Morpheus opened his eyes and sat up in his chair. "Uh, sir? There's something wrong," said the Operator. Morpheus ignored him… until he saw that Kid was still plugged in. "He's going after Robin," Control Freak smirked.
The Captain stared at him. "What do you mean? Robin killed himself several weeks ago."
"I think not," Jasper said, grinning stupidly, "He was the guy that saved Kid. Kid's going after him. Searching for answers."
Morpheus thought of arguing with the fat man, but instead replied, "How do you know this?"
"Fought Robin. Chatted with Bane. Pissed Raven off. The whole kit 'n' kaboodle." Jasper suddenly looked proud of his amazing word power.
"I'm going back in," Morpheus quickly said to Link, and he slowly walked over to his chair. He jacked into the Construct. "Don't leave us with him!"
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Morpheus whipped out his sunglasses and set them on his face lightly. "Link, get me some weapons!"
"Me too!" a voice chirped behind him. Morpheus slowly turned as the racks flew towards him. A rather noticeable figure was blurred by the coming racks, but Morpheus had a good idea of who it was.
"Control Freak... or Jasper... or whatever the hell your name is, you can't come with me! You haven't even gone through basic training yet." Jasper just grinned evilly at that.
"Oh yeah? Nothing's gonna stop me by fighting alongside my main man Bane! And if you're wondering what to call me, I figured that my Matrix alias could be something like Control or Romulus."
"Try Henry the Eighth," Morpheus muttered under his breath, thoroughly pissed off. "Whatever. Control works just fine. Bane did inform you of that, right? About how..."
"The Matrix has me, Machines pwn me, blah yeugh bleurgh. Shut up and toss me some guns!" Morpheus sighed and threw his obese partner a pair of heavy FN MAG M240s. "SWEETNESS!"
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Link considered something for several moments… and pressed a single button on his keyboard:
Send Matrix Feed
A small message typed itself across one black screen. "Sent to… Gnosis. Area sent: 10 kilometers." They were close. Vic had to have already been in the Matrix.
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Kid landed on the rooftop after Matrix leaping onto the literal stairway of cars. He noticed the mysterious figure gazing at the fight below. Watching. "Hey!" Kid called out.
The figure swiftly ran. Kid gave chase. As the vigilante leapt over a particularly large rooftop, Kid was caught in the chest by a heavy steel-toed kick. He fell, as the laws of physics would have it, straight into an open sewer manhole. "Shit!" Kid cried, coated in shit.
The swordsman ran three steps before a dark shape materialized in front of him. "Hello, Robin," Nightmare hissed as he unsheathed both broadswords. Robin twirled his Tisiphone Edge and moved into a fighting stance.
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Garth dodged a kick from his Dark version, and caught a fist. Using his arm as a literal catapult, he threw Dark Aqualad into the wall. Speedy quickly fired twice at him, but he caught both explosive arrows and twirled, hurling them at Mas and Speedy. The archer simply spun and refired the arrow, which this time exploded on impact. Mas was not so lucky. The explosion carried the Speedster back into a building.
Menos turned and ran towards Bane, who was standing in the middle of the fray, turning his sword and looking for something to do. He found it in the small being twirling around him. "Hold still, dammit!" A well-placed kick knocked him out cold.
"We need to get out!" Niobe yelled, before Speedy's kick forced her onto the ground. Raven kicked him away and helped her Captain up. Ghost fired his Sig Sauers at Bumblebee, who dodged and electrocuted him.
"AAAUGHH!" he screamed as she increased the voltage on her stun rods. She let him fall to the ground, unconscious, as she turned and found Niobe aiming a large pistol at her.
"Fifty caliber. Action Express. Move and I'll blow your brain out of your skull. You're not going to dodge this." Niobe gasped as a super-fast foot collided with her back. She fell to the ground as Menos held her hands up in a V.
She screamed as rapid bulletfire danced around her feet. Morpheus leapt to the ground, twirling a katana expertly. Control sat at the top of the stairs, firing at the Speedster. "How come you can't use this crap in Hunting Season 2002?"
A quick kick was placed in Control's chest, with no effect. Menos raced away as Control fired down where she was a moment before.
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Nightmare slashed at Robin, who leapt over the blade and ducked another. He kicked the assassin program in the face, but he was unfazed.
Another slash sent a defending Robin to the side of the building. Nightmare slowly walked over, sheathed a single broadsword, and held Robin up by his collar.
"Did you really think that the Rebels could get away with something like this without any casualties?" He shook the boy roughly, and dropped him. Drawing his other broadsword, he slowly began to crush Robin's chest with his heavy Goth boot.
Robin gagged for breath as blood flooded into his mouth. "Don't worry, kid. This'll all be over in a minute." He held a broadsword behind his back for a moment.
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Vic squirmed in the chair. His friend was dying. He gripped the chair, running with all of his superhuman strength. He whirled his trident…
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CLANG! Metal against metal. A smirk flitted across Nightmare's face as Stone desperately tried to hit him. But he simply parried every blow, while still focusing on crushing Robin's skeleton. Vic groaned as he drove the trident forward as hard as he could.
Nightmare was taken by surprise and forced to another rooftop. Robin gasped as air flooded into his crushed lungs. Victor looked at his friend momentarily before Matrix-leaping across the gap and clashing weapons with the program.
Nightmare instinctively dropped one broadsword on impact and held the second with both hands. He threw Vic to the other side of the roof, but the human caught and steadied himself.
The program held his open hand out, and the first sword slowly floated into his hand. He breathed deeply, and a large grin plastered itself on his face.
Vic's eyes widened, then narrowed. He charged. A quick strike to the right was blocked, and another broadsword slashed at Stone. He moved the trident so that Nightmare's first sword was blocking the second, and literally threw the first sword off of the building. He smirked and dodged a stab from Nightmare, and moved into another fighting stance.
"No more playing? Okay," Nightmare remarked, before teleporting in front of Vic and stabbing straight at the teen's chest. Vic was completely unprotected from the blade.
Robin's eyes widened.
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Morpheus leapt over Bumblebee as she flew at him, and kicked her back. The girl turned in midair and shocked the man. He slumped to the ground, smoking. She kicked his head for good measure and turned, seeing Niobe trip a rushing Menos. She did not get up, but Niobe went under seconds later.
Bumblebee jumped over Raven, who whipped out her katana. Bumblebee reverse-kicked the Rebel, who left skidmarks in the ground and rushed back in.
Raven, twirling her blade, slashed at the Titan's head. Bumblebee blocked with the stun rods, but Raven's blade sliced through them like Wonder Bread. The black program screeched as Raven stabbed down.
A black blade slapped Raven's katana away. She looked up, grinning. "So, ya ready for round two?"
Dark Raven frowned and high-kicked at Raven, who ducked and kicked her Dark version away. She slapped Bumblebee in the head with the side of one blade, and rushed after her clone.
She sliced down at Dark Raven, who deflected with her own darksword . The program catapulted herself up to a roof, and Raven quickly followed. She dodged a quick swipe from Dark Raven and punched the program in the chin. Dark Raven stumbled backwards before vanishing.
Raven smirked and did the same. Moments later, Dark Raven reappeared and fell to the ground, limp. Raven hyperventilated, drawing in the victory.
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Cyborg opened his human eye. "What… happened?" he slowly whispered. He lifted his head, pushing off of the ground. Dark Raven fell to the ground, limp and bleeding. "No…" he whispered again.
Cyborg looked up. The mysterious swordswoman stood on the rooftop. He slowly raised his cannon and took aim. She turned to the side and ran… towards where the OTHER swordsman and a familiar person of the Felicitas were fighting.
He fired at the swordsman with all of his remaining strength… and sank into unconsciousness, his arm cannon still letting loose a stream of deadly energy. The last thing he heard was a pained cry before darkness...
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Garth kicked his Dark version in the back, finishing the fight. "We're done here," he muttered. He helped a stirring Ghost to his feet, and they carried the three other Rebels to the hard line. He looked back as a pained cry burst from someone's mouth. Not the Titans…
"VIC!"
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Raven slumped to her knees in shock. Nightmare simply smirked and pointed the broadsword at her. "You're next," he said darkly before a fist collided with his back.
"You filthy bastard," Dark hissed before extracting his claws and stabbing the program in the arm. "You realize what you've done?" Raven asked Nightmare as her eyes began to glow red. "Trigon is awakened." A stream of energy flew past Nightmare, causing his coat to flutter in the air.
"Dark!" Robin ordered, gasping for breath. "GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Dark leapt away just as Raven turned into a giant, red demon. Antlers sprouted and long, jagged teeth grew out of her mouth.
"Inside the Matrix, my powers work… so I am going to turn your life into a nightmare!" she hissed viciously. Nightmare smirked and twirled one broadsword with his good arm. "I'll kill you next. Sound good?"
Trigon swept down at Nightmare. The claw slashed across his face. He leapt over a second claw and stabbed down. The blade bounced off of Trigon's tough skin and flew towards Robin. Dark caught it by the blade, and threw it to the ground below.
Crimson dripped from his normal hand. He picked his teammate up and started towards the hard line as quickly as he could. Moments later, Karen dropped to the ground. She aimed an SG-552 assault rifle at Nightmare, who vanished in a plume of smoke. Trigon shrank back into Raven, who silently stared at her best friend's body.
Karen fell to her knees. Tears began freely falling from Raven's eyes. Dark stopped for a moment and sat Robin up. He was saying something.
"…vic…serum..." Dark couldn't understand, so he continued onto the hard line. Leaving Raven and Karen standing around Vic's bleeding body.
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Kid slowly pulled himself out of the manhole. He limped to the stairs of the library, and noticed Garth reloading both guns and disappearing somewhere. He continued on and jacked out.
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"Sorrow. Guilt. Fear. These lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering… and for our friend Raven, it leads to Trigon."
Sati, Brown and Seraph watched as the Oracle saw all.
"Never were truer words spoken."