A/N: Heh. So I know I haven't updated in about one and a half months. Sorry about that. I was pretty busy, and I got into somewhat of a writer's block.


"Oh, no." A whisper. "Oh God, no." A murmur. "No, no, NO!" A cry.

In a burst of rage and anguish, Athene threw herself against her metal bonds, screaming herself hoarse. Up on the screen, the tube disconnected itself from Red X's mask, letting his body – Damien's body – sink lifelessly to the bottom of the tank. With a flicker, the screen went blank.

They had lied. Aphrodite had lied. Instead of saving Red X, instead of keeping him alive, Athene had inadvertently killed him. She had been tricked into killing the one person who could support her, who she had thought would be the one to live. First Roger…now Damien. How had this happened? How had she been responsible for the deaths of every person she loved?

The hastily-stitched threads keeping back the pain from Roger's death tore apart in an instant, giving way to a torrent of grief that consumed her. This was more than her parents' deaths. This was more than being rejected from the Titans. This was more than Roger's death. This was for Damien.

The screams had long subsided into sobs, which drowned out the rumble of the lightning rod descending back inside the tower. A small, detached part of her – the hateful, cynical, emotionless part – coolly observed that if she cried any more, she'd create a flood and drown herself in her own tears. It told her that she should've expected it, in a way; trusting Aphrodite to keep her word was a huge mistake that should've been anticipated.

But it also whispered a phrase that repeated endlessly through her thoughts, first in the back of her mind, then surfacing: A life for a life. The Ice Guy had killed Roger. Aphrodite had killed Damien. For all purposes, the plan had changed, the game rewritten: kill the Ice Guy and Aphrodite. A life for a life.

Athene had finally quieted, her sobs trailing off into silence. That distant, impassive part of her mind had filled her, numbing her grief with a cold, calculating feeling. Escape wasn't the priority at the moment – revenge was. At any opportunity that she got, she would take it and free herself from her bonds. After that…anyone in her way was fair game.


Aphrodite stared disinterestedly at Athene on the screen, her fingernails drumming on the table. At first, it had been so fun watching her screaming, and even more amusing to see her crying like a baby. And then she just stopped doing anything, which was, well, plain boring.

"She cracked yet?"

Filing her nails unconcernedly, Aphrodite didn't turn around at Frostbite's voice. He was the only one who could get into the room, besides Jumper (what a lame name. I mean, naming yourself after a bunch of teleporting freaks in a movie?).

Anyway, even if anyone had been able to get into the room, she would've instantly crushed them with one of those metal Stymphalian birds or something.

"Um, not unless you count her going all dead silent down there."

Really, Aphrodite didn't know how she put up with the two idiots that she had to work with. Well, Frostbite wasn't an idiot – he was just so hard to work with, what with his being bossy all the time, and that icy air that came with him everywhere. The only thing that kept Aphrodite from leaving every room with him in it was his looks. His cute blond hair and gorgeous gray eyes even made up for that stupid black leather jacket he always wore.

Frostbite now strode over and sat down in one of the swivel chairs, the distinctive cold chill clinging to his form. Coming closer to the video screen and peering down at it, he ignored the blond, who had put down her file and was examining her cuticles with an apathetic expression.

"Jeez. She isn't moving."

Aphrodite spared the monitor a glance.

"Why? Is she dead or something?"

"She better not be. They'd kill us if she died on us like that." Shaking his head, the youth glanced over at the other screens. "What the hell happened to Red X's cameras?"

Head snapping up, Aphrodite leaned in closer to the three screens marked "Prison 1". Instead of the usual views of the empty white tiled room containing the liquid-filled tube holding Red X, white and ray static blurred the monitors.

"Um, discharge from that lightning?"

Frostbite jumped up from his chair, letting it fall to the ground with a crash.

"Like hell it is." Turning away, he practically ran out of the room, drawing out his communicator as he went.

Aphrodite watched him go for a moment, then turned her attention back to the monitors. After glancing at Red X's monitors a second time, she went back to Athene's. What she saw there made her eyes widen.

"Oh my god."


Athene had sunk into what could almost be called a meditative state of mind. Her emotions had been locked away, folded into a corner of her mind, and her thoughts were calm and seemed to drift through her consciousness. Irrationality and feelings were the last things that could help her at the moment; cold logic and detachment, however, were her best weapons.

The first thing to consider was exactly how to escape from this room. Or, more specifically, how to escape from the molded metal keeping her hands and feet down. Without her hands and feet, she couldn't reach for any gadgets that she kept outside of her belt. And without her powers, she had no energy to simply melt – or blast – the metal off.

It was impossible to tell when Aphrodite would cause the lightning rod to go up again, and use Athene to channel more electricity. Furthermore, when she did decide to, how would Athene control the raw energy enough for her to use it to break out? Even if she did somehow find the strength to direct it, what would she do with the extra energy? Letting it flow into the transmuters didn't exactly appeal to her, but she couldn't contain all of the lightning…

Just as Athene formed a tentative, terrifying solution, the lights suddenly went out.


Opening her eyes, Athene saw that not only had the bright lights been extinguished, but the screens above her, which had faded back into the original white tiles. Silence and darkness surrounded her from all sides, a sudden contrast to the blinding whiteness of the tiles and the sound of her own sobbing.

There. Noise.

It sounded like the familiar crackling of electricity, and came from somewhere behind her. Eyes still adjusting to the unexpected darkness, Athene twisted her head from side to side in order to see what was happening, but finally resigned herself to the fact that her neck just didn't turn far enough to see directly behind her.

Abruptly, the sizzle of electricity stopped, but was immediately followed by the low groan of heavy metal moving against its will. A second later, there was a loud thud of metal on tile. Then, silence once again.

The sound could only have been from someone shorting out the electronics of the door, then forcing it open. Whoever it was couldn't have been Aphrodite or the Ice Guy because they would've opened the door the regular way, and it couldn't have been that teleporter, because he could've just teleported right in. So from practical deduction, it had to be someone who was not supposed to be in the tower. And from more deduction, there was only one possible answer.

Robin.

He had somehow escaped – she'd have to ask him how, later – and come to release her. Once he did (somehow), the next best course of action was to release the Titans in order to have more power on their side. Once the Titans were back up and running, they could finally find Aphrodite and the Ice Guy. Destroying the entire building wouldn't hurt, either.

Athene had planned it all out in her mind from the very second that the realization had hit that someone was there to help her. At that point, Robin seemed like a good candidate to be her liberator. After all, if there was anyone that she trusted to get her out of a tight spot, Robin was the second person on the list. Mentally, the girl refused to think about the first person.

However, there didn't seem to be any noise coming from behind her, where the door (now lying facedown on the ground) had been broken. There were no footsteps, nor the sound of breaths.

And then, just as suddenly as the lights had gone out, someone teleported right in front of her. Instantly thinking of the teleporter that she had temporarily seen, Athene narrowed her eyes, ready for a confrontation.

Unfortunately, it was not the teleporter that appeared before her.

It was Red X.