean to imply with my author's note last chapter that I wasn't going to be posting anymore! I am. Every Friday, promise.

Chapter 12 – Razed

I was wrenched from my sleep by the blaring of the Tower's alarm, complete with flashing red lights and a klaxon that swelled in my ears and faded only to swell again. With all of that activity, it took me several seconds before I realized that I was not in my room.

I had fallen asleep in Robin's room.

Robin was standing by his desk, snapping his laptop closed. I looked up at him, unsure, then glanced at my wrist, which was free of the handcuff that had been on it when I fell asleep.

"My apologies," I muttered, embarrassed. The blanket that Robin had thrown over me had fallen to the floor.

"It's okay," he told me distractedly. "I took a while and you were already asleep, so I just picked the lock and let you sleep." As he spoke, he reached in his belt and pulled out his communicator.

This was the Tower's own alarm, I realized, and any lingering fuzziness from sleep was faded quickly. When the Tower's faculties were breached, an image of the Tower was displayed on our communicators with a bright green glow where the alarm had been tripped. This was so that we could meet up at the right place instead of first converging in the operations room and wasting time while the intruder roamed freely in our home.

Robin flipped open his communicator and frowned. He glanced up at me and narrowed his eyes.

"What is the trouble?" I pressed.

"Nothing," he muttered, snapping the communicator shut with a snap. "Stay here." He moved toward the door.

"What?" I demanded, bewildered and offended that Robin was once again excluding me. I snatched my own communicator off my belt and opened it. The green light indicated— "M-my room?"

"I'm serious, Starfire," Robin growled. "Stay here."

He stalked into the hallway and I did not even attempt to show a pretense of listening to him. I followed him into the hall and the red lights flared, becoming constant instead of flashing. Cyborg and Beast Boy were standing in front of the door to my room and Robin disappeared inside.

"Oh my god, Star," Cyborg said when he saw me. He rushed over to me and placed his hands on my shoulders, pulling me against him for a hug. "We didn't see you in there and Raven didn't sense you. We thought…"

I stared at him, confused. Raven's raven materialized behind Cyborg and I pushed myself out of his grip. Raven was clothed in pajamas but she did not look tired. She looked panicked.

"Star!" she cried upon seeing me, and she pulled me out of Cyborg's arms and into her own, briefly. She began studying me, searching for injuries. "Are you hurt? Is everything okay? Where under Azar's skies were you?"

"I—" I began, but I was not the one who needed to explain at this moment. Everyone knew hat was going on but me, and clearly I was the one affected by whatever had occurred. "What is going on?" I demanded.

"Look for yourself." Raven gestured toward my door.

"It's pretty bad," Beast Boy informed me apologetically.

I approached my door only to find Robin in front of it. "You can't go in there," he said sternly.

"W-why not?" I meant to sound stern as well, but I was becoming frightened by the fuss each of my friends were making and my voice shook.

"Robin, she needs to see," Raven snapped.

"I dunno, Rae," Cyborg muttered. "It's pretty bad."

"Friends, please!" I cried, frustrated. "I do not even know what is going on and I wish to see what has all of you so upset!"

Cyborg and Beast Boy shuffled away from the door and Raven, with her hand on my back, led me up to it. Robin glowered at her but he stepped aside to allow us entry.

All of my windows were smashed. Broken glass crunched beneath my boots. The contents of my dresser were strewn across the room, some of the drawers thrown against the opposite wall so hard they cracked the drywall before falling to the floor. Others were simply lying on the ground in front of the dresser and some were hanging half-out, but each one had been disturbed. Shells I had collected were strewn across the carpet.

My closet door had been torn away from its track and thrown carelessly against the wall. The doorframe had been raked by claws, the moulding scarred with deep lines and pieces missing.

My bed had been flayed open, bleeding stuffing and springs. My sheets were mangled, torn to shreds. What pieces were not torn had been twisted together and tied into a noose. The pillows were each torn open, the feathers strewn across the mattress, spilling across the floor. On top of the one pillow left intact was the miniature puppet of myself. It had a hole ripped in the left side of its chest, with a sprinkling of other claw marks across its wooden body.

The walls had even been scratched up, four diagonal lines inches deep in the drywall, showing the steel beneath that fortified our tower. On one wall, opposite my dresser, the word 'CRUX' had been carved so deep that in the middle of the X where the lines crossed, the hallway was visible.

I approached the puppet of myself, glass crunching like hard-packed snw. It certainly felt like winter; all the warmth seemed absent from my room. Raven levitated behind me, as she was in bare feet, and she put her hand on my shoulder comfortingly.

I could only stare down at the feathers, which caught the red light in their down and reflected it back, looking almost like water, tinged red. I picked up one feather and spun it slowly betwedn two fingers, oddly captivated by the way the light glanced off of it.

"Where was Silkie when this happened?" I asked calmly, twirling the feather gently.

"He's fine!" Beast Boy assured me. "He was with me."

"That is good."

Suddenly my knees felt weak and breath would not come. My head began buzzing like the cicadas in summer on this planet, or the jerufka insects that meet in the light of the twin moons on Tamaran. The feather fluttered to the floor gently, slowly, and I tried to catch it but my whole body followed it toward the ground. Darkness closed around me and vaguely I knew that Raven caught me with her powers, but I could hardly feel the coldness that accompanied them. The dark was soothing and the buzz in my head smoothed into a pleasant dullness, like static on the screen of the television during a particularly bad storm.

"I told you not to show her!"

"She needed to see."

"She's just relieved that Silkie's okay!"

"Whoever this Crux person is has it in for Star."

"Scan isn't picking up any fingerprints or a residual heat trail."

"There's gotta be something. Scan again."

"She's in shock. She'll wake up when she's ready."

"No use torturing yourself, man. Get some shut eye."

"I'll go to bed in a minute."

Screeeeeeech.

"I'm not leaving you. I'll be right here, Star. Nothing's going to happen to you. I promise."

"Oh," I groaned as I became aware of a dull ache in my head. I stretched my arms up and yawned. Sunlight was glinting off white walls and back into my eyes, making me squint.

I was in the medical bay, I realized. The cot beneath me was slightly uncomfortable. I began slowly sitting up, but I glanced down at my side and I gasped.

Robin had pillowed his head in his gloveless hands, which were folded in the cot in front of him. He had pulled up a chair next to the cot, and as he slept he leaned forward until the cot became his pillow.

I did not know what time it was or if I should wake him. "Robin?" I called softly.

He jerked his chin up, startling me. "Oh," he muttered groggily, rubbing his eye over his mask. "Um, g'morning."

I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my cheek on them. "It was not one of the mares of night, was it?"

Robin stood and looked down at me. "No. It wasn't."

I nodded. "I did not think so."

"You know that we're not gonna let anything happen to you," he rushed to assure me.

I nodded again. I did not have the energy to do much else. "Where will I sleep? My room…"

"We'll figure something out," Robin said. "Are you feeling okay, though?"

"I suppose," I sighed.

"Here, let me look." He sat on the edge of the cot, reaching for my hand and tugging it toward him. He turned my hand so that the inside of my wrist faced the ceiling. The side closest to my pinky had a red mark that followed the shape of the handcuffs from when I attempted to use my feeble Earth strength to break out of them. The same was true of my other hand.

Robin stroked his bare fingers over the marks. "I'm sorry," he muttered.

I tugged my wrist away. "It is not your fault. There is no need to apologize."

He let his hand drop. "I'm leader. It's always my fault."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Then it is your fault my room is in ruins?"

The way his expression darkened told me that somehow, he truly did believe that. "I mean when we're on a mission," he said instead of admitting that.

"Then I believe I will not allow you to accompany me any longer."

"Nice try. But we have a lot more work to do. More work with the grappling hook gun and some of the discs. It took me months before I was even allowed in the field with this thing on."

"I suppose that you are the only one who can teach me," I allowed with a small smile.

He looked relieved. "Good. I hope you don't have much planned for the next couple of weeks, because in light of certain events, it looks like you're going to be getting a lot of training in."

"Truly?" I asked softly, and when he nodded I pulled him in for a hug. That seemed to surprise him.

"Oh. Um, I didn't think that would make you so happy," he admitted, patting my back awkwardly.

"I was expecting you to do something silly, like lock me in the bunker or send me back to Tamaran because it is safer." Although truly, Tamaran would be much more dangerous for me than Earth, but Robin did not know that.

"Send you back to…? I would never do that. Not ever. Just… I know you hate it when I'm overprotective. Bear with me for a while, okay?"

"I believe I can do that." I paused, trying to decide whether or not I should approach the subject. "On Tamaran, we do not have this word. 'Overprotective'. It is a new concept to me."

"It means that when you care about somebody, you worry about their safety," Robin explained quickly.

"I know that. Part of the language transfer allows me to translate concepts that are not native to my culture. However, translating is not understanding. On Tamaran, when one person truly cares about another person, they understand that they have the strength to do what they believe they can do. It is disrespectful not to believe in someone else's strength." I lifted my eyes to his, apologetic. "I understand that it is not an insult to be overprotective, but it is difficult for me."

Robin sighed. "I'm sorry, Star. I'll try to… Dial it back. But I'm still going to worry about you."

"And I will worry about you," I answered solemnly, and he lowered an eyebrow at me.

"Okay, out, Robin," Raven commanded, and a portal in the wall opened up to reveal her figure appearing through it.

"Yeah," he said with a nod at me. "Okay. Feel better, Star."

Raven looked me over for a second, analyzing, before saying, "You scared me, Starfire."

I winced. Raven was not easily frightened. "I am sorry. I did not mean it."

She gestured for me to lay flat on my back and I obeyed. She strapped a Velcro cuff above my elbow and pumped an odd device, which tightened the cuff on my arm.

"Where were you when Crux broke in, anyway?" Raven asked as she watched the clock hanging on the wall.

"Oh. Um, I was in Robin's room."

Her eyes flicked from the clock to me before she refocused herself. "Robin's room?" she asked, attempting to keep her voice even.

"During our run-in with Red X, he managed to handcuff my arms behind my back," I admitted evasively. "I needed Robin's assistance in removing them and I suppose I fell asleep in his quarters."

She nodded, but her lips pursed and I believe she was trying very hard to keep from commenting on the matter. "I think you're alright. It was just a shock."

"I believe you are correct," I agreed, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed so I could stand. "I feel fine, aside from a slight headache."

"Why don't you go eat something? I mean something like toast, not like the things that you normally eat. Go easy on your stomach." Raven offered a hand to help me into a standing position, and although I did not think I needed it, I accepted regardless because I believe it made her feel better to assist me.

When I entered the operations room to search for a light breakfast, Cyborg was standing at the stove cooking enormous amounts of food. Bacon sizzled in one pan and eggs boiled in a pot on the opposite burner. The toaster was full of bread and the waffle iron was full.

"Cyborg?" I called from the entrance, alarmed.

He turned to me and smiled brightly. "Hey! You're okay! I mean, I knew you were gonna be, but it's nice to see you up."

"Yes, I am well," I assured him as I entered the kitchenette, looking curiously at all of his handiwork.

"Here." He reached for a plate and piled bacon onto it. "Eat somethin'. You must be starving."

"I am hungry, yes," I told him as I took the plate.

The toaster sounded its completion and Cyborg grabbed two slices and added them to my plate, then he reached into the fridge for butter. "There ya go," he said, and he nudged me toward the table.

"Thank you," I said, and I sat delicately. I watched him do the fussing over the stove and I cleared my throat to ask, "Cyborg? Are you the okay?"

He sighs wearily and he turns the knob on the stove with a quick flick of his wrist to quell the flame. Without saying anything else, he sits next to me at the table and he takes my hand between two of his. "Star, what that guy Crux is doin' to you… It ain't right."

I did not know what to say.

"You're one a' the best people I know. For someone to dismiss everythin' you do just because you look a little different or you talk a little different… It really gets me worked up."

"Thank you," I said softly. Cyborg personally identified with the problems I was experiencing, but it had not occurred to me to seek counsel from him or even to see how he felt about the ordeal.

He drew me into a hug. "Ya keep saying there's no way to undo what he did, but Star, we're gonna try. And we are gonna get him. I can promise you that."

"I do not doubt it," I whispered. And I did not. I just hoped we would find him soon.

"Matter of fact, Robin's in the lab right now to—"

"He what?" I asked, leaning away from Cyborg to look at him clearly. It should not have come as a surprise, but I did not want Robin cloistering himself in the lab on my behalf.

"Don't worry," Cyborg quickly assured me, and he got up to continue making food at the stove. "Eat breakfast. Hang out with BB, go to the mall with Raven. Just try to chill for today, princess. You been through a lot in the past few days and you earned it."

"Of course." I picked up a piece of bacon and bit into it delicately, smiling as I ate to reassure him.

I did not rush through my breakfast, because that would be impolite. But as soon as I finished I made my way to the lab. The door slid open under my touch, but Robin did not notice. There were no windows in this room, so it was dimly lit, but this is generally preferable as this room is usually lit by the several screens which adorn the walls, or, as currently, the light beneath a microscope for observing specimens.

Robin was hunched over a stool, adjusting the focus of the lens of one of several microscopes in the room. Most of the microscopes were on and they seemed to have been set already.

"Robin?" I called, and he did not seem to hear. I stepped into the room, allowing the door to close behind me, and I peered into one of the microscopes.

"You're up," he said after a few moments.

"Yes," I answered, tilting my head away from the lens and tucking my hair behind my ear. "I am perfectly well, Raven said. Merely a shock."

"Hm," he answered, narrowing his eyes.

"This is very interesting," I continued, leveling my eye with the lens and adjusting the focus to suit me.

"Yeah. More interesting than it should be." He rose from the stool in front of the microscope he was preoccupied with and approached me carefully. "What do you think?"

"I think…" I muttered, and I squinted and turned the knobs to create a sharper focus. "I think Crux has been experimenting with…" I let my voice trail off because it was unbelievable. I raised my eyes to Robin, who nodded for me to continue. "With the splicing of genes."

Robin's expression remained very serious.

Some minutes later, Cyborg joined us in hooking the microscopes up to a complicated touch-computer screen. This way, each of the specimens currently under observation could be inspected all at once and in a larger image.

The specimens under the microscopes held several different pieces of evidence. A part of a claw that had been broken off, a bit of blood perhaps collected from a shard of glass. I could not imagine how extensively Robin must have searched my room for these remote traces of Crux.

"I uploaded a scan of Crux's DNA," Cyborg explained, indicting the deformed triple-helix on the screen in front of us. The poor shape has been twisted and disfigured, visibly fractured in some parts. It was quite disturbing. "I'm running a program that's gonna try to separate the different species into their own strands of DNA so we can find out just who or what this guy is. It'll take it a while, though, by the looks of how messed up this is."

Experimentally, I reached out and touched the screen. Cyborg was still explaining the process to Robin, but I was largely uninterested in that.

Sometimes it occurs to me that there are some things I know that here are considered unfathomable. How to achieve faster-than-light travel in a craft. The names of every star in the zenith at any month on Tamaran and nearly all of them from Earth. These things are not quite common knowledge on Earth, but it is no more amazing that memorizing the periodic table of elements or lines from a book. It takes a fair amount of studying, but it is by all means doable and expected of Tamaranean scholars.

"Gordanian," I muttered as I drew a circle around a section of the fractured DNA and pulled it away from the spinning triple helix. "Aellon," I added, doing the same with a different section. I began getting excited, gesturing more frantically and using both hands to shear segments away from the main picture. "Unaltered Talyn DNA," I breathe. "Tsauron, Czarnian…"

I paused to notice both boys were openly staring at me, looking surprised. It occurred to me that I had done something odd. "And human," I added sheepishly, taking another section away so the human remnants would be easy to recognize.

"Wait, there's one more," Robin said as Cyborg tapped on his arm, I guessed to turn the computer off. "What's this last one?"

"That is Tamaranean," I answered gravely.

His mouth dropped open. It did not make much sense to me, either. Why would one as xenophobic as Crux infuse their DNA with that of aliens?

"He became what he hated to destroy what he hated," Cyborg muttered, looking physically ill.

"He's fighting fire with fire," Robin added.

Cyborg tapped on the screen with both hands.

"The Crux has taken DNA samples from races spread across the universe and he injected them into his own body." Furrowing my brows, I said, "I cannot fathom how, or the psychological reasons behind such behavior."

"Yeah, it's pretty messed up. No Martian, though? Kryptonian? Thanagarian?"

"I noticed a lack of these samples, as well. It does not appear that Crux has obtained DNA from the Justice League. Indeed, a Talyn with unaltered DNA has not existed for hundreds of years."

"Simon Amal," Cyborg said, his voice final in tone.

I tilted my head in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"That's who Crux used to be. Says here he used to live out in Ohio. His parents died when his house caught on fire."

A violent gasp escaped from my lips as a surge of unwanted memories played before my eyes. "Oh! He—he told me—when he attacked the day we were doing the apprehending of Kid Kold and the Ice Kate—a Tamaranean ship-crash landed on his property, resulting in the death of his parents." I must have forgotten after being mildly traumatized. "Oh, if I had remembered sooner then perhaps we may have begun searching before he entered our dwelling and—"

"Star," Robin interrupted, stern. "It's okay. Is there an address? Some place that we can find him?"

Cyborg's tapping began anew, feverish, and his expression was grave. "He bounced between foster homes. Apparently he was a problem kid, if you could believe that. Had a bad attitude and a thing for aliens. Sounds right. Nothing current, though. Never went to college as far as I can tell. No ID, no activity on the social security number. Nothing coming up on the facial recognition data." He dropped his arm and glanced at Robin. "That's every camera from here to Gotham, and nothing."

"He wore many layers and a hood at our encounter," I offered sheepishly.

Acting upset was not wise, as Robin nodded at me once and said, "Thanks for your help, Star." A very polite dismissal.

"But—"

"Starfire," he said, his voice slightly pleading. "You helped a lot. It's fine."

"Very well," I said, but I let a sulk pull at my expression so he would know that I was unhappy with this.

"Terra's room?" I echoed, unsure.

"It's perfectly fine," Raven mumbled, fully aware as to why I was so reluctant to make that particular room my temporary quarters.

I only looked at her doubtfully.

"Well, you can't sleep in your room," she told me, exasperated. "Robin will have a fit if you sleep on the couch. Unless you want to sleep on the bottom bunk in Beast Boy's room." As I began contemplating, she rushed to add, "You don't want to sleep on the bottom bunk in Beast Boy's room."

"I do not wish to sleep in there, either," I sulked. Although at this point, Raven would win the argument simply because I was very tired. Fainting is not quite the same as being asleep, and upon waking up the feeling of being rested is absent.

Raven sighed. "I know it's really weird but it's not like anything's gonna happen. Terra's room is just the best option we have right now."

Had Raven not been tactful as usual, she simply would have pointed out that this room contains no windows. Terra's room was a last minute addition. We made up for it by painting the sky on her ceiling, but it left me feeling contained. The obvious upside that my friends were thinking of was that with no windows, there would be no way for an intruder to do the sneaking up on me.

"Very well," I muttered. "I do hope this is a temporary arrangement," I grumble, and I rested my hand on the scanner and the door opened obediently.

The inside of the room was lovely. A desert landscape with a sky colored purple, blue, and black, dotted with stars in the shapes of constellations. It was all Beast Boy's idea, which I am sure now made Raven uncomfortable.

She had been kind enough to stock the dresser with what clothes survived, and Silkie's bed that he did not use because he preferred sleeping at the foot of my bed was in the corner. Suddenly, I felt guilty for complaining.

"Thank you, friend," I said, although my voice sounded more defeated than grateful. I pulled a smile onto my face, but I fear it was not very convincing.

"It's only temporary," Raven assured me instead of welcoming my thanks, and I was grateful for that. It was a fake thank you, and for her to acknowledge it would have made me feel bad. "We'll get your room fixed."

"It is not the room," I moaned, flopping onto the bed.

"What is it, then?" Raven asked, leaning on the doorframe. She did not enter, but I could tell she was genuinely curious. It must be truly frustrating to read emotions but not minds; knowing everyone's feelings but not knowing why they feel a certain way or even how to make them feel better. We do not always give Raven enough credit.

"Crux would have killed me if I had not fallen asleep in Robin's room," I answered wearily.

She does not answer and I can tell I have confused her.

"If I had my powers, I would not be the one who had need to worry about their safety."

"Oh," she said.

Most likely, Raven did not know what to say, but in my sulking I convinced myself that she was tired of hearing about my powers or lack thereof. "I wish I did not feel like a different person. I was happy with the way I was," I sighed, and the fact that my words carried a wistful tone rather than upset or depressed is something to remark, I noted dully.

"I get that you're feeling like you changed, Starfire, and that you're a different person who isn't worth as much as you were. But that's not how we feel." She did not add anything after that, just a short silence so that I could think over her words, followed by a friendly, "Pleasant shlorvaks."

Pleasant shlorvaks, indeed.

No teaser, sorry, I'm catching up on my buffer.