"Guys, how the hell did we end up in Russia?" Kid Flash exclaimed, as he looked around the foreign cityscape.

At the very least, it looked Russian.

The street signs and storefronts were clearly in Russian (Robin could read the language), and the abandoned, overturned cars littering the street resembled Ladas and other vehicles of the old Soviet bloc. Almost everything else was a misshapen pile of steel and rubble.

The last few minutes were a blur to the team.

One moment, they were infiltrating yet another one of those lavishly-funded, secret underground laboratories that seemed all the rage these days, the next moment they were flung through some weird portal-thing before they even had the chance to gather some evidence. Robin was literally in the middle of downloading sensitive information from one of their servers, when some goon threw a strange device into the room and locked the door.

The next moment, they were falling wildly through time and space. Just to cap things off, Robin's data was corrupted.

That's what stung most at the moment. Their hearts twisted more for the failure of their mission than their current predicament.

A morsel of information Robin gleaned from the data stream, before the interruption, was that this lab had been corresponding closely with LexCorp for the last few months. Great, so this was probably yet another one of that bald man's schemes, not that the Team would be in any position to warn Superman about it.

"What the hell, man!? We were so close, like, this close to catching the guy." Kid Flash complained, holding his thumb and pointer finger a fraction of an inch apart.

"Flash, there is no point in worrying over what might have been. Let us focus on analyzing our new situation, and decide on a course of action from there." said Aqualad, ever the stoic leader.

"Whatever you say, boss."

The streets they were in seemed deserted. And no surprise, considering that the city seemed to have recently gone through hell.

It wasn't just a few buildings looted and burned down, nor a few cars turned over in the street. The buildings looked like they were pounded with a giant hammer, until their rubble turned to paste. The streets weren't just cracked, they were turned inside-out, dark asphalt visible under piles of aggregate and topsoil. The street lamps were bent at extreme angles, and it seemed that everything that could be on fire, was on fire.

"It looked like an earthquake passed through here…". said Ms. Martian, surveying the scene from above.

"No. People did this." Robin said, walking over to an overturned, burnt-out husk of a truck. "Very angry people, at that."

"Such destruction happening is unfortunate, but it is not currently our responsibility unless we happen upon innocent people in danger." said Aqualad, stepping forward. "We should focus on re-establishing contact with Red Tornado or Batman as soon as possible-"

Suddenly, they heard a scream.

Running to the source, they saw a group of masked assailants cornering a young couple. Oddly enough, both the attackers and the victims seemed to have what looked like bear ears stuck on top of their heads.

Shaking his head, Connor yelled. "Hey assholes. Pick on someone your own size!"

The thugs turned around. One of them raised an eyebrow at the team's appearance.

"Who the hell are you people supposed to be?"

"Escapees from the circus, it looks like." said the one beside him.

"They don't look like locals to me." said another.

"Ah, who the hell cares. It's more meat for the meat grinder." said the first one, reaching into his scabbard and drawing a wicked looking sword.

"It doesn't have to end in violence." Aqualad said, approaching them with his hands held outwards. "If you could willingly surrender yourselves and allow us to call the authorities-"

It was at that point that the thugs laughed in his face.

"We of Reunion just made the police and fucking army look like idiots. Just look around you! Where the fuck would you find a police officer, kid?"

"Even if you did, they'd be too busy holding off our main contingents to even give you circus freaks the time of day!"

All at once: Robin, Superboy, and Kid Flash's eyebrows twitched.

"We're not from the circus!" they shouted.

"Well you sure do talk like clowns!" said one of them. "Do you even know who we are!? What we're going to do to you?"

"I know that you people are trying to provoke a fight with us for seemingly no reason." said Aqualad. "Relax. We are newcomers to this place, and would like to know what has happened here, that is all..."

"..."

"... Excuse me?"

"So that's it, huh? A buncha outsiders sticking their nose in where they don't belong. Well, if it hasn't been obvious enough for you smoothbrains: We, Reunion, have taken over this city!"

"... Huh? Boss, they're gone!"

"What?"

The masked man in front turned around, to see that the overfed bastards they'd cornered had long since snuck off.

Had escaped justice.

The masked men clenched their fists, and turned back towards the Team.

"You uninfected folk think you can stomp all over us, thinking that by stepping hard enough, we'll disappear? Well, fuck no, we ain't interested in disappearing! We'll remind you that we Infected exist whether you fucking want to or not! No matter how much 'chaos' we cause, it's still no match for all the oppressionyou put us through-"

"Infected? Infected with what?" asked Kid Flash, somewhat flippantly.

That was precisely the wrong thing to say.

"Kill them!"

With a collective cry, the masked men rushed the team.

Aqualad made the first counter-move, spraying the road between him and the charging thugs, causing them to fall and trip over each other. Artemis then launched an arrow that split into an electrified net, shocking them into unconsciousness.

Robin, meanwhile, was being mobbed three-to-one. He dodged a descending club, then a charging fist, before barely sidestepping a swung sword. He winced as his forehead stung, and blood spilled into his eyes. He jumped away from the melee, rubbing under his mask.

"Ah, shit! Guys! These aren't some rent-a-minions we're dealing with here! Be careful!"

The thugs fought like men and women possessed, completely uncaring of their injuries, of how much pain they must be feeling. They didn't seem to have any self-preservation at all, only a burning desire to kill and maim their enemies.

Near the back of the group, a duo of ominous figures in grey cloaks were keeping their distance. Suddenly, they raised their hands into the air, their palms glowing with a strange light.

"Guys, sorcery, look out!" M'gann yelled, flying towards the casters with her arms raised.

In an instant, she lifted the casters into the air, an invisible force holding their arms tightly against their backs.

And that's how they handled the rest of the fight. Though they fought fiercely, the Team made it an utmost priority to avoid killing. Anything less would bring shame to their illustrious mentors.

Their enemies were unexpectedly tough, but the Team eventually knocked them all out.

As they tied up the thugs, the adrenaline seeped from them. Wally yelped and fell to a knee, clutching his left arm.

It was a wound sustained as he was running towards a crossbowman firing in his direction, causing the bolt to graze his arm at nearly the speed of sound.

"Ow! The hell were those guys!" he exclaimed.

"Who knows? Just a bunch of opportunistic looters, most likely. People taking advantage of the chaos to do things they'd never dare otherwise." said Artemis.

"I don't think very many looters would have swordsmen or magic-users in their midst. Something weird is going on around here…" said Robin.

"Robin is correct. This is clearly not normal. We will need to keep on our toes." said Aqualad.

As they continued wandering the city, Aqualad turned to Robin. There was a bandage around his forehead now, like a snow-white bandana with a red centre.

"Any luck with communications?"

The Boy Wonder swore as his device flashed red with yet another error message.

"I'm not getting to them. What about you, Aqualad?"

"Same here." said Aqualad, holding up his copy of the communicator, his right as team leader.

Miss Martian closed her eyes and attempted to reach out with telepathic feelers, only to open her eyes again in disappointment.

"I couldn't feel Uncle Jon's presence anywhere on this planet. And his psychic signature is usually so distinctive!" she complained.

"Well, there could be any possible number of reasons for that." said Robin. "For example: Perhaps there's way too much background noise?"

"She's the one with the psychic powers, not you, birdbrain." said Conner, watching the rear.

"Hey, Hey, it's all cool. Let's all be whelmed, people. Remember: Let's all remember to get whelmed."

"Yeah, alright, I'm all for being whelmed, whatever the fuck that even means. But what do we actually do now!? Unless you boys want to keep slinging around made-up words until the sun sets." said Artemis.

"Err… We keep walking 'round until we find a police officer, or someone like that. They did say they were busy around here holding off the main contingents, whatever that means..." Robin opined.

"So we're just winging it now?" Artemis said.

"Hey, we've been" winging it" since Day 1." said Superboy. "I don't see what's so problematic about it."

"... Point taken."

After a few more minutes' worth of walking, Robin and Kid Flash, scouting ahead, spotted two thugs up ahead with their backs turned.

"Ah geez, we don't really have time to waste on even more ruffians…" said Robin. "So we're all going into this sneaky-beaky-like. Flash?"

"Ya got it, boss." Wally said, pulling down his goggles.

For a moment, he blinked, before moving at speeds faster than a human brain can properly process. He can't keep this sort of speed up for any length of time, not like his mentor, but he could do it for a paltry second, enough to knock a pair of goons unconscious before their brains had even finished registering the sensation of his hand grabbing the side of their heads. He would've also given them terrible wedgies, if not for Aqualad disapproving of such unprofessional behaviour.

As Robin was tying them up, the rest of the team looked at the building they were overseeing.

It was a large, blocky complex. Ruined, cracked, yet not yet destroyed. Several parts of it looked like makeshift repairs were done by inexperienced hands. The whole place gave off a desolate feel.

"Is that… a school?"

"Looks like it."

"Were those dudes guarding the place or something? What the hell's in there?"

"What… or Who?" Aqualad said, stepping forward. "If that place really is a school, then there must be trapped civilians inside. Students and teachers." he said, and the rest of the team's expressions hardened.

"How are you holding up, Anna?" asked "General Zima", real name Sonia, feared bully-hunter among the local studentry, in a surprisingly tender voice.

"... Fine. I'm absolutely fine, Sonya. You should know as well as I that quietness is no sign of ill health."

"No, but breathing like you're constantly about to drown isn't."

"..."

"If you keep it all bottled up inside, you're gonna explode and start punching things. Not that that's a bad hobby to have, but I'm kinda afraid you might faint after bruising your hand or something."

"I'm very touched by your concern, Sonia."

"..."

After a moment, Sonya leaned in closer to Anna.

"Hey, no need to worry your ass over all leave all the heavy duty fighting to me." she proudly said.

Anna blinked.

"Don't worry…?" the blunette muttered.

"Hm? Anna, you say something?"

"You said don't worry. And I don't doubt you're strong enough to protect the four of us when things get nasty. But even after this crisis ends, I don't think we can just laugh it off and return to our normal, everyday lives like it never happened…"

"Why the hell not?"

"... Sonya, your 'normal daily life' includes you getting into several bloody fistfights a day. I don't think you're a good representative of the average student body…"

"Hey, don't think this is a whole different thing from life before. The students around here were always keen to use their fists over words, and the noble kids always saw us as trash while their mommies and daddies were sucking the blood of us lower classes for a long time.

It's just that now, with those Reunion assholes thrashing the infrastructure and the noble police and army being too distracted with saving their rich donors' property to send us any help, the noble kids are now in a situation where they can't make people do whatever they want just by throwing money at them. So instead, they try to kill us. They're scum."

Anna said nothing. Sonia looked out of the hallway. A few minutes ago, it was completely empty.

Now...

Zima slammed the classroom door shut. The sounds of a rusty lock rotating put everyone inside on edge.

"Sonia?"

"Eyes off the book, Anna. Those fuckers are back."

The team stepped into the school, and found it to be just as dilapidated as the exterior.

"Man, I know school's hell, but…"

Wally didn't have time to finish that thought, because up ahead, the team heard a cluster of shouts and screams up ahead. Shouts of triumph and distress both.

Very young voices, at that.

"Aah!"

"Aargh!"

Blood sprayed in a graceful arc, painting a perfect half-circle on the hallway's tiled floor. The other three would-be raiders, splashed with the blood of their newly dead comrade, swore and backed away from the crazy Ursus-shaped killing machine before them.

"Come on!" Zima yelled, baring her teeth. "Am I fighting babies!?"

Behind her, Anna was beginning to cast the first syllables of a combat spell, while Leto readied her fists.

With a thunderous cry, the students rushed each other with immense ferocity, motivated by fear for their safety on one side, and bitter, ravenous hunger on the other. They wielded whatever deadly item (or item that can be made deadly) was at hand: knives, forks, pencils, pieces of concrete, rebar, rocks, crowbars, axes, even fists.

And then the wall beside them blew up, and Zima and another student she was about to behead had their arms seized by a yellow blur.

"Hey whoah, whoah, whoah, hold the phone here people! What the grill's going on here? What in the world is wrong with you people!?" Kid Flash said.

At that moment, students on both sides stared incredulously at this newcomer. He wore a completely ridiculous outfit, a skintight costume dyed in bright yellow and red. All in all, he looked like he just got kicked out of the circus.

The rest of the bear children(?) turned towards them, shocked at first, and then furious.

"Who the hell are you people!? What do you want? Are you with Reunion? Are you gonna try and steal our food too!?" asked a noble girl, showing a look of pure hate on a face much too young for it.

"What, no! We're doing no such thing!" answered, raising his arms as if in feeble surrender. "We just wanted you to stop the fighting! C'mon, you're classmates, aren't you? Can't you, like, share or something?"

"Classmates!? Of these lower-class churls?" said a plump boy standing just beside the hate-faced girl. "We don't even know where this is, those thugs just dragged us out of our school and shoved us into this fetid excuse for one!"

"What the hell is with those getups, anyway? Did the circus get caught up in this Catastrophe too?" Zima quipped.

Both Kid Flash and Robin twitched their brows Eyebrows.

"No, we're not circus performers…" Aqualad said, ignoring their derision. "We're heroes. And it doesn't matter who we are, who you are, or where. It's our duty to protect people from harm."

Zima's expression turned nasty. "Well where the hell were you then, when the riots started!? Where were you when the city turned to hell and we had to kill just to eat!?"

"H-Hey, calm down, will ya?"

" I am not calming down! It's because of you useless fucking adults that we students are even in this mess to begin with!"

"Umm, we're teenagers, just like you girls…"

Everyone's eyes were on the girl with the axe now, as she spat her disgust at these newly-arrived "heroes".

As they argued, one of the blue bloods snuck up on Wally as his back was turned, grasping something very hard and sharp in his hand.

As the verbal exchange grew louder, the children on both sides were beginning to grow restless, and the Team tensed up...

Suddenly, there was a loud yelp.

Everyone in the hallway looked at Kid Flash, as he laid on the floor, bleeding.

As she was ranting at him, Wally imagined the million-and-one ways he could think of to incapacitate her before she even knew what was happening: trip her up, tie her legs, slap tape over her mouth, run circles around her so quickly that she gets trapped in a temporary vacuum…

"We're just here to help!" said Wally as he raised his palms, trying to peacefully placate the girl waving an axe the size of her torso.

Robin stepped forward. "My friend's got a point. Let's all put down the weapons, get whelmed, and try to think through our situation in a calm and collected way together."

But damn it, Heroes have standards.

-!

Pain. Shoulder.

"Ow! What the-"

Wally craned his neck, and looked at his shoulder.

It was a terrible wound. An attacker had stabbed him with a piece of grayish crystal.

"Wha…-"

He felt the pain. He fell to the floor.

"Wally!" yelled Artemis.

"Petrov! What the fuck did you do to him!?" someone yelled.

The newly identified Petrov backed away and spat. "Clown bastard had what was coming to him. And you fuckers are next, you hear! I'm going to make sure you're all dead for your insolence or my father is not the great General of the 4th Army! Did you hear that!? You should! That means my father is going to hunt down every single one of you ungrateful wretches, and hang you for treasonously acting against us nobles! Don't you dare forget, because my parents certainly won't!"

"Your precious dad is fucking dead, Illyvich, better get over it as soon as possible!" said Zima.

At that point, the noble students decided to flee, rather than having to deal with this awkward situation. The rest gathered around Wally.

The blue-haired girl kneeled beside him, and waved a hand. Artemis pointed an arrow at her, to which Zima raised her axe at the archer.

"Relax, I'm just going to use Arts to check over your comrade's condition." said Anna.

Artemis slowly lowered her bow.

"Wait, since when did you know Medical Arts, Anna?" asked Sonia/Zima.

"Learned it from a book on First Aid, when we barricaded ourselves in that library. Remember?" she replied.

She hovered her right hand, glowing with mystic light, over Kid Flash's grievously injured shoulders.

"Well, like Sonia said, I'm no medic, but can at least tell you that your comrade isn't in danger of dying anytime soon…"

She solemnly looked at the crystal embedded in the boy's shoulder, a gaze which the others followed.

"... We should take him to a real doctor as soon as possible, though."

"Agreed."

Meanwhile, under Wally's skin, flakes of the strange crystal began to enter his bloodstream, while the muscles next to the wound slowly began to crystallize...