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Betrayal From Within, chapter 4

After Robin arranged with Batgirl to keep an eye over Bludhaven, he drew up the locations where Lazarus Pits had been. They were scattered around the globe, and Kon and he were only able to go to three before it got to be too late to continue.

At each of the locations, Superboy had searched with his intermittent x-ray vision. He didn't find any of the Lazarus Pit remaining. He refused to give up hope though.

"How many do we have left?" he asked.

"There are another three," Robin replied. "We can't make those tonight."

Kon nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

Batman stormed into Match's room. "Do you have any idea what they're doing?"

Match looked at him with sunken eyes. "If you're referring to my brother, then I have no idea of the specifics. I suspect that he's embarked on a futile quest to try to reverse my condition. It's the sort of thing he'd do."

Batman's eyes narrowed. "He's brought Robin into this. They're trying to track down a Lazarus Pit to use on you."

Match stared at him for a second before bursting out in laughter. "Oh Kon, I underestimated your creativity. That wouldn't have occurred to me."

"There isn't anything funny about this. He's brought Robin in on this madness."

"I'm sure Robin made a choice to assist him. You can hardly expect him to do everything as you would."

"Robin's a good soldier-"

"No," Match shot back with surprising vigor, "he's not a soldier. If you don't know the difference between a soldier and what all of you are, then I've been giving you credit for too much intelligence."

Batman glared at him. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Match leaned back in his bed. "Go away. I don't have the strength to argue with you."

The next night, Kon and Tim continued on their search of abandoned Lazarus Pits.

The first one they checked was completely dry. Kon's optimism began to get a little strained since Tim only had two more locations. There were also traps that the two had dealt with for this first pit, and Kon had gotten his hopes up.

The second one had no traps. It also looked to be dry.

"Let's move on to the last one," Tim said.

Tim was hiding it, but he was worried about what his friend would do if he lost his 'brother.' While Tim didn't really care for Match, he knew how painful it was to lose a family member. He didn't want Kon to have to go through that.

"Hold on," Kon said. "I think there's something there."

Tim looked skeptically at the dry former Lazarus Pit. "It's dry."

"I swear I can see something down there," Kon said as he put his hands on the bottom of the pit and used his powers to shift the earth apart.

Tim looked down and saw a small amount of the Lazarus Pit's liquid. "How-how did you see that? There must have been a dozen feet of soil in the way!"

"I guess I got a good burst of x-ray vision," Kon said, sweating. "Can you get it? It's tough to keep this open."

Tim scrambled down and carefully put the liquid in a container, making sure not to touch any of it. "Let's go."

Match was asleep when Superboy and Robin arrived at the Watchtower. They told Serling what they had found.

"I don't know," she said dubiously. "Just because people claim that this thing has healing or regenerative properties doesn't mean that it does. I don't think there's a scientific basis for it."

"Trust me, it works," Robin said. "I've seen it. You've already arrested his degeneration?"

"Yes," she replied. "Unfortunately, his organs have been damaged too much. They're not getting worse, but they won't support him for much longer."

"This'll take care of that," Superboy said, indicating the Lazarus Pit liquid. "It has to."

"You know that people go crazy when they get hit with it, right?" Robin asked. "It only lasts a short time, but it's very intense. Batman said it gave Ra's Al Ghul superhuman strength during this time. I can only imagine that Match would be similarly boosted."

"Yeah," Superboy responded. "We'll move him to a room where he can't destroy anything important."

They moved Match to an empty storage room. Serling and Robin waited outside the door while Superboy doused Match with the liquid. Match started screaming, but he looked a lot healthier. The Lazarus Pit liquid was working!

Unfortunately, he was also quite violent. He lashed out with his powers and knocked Superboy across the room.

'Crap,' Superboy thought. 'He's as strong as he used to be before he got buried. He's my equal, except he's a lot angrier right now.'

Superboy met Match head on, hoping to grapple with him until he calmed down. Unfortunately for him, Match threw him with a move that he hadn't seen before.

Robin tried to hit Match with a taser, but a telekinetic shield blocked it. Match started to advance on him.

"Get help!" Robin ordered Serling.

Serling took off as Robin tried to get another gadget to deal with Match. Unfortunately for him, he was telekinetically thrown into a wall.

As Match advanced on the unconscious body, Superboy tackled him. As Match squirmed underneath him, he felt other people pile on to help restrain him.

After a few moments, Match stopped struggling and said, "I'm in control of myself again. You can get off of me."

Kon was able to get up and saw that the Martian Manhunter and Superman had joined him in trying to control Match. They looked confused about what had happened.

"How do you feel?" he demanded of Match.

"I'm confused as to why I was tackled by people while wearing a paper gown," Match replied. "Physically...I'm feeling good, very good."

"I'll want to run some tests to make sure, but if you were able to do what you've been up to for the past few minutes, I think you've made a complete recovery," Serling said.

Kon hugged Match and started crying, "I thought I was going to lose you! I couldn't let that happen!"

Match looked taken aback and awkwardly patted Kon on his shoulder. "I'm okay now. You saved me. Thank you."

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I'm in the process of working on the next story, tentatively titled "Sins of the Future."

Any and all comments welcome!