A/N

Hi guys, thank you for taking the time to read another chapter. 600 views and counting, so I'd say this month has been a complete success, both for my fragile ego and for the story itself. I hope you enjoy what I am planning to do with this YJ universe, but that's going to be revealed at a later time, so watch out for that!

Episode X: A New Divide, Part II

All of the exits are sealed - more than that actually, they don't seem to be locked but at the same time are impossible to open. Robin might not be an expert in the occult, but he's fairly certain some kind of magic is at play here. Zatanna has taught him enough to understand the difference between reality and the magical realm, especially when it comes to unexplained circumstances such as these.

Different temporal realm? Different place in time? Robin attempts to reason with the scenario, however quickly comes to terms logic doesn't apply to the wonders of magic.

Better to try and figure out the type of spell instead, which is also harder than it seems.

"Odnu," the Boy Wonder starts, unsurprised nothing happens. "esaelp."

"Great. Things just went from difficult to magical," he mutters to himself, looking for anything inside of the warehouse which could give him any indication of how to escape the situation he finds himself in.

Nothing is necessarily out of place, with the warehouse layed out and filled with the various boxes and shelves it had when the team initially entered, so no indication anything could be a trigger there. With that, the likelihood he's been travelled through time is quite low - nothing stays the same for too long, especially in warehouses.

Worst comes to worst, he can sit down and wait until the spell wears off. Hopefully, it's the kind of spell which can wear off eventually, otherwise the spell might be even more annoying in the long-term.

The unmistakable sound of shuffling invades his ears as one of the boxes he had previously laid his eyes upon drops to the ground.

Seems I am not alone, Robin muses, hands close to his utility belt, and in particular the section carrying his various throwable weapons.

"You are not."

Whipping around to face the intruder, Robin's hand is quickly filled with a portable sonic generator and extends, ready to throw it on the ground. Then, his arm relaxes a little upon seeing the form of his mentor stood infront of him, arms casually displayed by his sides.

"I'm guessing you aren't the actual Batman?" Robin jokes, the arm holding the sonic weapon tightening at the realisation he is still in a dangerous situation.

"Sloppy. It was too easy to distract you," the magical incarnation of the Dark Knight scolds him in the usual condescending mannerism. At least whatever spell has been cast got the Batman's personality down to the minute details.

Whilst Batman is stood there, arms mostly hidden underneath his cape, he's indiscernible from the real thing. Even now, the bat-glare is burning into his eye sockets with the same ferocity as always.

"I get enough stick from you in real-life, so excuse me please," Robin holsters his gadget, attempting to brush past the apparition.

However, Batman has other ideas and grabs the Boy Wonder, launching him a fair distance away. Robin only manages to use his acrobatic skills to land safely through sheer physical ability and luck, feet skidding across the ground as he comes to a halt.

This Batman doesn't have his patience though - the real Bruce would let him walk past and then scold him later for disobeying. Dick has done this so many times he was sure of the outcome, but maybe things are about to get more unusual than they are.

"That wasn't nice," Robin jokes, throwing one of his R-shaped shuriken's at the target with a single, swift motion.

Dodging effortlessly, Robin makes note of the way Batman flips through the air gracefully to avoid the sharp metal, landing in quite a similar fashion to how Robin himself did. Although they both share incredibly dexterity, the actual Batman doesn't move like that in real life.

"When did you learn how to move like that?" the Boy Wonder jokes again, loading up another of his shurikens for use.

"At the circus," the Batman responds, throwing one of his own at the Boy Wonder.

Avoiding the weapon by the skin of his nose, the shuriken thuds into the ground where Robin stood. There, he spots the unique shape of his own shurikens, curved and moulded to form the symbol of Robin with the colour scheme to match.

Coming to the realisation of what this means, he examines the Batman once more, taking into account the way the Batman is stood and how the mask is formed around his face. During this observation, he notices one very specific thing - Batman's colour scheme. Shocked he didn't notice it before, he notices the dark blue shaded in with the black, mainly around the cape and shoulder area.

Putting two and two together, Robin inwardly sighs at his conclusion.

"You're me aren't you? Or suppose to be at least," he asks, to which the tall figure nods. "I know what this is about - facing your fears huh? Is this really the best Kaldur can come up with?"

"You can drop the brave face, Dick, I know what you are thinking right now," Batman - or rather, Dick - smirks, moving towards the Boy Wonder with aggressive, powerful strides.

All factors taken into account, his opinion magic sucks beyond belief is reinforced. Playing on his fears in one thing, and he's dealt with the Scarecrow enough times to come to terms with his own weaknesses, but to bring this to the forefront is something unexpected.

Sure, he doesn't want to become the Batman, but being scared of it isn't how Robin feels. If anything, he doesn't believe he is scared or angry enough to ever want to become the Batman and what it stands for. Bruce and his unending righteous fury is perfect for the role, but Dick has gone past the death of his parents.

Maybe this is what he fears most: losing so much he ends up becoming the Batman.

Either way, he's got to find a way out of this hole, and since his other self is the only thing to have appeared since his arrival, it must be clearly connected to his magical prison.

Like most prisons, maybe this is his rehabilitation. Getting himself past whatever unconscious obstacle he's currently facing might be the only way he can escape, both literally and figuratively.

Ha! Nice try Kaldur, but I'm out to ruin your day, no matter what it takes.

"Let me guess: your cat passed away, and you ended up following in Bruce's dark and depressing footsteps?" Robin antagonises himself as he approaches, moving himself out of the way as his counterpart launches another shuriken at him. "Feels weird insulting myself."

"I wish that was the case," Batman answers, throwing consecutive shurikens at the Boy Wonder, who dodges with impressive agility and speed.

Seeing himself becoming what he doesn't want to be is harder than he expected. Perhaps this is the end destination for him after the team breaks up - a long, winding staircase of brooding and extreme violence. No matter what happens after this mission, he promises to himself he will never become the Batman out of vengeance of anger.

Bruce can keep this mantle for as long as he wants to.

Bruce has taught me everything I know.. but there's going to be a time when I have to make a choice.

Despite everything Richard Grayson has gone through to earn Bruce's respect and mentorship, he knows he cannot stay as the Robin forever. If anything leading this time over the past few months has taught him, it's to take responsibility for his own legacy.

Being the Batman means being an extension of Bruce's loneliness.

Although the Richard Grayson before him fell down to this, he's got a feeling he's already learnt enough to avoid this fate. Being a hero also means being apart of something greater than one man's crusade, and sooner or later the crusade must end - the greater good goes on.

"You think you can avoid this?" Batman scoffs, "this is your destiny. It has been since Bruce first took you in and let you become Robin. It's all apart of his master plan from the beginning; turn the young, grieving boy who just lost his parents into a fighter who will take over when he cannot do it anymore."

"You don't believe that," Robin returns, flipping into the centre of the warehouse and extending an open invitation for his counterpart to meet him for combat.

"Yes, we do," he responds, similarly leaping in front of Robin.

"Never thought I'd have to beat some sense into myself."

Unsure of how to best someone who is literally himself but more physically mature, Robin takes the only approach which makes sense at this point. Charge head-on and hope he survives long enough to learn a thing or two about himself. Whether his older self would recognise this and change his tactics is a question of whether he remembers Bruce's trainings - wearing the costume isn't enough.

Doing as planned, he bounds forwards, feet barely grazing the ground as he acrobatically sprints towards himself. As the distance between them closes, his opposite does nothing but stands there, goading Robin on.

Changing plans, he jumps forwards onto the palm of his hands and springs towards the target with two feet aimed at Batman like small red darts.

Unlike the actual sport, Robin hits no-one near the bullseye and instead lands somewhere between triple-four and the cold hard ground. His body wracks with pain as he rolls back to his feet, making a mental note never to attempt that again. He's certain Batman must have grabbed his feet and swung him away mid-flight, but the landing must have knocked the memory of it out of him.

He's certainly as fast as the young Boy Wonder, probably even faster. In a weird way, Robin's glad he grows up and becomes better.

That's if this magical reality is a true reflection of what could happen, and isn't some mental projection.

Deftly avoiding some more batarangs flung his way, Robin knocks the ones remaining on a dangerous flightpath away with some of his own. This time, Batman makes his way towards the Boy Wonder with a powerful charge, and Robin only just avoids it once more.

Forced onto the defensive, Robin struggles to keep up the pace set by his physically superior and eventually a few punches land on their intended target. One becomes many as the blows continue to rain in successive fashion, though Robin keeps his composure and pushes away the growing aches and pains.

Breaking the rhythm, Batman launches a kick at Robin's leg, landing square on the top of his thigh. Ears picking up something crack, the Boy Wonder grimaces.

"Give up and accept your future. We become better as Batman," his counterpart gloats, temporarily halting his attack to grab a hold of Robin's costume. "We become better than Bruce," he adds on, using his strength to launch Robin away as though the boy weighed nothing.

"Better?" Robin answers incredulously, picking himself up and shaking away the growing fogginess in his eyes. "You've become worse than Bruce."

Brooding, passive aggressive, and ruthless - all hallmarks of the Batman, and this is what makes this version much worse. Bruce has embodied these traits for such a long time they have actually become apart of the man behind the mask. There are a few occasions where the persona slips and there's a hint of the caring man Bruce could be without the Batman leering over his shoulders, but those occasions have becoming few and far between recently.

Dick is the opposite to Bruce in this regard. These traits are the exact antithesis of what being Robin stands for, and partly it's a reason for the intensely bright costume. When it was designed, Dick wanted something which could show there's something more to the Batman than the brutal violence he inflicts on criminals and maybe it's the reason why they work so well as the team.

Even though Bruce mentors him as a fighter and a hero, Richard mentors him on how to be a human. One of them just happens to be better at his responsibility than the other.

Responsibility.

There goes that word again, bouncing around his head every second he thinks about being a hero. No matter what he's doing, he can't seem to escape the word which follows him into every fabric of his life. From being leader of a team, to being Robin, and being apart of the school council - everyone has something invested in him, and he fails every time.

If anything, Young Justice has been one of his more successful ventures into responsibility. Which speaks volumes about his situation so far.

That's just it. I'm letting the responsibility get to me. There was a reason Kaldur become the leader of the team in the first place, Robin realises, out of the corner of his ear spotting the Batman rooted in place as though frozen in time. Kaldur you smart, evil villain.

He led first and led the responsibility follow.

Smiling, the cogs inside of the Boy Wonder's head grinds to a halt. He's solved the riddle behind the magic, now all that matters is giving the answer.

"He wants for me to tear myself apart using my own worries. Unlike fear, you never know just how much this fills up," Robin takes a deep breath, still noting how Batman is stood completely still.

"I know I said I wouldn't try it again, but for old times sake," he jokes, performing the same manoeuvre as before but without the added obstacle of having a dynamic opponent this time.

Connecting full-force, Batman gets sent into a wall, leaving a large dent where the man's armoured body landed. Slumping to the ground, he doesn't get up.

"How whelming."

Stood with his soldiers facing the portals in which the team blindly charged into, Aqualad's arms are crossed in anticipation. One part of him wishes they would stay inside of them forever and wallow in their own misery, but the other wishes for a more peaceful solution to his ever evolving problem.

Although he would never state as such to his father, perhaps the Light has been becoming more desperate as of late. This latest plan was the machinations of Klarion, who is known for being impulsive. Despite this, they still approved his plan.

Running out of ideas isn't a good look for supposedly the most powerful group of villains ever assembled.

"We have a problem," one of the soldiers states towards Kaldur, pointing towards the portals.

Seeing what the soldier was pointing out, one of them re-opens and Robin comes stumbling through, clearly shaking off the cobwebs from his ordeal.

He's out already? And unharmed. They underestimated the team once again.

Sighing, Kaldur nods towards his soldiers.

"Deal with him."

A/N

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