Delilah🌼🌈 (a)wildflowerbisexual
If *people* could not shoot *fireworks* while I'm studying for finals that would be great thanks. #StillNotAsBadAsGotham #ClownsAreScary #CrownsAreScary
"Raven, I hate your brother," Beast Boy grumbled. "He couldn't have picked a different night to invade?"
"He was summoned, Gar," White Canary reminded him. "He didn't decide to invade."
"I hope we're not too late," Aqualad muttered.
"Everyone ready?" Red Robin asked. There were nods all around. "Let's go."
When Raven teleported them to her brother's location they landed in the middle of what would commonly be referred to as a huge mess. Wonder Girl, Troia, Kid Flash and Superboy had gone ahead and were clearing civilians (and gangsters, couldn't discriminate when there were lives immediately at risk) out of reach of the giant red demon that was tearing through Finley's southern residential area.
"You're late!" Superboy shouted at them as he flew over their heads carrying a scrawny teenage boy by the back of his shirt. "Distract him would you?"
While the rest of the Teen Titians began their attack on the son of Trigon, Superboy dropped Cardin next to Constantine and left it to the thoroughly pissed off exorcist to browbeat the idiot into submission. Then he flew up and punched Raven's brother in one of his six glowing yellow eyes.
"Surround him," Constantine ordered as the red demon swiped at Wonder Girl with his foot long claws.
He raised his hands and started the banishment. Cardin shakily followed his lead, in English no less, and then Wallflower jumped in, half a beat behind due to her backwards magic but quickly catching up. A web of yellow light stretched between their hands, encircling the son of Trigon as they spoke in unison. They'd had about five seconds to put this plan together, so really it was a miracle they managed that much.
"Desruc nomed, esaec ot evieced namuh serutaerc," Wallflower said with a tone of confidence she didn't quite feel.
"vade, maledicte, contremisce et effuge," Constantine continued.
He flinched slightly as the son of Trigon backhanded one of the kid costumes—what was his name, Bunker?— thorough the wall of the nearby elementary school. The kid barely got a shield up in time. The town was lucky that Cardin had decided to be his old idiotic self on a Friday night. They didn't even know which son of Trigon he'd summoned.
Cardin, who was stuttering as he intoned, "We invoke by us the sacred and terrible name—"
The son of Trigon struck.
Shaking off Superboy and Beast Boy and completely ignoring the attacks from Aqualad, Red Robin Skitter and White Canary, he drove his hand into the ground, spearing Wallflower through the heart with one of his claws. He grinned as the spell weakened and as easily as a human squashing a bug flicked his fingers and sent Wallflower tumbling streets away towards the church steeple. Superboy roared. In one move he flew up, punched the son of Trigon in the jaw and flew after Wallflower's falling body. White Canary let out a yelp that didn't stop her from firing arrows into the son of Trigon's lowest two eyes. Wonder Girl flew towards them and threw her lasso at the son of Trigon, preventing him from grabbing Constantine.
Cardin's eyes widened. He'd seen people die before (he'd killed people before), but not like that. His shock caused him to yell the last line of the spell that Constantine had scrawled on the back of a receipt and shoved into his hands, "—of the son of Trigon at which those down below tremble!" and the broken web strengthened tenfold.
The web of light wrapped around the son of Trigon, burning him like Wonder Girl's lasso did. It tightened and the son of Trigon yelled soundlessly. The light brightened and the web turned into a vortex that sucked him away.
Constantine looked at Cardin and bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. "I've some things to say to you, genius."
Superboy caught Wallflower just before she hit the ground. Blood splashed onto the asphalt. The football-sized hole in her chest was dark and messy.
Superboy squeezed his eyes shut. "Del…"
She had no heartbeat. She wasn't breathing.
She moved.
Superboy's eyes shot open just as Wallflower whispered, "Esiugsid fles," and then, "Kon?" blearily. Her eyelids fluttered.
HOPE. WILL. COMPASSION. LOVE.
"Delilah!" Superboy didn't move, too afraid of jostling her and making her injuries worse. He spoke into his comm. "Delilah's alive! Bring Raven. We're behind the church."
"We're on our way," Red Robin said quickly.
"Kon?" Wallflower asked again.
Superboy didn't think she could hear him, but he kept talking all the same. "Hey, I'm here. It'll be alright, okay? Just hold on."
COMPASSION.
Wallflower put her hand on Superboy's arm and slowly moved it over his heart. Her hand was cold even through her gloves and his suit.
"Trust you," she said softly.
Her hand went limp as her breath became shallow. Then her fingers curled and she shoved her hand into his chest.
A bright white light flared and Wallflower was thrown from Superboy's arms. When he'd blinked away the spots in his vision, Superboy saw her standing several feet in front of him with a wicked snarl on her face.
The illusion she had been wearing peeled away, revealing rotting grey skin and shrivelled eyes. A heavy black ring featuring a triangle with bars coming out of one of its sides was on one of her fingers. The same symbol became visible on the back of her jacket when she spun around and took to the sky seconds before the other Teen Titans arrived.
"Constantine's handling—" Wonder Girl started to say, but then she stopped as her eyes followed Wallflower's flight. "What is that? Where's Wallflower?"
Superboy pointed at the black and grey figure disappearing to the south. Wonder Girl immediately flew into the sky and gave chase. Superboy hurried after her. Neither of them waited to see if the other Titans were following them. They knew that they were.
"Be careful, everyone," Superboy said slowly. "I think she just tried to kill me."
"You're telling us that now?" Wonder Girl exclaimed. She threw the Silent Armour's burning lariat and it covered the space left between her and Wallflower.
"Don't!" Superboy shouted, but he was too late.
The life-draining lasso wrapped around Wallflower, jerking her to a stop.
Wallflower looked down at the glowing lasso pinning her arms to her sides and laughed. "Parwnu eht ossal dna dnes ti kcab," she said.
The lasso unwrapped itself from around her and went flying back towards Wonder Girl, who just barely missed getting hit in the eye by the end of it.
Then Wallflower, looking no worse for wear than she already had been, intoned, "Ekam em elbisivni," and vanished from sight.
Since she didn't have a heartbeat anymore even Superboy wasn't able to track where she was. Something Superboy did hear though was the buzzing of Red Robin's cell phone as it received a call. He tried not to listen in but he was sure he heard Batman's voice before Red Robin hung up.
"This is happening in Gotham too," Red Robin said sombrely. "The dead are coming back to life."
"Do you think that Wallflower's headed there?" Beast Boy asked as he wheeled around Red Robin's head as a red tailed hawk.
"Maybe," Red Robin said.
"Don't you have trackers on all of us or something?" White Canary asked him sarcastically.
"Maybe," Red Robin said.
White Canary gave Red Robin a sidelong glance from her spot next to him on Bunker's floating platform of bricks. "You do, don't you?"
"Yes," everyone else chimed.
"Then track her!" White Canary said.
"No need for that," Wallflower said as she grabbed Wonder Girl from behind and whisked her away from the other Titans.
FEAR.
"Oh Cassie, I know you never liked me much, so this is going to be easy for me."
White Canary screamed. She was the youngest Titan so she could be forgiven for freaking out when she saw her teammate's heart get ripped out by an invisible hand.
POWER LEVELS 0.02%.
Wonder Girl's body tumbled towards the ground.
CASSANDRA SANDSMARK OF EARTH, RISE!
"I'm not burning my friends!" Beast Boy protested.
Batman scowled and shoved the flamethrower he was holding out into Beast Boy's arms. "Then you'll die."
"Cassie did talk about being cremated," Superboy said flatly as he helped White Canary shrug on the pack of her flamethrower. After he finished, Red Robin grabbed his arm and pulled him to a corner of the Bat weapons locker that Batman and Nightwing had met them at when they arrived in Gotham.
"I'm not going to ask you if you're okay—" Red Robin said.
"Good," Superboy said.
"—but can you handle this?"
"I have to," Superboy said.
"Time to move out," Batman ordered. "You kids stay behind me."
None of the Titans argued with him, though Aqualad had to shoot White Canary a look to stop her from opening her mouth. They made it barely ten feet from the weapons locker when the Black Lanterns swooped down on them.
"Black Lanterns" was what Earth's Lanterns, Green and Red, had called them. The League alerts they had sent all said that the dead were rising because of black power rings and they were working on in. Guy Gardener had added to his "Please try not to die" which was so very encouraging of him.
Wallflower and Wonder Girl had been joined by three others. There was a man and a woman in acrobats' suits turned black and silver hovering over their heads. A boy flew straight at Batman, silver cape flowing behind him.
"Nice toys, dad," said Robin, who had died the year before. "You'd never have let me play with those."
LOVE.
Robin grinned and dove towards them, reaching for Batman's heart.
Batman burned him.
Flames engulfed the reanimated corpse of Robin and Batman didn't take his finger off the trigger until the black ring clinked on the asphalt.
"Well, that wasn't nice," Wallflower said.
Wonder Girl cracked her knuckles. "Finally something we agree on."
White Canary leveled her flamethrower on them. "St-stay back," she ordered, grimacing at herself as soon as she stuttered.
FEAR. RAGE. WILL.
Wonder Girl tilted her head. "You know, I don't think we will. Wallflower?"
"Our best friends want us to stay away from them?" Wallflower shook her head. "What's wrong with this picture? Oh, wait. Ekam em elbisivni."
She vanished. Wonder Girl took this as her cue to create a version of her lasso with her Black Lantern Ring and begin attacking the Titans. The two acrobats zeroed in on Nightwing, who broke off from the group to avoid hitting his allies with fire. Meanwhile, Robin's burnt husk reformed and the Black Lantern launched his own attack on the Dark Knight.
The group of heroes got split up fairly quickly. Wonder Girl herded White Canary, Bunker and Aqualad down the street while Robin and Batman battled among the rooftops. Raven, Skitter, Kid Flash and Troia found themselves fighting side by side with Nightwing against the acrobats. Superboy and Red Robin were both grabbed by their throats and flown off by Wallflower while Beast Boy flapped after them.
Wallflower dropped the two boys on the roof of an apartment building. Both of them landed on their feet, gasping. "Yats no eht foor," she ordered. "I have a little birdie to take care of."
They stayed on the roof, but that didn't mean they didn't fight. Robin imbedded four birdarangs in Wallflower's torso before she decided that she may as well deal with him before hunting down the flea-sized Beast Boy. Of course, at that moment Beast Boy took his African crowned eagle form and tore her head from her neck.
FEAR.
"I didn't mean to do that!" Beast Boy shouted as he flew frantically from Wallflower's hunting body and became a speck in the sky.
Exit, pursued by headless corpse.
"Do you know how long this spell's going to last?" Red Robin asked Superboy. Outside of Raven and Wallflower, Superboy probably knew the most about magic. He was the one Wallflower messaged about new spells she was trying, for some reason none of the other Titans understood.
"No," Superboy said. "That's not Delilah anymore. I don't know how powerful a Black Lantern's magic is."
Wallflower could have unlimited power and without Raven they couldn't do anything about it.
"Very powerful," a woman's voice whispered.
Superboy and Red Robin spun around. Standing behind them was a woman about Red Robin's height dressed all in white with the hood of her cloak pulled far up over her head, hiding her face. Red Robin immediately noticed that the lights of the Gotham skyline were shining through her like she was made of tissue paper.
"But so is mine." The woman pointed at them and spoke works in a language that neither of them understood. The air around Red Robin and Superboy grew cold for a split second. Superboy experimentally kicked off the roof and hovered between Red Robin and the stranger.
"Why did you do that?" Superboy asked. "Who are you?"
"I'm here to help, Conner," the woman said. "You can call me Trivia."
Superboy scowled. "How do you know my name?"
The woman sighed. "We were family once. You won't remember. And don't say you've never met me. That'd be a waste of time."
Red Robin and Superboy looked at each other. Neither of them said that they'd never met her, though they were both sure they hadn't.
"How do we know we can trust you?" Red Robin asked.
"Isn't a ghost better than a flesh-eating super powered zombie?" Trivia shot back.
Was that a trick question? Superboy shrugged and Red Robin nodded slightly.
"Exactly," Trivia said. "And I have a plan. Let's go find your friends."
Trivia was not an easy ghost to keep track of. Flying across the city, the lights below made her almost invisible. A few times she had to fly back to Superboy and Red Robin to lead them in the right direction when they lost sight of her. Despite that they made good time and it wasn't long before they saw the tongues of flame from Batman's flamethrowers.
The five Black Lanterns had regrouped. Wallflower's head had been reattached, her hands were covered with blood and Beast Boy was nowhere in sight, which was definitely a bad sign. Robin and Batman were still fighting with Batman now being backed by White Canary. Troia had a bleeding wound on her arm that looked like a bite mark but that didn't stop her from shooting at the acrobats with her dented flamethrower.
Trivia motioned for Red Robin and Superboy to stop just as Wonder Girl lassoed Bunker and yanked him off his floating brick platform, which broke apart and hit Aqualad in the head.
"On second thought, help the team," Trivia ordered. "I'll take care of the Black Lanterns."
Red Robin's flamethrower had broken when he'd gotten half strangled by Wallflower. In lieu of fire he used the edges of his glider to smash Robin's head and give White Canary a chance to burn him. Superboy used his telekinesis to push the acrobats into Nightwing and Troia's lines of fire when the acrobats touched the ground. While the boys joined the battle, Trivia floated down and looked between Wallflower and Wonder Girl. She could do this the easy way or the less easy way. Sending a quick prayer to Hecate and any other gods who cared enough to be paying attention to Earth, she chose the less easy way.
Wonder Girl's black light constructs of armour and lasso dissolved when Trivia possessed the Black Lantern. Bunker and Aqualad looked confused when Wonder Girl turned on Wallflower, tackling her to the ground and plunging a hand into her chest. It didn't help that Aqualad was seeing double.
Everyone saw Wonder Girl's eyes glowing white as she spoke words none of them could understand. Trivia put as much power into the spell as she could and the white light burned brighter, eventually growing so strong that everyone had to look away and close their eyes.
The Black Lantern rings burned.
Superboy was the first one able to turn back when the light started fading. He saw Wonder Girl and Wallflower laying on the asphalt looking like themselves again, no rotting flesh, no sunken eyes, no black and silver costumes. A breeze whispered past his ear and then he heard their hearts beating.
They were alive.
"What just happened?" Aqualad asked.
"I don't know," Bunker replied.
Red Robin landed beside Batman, who was holding the scrap of cape that he'd torn from Robin during their fight and looking at the place where the Black Lantern version of his son had turned to dust. Red Robin put a hand on his mentor's arm and Batman looked down at him.
"It's time for your team to go home," Batman said gruffly.
Red Robin looked around at his teammates. Bunker was apologizing to Aqualad for conking him in the head and Superboy, Raven and White Canary were dropping to the ground to tend to Wonder Girl and Wallflower. Skitter was wrapping a bandage around Troia's arm and hissing at her in a concerned tone. The absence of Beast Boy left a gaping hole in the scene.
Three of the eleven Titans who'd been fighting the Son of Trigon had died. Red Robin almost didn't want to see what had happened back in New York.
"Titans," Red Robin called, "time to head back to the ship."
A lot had happened in New York.
Superboy heard the hundreds of alarms that were going off in the city from miles away. The other Titans heard them a few seconds before the New York skyline was visible from the direction they were flying in from. The giant fiery dragon that was destroying a building, Papa Midnite's building, not that any of the teens knew that, was also pretty easy to spot.
White Canary swore loudly in Japanese. Next to her on his floating platform of bricks, Bunker kept his short curse to a more reasonable volume.
"I should take care of that," Raven said.
"I'll help," Kid Flash offered.
Red Robin nodded. "Go. Watch your backs, stay on comms. Everyone else, back to the ship."
Raven flew her and Kid Flash towards the definitely magical fire while the rest of them kept heading to Titans Tower. When they landed, Superboy, Skitter and Aqualad hurried Wonder Girl, Troia and Wallflower below decks to the infirmary. Red Robin told White Canary to call Green Arrow to tell him that she was alright and then he went over to Bunker, who was standing at the ship's prow.
"How are you?" Red Robin asked.
Bunker forced a smile. "I'm just super now, hermano. Can't make any promises for later."
Red Robin patted Bunker on the shoulder. Then he headed down to the infirmary. With Wallflower unconscious and Kid Flash helping Raven with the dragon fire, he was the only one who had first aid experience suitable for vigilantism.
Troia was sitting in a folding chair while Celine cleaned out the wound on her arm. The metal of the side of the chair that she was gripping with her other hand had bent under her fingers. What Red Robin could see of the wound looked bad. The bite marks were surrounded by grey skin and branching black veins.
"What are you using?" Red Robin asked.
"Hydrogen peroxide," Celine said. "Worry about the coma patients, I've got this."
"They're not in comas," Superboy said.
They wouldn't be able to tell either way without medical equipment that they didn't have on board, but Wonder Girl and Wallflower looked like they were sleeping. That they had two beds in the infirmary was finally coming in handy.
"I'm going to try to contact the League and the Lanterns for a status update," Red Robin said. "I'll check if the Lanterns know what to do about injuries."
The infirmary started to empty out after Red Robin left. Celine and Troia decided against doing more than disinfecting Troia's wound because they didn't know how to treat it. They left to see if Red Robin had learned anything from the Lanterns in the thirty seconds he'd been gone. Aqualad stayed for a bit longer before he couldn't ignore that he'd been fighting around open flames anymore and went to take a shower so he wouldn't pass out from dehydration. That left Superboy to wait for Wallflower and Wonder Girl to wake up.
If they woke up.
Superboy told his brain to shut up.
Emiko joined him after half an hour. She turned down his offer to take his chair in favour of pacing along the wall of storage cabinets. Superboy heard her muttering about idiot brothers.
Wonder Girl and Wallflower woke up at the same time. Wonder Girl turned her head and blinked awake as her cheek brushed the pillow. Wallflower breathed in sharply and her eyes shot open as a spell died on her lips. They both placed a hand over their heart and, since their costumes had emerged unscathed from the entire mess, were clearly surprised by the lack of blood and punctures and/or demon claws.
"How are you feeling?" Emiko asked tentatively.
Wallflower sat up slowly while Wonder Girl tried to roll right out of bed and ended up propping herself up against the wall before sitting down hard on the edge of the mattress.
"Dizzy," Wonder Girl muttered. "Cold."
Wallflower looked back and forth between Emiko and Superboy. Then she felt behind her ears and swore. "Where are my hearing aids? What happened?"
"Um," Emiko said. "I'll get some blankets?" She looked at Superboy and darted out of the room.
"White Canary is getting blankets. We'll catch you up when she gets back." Superboy signed. He turned to Wallflower. "Your hearing aids are probably in G-o-t-h-a-m."
"Gotham?" Wonder Girl asked.
Wallflower flinched. "Do we want to know why we were in Gotham?"
Superboy shook his head. They definitely wouldn't want to know why they were in Gotham, but they needed to know.
Emiko returned with a stack of blankets that Wonder Girl and Wallflower burrowed into like it was still the middle of winter. Then she and Superboy slowly began telling their teammates what had happened with the Son of Trigon and the Black Lanterns. How Wallflower and Wonder Girl had died. How Kid Flash and Red Robin found what was left of Beast Boy's body. The only thing that was left out, by Superboy since Emiko didn't know about it, was the involvement of the ghost, Trivia.
Wonder Girl's eyes flickered towards Wallflower for a second. "Is that all?"
"Isn't that enough?" Emiko sounded close to hysterical. Her heart rate was skyrocketing.
Wonder Girl paused before shaking her head and pulling her blankets more tightly around her. "Never mind."
Emiko took a few breaths and managed to calm down. "Okay. Okay. Is anyone hungry?" She finger spelled her question, hesitating over the shape of N for a moment but getting it right in the end.
"Not really," Wallflower said. "I should let my mom know where I am."
Wonder Girl groaned. "My mom is going to freak."
Cassie ended the call with her mom. She hadn't mentioned anything about dying but her mom had still freaked out. Someone had gotten video of Beast Boy's death that was quickly making its way around the internet. Because of course the response to seeing a superhero getting killed was to film it. Cassie dropped her phone on the bed next to her and got her freezing hands back under the blankets she was wrapped in to continue defrosting.
On the other bed in the infirmary, Delilah was still typing away on her phone. Cassie watched as she frowned, typed faster and then stabbed at the screen with one finger.
"I'm fine," Delilah said clearly. "My hearing aids are MIA and probably broken, but I'm fine. I'm staying at Tim's. Love you."
"OK?" Cassie asked when Delilah looked up from her phone.
"It's fine. It's...fine." Delilah sighed. "Do you have...stuff in your head that isn't supposed to be there?"
"You too?" Cassie exclaimed. She quickly repeated herself in ASL. "New memories?"
Delilah nodded. "Us but not us?"
"Yes." Cassie hesitated for a moment. "Your point of view."
"It is?" Delilah laughed. "No, that makes sense, but it means that Black Lanterns killed me last time."
Cassie didn't have that in the memories she'd woken up with. The clearest memory she had was of sitting on a couch with people who looked like Tim, Raven, Gar, Conner, Bart and herself, watching her other self laughing at whatever they were watching on TV. It came with overwhelming warmth that she felt down to her bones.
"I don't dislike you," Cassie said.
Delilah frowned. "That didn't make sense. The blankets are in the way."
"I don't hate you," Cassie said.
Delilah winched. "Why do you have to say that?"
"When you were dead you said that I hated you," Cassie said slowly. "That isn't true. We just aren't close."
Delilah was silent. Cassie would have been worried that she hadn't signed correctly but Delilah would have told her if she had. She waited for the other girl to collect her thoughts.
"Are any of us close?" Delilah blanched. "Not that we're not close but we aren't...There are groups and little overlap. We aren't like our other selves."
Cassie nodded. She could see that. Heck, this was the longest conversation she and Delilah had ever had outside of a combat situation.
They stayed wrapped up in blankets until Cassie couldn't ignore her growling stomach anymore. Delilah still wasn't hungry but she didn't want to think about why that was. They followed their noses to the kitchen, where Miguel was frying a mountain of scrambled eggs.
"Take what you want," Miguel said. "There's enough for everyone."
Emiko and Jackson were already eating at the end of the counter. Cassie grabbed a plate and claimed the last barstool while Delilah dug through the fridge for something to drink. Ginger ale seemed like a good idea.
Wind whipped through the kitchen and more than half of the eggs Miguel had cooked disappeared. Kid Flash didn't stick around after getting food. None of them tried to stop him. He was gone before most of them realized he'd been there. They didn't talk until Tim sent a message to the group chat asking everyone to meet in the living room.
"Three heroes dead, twelve wounded," Tim said. "All other Black Lanterns disappeared the same time they did in Gotham."
Delilah adjusted the volume on the new hearing aids Tim had given her. They were more sensitive than her probably-destroyed ones, even with David's modifications. "Who else is dead?" she asked.
"Hawkman and Stargirl," Tim said. Not heroes they'd worked with before, but ones they'd all heard of.
"There were twenty people injured in the fire," Raven said. "No deaths."
"But there was that zombie guy," Bart said.
"Bald, bone necklace?" Delilah asked.
Bart nodded.
"That's Papa Midnite. Don't worry about him." Even with her and Raven, Papa Midnite and the Teen Titans moved in completely different circles. He wouldn't bother with them unless they got in his way.
"This isn't over," Cassie said. "The Black Lanterns, they're not gone."
That statement led to exclamations of alarm that had Delilah turning her hearing aids off entirely. Tim gave her a thumbs-up when the noise had died down.
"How do you know that?" Tim asked.
"I...don't know." Cassie turned to Delilah. "Do you know?"
Delilah frowned as she ran through the new memories in her head in what she thought was chronological order. "There weren't any White Lanterns. But magic is part of Life so maybe it is over?"
"You're the witch," Cassie said. "Shouldn't you be able to answer that?"
"I've only been studying magic for two years," Delilah said. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Emiko said there was white light, so maybe?" Cassie shrugged. "White Lanterns use white light, right?"
The other Titans were watching the conversation like it was a tennis match.
"Does anyone know what they're talking about?" Jackson asked at last.
"Trivia," Conner said.
Both the seeming randomness of his statement and the fact that Conner hadn't said a word since the meeting started saw everyone turning to look at him, even Tim, who knew exactly what he was talking about.
"You think so?" Tim asked Conner.
Conner nodded. Then he shook his head. "Maybe? I don't know. She did something."
Emiko pointed at Tim and Conner. "Does anyone know what they're talking about?"
Cassie crossed her arms. "Is there something we should know?"
Busted.
Tim filled the rest of the team in on how a ghost, Trivia, had destroyed the Black Lantern rings and brought Cassie and Delilah back to life.
"That fills in a few holes," Cassie said. "Trivia left some memories behind when she resurrected us. We think they're Delilah's."
The majority of the team needed to take a few seconds to reboot their brains. Tim wasn't one of them because nothing could faze a Bat.
"Are they memories you forgot?" Donna asked Delilah.
Delilah didn't know how to answer that. If she'd forgotten the memories then that meant that she'd forgotten remembering them and forgotten forgetting them because she didn't have any holes in her memory or reasons for memories to go missing. Since she didn't remember forgetting or remembering them, she couldn't be sure that she'd forgotten them.
"I don't think so," Delilah decided to say before she could overthink it too much. "Not this me, a different me. Black Lanterns killed her."
"Black Lanterns killed her even though this is the first time anyone has ever seen them?" Celine asked with a tone of severe disbelief.
Jackson held up one hand and began counting off on his fingers, "Parallel universe, universal mind-wipe, universal reset, other options that you should know about because you're the scientist."
Celine sighed. "Point taken."
"So, what do we know?" Emiko asked. "If this Trivia person gave us information on the Black Lanterns, can we trust it?"
"Is it even real?" Bart asked.
"It's real," Delilah said. "I'm sure of it." Cassie nodded in agreement.
"Let's figure out what information we have," Tim said. "We'll share what we can with the Justice League and make our own preparations. As of now we're ahead of those monsters. Let's try to keep it that way."
"Get down!" Raven shouted.
All of the Titans that hadn't already been knocked down dropped to the street. As soon as they were out of harm's way, Raven let loose streams of fire that turned the swarm of Black Lanterns hounding them into cinders. They had gotten, what, a day to prepare? Less? It was no wonder they were getting chewed up and spit out, metaphorically speaking. Thankfully, none of the Teen Titans had died yet.
"Does anyone know where we are?" Wallflower asked after Wonder Girl and Superboy used some of Raven's brief respite to free her from super strong synthetic webbing that a trick arrow from one of the Black Lanterns had trussed her in.
It only felt like they had been chased across half the United States. When Red Robin checked his GPS he told them that they were in Gateway City in California, so really they'd been chased across the entire United States.
Bunker spat blood onto the ground. "Well, at least there isn't anyone outside."
Their foreknowledge, courtesy of Trivia, had civilians hiding in bunkers and bank vaults, anywhere where it would be too much of a bother for Black Lanterns to try to get at them when there were emotional superheroes running around.
"At least," White Canary grumbled. She gestured towards the dozen piles of ashes that were rebuilding themselves into charred corpses. "Anyone else feel like throwing them into an active volcano and seeing what happens?"
Skitter hissed in agreement. Donna sighed as she retrieved her sword.
Aqualad raised his hand. "I don't do lava well, I'm just pointing that out."
"We need more white light," Wallflower muttered. "Dnes eht sgnir otni eht nus."
The swarm of Black Lantern rings that had been flying in from behind Wonder Girl vanished. Wallflower flexed her fingers and gritted her teeth. A dead feeling was replacing the pain that had been shooting through her hands. She'd been using magic for too long. Without a soul to use for power it had to take a physical toil, but she'd never gone beyond pain before.
"Batman found Dove. What more white light can we get without White Lantern rings?" Bunker asked as he punched the most fully reformed Black Lantern with a purple brick fist.
Wallflower didn't know, but that didn't change that they were slowly limping towards the point of no return. They were tiring and the Black Lanterns didn't stop coming.
"How's your arm, Troia?" Red Robin asked.
Troia looked down at the black veins branching out from beneath the bandage that were creeping up to her shoulder. "Not much worse than the last time you asked."
White Canary squinted into the distance. "How many people did you know who died during this 'culling' exactly?"
"Too many," Superboy said at once. "Why…oh no." He'd looked in the same direction as White Canary and seen clearly that two more Black Lanterns were headed their way.
"What?" Wallflower asked as she dodged an attack from wolf-shaped Beast Boy.
"More Black Lanterns incoming," White Canary warned.
Superboy hit four of the Black Lanterns they were currently fighting with his heat vision. He turned to do the same to the newcomers only to find that they had already landed and taken Wallflower and Wonder Girl out of the fight.
"Catherine?" Wallflower whispered.
FEAR. RAGE.
"Dad?" Wonder Girl choked out. "You're dead?"
FEAR. RAGE. LOVE.
"I promised you I'd come back, sweetheart," Wonder Girl's dad said softly. "I promised I would come back for you. I saw a chance and I took it."
"You're not like the others?" Wonder Girl asked.
HOPE.
Her dad shook his head. A slow smile spread over her face and a tear ran down her cheek.
"Like I'm going to believe that." She lashed out and tore her father's head from his shoulders. "Raven!"
A wave of flames from the daughter of Trigon washed over the corrupted corpse of Lennox Sandsmark, burning it to ashes.
Wonder Girl gulped down the sobs that wanted to burst from her chest. "Dad."
"Catherine," Wallflower whispered again. She stared uncomprehendingly at the Black Lantern in front of her. "You can't be here."
Catherine smiled a smile as bright as the flames that wrapped around her body. "Why not, sweetheart? Oh, did this just become too personal for you?"
"Catherine, I...I…"
"You did this." The dead witch spread her arms wide. "This is all your fault. If you had a soul like a normal person then Asmodeus wouldn't have burnt me alive."
Catherine stepped towards Wallflower. She made no move to stop her and her teammates had their own Black Lanterns to fight. They had gotten spread out again. That wasn't good.
Catherine stepped closer. "You killed me."
"No," Wallflower choked out. "You tried to kill me."
RAGE.
Catherine laughed. Her hand flew towards Wallflower's heart.
"No!" Wonder Girl shouted.
She was the closest to Wallflower. She ran as fast as she could and jumped between her and the Black Lantern.
Catherine screamed.
CONNECTION SEVERED.
Wonder Girl gasped, staring at the pile of dust that had been Catherine and her Black Lantern ring. It showed no sign of reforming and was quickly blown away by the wind.
"White light," Wallflower croaked from where she'd fallen behind Wonder Girl, both pushed out of the way and collapsed in pain after Wonder Girl had started burning with the white light of life. "You saved me."
Wonder Girl turned and forced a smile. "What are friends for?"
Wallflower laughed, breathless and hunched over as the feeling of dead numbness moved up both her arms.
"Are you alright?" Donna shouted.
"Fine!" Wonder Girl called back.
"What's going on?" Aqualad exclaimed as the Black Lantern he was fighting suddenly flew away.
"I don't know," White Canary said as the Black Lantern archer Artemis abandoned their fight without even loosening the arrow she had nocked.
"Wonder Girl, Wallflower, incoming!" Red Robin warned.
Skitter hissed questioningly.
"They must sense that Wonder Girl is the real threat," Donna speculated.
Wonder Girl scowled at the Black Lanterns flying at her. "You want our fear, our love? Come and get it!"
The Black Lanterns dove towards her. Wonder Girl let out a yell and burning white light burst from her heart. The nearest Black Lanterns turned to dust immediately while the ones that had yet to reach her, a group of four that included Artemis and Beast Boy, were just skimmed by the light before they screamed and flew away as fast as they could.
Wonder Girl fell to her hands and knees. Superboy and Troia landed beside her and helped her to her feet.
"Thanks," Wonder Girl gasped.
"No problem," Troia said, squinting at her. "I guess you can't turn the light down?"
"What light?" White Canary asked, jumping to the street from the roof of a corner store. "It's disappeared."
"No, it hasn't," Wallflower said. "I see it." Burning white light surrounded Wonder Girl's body.
"Huh," Red Robin said. He looked from Wallflower to Troia. The wheels in his head started turning.
"Are you alright, Wallflower?" Aqualad asked, joining them with the rest of the team.
"I'm fine." Wallflower pushed herself to her feet, ignoring how her arms were doing their best to be dead weights. "Let's worry about the Black Lanterns. There are still more of them out there."
"I need to get to the front lines," Wonder Girl said.
"The front lines? Look at yourself!" White Canary protested. "You can barely stand up."
Skitter hissed at Wallflower at a volume that her hearing aids could pick up even without their comm function.
"I said I'm fine!" Wallflower snapped.
"No, she's right, you're not," Bunker said. "You've never yelled at Skitter before, hermana."
Wallflower rubbed her arms and shook out her hands, scowling. She tore off one of her gloves, figuring if they were going to be standing around arguing she may as well check for visible damage. The black veins and grey skin she uncovered left her unable to argue back. The rest of the team noticed pretty quickly. Bunker swore impressively in Spanish for a good minute.
"That's a problem," Kid Flash squeaked.
"Understatement," Aqualad said. "Understatement of the year."
"How did that happen?" Superboy asked. "Trivia saved you."
"I think I used too much magic. Something had to give." Wallflower rolled up her sleeve and exposed more greying skin. "Hells."
This was the point in the zombie movie where the characters had to find a cure or kill their friends.
"We can see like them," Troia said. "Superboy has white light around him too, though not as much as Wonder Girl. And everyone else has other colours."
Wallflower nodded. She could see those lights too. There was a lot of yellow and red.
"So we've got two mini-Doves and two..." White Canary gestured at Troia and Wallflower.
"Seems so," Red Robin said. "Wonder Girl, Superboy, you're on point. Troia, Wallflower, stay near them. We don't need more Black Lanterns to deal with."
Troia and Wallflower winched, but they knew he was right.
"Where are we going?" Superboy asked.
"I talked to Batman," Red Robin said. "The front lines are in Coast City."
There actually weren't any obvious front lines, so Raven teleported them into the middle of the battle. It was a really big battle. In the middle of it all was the Black Lantern Central Power Battery, towering darkly over the city.
Along with all the superheroes who had managed to stay alive, there were supervillains, magic users, new gods and Lanterns fighting alongside each other against the Black Lanterns.
There were a lot of Lanterns. Look, there was the blue blur that was the Flash wielding a Blue Lantern ring. Wonder Woman was brandishing a Star Sapphire ring alongside her sword. Lex Luthor had constructed a giant suit of robotic armour with his Orange Lantern ring. Yikes, Scarecrow was a Yellow Lantern, like he wasn't terrifying enough. Though that was probably why he was chosen…Oh dear. Was that Supergirl with a Red Lantern ring? That was going to cause problems if they all survived this.
And Superman was a Black Lantern. That was causing problems now.
"Remember that these aren't the people we knew," Red Robin said. "Hit them with everything you've got."
They did.
Despite trying to stick together, the Teen Titans soon got split up. Wallflower found herself fighting alongside Papa Midnite and his zombies against Hawkman and four mages, Sargon the Sorcerer (three of them, including the one that was leading the Cult of the Cold Flame) and Mister E.
"You're still alive," Midnite said, sounding surprised. He swung his machete and cleaved Sargon #1's body in half before setting his zombies on him and turning to face Hawkman.
"Trying," Wallflower replied. "Nrub meht."
Sargon #2 burst into flames while only Sargon #3's head was set alight. Wallflower blinked, trying in vain to get her eyesight back to normal as the dead feeling of the Black Lantern taint crept up her neck and overwhelmed her left eye.
"And in about an hour you won't be," Midnite commented, battling machete against mace with the undead Hawkman.
Wallflower flew up and kicked Mister E towards the burning Sargon #2. "Guess I'd better find Dove then, huh, Papa?"
Midnite spared her a single glance as he hacked Hawkman's legs off. "It's been nice knowing you. Trade?"
As an answer, Wallflower dodged a spell fired at her by Mister E and flew away with the top half of Hawkman's body, dragging it by the wings. Midnite gave a wry half-smile before uncapping a potion that he poured on as much of Mister E as possible.
"I never liked trench coats much," he told the Black Lantern as it turned to dust.
Hawkman grew his legs back after about fifteen seconds. He swung his fist at Wallflower's face, having lost his mace during his fight with Papa Midnite. Wallflower lost her grip on his wings and Hawkman flew down to harass Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. Apparently being halfway to joining them meant the Black Lanterns were no longer interested in Wallflower. Well, it made it easier for her to burn them to ashes anyway.
Dove was battling a swarm of Black Lanterns back-to-back with Troia. Troia ignored the pain that shot through her arm every time Dove turned a Black Lantern to dust, but she was glad she could fight with one hand.
Wonder Girl and Superboy had somehow managed to stick together, that or they'd had the infinitesimal chance of running into each other in the total chaos of the battle. Wonder Girl looked on the verge of falling out of the sky but she continued to throw out her lasso, which burned with white light and disintegrated any Black Lanterns that weren't fast enough to get out of the way.
"You okay?" Superboy yelled as he blasted Black Lantern Martian Manhunter with his heat vision.
"Fine!" Wonder Girl lied.
Another Black Lantern, Superboy wasn't sure who it was, made a grab for Superboy's heart. They were thrown back several feet, right into the path of Wonder Girl's lasso.
By then it was nighttime. When Wonder Girl saw bright lights streaking through the sky she wasn't sure if they were shooting stars or her exhausted brain playing tricks on her.
"More rings!" several members of the various Lantern Corps shouted, verbalizing what their own rings were telling them.
DAMIAN WAYNE OF EARTH, LIVE!
GEORGE HARKNESS OF EARTH, LIVE!
BOSTON BRAND OF EARTH, LIVE!
J'ONN J'ONZZ OF MARS, LIVE!
KATAR HOL OF THANAGAR, LIVE!
JAIMINI SARGENT OF EARTH, LIVE!
ARTEMIS CROCK OF EARTH, LIVE!
HANK HALL OF EARTH, LIVE!
KAL-EL OF EARTH, LIVE!
SIOBHAN SMYTHE OF EARTH, LIVE!
PAMELA LILLIAN ISLEY OF EARTH, LIVE!
DONNA TROY OF EARTH, LIVE!
Blinding white light made Coast City brighter than day. The Black Lanterns near Robin, Captain Boomerang, Deadman, Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, Sargon #3, Artemis, Hawk, Superman, Silver Banshee, Poison Ivy and Troia just weren't fast enough to get away from their former comrades. They were blasted apart by the light the white rings emitted as they claimed their Lanterns.
"White Lanterns, to me!" Superman called.
The other White Lanterns flew towards Superman. Together the twelve of them fired beams of light from their rings into the heart of the Black Lantern Central Power Battery. The Power Battery began to glow a sickly grey and it started to heat up as the black and white light battled inside it.
"Give it more power!" Martian Manhunter shouted.
The living combatants continued fighting against the remaining Black Lanterns as the White Lanterns poured as much power as they could into overwhelming the Power Battery. Superman and Silver Banshee even added their heat vision and supersonic wail, respectively. Still the Power Battery endured.
"It's still not enough?" Poison Ivy exclaimed. "How?"
"We're missing something," Sargon said, looking around with glowing eyes. "What are we missing?"
"I think I know," Troia said. She spoke into her comm. "We need Dove at the Power Battery."
By some luck, most of the other Teen Titans had encountered Dove and were fighting alongside her. Red Robin quickly passed on the message. Dove looked at Skitter, Wallflower and Raven, who were fighting against Beast Boy and Bunker, who had been killed by Hawkman before the white rings came.
"We'll be fine," Red Robin told her. "Go!"
Dove nodded and took off. Raven threw up a wall of fire to keep Beast Boy, Bunker and the other Black Lanterns back.
Dove instinctively stopped flying right in front of the White Lanterns. Their individual beams of white light bent towards her and merged into a single beam as they passed through her heart. The strong white light hit the heart of the Power Battery and cracks radiated from where it struck.
"It's working!"
The Power Battery exploded in a blast of light and heat. Many, many people screamed all at once.
And then it was silent.
Absolutely silent.