Chapter Two-Two Towers
Beast Boy waved his hands exasperatedly. "Dude, how many more alter egos do you have? First it was, like, Red X, then Larry, and now you're a girl?!"
"Twin," Robin corrected broodingly, pacing back and forth in the living room. "The last time I saw her was when we were fiver."
"What happened?" Raven asked, sensing another one of Robin's secretive pasts. It was Robin's nature to keep to himself, and often when situations that dealt with the past arose, he would deal with them personally, leaving his friends out of it.
"Slade captured her. Trained her. I'm not sure if she can be good anymore."
"Why did we not see her when we battled Slade before?" Starfire asked anxiously, over being angry at the girl and sad that she never had a decent home.
"She was in Metropolis." Mirage spoke up suddenly, entering from the kitchen. The others looked at her in surprise. Mirage shrugged at the inquisitive stares.
"I fought with her the few times Slade and Brother Blood teamed up. She's a good fighter. Always asked about you, Robin. Said you were doing the right thing, so maybe she didn't have to."
Robin didn't comment on that. Cyborg, instead, took the floor. "She's more than good. She's just like Robin."
"But how did she quire such power as she demonstrated when Robin has none? On my planet, siblings have similar gifts." Starfire looked at Robin as if she expected him to breath fire at any moment.
"Genetic mutation," Robin murmured under his breath. He paced toward his room carefully, lost in thought, and leaving a heavy silence behind him.
Phoenix stood within the confines of the towering clock, a place she had grown to love and hate in one warring conflict. The place where she had grown up.
She could remember Slade training her to the beat of the clock's second hand. The sounds fought each other, forming words spoken by two voices she knew quite well, though one she had watched from the shadows. Her mind echoed them now as she stared into the darkness. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Right, wrong. Good, evil. One voice young and sharp, the other low and hard. Flashed of a fiery scene, of the pain of something done to her, and the screams of someone, dark wings and the laughter behind her raced through her mind, but she suppressed the memories. They were alien to her. She had forgotten everything for now.
Across the room a broken mirror showed a fracture of her reflection. Turning to face it, Phoenix saw in awe the image in the glass. Half of her face was shown, and the mirror ended, cutting her in two. Half of her self was all she could gather. Only one silver eye, like the ashen remnants of her past. Only half of her soul remained.
In that instant, she knew what she would have to do. Gathering together what she would need, Phoenix stared in the direction of the prison, contemplating the long hours spent in training, in robberies, in murder, in helping him. Now was her time, now that he was gone, and all that she remembered of her life dead with him. The younger voice of her two minds could not save her from sixteen years of villainy and despair. He could not stop the other voice from growing stronger until it finally consumed her. It waited the correct moment, the perfect timing, sitting in the dark corner of her mind and jeering at her to show that it would not give in to anything, but instead would make her submit.
Crime was all her future would ever hold.
Robin walked the length of his room, stopping at a picture of a small girl with long black hair broken only by tow colored streaks. She was smiling happily, her gray eyes clear and bright. Robin's frown deepened as a long train of memory followed.
It was under the colorful tent in his family's last performance. Phoenix had already done her routine, and now it was time for their parents.
Out of the corner of his eye Robin could see something move in the shadows, a flicker of light, but he ignored it. Flashing lights were normal in a circus.
Within seconds smoke was billowing inside the tent, heat stinging Robin's eyes. He saw someone that looked like he had been torn in two, half-elegant and half madness, stand in the center ring, laughing maniacally. Someone that sounded like Phoenix was crying behind him. Robin tried to move toward her, choking all the while on the smoke, but hard pressure was holding him down as someone stepped on him, and a gravelly voice whispered in his ear.
"The girl has somewhere more important to be. The rest of you will die."
His head was beginning to swim from lack of oxygen, but from the smoke a dark shape was forming, coming closer. A few movements too fast to record were made, and the pressure in his back was lifted. Robin scrambled dizzily to his feet.
Walking doggedly to the burning exit, he felt his feet catch something large and oddly angled. The face of his mother, dead and hollowed, swam into focus as he got up hastily and ran as best he could, stumbling. Useless facts were swimming through his head.
'My sixth birthday is tomorrow. Phoenix's too. Dad calls us by bird names. She doesn't like the name Diana. We performed well tonight. It's cold. Why is it cold? Why...?'
Robin was moving like a zombie, shaking violently from both shock and cold. The dark shape from before was in front of him, waiting for him. Robin stopped moving, gazing at the figure with fogged eyes, reproachfully, mistrusting the man in front of him. He suddenly realized how tire he was, how much he wanted to just give up, something he never allowed himself to do. The cloaked man moved forward; Robin stepped back and fell. His vision swam horribly as the other came nearer, and Robin was given the distinct impression of a bat.
"Who are you?" His voice came hoarse and vague. Two words reached his ears before his mind was swept blank by fatigue and a slight concussion. As his eyes lowered he whispered his question once more.
"Who are you?"
The bat's form stooped lower to him, his voice low and gentle. "A friend."