Previously...

After their return from Tamaran, the Titans and Brand were confronted by Jinx - former HIVE operative and current honorary Titan - who had come to Jump City with Kid Flash to look after things in the Titans' absence. Kid Flash had gone missing while investigating a series of disappearances along the west coast. With no clues to his whereabouts, the group was at a loss until the appearance of the precognitive teen, Seer, who - with Kid Flash's help - had escaped from an organization responsible for the kidnappings of meta-powered teens.

The information Seer brought back revealed the culprit as a secret government project code-named "Janus". Despite Robin's misgivings, the group decided to assault the Janus facility and rescue the prisoners, an undertaking large enough to require specialized help. To that end, they recruited Jinx's former "HIVE Five" teammates as well as the master thief, Red X. With a larger team and a plan of action, the group began their assault.

Under the cover of a series of distractions, a small group infiltrated the facility in the hopes of disabling the Nth metal battery which kept Raven and Kyd Wykkyd from teleporting the prisoners out. The infiltration team found their way blocked, however, and the mission has stalled.

Hacking Team (Set off alarms to clear out civilians and confuse Janus's defenses):

Starfire - Alien powerhouse and princess of Tamaran

Gizmo - Diminutive genius and HIVE Five leader

Distraction Team (Attack the facility and make a lot of noise as cover for the other teams):

Robin - Former sidekick to the Batman and leader of the Teen Titans.

Beast Boy - Changeling and former member of the Doom Patrol.

Mammoth - Super-powered and supersized HIVE member.

See-More - Surveillance and optic expert.

Generator Team (Disable the Nth metal battery):

Cyborg - Bionic former athlete and mechanical expert.

Jinx - Hexer and former HIVE operative.

Red X - Mysterious master thief.

Brand - Former Weapon assassin.

Rescue Team (Teleport in after the Generator Team's task is complete to save the prisoners):

Raven - Half-demon and empath.

Kyd Wykkyd - Silent and mysterious HIVE member.

"Start moving in closer to the facility!" Robin shouted from across the battlefield. Beast Boy was too busy to acknowledge the command, but he did as ordered. This, too, was part of the boy wonder's plan; a way to continue the ruse that the Distraction Team was anything but what it was. If whoever was in charge of Janus's defense thought they were just a failed attempt at gaining access to the building, they wouldn't spend as much energy looking inside, where the Generator Team – hopefully – was already nearing its objective.

The sooner, the better, the changeling thought, shifting from dinosaur to mammal to bird and back to mammal again, utilizing the different strengths of each animal to dismantle the countless androids their team faced. Only scant minutes had passed since the battle had begun and he was already feeling twinges of pain from the rapid shape changing, exacerbated by wounds that still hadn't completely healed from Jalascis.

Still he fought, without complaint. Anyone else would have been lucky to walk away from a crashed spaceship alive, but thanks to his friends, he had lived to fight another day. And another. And another. As many times as it took until everyone was safe. The Titans, the HIVE, Brand...

And Terra.

Because the fear that drove Beast Boy was the thought of Janus or anyone else kidnapping the former Titan and bringing her out of her self-induced exile by force. He would watch her, wait for her, dream of the day she came back of her own volition, but he would not make that decision for her. Janus had no such compunctions. They would do as Slade had done and tear the girl apart to get what they wanted from her.

Not while I'm around, he thought fiercely.

A new line of robots appeared in front of them and Mammoth charged into them without fear, shrugging off blasts of plasma as if they were nothing. Beast Boy, inspired, transformed into a wooly mammoth and followed, opening another hole into the enemy formation. Behind him, Robin methodically took apart robots with his usual skill using staff, explosives, and martial arts. Energy bolts rained down from above; See-More's contribution to the fight.

The HIVE graduate's voice came down faintly from the sky. "The robots from the west side of the facility are about to turn the corner! They'll be here in another two minutes! Five minutes until the ones from the east get here, and another ten after that before the north's forces join them!"

"You heard him, team," Robin said. "Things are about to get messy."

Beast Boy – temporarily in human form – mustered a grin, glancing back at the trail of broken androids behind the group. "You mean this doesn't count as messy yet?"

Mammoth let out a rumbling chuckle. "Leave it to me," he said. "I'm good at making messes."

"It's true," the changeling laughed. "I saw their hideout."

"That's enough chatter," Robin shouted, swinging his staff laterally and ripping two of the Z-8's in half. "Try and finish these guys off just as the next group gets here."

In answer, Beast Boy shifted into a gorilla to smash some more robots. All joking aside, the lead Titan had understated the situation. In less than five minutes, the Distraction Team would be facing worse odds than they had at the start of the fight, and they were no longer fresh.

Come on, Beast Boy thought at the Generator Team. Hurry up. Crack this place open so we can get outta' here.

Gizmo had barely blinked in the last ten minutes, his round eyes fixed on the monitors in front of him. More wires had been withdrawn from his backpack, plugged into every available surface of the computer system. The pack itself was growing warmer and warmer, and sweat beaded on the undersized boy's bald head. His fingers were a blur of motion, augmenting the electronic impulses coming from his own system, scrambling to stay ahead of Janus's cyber-security.

His concentration was so complete that he didn't even notice at first when Starfire began shouting at him. It wasn't until the golden plasma beam scorched through the air outside, answered by one of the alien girl's own emerald blasts that Gizmo realized something was wrong.

"What the frink is going on out there?" he called, his voice raspier than usual with his thirst and nervousness. He stood on his tiptoes on the chair he had been using, giving himself another few centimeters of visual range.

More lights, yellow and green, were his only answer for a moment. Then Starfire appeared outside the open window. "Janus forces have surrounded the tower," she said.

A chill ran through the computer expert's small body in spite of the warmth from his overheating backpack. "They know we're here," he stated unnecessarily. His first thought was that they had traced his hack back to him, but then he saw that the answer was much simpler than that. He'd been so busy battling in the digital domain that he had forgotten one of the very simple tasks he had been given: to check in regularly in place of the unconscious guards so that Janus wouldn't know one of their towers had been taken over.

Gizmo cursed, angry at himself, angrier at the universe for putting himself in this situation. "Well that's it," he snarled. "Better call the boy blunder and tell him that the operation is a bust. We've gotta' abort."

Starfire had spun to return fire against a squad of rifle-wielding Z-8s. Something exploded out of Gizmo's vision. "We cannot give up!" Starfire cried over her shoulder. "The prisoners have not yet been rescued, and the Generator Team is already inside the facility."

"We can't stay in this guard tower, you alien kludge!" Gizmo shouted back. "And there's no other way for me to hack into Janus's system. It's over!"

Before he could react, Starfire whirled, glaring at him with glowing green eyes. She looked angrier than he had ever seen her before, but when she spoke, her voice was deceptively quiet. "Keep working," she said coldly. "They will not get inside the tower." She launched off the tower in a flash of emerald energy.

The computer genius dropped back into his chair, setting his jaw. "Idiotic, moronic, idealistic, optimistic do-gooders," he mumbled. "Fine," he said, louder this time. "I'll do what I can, but you better hope your pit-sniffing friends hurry the frink up or we're all dead."

The face that met Brand's eyes was pale and drawn, with sweat-matted dark hair and blue eyes. It was the eyes that threw him. The rest of the visage under the mask of Red X was vaguely familiar. The Weapon's own eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what point X was trying to make. X sighed in irritation, then made two circles with his thumbs and forefingers, putting them over his own eyes like a makeshift mask.

Brand's jaw dropped.

"Robin?" he asked, utterly baffled. It was impossible, but the face was almost identical to the Titans' leader's own. A little more pale, a little older, but the same lines, even the same expression.

The thief bunched his hands in Brand's collar and shook him. "No!" X hissed. "I'm not... I'm me."

At last, Brand understood. "You're one of Janus's clones."

X bared his teeth, the words seeming to enrage him. "About time," he said between grit teeth. The thief released his hold on the swordsman and turned away. "Yeah, I was... I started here. A 'growth-accelerated' copy of Robin. I don't know what they were planning on doing with me, why they cloned Robin. I didn't even know who he was until I escaped, but when I saw him on TV, heard his voice, saw the way he moved... I knew. I knew what I was. That stupid eye mask couldn't hide him from me."

"Wait, how did you not know who he was?" Brand asked, pushing himself off the wall. "Don't you know who you are?"

"I don't know anything but what they told me, and what they told me was mostly how to move, how to fight, how to think." X hesitated. "They didn't even give me a name." He snorted a laugh. "But I was able to use the things they taught me to get away. Escaped from my cell, took out the guards, and just... walked away. Had to stay low after that, but one day I saw something... my perfect chance for identity."

"The suit," Brand said.

Red X faced him again, holding up one gray-gloved hand and staring at it as if he had never seen it before. "That's right. One secret identity wasn't good enough for Robin. He had to double-dip. Well I figured if he wasn't using the suit, then I might as well use it for him. It was only fitting, after all. And so I became his shadow... his reflection."

"The one in the mirror is going to kill you," Brand thought, trying not to flinch at the memory of Seer's prophecy. "Do you think he knows?" he asked out loud.

The thief laughed, but it was a hard sound. "He has to. The vault he put the suit in didn't just have a padlock... it was keyed to his DNA. No one but him could have opened it."

"Why tell me this?" Brand asked, a cold suspicion clawing at his throat.

X shook his head, taking his mask and pulling it back over his face. "You know why." He turned to walk away. "Let's go. We're wasting time."

"You're wrong," the Weapon said, his tone dark. "I'm not like you."

The expressionless mask stared at him. "Good for you," X said, not quite sarcastic. He continued down the hall, back the way they had come, turning the corner and disappearing from the Weapon's sight.

Brand clenched his fists – feeling sick – and followed. Even as he started walking, one of the side doors slid open and a cold hand pulled him through the dark opening. He didn't even have time to cry out before the door closed again. He felt himself thrown through the air, flipping over a railing and down to the floor a dozen feet below.

His breath exploded out of him upon impact and the receiver he had been wearing to stay in contact with the others flew out of his ear, clattering across the floor. The suddenness of the attack and the darkness had made it impossible to brace himself, but he forced himself to climb to his feet, wheezing for breath and holding his aching ribs. He reached back to pull out his sword, blinking rapidly, trying to clear the spots from his eyes and willing his vision to adjust to the blackness around him. For a long moment, nothing happened.

"Come on," he muttered. "Let's get this over with."

"Are you so eager for your own death?" a voice asked. An icy ball of dread crystallized in Brand's guts. He knew that voice. Knew it almost as well as he knew his own, though it had been months since he had heard it. The last time was after he had almost died, after he had killed their mutual brother.

The lights in the big chamber came up all at once, bright and glaring, making Brand squint. He lifted a hand to shade his eyes, looking up at the source of the voice he had heard. All around him, on three tiered levels were the clear, bubbling cylinders of the cloning chambers X had shown him earlier, some filled with shadowy figures, most empty. Machinery covered a good percentage of the rest of the floor, beeping and humming, monitoring those silent shapes.

All of that was secondary to Brand's mind, however. He gazed up at the person he saw perched effortlessly on the railing of the second level, glaring down at him with blue eyes filled with hatred. She was shorter than he was, but just as lean and fit, her pure white hair thick and long, more ragged than he remembered, extending past the hem of her black military jacket. A curved sword was in her hand, resting over one shoulder.

Of course, Brand thought. "Saber," he said out loud, his voice low and threatening. A reflexive surge of anger and loathing ripped through his mind and body, tensing his muscles.

"Traitor," she said in greeting, her tone matching his. "I knew you'd come here eventually. It was inevitable. Your absurd little journey of self-discovery would have to lead to Janus. What is it that you hoped to find here? Looking for answers about where you came from? About what we are?"

"You wouldn't understand," Brand said. "You're still their puppet."

Saber's icy eyes glinted. "I prefer the term 'loyal soldier'."

"Potato, poh-tah-toh," the male Weapon said with a smirk. His sister sneered back and leapt from the railing, curved sword raised to strike Brand down.

Cyborg's fingers flew across the keyboard of the wall-mounted console he had found near the impenetrable security door that had blocked the Generator Team from advancing. The security here was tough, as tough as he'd seen, and he had a better understanding of why Gizmo had been so irritable when they contacted him. Still, he was making steady progress. Another couple of minutes and he'd be through. Every minute was precious, though, and he was all too aware of it. Robin and the Distraction Team couldn't hold out forever.

As impatient as he was to get moving, it was a candle next to a bonfire compared to Jinx, who couldn't seem to stand still for even a second. She crossed her arms, tapping her fingers restlessly, then uncrossed them and paced back and forth. She checked the plasma rifle she had stolen from a fallen Z-8 again and again. Her pink eyes stared at the security door as if she could melt holes in it with sheer force of will.

"If I could use my powers..." she said, "I could make this door rust away, or cause the earth to open beneath it."

"But you don't," Cyborg said. "There's nothing to do but wait. I'm almost through."

The hexer sighed. "Just hurry it up."

For a fraction of a second, the bionic Titan's fingers hesitated in their confident movements. "Never woulda' thought you'd be so fired up to go on a rescue mission. Kid Flash must mean a whole lot to you."

He thought he had kept his voice casual, but not casual enough. "What's that supposed to mean?" Jinx asked sharply.

Cyborg didn't look at the pink-haired girl, keeping his real and mechanical eyes fixed on the screen. "I mean I don't think you'd be going through all this trouble or be this worried for anyone else."

"You think I don't care about the rest of the prisoners?"

"Do you?" Cyborg countered.

Jinx moved within arms' length, close enough that the Titan could see her without turning his head. Her pink-eyed glare burned into him. "What's your issue?" she asked.

Well too late to hold back now, he thought, turning his head to look down at the girl. "My 'issue' is that I'm not sure you belong here," he said. "You've never shown any interest in saving innocents or protecting people before, and we've given you chances, but now that KF is in trouble, you're all gung-ho. If Kid Flash wasn't involved, would you still even bother to go on this mission?"

"How dare you?" Jinx asked, and her voice was hoarse, as if she was trying to restrain herself from yelling. "I gave up everything I knew when I switched sides. I've spent the last few months helping Flash. We've done a lot of good in Keystone City, but I guess that's not enough for you."

"You're proving my point!" Cyborg shouted. "The only heroism you do is because of your boyfriend."

Jinx barked out a harsh laugh. "Is that what this is about? You're jealous."

"Don't flatter yourself. I got over you as soon as I stopped spying on the HIVE and you didn't follow me. Whatever I thought we had clearly wasn't enough to make you switch sides." Cyborg turned back to the console, re-doubling his effort to open the door, pounding the keys with far more force than necessary.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. When Jinx spoke again, the words came thick with emotion. "What did you offer me, Cyborg?" she asked. "You tricked me, betrayed me, and then you left. You didn't show any remorse. You didn't give me any reason to go with you. I told you that you could've been one of us, one of the HIVE. What did you tell me?"

Cyborg set his jaw, his eyes now gazing through the screen and into the past, working on auto-pilot. "'I could've been a lot of things,'" he quoted himself.

"Exactly. It was all about you. You didn't care what I did, what happened to me. You didn't give me a place where I could belong. You didn't even try. To you, I was the enemy, and that's all I would ever be. Even now, you still think I'm here for the wrong reasons."

The Titan's shoulders slumped, but Jinx wasn't finished. "Kid Flash didn't look at me like that. He told me I could do better. And he was right."

"Look, Jinx," Cyborg began. "I'm -"

"What the hell are you two still doing here?" A voice came from the end of the hall. Cyborg and Jinx both looked up to see Red X approaching, jabbing a finger over their shoulders. "The door is open!"

Cyborg looked over to see that the thief was right and blinked his human eye. He hadn't even realized he had finished his hacking. "Yeah," he said, "just... finished it up now."

"Well then let's get moving," X said, brushing past them and advancing down the hall, limping just slightly.

The bionic Titan and the hexer rushed to follow him. "Where's Brand?" Jinx asked. Red X shook his head tersely.

"Don't know," he said. "I thought he was following me, but when I turned around, he was gone."

"So you just left him?!" Cyborg asked.

X stopped in his tracks to look at the Titan. "I'm not his keeper," he said. "You want to waste more time looking for him?"

Before the dark-skinned Titan could answer, a hail of plasma bursts stormed around them. Looking back, he saw a swarm of Z-8s and Weapon drones, all armed. Cyborg's big fists clenched. "There's no going back now!" he said. "Run!" The trio of infiltrators retreated deeper into the facility, followed by a horde of metallic warriors.

Brand's on his own. I hope he hasn't bitten off more than he can chew.

Despite the flashing lights and percussive explosions coming from the Janus facility, Raven did her best to meditate. She levitated a foot above the ground, focusing her energy, gathering her power, awaiting the signal that indicated it was time for her and Kyd Wykkyd to move. It was still too early, and all the two dark-cloaked teens could do was stand by.

Although she would never admit it, Raven was nervous. She hated being left out of the fight, though she understood the reasoning behind it. Her friends could take care of themselves, but she would have felt better being there to watch their backs. Instead, she was stuck here, far away from the action, unable to see or even to sense what was going on.

Not that she hadn't tried.

Her soul self had soared free of her physical body only to find a void where the facility should have been, a void formed by the Nth field protecting the structure. No information could be gained using that method. She wished her team wasn't under radio silence so she could at least hear what was happening out there.

Then there was her only companion...

Never before had Raven longed for the annoying distraction of a talkative teammate, but Kyd was utterly silent and uncommunicative, his impassive face showing no sign of emotion. The sorceress felt a brief flash of professional pride, determined not to display any of what she was feeling to the other teen. If nothing else, she wouldn't be outdone in the realm of emotional control.

With an effort, the Titan relaxed her shoulders, regulating her breathing, emptying her mind. She had to be ready when the call came.

If it comes.

She frowned at the treacherous internal voice. That was her fear talking, a gray phantom in her mind. It will, she countered.

But what if something's gone wrong?

This time, Raven shook her head, denying the words, but even as she did, a premonition struck her, faint images assailing her psyche. She saw Robin and Beast Boy besieged by an insurmountable number of enemy robots; Starfire fighting a losing battle to defend the guard tower; Cyborg chased through the facility by an implacable enemy.

And she saw Brand locking swords with Saber, his sister who had almost killed them both.

She gasped and opened her violet eyes. Only a second had passed. Kyd Wykkyd glanced at her, and she sensed a question in his gaze.

"It's the others..." she said.

"They're in trouble."

A/N: Commentary - Trying something new with the intro to try and keep people up-to-speed on this arc, working off a suggestion from a reviewer... hopefully this helps people keep track of where everyone is. It also references the original comic books, which - for a long time - started with little blurbs for each character next to their picture.

The big thing to talk about here is the disappointment I imagine some of you feel about the Red X reveal. I'll admit it's not the most original solution, but it's one of the only ones that fits the evidence we have: The similarities in voice, fighting style, and build, for example. Red X's interest in Robin's case in the season 5 episode "Revved Up" is another one. And, yeah, I can't imagine Robin would keep the Red X suit in anything as easily broken into as a regular vault. Furthermore, there is a precedent for the cloning of Dick Grayson if you wanted to look it up, but I won't spoil it here.

On the other side of that coin, the Jason Todd thing never made sense to me. Chronologically it doesn't work (if Dick Grayson is Robin, Jason Todd is not, much less already past the Robin stage and into the equivalent of his Red Hood phase), and it's also a... well at this point, it's almost a cliche to have someone unmask themselves as Jason Todd.

I'll touch briefly on the Cyborg/Jinx scene, which is actually something that was part of this arc for a long time, a little bit of dialogue that I felt needed to be done to tie up their nascent relationship from season 3 of the cartoon. I don't think either of them would forget so quickly, so there'd still be some kind of tension between the two.

Anyways, as you can see, I've decided to stick with a weekly posting schedule for now, though I still haven't touched the story past Chapter 23. Read, review, and, most importantly, enjoy. In some ways - and I've mentioned this before - this wasn't written so much as a serial as a single novel... it's really meant to be read consecutively. Maybe re-read the earlier chapters and get a real overview of the story if you have the time or inclination.

Until next week...