"...So you want to start the Church of Starfire?" - Druj

Costner Is Not The Postman

October 7th

Early Morning

Starfire floated, her eyes wet as she beheld the world around her.

The end had come. Jump City was dying. The sky was overcast and red as if the blood that had been spilled beneath had splashed up and stained it. The air was cold and dark and filled with fog and dust. Dozens of buildings had collapsed while others were barely standing. Rubble filled the streets and fires lit up the murkiness. Yet another earthquake in an endless string of them raged beneath the streets, cracking concrete and bringing down more buildings. Screams came from all sides, but Starfire couldn't tell hope to determine their source.

Then the true horror began. From the crack in the earth, dark figures scratched and clawed their way upwards. The stench of decaying flesh filled Starfire's nose and turned her stomach. The undead rose up, their flesh and clothes rotting and hanging from their near naked bodies. They groaned and wailed, shambling forward. They clawed the air with sharp, bony fingers. They advanced on Starfire, staring at her with soulless red eyes. Starfire's blood ran cold even as she conjured starbolts to fight them off.

Robin was suddenly there, shouting something Starfire didn't understand. He stomped along the edge of a rooftop, pulled out his bo-staff and dove bodily into the horde of zombies. There was the whumpwhumpwhump of his staff connecting with flesh and bone, but the numbers were too great. He was overwhelmed and disappeared in a mass of gray, undead humanity.

Starfire woke up gasping. She sat up in her bed of pink and frills, trying to slow her thundering heart. It had been another horrible dream in which Robin had met a horrific fate and again it had been so very real. Even now, awake in the dark, Starfire could smell the lingering vestiges of rot and death. She shuddered, swiveled her hips and stood up out of bed.

Silkie snored quietly on the bedside table and Starfire was careful not to disturb him. She floated just above her carpeted floor to the wide and tall windows that were characteristic of the tower. She drew back the curtains and looked across the bay. There, completely safe and sound, stood Jump City. No earthquakes. No fires. No zombie hordes.

Starfire sighed, closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cold glass. These nightmares were like nothing she had ever experienced before. She was ashamed of her unreasonable fear. She was a Princess of Tamaran; a proud warrior who had fought both the Gordanians and the Citadel with righteous fury.

Perhaps that was the problem. There was no enemy to fight. All of Starfire's strength and ability and fighting prowess were meaningless. Fear wasn't something she could combat when it came from within.

Both dreams had focused on Robin, though Starfire was reluctant to call them such. They felt stronger than that; more significant. They were more like prophecies or premonitions than simple nightmares. She breathed in deep. Her brain knew that Robin was just down the hall, unharmed and fast asleep in his bed. It was her fear and her heart that couldn't be convinced.

Starfire left her bedroom and went down the hall, already feeling guilty. She shouldn't be waking Robin up, but she couldn't help herself. She had to see him; hear his voice. It was a compulsion she was unable to deny. She came to Robin's door and knocked before she could think to talk herself out of it.

It wasn't long before the door slid to one side and Robin looked up at her with a tired, sleepy face. "...Starfire?" He peered blearily at her from behind his eyemask. "What's wrong?"

Starfire didn't look him in the face. She stared down at her feet and hugged her middle. "It happened again." She said meekly.

"What happened-" Robin stopped at realization hit him. "Another nightmare?"

Starfire nodded silently at the floor. She looked up when Robin took her hand and saw his soft, compassionate face. She exhaled gratefully. He gently pulled her into the room and the door shut quietly behind them.

TTTTTTTTTT

Afreet couldn't sleep. His mind was tensed like a muscle and, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find a way to relax it. He couldn't quiet his thoughts and they kept pulling him from the edge of sleep time and time again.

Afreet had no way to know if the room was dark, but he assumed it was. It made no difference to him; the world was always dark from his perspective. Even so, he had memorized the room Gemini had given him and his brother long ago. In his mind's eye he could see the bed next to his and, much more clearly, the dark outline of his brother. He could tell Druj was there, but he had no way of knowing whether or not he was asleep.

"Druj," he said into what may or may not have been the gloom of night. "Are you still awake?"

The dark outline Afreet knew to be his brother's soul shifted slightly.

"No." Druj replied groggily.

Afreet allowed himself a small smirk. "You do realize that by answering the question you-"

"Yes, yes, I realize." Druj's voice sounded more alert, but also more irritable. "What do you want?"

Afreet didn't bother with subtlety and got straight to the point. "I'm disturbed by what happened today." He admitted.

Druj rolled over to his side and propped his head up on his elbow to look at him. "You've seen it before." He pointed out. "And you've seen it much worse. It's not the first time I was late on a dose."

"That's not what I meant. I can't stop thinking about that girl."

"What girl?" Druj asked. Afreet could tell by his tone that he had piqued his brother's curiosity.

"The one that hit me on the roof of the parking garage." Afreet said. "What was her name again?"

"Starfire." Druj's head tilted speculatively. "She is cute." He concluded. "I never would have thought she'd be your type, though."

"Don't be a fool, Druj. That's not why I'm thinking about her."

"Then enlighten me, little brother."

Afreet took a moment to collect his thoughts before he answered. "I see the darkness of people's souls." He explained. "I use them as reference points to get around from day to day."

"I know that, Afreet."

Afreet ignored him and continued his analytical thought process. "Every soul is different. Some are so black they look solid. Others look like thin, hazy smoke or fog."

"And everything in between, I presume?" Druj went along with him. He was used to his brother's voiced pondering.

"Right. But then there's Starfire."

"Uh-huh. And what does her soul look like?"

"I don't know." Afreet shook his head. "I can't see it."

It was at that point Druj gave him his complete attention. All drowsiness in his voice was gone. "Not at all?"

Afreet ran his fingers along the edges of his blindfold. "Her soul is completely invisible to me."

"W-wait. What does that mean?"

"I don't know what it means!" Afreet gestured. "That's the problem!"

"She's an alien, right? Maybe-"

"A soul is a soul." Afreet disagreed. "It doesn't matter where in the universe it was born."

"So her soul doesn't have any darkness in it."

Afreet sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. "How can you say that so nonchalantly?" He demanded. "Do you have any idea how significant this is? The last time the world thought they had found a perfect soul was two thousand years ago and they created a religion around him."

"...So you want to start the Church of Starfire?"

"Not. My. Point." Afreet grated. He shook his head. "I don't know what my point is. It's just-"

"You're afraid." Druj said suddenly.

"I repressed my emotions a long time ago, brother. You know that." Afreet folded his arms across his chest. "I don't do fear."

Druj said nothing.

"Still," Afreet conceded. "I get the feeling we'll be fighting the Titans again. I won't be able to see Starfire. You'll have to protect me from her."

"Of course."

Afreet nodded slowly. "Okay. Let's get some sleep."

The two brother's rolled over and settled in their beds. A long moment passed before Afreet spoke again, his tone betraying his age.

"Y-you promise?"

"I promise."

TTTTTTTTTT

Cyborg never really slept; he recharged. He plugged himself up to the energy reserves of Titans Tower each night to replenish his internal power cell. His technological parts powered down during the process and ran on the minimum setting. That included the half of Cyborg's brain that was made up of computer chips and circuitry. When that section slowed down, the organic part of his brain compensated. Synapses fired in overdrive and put Cyborg in a dream-like, nearly hallucinogenic state.

Inside his mind, Victor Stone was flesh and blood. He stood on a football field. He felt the warm sun on his skin and the springy turf beneath his cleats. The roar of thousands of people cheering reverberated unfiltered into his ears. He looked to his left and, there on the sideline, he caught a glimpse of three cheerleaders posing midair before landing and being caught by their uniformed sisters.

Victor looked ahead again. The quarterback and his offensive line stood in front of him and across from them were eleven defensive players. Victor knew those opposing players wanted nothing more than to tackle him into the dirt.

"Eighty Redstreak!" The quarterback called out the play. "Hyunia twenty two! Set hut hut hike!"

The center hiked the ball to the quarterback and the play started. The quarterback faked a pass, turned and shoved the football into Victor's gut. The ball was leathery and the straps were scratchy beneath Victor's fingertips.

Victor knew just what to do with it. He gripped it tight beneath one arm and rushed forward. A blitzing linebacker broke through the line and dove at him, but he hopped to the right and avoided the contact. He abandoned the middle and ran right instead. Before he could turn up field, the defensive end shed his blocker and came after him. Victor held him a bay with a stiff arm and then shoved him into the dirt even as he turned the corner and galloped up the sideline. He felt the sweat on his brow and the burn in his muscles. The crowd was on it's feet, their cheers growing louder and louder in hopeful anticipation.

The outside linebacker had the angle on him. He stomped across the field, his cleats churning up clots of dirt, and slammed himself into Victor's side. The pain somehow felt good; it reminded Victor that he was alive. He spun away from the contact, stumbled and somehow kept his feet pistoning beneath him. The way was nearly clear. He ran and ran and just up ahead lay the end zone. But it wasn't unguarded. A pair of safeties were there to meet him at the goal line. Victor grit his teeth and leaped into them, even as they did the same in unison. They collided with a bone crunching crash in mid-air. Victor spun and spun and spun-

-and landed in the end zone for a touchdown.

If the crowd had been roaring before, they were thundering now. Victor's teammates ran up to him, smiling and laughing and patting him on the back. The cheerleaders flipped and waved their pom poms. Fireworks exploded in a cascade of colors overhead. And then, in a single instant, everything stopped. His teammates froze in place, two of them in mid-jump as they shoulder bumped. The cheerleaders stopped in the middle of a stunt. The crowd went quiet all at once. The fireworks overhead were suddenly a painting on the canvas of the sky.

There was a finger snap and the the football players all disappeared, leaving Victor alone on the field. He looked around in bewilderment until he spied a young woman sitting on the goal post above him with her legs dangling. Her skin was blue circuitry, her hair was red and her pink eyes glowed like two computer monitors in the dark.

Victor blinked up at her. "Who are you?" He asked.

"You know me." The girl kicked her legs. "I'm the girl from the Gemini Building, remember?" She looked around at the snapshot of the football scenario around them. "You don't seem like the type to have sports fantasies."

Victor thought about that. "Shouldn't you have known? I mean, you said it yourself: You know everything I know. Right?"

"I exaggerated a little." The girl admitted. "I have access to all the information stored in the electronic part of your brain. Interpretation – like how you feel about things – is left up to me."

Victor looked curiously at her. "Just what exactly happened yesterday when we touched in the Gemini mainframe room?"

"I saw an opportunity to escape and took it." The young woman shrugged her blue shoulders. "I copied myself onto your hard drive. I guess it was more than your systems could take all at once. I'm sorry about that."

"Why is Gemini keeping you in that pod?" Victor asked. "Your body, I mean."

"That's kind of a long story."

Cyborg gestured. "I'm a good listener." He pressed her.

The girl sighed and took a moment to collect her thoughts. "I'm a lot like you, actually. I didn't always look like this."

"What did you look like?"

She snapped her fingers again. The air shimmered around her like rising heat waves. Her red hair lengthened down her back and turned dark. Her pink eyes crossed shades to become a dusty gold and her blue skin softened into a dark, tallow brown. She wore a simple green blouse and denim shorts. A small pair of thick-rimmed glasses sat low on her nose. She wriggled her bare toes at Victor.

"Something like this." She said to him. "My name is Lulu Namid, but it's been a long time since anyone's called me that."

"Namid..." Victor repeated thoughtfully. "Is that Arabian?"

"Cheyenne, actually. My dad told me it means 'star dancer'."

"That's pretty." Victor complimented her.

"I'm not a dancer and I'm not a luminous ball of plasma maintained due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen." She shrugged it away.

Victor blinked. He opened his mouth-

"Anyway." Lulu went on. "You know about the metagene, right?"

Victor nodded. He opened his mouth again-

"Of course you do." Lulu interrupted him before he could speak. "As a matter of fact, I know you know. I'm just cursed with being analytical. The metagene is a biological quirk in the human genome responsible for making metahumans. Scientists still debate whether it's an anomaly or a product of enhanced adaptation or evolution, but the dramatic increase in documented cases over the last twenty years suggest-"

"You have it, don't you?" Victor cut to the heart of her spiel. "The metagene, I mean."

Lulu nodded. "It didn't give me any of the flashy powers like flying or super-strength, though. I wish it did. Instead it gave me access to the full potential of my brain."

"So...what? You can move things by thinking?"

Lulu looked at him disapprovingly. "You're smarter than that, Cyborg. Moving things isn't the full potential of the human brain; that's what we have muscles for. My power is the greatest power of all: The power of thought."

"You're a genius, then." Victor surmised.

"You don't understand." Lulu told him. "I was reading before I could walk. I was doing algebra when the other kids my age were still trying to color inside the lines. I graduated college when I was twelve."

"Wow," Victor let out an impressed whistle.

"It came with a price, though. I started getting headaches that became more and more severe. I theorized my brain was being overstimulated and thought isn't something you can just turn off. Think of it as an overheated motor with an ignition you can't stop."

"You don't have to dumb it down that much." Victor said in a slightly offended tone.

"Sorry," Lulu said. "Force of habit. Anyway, the headaches came more and more frequently. They eventually got so bad that I couldn't function anymore. My parents took me to dozens of doctors, but none of them could help. We didn't know what to do."

Victor already knew what was coming. "Gemini." He said.

"Yes. They offered to care for me. By that time I was in constant pain. My parents had no other options and, honestly...I think they were tired of seeing me hurting."

Victor looked at her sympathetically, but said nothing.

"So now Gemini had a super genius on their hands, but I was in such pain that I was of no help to them. So they did what they always do with their illegal projects: They killed my parents and faked my death. They could do anything they wanted without anyone asking questions."

"I became Project 21. Codename: Indigo. Gemini possessed the strongest brain on the planet...only it was trapped inside a body that wouldn't work. And so they changed it." Her body morphed into the original form Victor had seen. "Ironically, I like the name Indigo. At least now I'm not confused with top-heavy mages with plushie fetishes."

"What did they do to you?"

"They digitalized me. Not unlike what happened to you after your accident. They kept me asleep in the pod you found me in...used my brain as the world's most powerful computer processor." She shook her head and lowered her eyes. "My body will always be theirs. I can't wake up anymore; my brain can't handle it. The only way I can survive now is as a digital copy. I've latched onto you like a parasite."

"You're not a parasite, Indigo. I'm happy you did what you did." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "Maybe you don't have to be stuck with me. I think I have an idea."