Last Chapter:

Raven charged at Slate managing to slam one of the torn off computer monitors into his chest knocking him further back through the air. She continued after him but as he corrected himself in the air he began to hail starbolts at her and she put her protective barrier in front of her to absorb the blasts. The onslaught continued and eventually Raven's shield fell allowing one of the blasts to hit, knocking her to the ground as well. One of the blasts continued its path and singed through one of the cables connected to the draining machine. An alarm rang out and the console for the machinery began flashing brightly. Starfire gave out a loud cry and Robin turned in panic to her.

"No, no no!" Cyborg shouted, "the voltage regulator's been damaged, it's draining power way too fast"

"Robin!" Starfire screamed in pain

"What can we do?" Robin asked frantically, his panicked eyes still on his girlfriend

Cyborg rapidly typed into his arm console desperately trying to gain access to the override. Robin waited desperately for some kind of reassurance, some kind of answer but there wasn't one to be heard. Time seemed to slow down in that moment for him, it was like the world had been swallowed up by the void and all that was left was himself, Starfire and the machine. Her scream rang through his head and in a split second a decision had already been made. He knew the thicker insulated cable had to be what was transferring the energy, and without a second thought he grabbed hold of the cable, closed his eyes and yanked with all his strength. He felt the cable disconnect from the machine but the force of the disconnect caused the cable to slip along his grasp and the starbolt-frayed part of the cable connected with his hand. A surge of energy rushed along his arm and before he or anyone else knew what had happened his body had been launched six feet into the air, skidding along the floor as he landed. His heart had stopped beating before his body reached the ground.


Chapter 12 – End Game: Part 4

Three times his name was called, once in panic, once in confusion and once in agony. The first came from Cyborg as he watched his friend launched through the air. He was at his side within moments and desperately checked his scanners for something he couldn't bear to see. No heartbeat, no breathing. CPR was started almost instantly first with compressions and then with electroshocks. No result.

The second call was from Raven, she and Beast Boy had looked around from their position on the floor as she heard Cyborg and her eyes went wide. Raising her hand, she focused on Robin's body and she felt her heart sink. He was gone.

The last one came from Starfire, Robin's plan had worked and the draining process had stopped. She tried to get her eyes to focus to make sure what she had seen was real. She watched as Cyborg climbed to his feet, he looked broken and defeated, he looked over at her and his eyes gave her the answer. She crumpled, a sob tore through her and it felt like she was suffocating, it felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and in that moment, she may have been grateful for that to be the case. Her beloved's body lay crumpled on the floor. She let out a wail and her body finally gave into unconsciousness.


The afterlife was a concept Robin hadn't really put a lot of thought into, that was his opinion on religion in general though. He had remembered that his parents were Christian, but it was never a category he really placed himself into. He guessed he just never really had time to think about it, his life had been non-stop since Bruce took him in. He remembered now that he had never asked Bruce about religion before either, he guessed though that after the things Bruce had seen in his life it would be pretty hard to believe in some benevolent entity as our creator. Starfire had mentioned 'Xhal' before but from how she spoke Xhal was a real person, a woman of extraordinary power that Tamaraneans believed to be a goddess and that when a Tamaranean dies their energy is given to Xhal. The afterlife seemed to be a topic a lot of people thought of as separate from religion, was there a light at the end guiding him somewhere or an endless abyss of nothingness forever? In reality it was neither, it was the absence of both light and dark, the absence of everything to be honest. The only thing he could compare it with was a dreamless sleep, it's just like you seem to cease to exist between the point of falling asleep and waking back up. Hours have passed in the real world but to you it feels like milliseconds from your eyes closing to opening again as they were now.

He could feel softness beneath him, he was laid on his front with his face buried into his pillow hoping that he could steal a few more moments of sleep before he was forced to wake up to reality. To his left he could feel a warmth, and he felt her shift slightly in the bed beside him. He smiled to himself and gently reached his arm across to touch her, his hand connected with the fabric of her silk pyjamas. He could remember the look on her face when he bought them for her when she first came to Earth. Since she had been travelling lightly when she escaped the Gordanians she didn't have any extra clothes, he had taken her to the mall the following day and allowed her to pick out some clothes she liked the look of. He was a bit surprised to say the least when almost every single garment was a deep royal purple colour, the only thing that wasn't purple was the pair of pink silk pyjamas. She had accidentally brushed her hand along the material and instantly she was entranced by its feel and texture, she had brought it to him instantly and he could only smile at her enthusiasm. He moved his arm until he felt her stomach and began to draw small imaginary circles with his finger. She yawned cutely and flipped onto her side so that she was facing him, her mess of hair covered most of her face and she had to brush her bangs out of her eyes. "Greetings" she said with a smile.

"Morning beautiful" he replied

"I am not sure if morning would be correct" she said with a small smirk, gesturing to the clock reading 1:15pm on the wall opposite the bed.

He grinned, "So I like staying in bed with my girlfriend, sue me"

She leaned over slightly and kissed him, "It would be nice to stay here forever"

"Yeah", suddenly his body began to feel hot and out of the corner of his eye he saw part of the far wall turn crumble away to reveal an infinite white void. Memories started to seep through his false reality and he grabbed hold of Starfire tightly. The void began to creep closer to them and tears began to roll down his cheeks. "No…no, not yet"

"Richard?" Starfire asked confused

He wrapped his arms around her tightly and hid his face in her shoulder, "Please, not yet" he looked up for a moment and the void had reached the area around her bed. "I want to stay" he spoke, his voice trembling like a scared child, "I want to stay here with her".

"Richard, I am not going anywhere", her voice soft and reassuring

"If she died too then I want to stay…don't take me back without her"

He felt a loss of contact and he opened his eyes to find that she was gone and before he could react his vision went black.


Garrison Slate landed on the ground and made his way towards Robin's body and used his foot to tilt Robin's head slightly. "I suppose you have to give the boy points for his valiance, although I'm sure it could also be stupidity"

"Get away from him!" Cyborg roared as he charged Slate only for a starbolt to collide with him knocking him onto his back.

"And what exactly are you going to do, Victor" Slate replied mockingly

Something inside Raven snapped and suddenly she rose into the air, darkness engulfing her form and four red menacing eyes focused their attention on Slate. "I'm going to make you regret those words" her demonic voice spat.

Slate backed up slightly and for once he actually seemed to show concern, he threw starbolt after starbolt at Raven but they seemed to vanish into the abyss inside her cape. She progressed further and further towards him as he backed away but as she closed in a bright green light illuminated the room drawing all attention.


Robin felt like the inside of his flesh was being seared, like magma had been poured directly into his veins and his whole body writhed in agony. He was alive, he could feel it, he didn't know how but he knew that the cold metal floor beneath him was real. His thoughts went to Starfire, he didn't save her in time, she was gone and he would have to see her lifeless body and he knew that it would be too much. His thoughts then turned to Slate and all he could feel was anger, rage poured through him and all he could imagine was himself standing over Slate's mangled body. He was going to do it this time, if Starfire was gone then he wasn't going to stop himself. He would allow it. He would enjoy it. Sound began to enter his ears and soon the fuzziness cleared and he recognised Slate's voice. His sight was next to return and he squinted his eyes open to see a fuzzy image of the roof above him, next he heard Raven's voice. By the time his vision had cleared his body seemed to have fully recovered from the shock, out of the corner of his eyes he spotted Slate. He allowed his rage to flow freely within him and all other emotions seemed to disappear as rage took centre stage. Rising to his feet he stood facing the monster, he aimed his hand forwards and a starbolt began to flicker to life, quickly engulfing his entirer hand before he released it. It hurtled through the air and hit the surprised Slate directly in the face knocking him several feet backwards to the floor.

Raven returned to her normal form and the 3 Titans stared at Robin in alarm. "Robin?!" Beast Boy called to him.

He didn't seem to pay any attention as he started a full pelt sprint towards Slate, his eyes burned a toxic green and the front of his mask seemed to be singed from the intensity. Slate looked on in terror before trying to flee into the air, but before he could make it more than a few feet off the ground Robin had blasted him with a starbolt. Slate fell out of the air and was caught by a burning green hand around his throat, he clawed and clutched at the hand trying to desperately loosen its grasp but it was no use. His eyes were drawn to Robin's cold menacing stare and he audially gulped.

Robin lifted his other hand and forged a starbolt, he pushed it slowly towards Slate's face and he screamed as it singed the flesh on his cheek. "Any last words?" the menacing voice asked. Suddenly he felt his arm being tugged at and he turned his head to see Cyborg desperately trying to pull his arm away.

"Rob, stop!" Cyborg pleaded

"Why? And let him get away with what he's done" anger flared in his voice

"This aint you man! You need to stop, before you lose yourself" he cried

"He took her away from me, what else can I lose?" Robin replied, misery mixing with his fury

"Starfire's alive! You saved her! But you need to stop this now while you can"

"No…but she-", his eyes moved over to where Beast Boy and Raven were carefully lifting Starfire out of the machine. The pain in his heart suddenly began to fade and the fog of rage cleared from his vision, he looked at Slate for a moment and then knocked him out cold before tossing him to the ground in disgust. "I was going to kill him…" he said in a panic clutching is head in his hands.

Cyborg quickly put his arms around his friend and patted his back, "But you didn't Rob, you stopped yourself" he spoke soothingly.

Robin hugged his metallic friend back and allowed the anger to wash away from him, "What the hell happened to me? How do I have starbolts?"

"Let's leave that till later, for now let's just be glad you're not dead" Cyborg replied, a relieved grin evident on his face.

A large gust of wind blew into the room as 2 speedsters carrying a slightly delirious Batman appeared in the room. The scarlet speedster Barry Allen looked around the room in concern, "You kids alright?"

"Starfire is injured but she'll recover" Raven replied

Barry dashed over to her, "Do you want me to take her to a hospital?"

"No, she should stay with us. We can treat her" Robin answered walking over to them with Cyborg

Batman held up a pair of magnetic handcuffs in the air in front of Barry, "Oh yeah, sorry about that Bats" he said disappearing and then reappearing with a handcuffed Garrison Slate.

"It's great and all you guys showing up but Slate still has powers doesn't he? How long will those cuffs hold him?" Beast Boy asked

Raven held her hand up and focused on Slate, "His energy has mostly depleted anyway. He shows no signs of regenerating that energy either. However he was taking her powers it was only a temporary transfer." She turned her attention to Robin and focused again, "Robin, however is a different story. Your energy doesn't seem to be depleting"

Robin lit his hand with a starbolt and gave a small grin, "Guess I'm stuck with these then?"

Barry, Wally and Batman all recoiled and stared at him, "Dude! You have starbolts?" Wally shouted excitedly, "that's so awesome!"

Robin sighed, "Yeah, I touched one of the transfer cables and I kind of died for a while but I guess the energy restarted my heart and when I woke up I had starbolts"

Batman stepped forwards, "You're acting pretty casually about dying"

"At least you got some cool powers out of it, Dick" Barry said with a smirk. Batman turned and glared at Barry and he gave a nervous laugh, "I guess I'll take Slate and leave you guys to it" before anyone could respond the red blur dashed out of the room.

"Do you feel okay?" Batman asked

"I definitely feel different" Robin said with a sheepish smile, "I guess 'okay' is pretty subjective in this situation"

Raven walked over and put her arms around him tightly, "Don't scare me like that again, understand?" her tone serious.

"Yeah dude, seeing that…it wasn't fun" Beast Boy added

"Sorry guys, I needed to get Starfire out of there and I panicked"

"And because of that she'll be alright" Cyborg said placing his hand on his friend's shoulder, "you made the right call"

"You did well, Titans. I trusted you to handle it and you did" Batman said proudly, "Wally told me, about the power nullifier they had been building. It had enough power to wipe out any League member who could have come here, you put your own abilities at risk to stop it and for that we're grateful"

"Soppy doesn't suit you Bruce" Robin said with a smirk, "where are Clark and Diana?"

"Them and Hal are going around every other S.T.A.R Labs to make sure the rest haven't been infiltrated. We need to take further precautions in the future, that includes scouring this place for any other dangerous technology"

"Okay, we'll leave the rest in your hands Bruce" Robin said, walking over to where Starfire laid and he bent down lifting her up bridal style. "Titans, lets go home"

End of chapter 12