Chapter Six-Confrontation

Beast Boy looked around his trashed room, at the one area where it was somewhat clean. On a cleared space on an end table a comb lay, detailed with a simple butterfly. It was a symbol. A symbol of a free spirit now trapped. It was Terra's symbol. And it was one of the few things of her he had left.

Terra had left it at the Tower. She never had a chance to retrieve it after the Titans found out she had been working for Slade…after they found out she had betrayed them all. Now Slade was dead…and Terra petrified. All the things Beast Boy wished he had said would fall on deaf ears, and all the things he wished he hadn't said would remain within her.

It was going to be an uneasy night for sleep.

All slept uneasily that night, if they slept at all.

None slept so uneasily as Mirage. She had fallen into a semi-unconscious state while pounding the punching bag she had masked as Illusion. Exhaustion had overtaken her at last, so Robin made sure she was put back on the couch in the living room. He sat listening to her as she talked in her sleep, gripped in a private battle with Illusion.

"No…leave me alone….I won't go back. I won't! You can't make me…you're not a part of me anymore…"

When Mirage woke Robin wasn't there, however. Then the pain began to set in again, watched by a different set of eyes. The masked eyes in the shadows of the ceiling narrowed as the transformation were completed. It was Illusion who entered the adjoining kitchen now.

Robin dropped to the floor and walked into the kitchen, noticing that neither Raven nor Starfire were awake, and they normally woke first. Illusion was looking through the food, and pulled out some stale cereal with concealed disgust. She looked up and smiled in a sickly-sweet way…totally unlike the Mirage of the night before.

"Morning!" the black haired girl declared cheerily.

Robin only nodded curtly.

"Some workout last night. You were trained well." Robin glanced out of the corner of his eye to observe a puzzled expression on the girl's face as he spoke. She answered hesitatingly. Robin grimly confirmed as she answered that she did not at all remember the event from the night before, when they had been together in the gym.

"Yes…you're not bad yourself."

At that moment the rest of the team entered. Robin noticed that Beast Boy's jaw slacked as he saw their guest, followed by a soft mutter.

"Dude…" Beast Boy trailed off and then busied himself with the occupation of finding the tofu, which he knew was across the room. Nobody else seemed to notice.

"What a glorious day! We must celebrate by the gorging of the pizza and the hanging out of the mall!" Starfire beamed happily as the sun cast a few lazy rays over the horizon.

"Jus' as long as BB doesn't make us eat that tofu stuff again." Cyborg called where he was watching TV.

Beast Boy turned around indignantly. "Dude, tofu pepperoni is so better than the junk you eat."

"I shall bring the mustard!" Starfire exclaimed joyfully, turning to get ready, but then noticed Illusion rubbing one of her temples silently. "Mirage, do you hold the aching of the head?"

"Yeah. It's just a little headache."

Robin's eyes narrowed as he watched Illusion.

Illusion wandered through the empty rooms. The rest of the Titans had left. She had asked to stay behind, saying that her headache was too great to keep going. Mirage had done something with the communicator, but Illusion didn't know what.

A metal door was near the end of the hallway, labeled "Cyborg". She smirked as she entered, and looked around. There was a metal table where Cyborg slept, a recharging cable attached to a plug in the wall. Illusion concentrated on bringing up the image of tools and solidifying them. She began to cut the wires inside the cord carefully, but just as she was about to make it look like she had never been there, the tools began to flicker out of view. Illusion could see a silver-haired girl glaring at her from a mirror in the room.

"Behave yourself, Mirage," she sneered.

"You're one to talk," the hollow voice from the mirror said coldly, glaring at Illusion.

Illusion left the room satisfied with her job. One Titan sabotaged, four more to go.