Twisted Hearts: Triangular

by DBAinsw

RobStarRae: A romantic commedy melodrama of epic proportions, with a boat of angst to boot. Who gets Robin when he loves them both and dosn't want to hurt either? By the end, you won't care... in a good way.

5. Knicking the Knack

To my readers both loyal and new---YES! HURRAY! IT'S HERE!

A month. A friggin month. Sorry, I really am, but life and all that—it takes its toll. If you want to hear about it, read these author's notes. If you want to read the story, get on with it already, there aren't any legal disclaimers this time—it doesn't need them. Get ready for a super-long, super-involving, superhero story. It's an action-drama one-two punch to the brain, not to mention a real eye-stinger, I mean, if it's late when you're starting this, you might want to consider waiting—seriously. Or not.

I had the first half of this chapter pretty well done in the first week, and it would have been more than that if I hadn't gotten so caught up with posting on forums and whatnot. Note that the forum I'm active on is no indication of how this story will end, for those of you who know. Anyway, it would have been done well inside of week two, but week two—oh my god—was not a time for writing. An old flame of mine who moved away after high school came back to town for that week and that week only, and so I had a very nice time. She really was pretty enough to keep me from having any time at all to write, as we dated most of every day, and… well… our nights were occupied too. What can I say, we were making the most out of the time we had. So that was week two, anyway. Week three saw a little more progress, but was dominated by my return to school. I post this from good old UVA, which I'm attending for my second year. That got in the way of writing in a big way, and now, rounding out week four, here it is, done, complete, and really, really long. I'd say about 1/3 longer than normal, actually. Enjoy, and I hope this'll tide you over for a while, because I'm going to be busy enough in school to widen my posting gaps even without extenuating circumstances like those. Sorry, but that's life.

Chapter 5: Nicking the Knack

"Oh come on, you don't really expect me to believe that?" Robin chided his grinning friend, shoving him playfully as they lounged on the tanker ship's long abandoned main deck, legs hanging off the rusted old guard rails.

"Hey man, the bioscanner does not lie!" Speedy protested his honesty, rubbing his arm where he'd been shoved and then thrusting his miraculous little box over to Robin, offering to let him see for himself. "I swear—if it says she's pierced there, then she's got a piercing there!"

"No… but still… there?" Robin's incredulity was holding out, his face twisting into a mixture of doubt and distaste as he took a good look at Speedy's bioscanner, which was currently displaying data on a random teenage girl that had wandered out of the rave to puke her guts out and get some fresh air. As said woman lounged drunkenly on the pier's concrete surface, a few of her similarly wasted girlfriends gathered with her for the safety of numbers, the two men glowered somewhat voyeuristically from the shadows of the deck towering over them, Speedy using them as examples for his discourse on the female species.

"Never underestimate how kinky a woman can be," Speedy admonished him jokingly, "besides… it probably makes it easier for her dates to find it in the dark."

"Oh man," Robin was shaking his head as he looked down the long list of unexpected readings posted on the scanner, "how can you do that though? Isn't that like getting—"

"A stud in your soldier?" Speedy cut him off, grimacing, "yeah, it's exactly like that. And not just the meat either, it's like piercing the tip. I've heard of guys doing it too, though I've never even remotely understood why."

"Yikes… and she's only… what?" Robin glanced at the scanner yet again, "seventeen? How did she even get someone to do it?"

"Well, chances are, she didn't ask her mom's permission first!" Speedy quipped, taking back the scanner as Robin shot him a distinctly dirty look. The dirty look reluctantly mutated into an amused grin as Speedy scanned each of the women in turn, and Robin waited patiently for the red-head to finish up and get on with the pointless discussion they'd been having as they came the rest of the way down from their buzz.

The city was at a relative quiet, the fantastic lights and colors of the endlessly stretching skyline almost eerie at this ungodly hour of the morning as even its famous night life began to peter out with the approaching dawn. People had been leaving the party in small groups for a little while now, the casual carousers worn out by either the booze or the incessant over stimulation of sound and light that was the party itself. Robin understood… he'd seen the press of bodies, the almost choking stagnation of the air as it was breathed by far too many people at once, and he'd been damn glad Speedy hadn't had the pure gall and mild idiocy it would have taken to actually attend that madhouse. They probably could have passed themselves off as wacky impersonators, but then he'd have had to deal with all those people.

It wasn't that he didn't like dealing with people, Robin thought to himself as Speedy continued to work his gadget, sometimes chuckling at the readings he was getting, so much as the fact that people always complicated the much more important task of crimefighting he had to get done in his life. He'd come to Jump when the Titans had formed on the agreement that he would lead the team, and so far having the others to help had done a great deal more to advance than to hinder the cause of justice, and so he, as he'd mentioned to Speedy some hours ago in that diner they'd met at, had been enjoying every god damn second ofit. Even when it was miserable, even when it was torture, it was still the greatest experience of his life.

Admittedly, it was weird living around people his own age, and sometimes a little annoying too, but it was so much more interesting than moldering in Wane Manor, and it came with so much more freedom that the annoyance and even the responsibility was easy to swallow in the final evaluation. However… he didn't know if this precept could extend to dating and maintaining a love interest, and as the last of the pure shock of finding out quite unequivocally that he was loved 'that way' wore off, as he ground the last pattering palpitations of his heart mercilessly under the boot of his reasoning faculties, this was the bottom line that oozed in a chilling slime through his mind.

If he were to start dating one of the girls… what would that do to the team? If the one he was forced to reject took it as hard as it was looking to be, then giving into his desires might just drive a wedge into their force and break off one of the five friends. If this mess devolved into a battle of petty jealousies, there was no telling what might happen to their dynamics, to the livability of the tower, or even to their ability to work together against criminals. Robin's greatest fear, even greater than causing either girl so much as a split-second of heartache, was that somehow, his weakness would lead to someone on his team getting hurt, or… unspeakably… causing a death. He was the leader, and their safety was his greatest priority… that was the lesson he'd learned from fighting together with them on this team.

It kept him up some nights, after the others went to bed, exhausted from some long battle—it kept him awake and kept his mind racing with thought after dire thought. He'd spend all night long conditioning his body in the gym, trying in vain to drive haunting imaginings of their dead faces from his mind, certain that only his continual perfect performance would ever keep them safe. Deep down, of course, he knew it was a sham, knew that the shadow of death could arrive no matter how well prepared they were, no matter how sharp he himself was—it had happened to him once in his life already, after all, and so he knew. This knowledge haunted his soul, and the pain he felt was the terrible price of working together in this business with people one loved as one's own family.

So then… what would be the price of working with a person he allowed himself to love even more dearly that that?

"Oh-ho-hohoho GOD!" Speedy snapped out suddenly, apparently oblivious to Robin's dire brooding as he toyed with his miraculous little device, apparently having spotted something he felt was decidedly noteworthy. "I mean damn man! If ever you needed a reason to wear a rubber!"

"What the hell are you talking about now?" Robin was not amused by the way Speedy was interrupting his deep thoughts. The Boy Wonder was relatively certain that the bowman had never felt even half a moment's concern for anyone's life, even his own—his mind just didn't work that way, didn't process such thoughts. He dealt with the danger by not letting himself consider the risks, just as Robin forced himself to know the risks inside and out every moment of his life. The differences there didn't make for great conversation, though it was something that came up and which both of them understood, and so in this instance, Robin didn't bother sharing his thoughts, instead leaning over to check what the marksman was trying to show him. A quick look at the screen showed a readout from the six women immediately below them… a readout saying—

"What?" Robin's face scrunched up in a classic combination of shock and disgust as he realized exactly what Speedy was making reference to when he said 'rubbers.' "That's… that's…"

"Disgusting? Yes, I know," Speedy went on, utterly nonchalant as his friend went through the usual stages of mild nausea. "Pubic lice… a.k.a. 'crabs'—not even a condom will help you there. Then there's the one with the yeast infection—talk about baking some bread in the oven. Blondie there has gonorrhea enough to make number one feel like fire—and with that, you've rounded out the field pretty dang well. It goes to show what having a little too much fun can do."

"Oh…" Robin looked like he was turning a little green again, apparently still not fully recovered from over-boozing, "But wait—" and he saw the screen update with something else as more people began to tumble disoriented from the ship, "what the hell is that?"

"What?" Speedy pulled the device back, "oh, it just updated. Let's see… 'HPV'… oh… that's… that… bleh," Speedy trailed off, the easy smile falling from his lips as he stuck out his tongue in distaste. "Human Papilloma Virus," he stated flatly, then his silence dragged on until he was sure Robin had no clue what he was talking about. "Genital warts man," he finally spelled it out for his clueless companion, though that still didn't seem to wipe the look of uncomprehending disgust out from under bird boy's mask.

"I've never heard of that before," Robin was unafraid to admit, his disgust becoming a sort of morbid interest as Speedy grew a new, sort of sad smile.

"It's kind of like a combination between herpes and a garden-variety wart," Speedy explained as he took up the little device and began to punch commands into the keypad. "It's virally based so they can't be cured like bacterial infections, and they never quite go away no matter how you treat them. Here's a picture," and he held up the bioscanner for Robin to examine yet again.

Robin stared at the little picture on the screen, and at first it didn't look like anything at all. Then it looked like—

"It's not a head of cauliflower," Speedy assured him, perfectly anticipating Robin's first comment. Unnerved by Speedy's insight, Robin turned unsettled eyes back to the picture, following the lines and curves of the odd shape presented with eyes narrowed in concentration. Eventually, his mind was no longer able to protect him from what he was looking at, and the full realization of it hit him all at once.

"EEEYYYYUUUGGGG!" Robin grunted his disgust, face quickly twisting back and away as he was struck by a mountain of sympathetic nausea in one lump blow. His stomach twisted, still upset with him for pouring so much undiluted liquor down his gullet, and he was relatively certain that if his belly had contained anything at all, he would be heaving it up right now. "Ohhhh LORD that's disgusting!" he spoke harshly and unnecessarily, breathing deeply to combat the unsettling of his gorge and the image burned into his brain. "How can that guy even walk?"

"Maybe he's in remission," Speedy said, doing his best not to snigger at Robin's reaction considering how similar it was to his own first exposure to knowledge of the illness, "Or maybe he doesn't know he's got it yet. Poor sod's in for a rough week when they come out the first time."

"You've got that right," and Robin seemed to be getting his composure back quickly, a lifetime of dead bodies and gory crime scenes giving him a better knack than most for recovering his intestinal equilibrium. "And with that beautiful little memory, I think I'm done for the night," he went on, quite unexpectedly, turning away from the sight of people pouring from the rave and starting to walk toward the end of the ship pointing out to sea.

"But hey—wait!" Speedy protested after the moment of surprise it took him to realize what Robin had so suddenly decided, "I was just about to start running police records! That's practically the best part—you wouldn't believe what some of these girls get on their confidential juvenile files!"

"Give me a break Speedy," Robin obviously wasn't biting, not even bothering to turn around and face his stunned friend, "I just can't get into gross invasion of privacy as a passtime like you seem to. If I didn't feel like shit, I'd beat your ass and confiscate that damn bioscanner—but as it is, feel free to be as perversely nosy as you want to be! I have a damn stressful engagement to attend later today, and I'd rather have a little sleep behind me than not when I go to talk things out with those two."

"Aw, you're no fun!" Speedy wasn't really serious anymore, actually following behind Robin, unwilling to stay out here by himself and knowing better than to push his friend any further tonight. He'd noticed, after all, the way the other guy's demeanor had darkened as the romantic aspects of his situation dissolved under the acid touch of the much more immediate survival aspects. Just because he himself was able to blot out any concept of the terrible risks they were taking didn't mean he was oblivious to Robin's deep, deep concerns.

Suddenly, there was the sound of shouting and the screaming of women from behind them down on the dock, and both men turned to the all-too familiar noise with conditioned combat reflexes Pavlov would have been proud to see. There was some kind of disturbance down at the gates, dozens of bouncers and other men locked into furious struggle around the ancient fences. As they watched, the unknown assailants, far outnumbering the gate bouncers and realizing that surprise was no longer an issue, pulled a variety of weapons, the shockingly harsh, flinch-inducing sound and flashing of gunfire saturating the early morning. Men were down, and both young heroes were already dashing along the tanker ship's deck toward the end facing shore.

"Looks like a gang war!" Speedy gasped out with an effort as they both charged full tilt over the ancient ship's surface.

"Probably more of the same rejects we strung up earlier!" Robin confirmed, his mind clearing of extraneous thought as his blood heated in anger at the way these scumbags could just start shooting at each other with so many innocent bystanders around. "They must be here to steal the drug money!"

But wait... the detective's mind that Batman had instilled into Robin rebelled at this simple conclusion, overcoming even his combat high as the obvious problem with that scenario. If they were intentionally trying to rob the place… why did they attack now… hours before the revelry wound out and the cash was amassed to the pushers? There was no time to worry about such things, as the gunshots died out just then, announcing the end of the deadly conflict below, and the two had reached the perfect vantage to do something about it.

No sooner did Robin and Speedy simultaneously take up place to start the assault on the poorly lit concrete pier below, however, than did Robin's whole body jerk one fierce spasm, forcing him back from the edge in a jolt of surprise. Speedy caught sight of this from the corner of his eye and unknocked his ready arrow in concern, his own combat reflexes suddenly derailed by this unexpected falter in his companion. His confusion was not curbed by the sudden string of curses to emanate from Robin, but he managed to remember the situation, and dragged his attention back down to the pier and the small army of heavily armed thugs that had just finished stalking arrogantly past the bloodied bodies of the bouncers who'd dared to deny them entrance.

"Fucking communicator!" Robin spat out in a bitter whisper, gripping at his belt as he backed away and let Speedy cover the pier for a minute. The utterly silent vibro-pulse would tell him quite unfailingly when he was being paged without giving away his position—but it was still an unbelievable shock when he was in his hyper-sensitized pre-battle high. The shock wore thin quickly as he pulled out the T-imprinted device, as he realized with a miserably chilling sense of dread that he'd set it to send anything short of priority one emergency calls directly to his voice-mail after last night's fiasco. Thus it was with a shaking hand and wide eyes that he flipped the comm. unit open, because there were only two sources that could possibly supply priority one emergency calls at this particular moment, and he highly doubted Batman's direct line, perfectly silent the entire time Robin had been a Titan, was suddenly going off now.

That left one place.

"What the hell are you doing?" Speedy snapped out in a clipped whisper, not daring to take his eyes off the gangsters, who were fanning out on the docks, brandishing their weapons and shouting at the party-goers who'd been on their way out. To Speedy, it looked almost as though they were searching for something, but he was a little too worried about why his partner wasn't already halfway done kicking their asses to give it too much thought. When there was no answer, Speedy took a quick glance over his shoulder, only to double take immediately when he saw the look of undiluted, pale terror on Robin's face as he stared slack-jawed at his comm. unit. "Are you okay?" he asked immediately, loosing track of the situation on the ground completely with wonder at what could have made ROBIN, of all people, look like that.

"Nuh…" Robin muttered some unintelligible sound, staring off at infinity for a few long seconds, seemingly in the grip of some all-clouding confusion. As Speedy stared on, too shocked by Robin's expression to remember the task at hand, Robin's confusion finally passed and he stood quickly to his feet, flashing forward to grip Speedy around the biceps with both hands and yank them eye-to-eye. "Tell me you can handle this yourself," he ordered with the strangest combination of pleading and commanding twisting his tone.

"Err… handle…?—what happened?" after the briefest brain-numbness, Speedy was snapped back to serious again as the gravity of the situation flushed confusion away. He knew that it had to have been something desperately serious to affect Robin like this, especially in the face of crime to fight.

"No time—medical emergency—handle this—please!" Robin spat out in a broken rush, already turning to dash back the way they had just come, to head back out to the bay edge of the boat and the tower looming shadowy on the horizon beyond the ship's bow.

"Wait!" Speedy caught Robin by the shoulder with a desperate leap, jerking his hasty friend around with a momentum-lurching snatch. Robin was flipped back toward Speedy, an expression of violent protest already plastered on his face, only for Speedy's next words to wipe that crease of dissent immediately away. "Smoke!" Speedy shouted, "I'll need lots of smoke!"

Without further comment, Robin reached back under his cape and filled both hands with small pellets from the dispensers there, completely emptying his supply into his two cupped palms. With a twirling lob, he launched the avalanche of pellets over and down onto the pier below, the rain of marble-like spheres clattering in among the assembled innocents and criminals to a chorus of confusion and surprised sounds.

"Thanks!" Speedy said as he drew a fistful of smoke arrows from his quiver and started filling in the important gaps in the explosively hissing clouds that were even now eliciting screams and shouts of shock from the ignorant assembly beneath them, launching the thick, gas-filled tubes faster than the eye could follow. "Now stop standing there like an idiot and get your ass over to those women damnit! I won't forgive you if something bad happens to them!"

Robin didn't have time to consider the obvious taunting that statement held, nor would he have been bothered by Speedy's inappropriate joking if he'd had the presence of mind to notice. Instead of sparing any fraction of a moment for that, he was already sprinting back up the ship's hull, doing his best pace for the seaward bow of this absurdly large freighter. As Speedy had himself noticed, there had been a terrible minute of indecision in Robin between standing to help drive out these gangsters and rushing to the side of the women lying in unknown medical peril back in the Tower, a terrifying schism of responsibility and desire that had sucked the life right out of him for several heart-stopping moments. Had it not been for the saving grace of Speedy's capable presence, Robin didn't even want to consider what decision he'd have made given such a set of epically conflicting priorities.

As it was, the only thing he had to worry about now was how to best get back to their island fortress, and he'd had a plan in mind for that since he'd first taken stock of the ship after waking from his inebriated unconsciousness. The memory sizzled through his brain as his heart fought to supply it with blood during the fierce competition his muscles provided, and the stinging flashes of recollection painted a stark scene of two men under a moonlit sky, the long-past midnight bay looming inky black before them.

He and Speedy had been standing side by side, relieving themselves over the edge of the boat, engaging in the time-honored tradition of competing to see who could project further, when sudden noise below them had forced them both to stymie their flows most unceremoniously. It had been ridiculously embarrassing and uncomfortable, and upon further, extremely irate investigation, the noise was discovered to have come from heavily armed members of the party security staff loading cash onto a high speed watercraft docked along the tanker's waterside dingy access. It was then, as he was drying himself off, that Robin had realized how he was getting home this morning.

All that was through Robin's mind and gone in a flash, just in time for him to spot a deck access door slamming open right in front of him. He didn't hesitate, he just leapt forward, planted his palms into the damp, rubber mat-covered deck he'd been running along and launched himself forward, heels-over-head, into a shattering drop-kick. Both of his feet impacted soundly with someone's face, there was a jarring shock as the forces transferred, and he could feel bone crumbling beneath his heels as the (he now noticed) armed security guard went tumbling down the access stairway, taking the people behind him along for the ride.

Robin flipped back off of the man's face in a flowing motion, slammed the door shut, and slapped a limpet mine over the door's latching mechanism, all in the barest of breathless moments. Before the sound of the fools tumbling down the stairs below could halfway get started, he was already running for the ship's dingy access again, now having covered Speedy's ass from rear assault. He'd reached the enormous ship's midway point, the point where the getaway boat was docked, before the mine was disturbed by an unwitting security guard rushing back up the stairs, and Robin grinned maliciously as he pictured the non-lethal explosion's effect on the buffoon to go along with the hollow thwump it had sounded out as its motion trigger went off.

That charming image sat in his mind as he glanced down the shadowy edge of the boat and saw exactly what he expected—unidentifiable suggestions of motion on the gangway beneath him. They were cutting out with what cash they could, dumping great bails of it into the ship's lockers, each stack earmarked for one of the various distinct partners who'd invested in sponsoring the party—the new financial cooperation in criminality manifesting itself with sickening efficiency. Well, it was time for Robin to throw a wrench into the works on his way to the ones that really needed him.

Rather than go straight down to the boat, Robin attached a grapnel to the ship's rail and stuck the reel to his belt, then took off down the ship's deck yet again, pulling the cord out behind him. When he reached a distance roughly equal to the ship's height, he locked the cord's length with the slightest flick of his wrist, and then channeled all his momentum into a smooth, twisting leap that launched him gracefully overboard, the line snapping taught and giving him a spectacular arc as he rushed in at the mass of armed men crowded into the shadows of the shabby, unstable gangway sprouting from the freighter's side.

His entry was a rush of incredible motion punctuated by the boot he planted into the first head he was able to pick out of the shadows, and the jarring wham of impact that involved was the herald's trumpet announcing his presence to the guards. The unfortunate bastard who'd just had intimate oral relations with Robin's steel-shod boot was punted off into the water as Robin used the peg of stability to flip himself around while the rest of his momentum carried him past the bewildered guards and up the side of the ship again. By the time he'd come to a brief pause, seeming to hang in the air as his momentum exhausted itself, their guns were spreading a cloud of blazing hot flack randomly into the shadows, and it was a definite credit to their training that they reacted so fast. Unfortunately for them, as the sizzling red laser bolts from their cutting-edge firearms lit up the darkness, the random shots did more to light up their locations than offer him any kind of harm.

The sound of his birdarangs flying was barely audible over the hiss of laser-bolts, but the sudden utter silence that fell when their guns were simultaneously sliced to bits was quite clearly pierced by the sounds of their cursing and shouts of surprise. Robin was on his way back down to the gangway again by this point, and now he freed both hands and drew his tonfa batons from their holsters in the back of his costume under the cape. He was fully horizontal now, running along the hull of the freighter with the guide wire holding him up, and this placed the now disarmed guards perpendicular to him just 'above' his head. Robin reached 'up' with both batons and started laying about among heads and arms indiscriminately as he 'ran' by at high speed, conducting a symphony of pain with each thick metal rod, breaking bones and busting teeth with wild abandon in his rush to resolve the conflict as quickly as he possibly could.

When he passed the entire crowd, most of them crumbling into unconscious or moaning heaps in his wake, he reached back and smacked the release for his grapnel, leaping off the side of the boat to land in a twisting flip on the rickety gangway, shaking the entire aluminum structure fiercely as he faced down the last three men still standing. His tonfas clutched firmly along his arms with only the short blocking lengths sticking out past his grip on the handles, he stalked forward like an avenging shadow, the all-choking darkness they'd thought to sneak away under instead becoming greatest ally to the one who'd liberate them of their ill-gotten funds.

Before the first one could start to cower away, Robin struck out with a lash from his right baton, whipping the long end around from being flush with his arm out to full extension, catching the man in the face with a resounding crack of impact. The sound was similar to a baseball getting slugged out of the park, but Robin didn't stop to appreciate the reference before jamming the short end of his left baton firmly into the man's guts, leaping over him as he crumbled and facing the second man.

This guy had managed to pull out a pistol after his laser gun was totaled, and Robin was just barely able to duck under an ear-shattering explosion as the guy took a pot-shot at his head, retaliating with the same motion he used to dodge as he jammed his right baton (still fully extended) directly into the man's groin with a sickening squelch. The guy caved like a house of cards as agony squeezed the breath from his lungs in an wash of stinking air across Robin's face, but, annoyed by how terrifyingly close he'd come to dying, Robin went ahead and gave him a full-force whack from his left baton anyway, swinging it out in a snapping blow against the side of the man's head, pressing the motion along until he'd pitched the thug over the gangway railing, nearly toppling the whole structure with the movement.

There was the resounding splash as this deadweight hit the water, and as the aluminum walkway rattled and shook under the twisting forces testing its questionable durability, the last man was already turning to run away. His whimpering gasps and quivering, clumsy steps on the metal were loud in the night as he stumbled over the bodies of his fallen comrades, the dropped bundles of money, and the shattered bits of weaponry that had not been pitched into the sea. He barely had time to turn his back on Robin before the young man leapt forward and lashed out with a straight-baton jab to the man's right kidney, burying the rod deep and dropping him to the ground like a toppling flour sack. He struggled wildly for air as Robin overtook him properly and dug the baton ever-deeper into the soft portion of his lower back.

"Keys. Boat Keys. Where?" Robin said dangerously, barely whispering as he pressed fiercely into the man's kidney.

"I-I-In the ignition!" he barely managed to scream out past a combination of pain and terror that wrenched tears from his eyes. Robin ground in an extra quarter inch, eliciting a terrible scream, along with, "I swear!"

"Here's a free tip," Robin began his exiting quip in a deathly chill voice, the compulsion to drive home a lesson here momentarily overcoming his haste, "find a new line of work," and he punctuated that advice by drawing back and twirling both tonfas in spectacular, whistling loops before smashing them down in a crossed scissoring motion that struck the metal to either side of the man's neck with a heart-stopping blast of sound. After all that motion, the bars just barely grazed his neck, a wash of cold metal rolling against the sweat he'd been pouring out in his terror, expunging the thug from consciousness with their chilling touch. Robin turned on his heel and got back on his way the moment he smelled the pungent, warm fluid leaking down the gangway beneath the hapless hired gun.

Within seconds, he'd boarded the boat, thrown off the mooring, swept it for self-destruct explosives and transmitters, removed all of both that he'd found, and powered the vessel out of the harbor at high speed. In the background, screams and explosions announced Speedy's continuing progress, but that was really the last thing on Robin's mind as he threw the boat into full-throttle and started jetting for the lonely rock outcropping with its T shaped occupant standing sentinel over the still city.

--Raven and Starfire--

"Star, Rae, what's with the odd looks?" Robin asked calmly, the self-assured grin fading from his face somewhat as he noticed the way the two were staring at him. Perhaps if he had some earthly concept of the way he looked just then, he might not have been so confused about their expressions.

Robin was dressed for the beach, stripped down to a pair of baggy board shorts in a striking red, yellow, and green motif with his monogram 'R' on the right thigh. His body gleamed as though he'd been waxed and left to sun-dry, a theory supported by his deep tan. The body he worked so hard to train was thus shown off in all its glory, muscles gathered in rippling bunches that crowded on his abdomen and trailed up and down his arms and back, their bulk limited only by the three or four years of filling out he had left to do before he reached his final adult size. His hair had gone from spiky to merely scraggly, as though he'd been swimming around, and the effect was almost as charming as that of the pale pooka-shell necklace contrasting with his golden flesh.

"Uhhh, heh heh…" Starfire was having a hard time forming words—understandable when one considered that she couldn't get her mouth to stop watering any more than she could get her legs to stop trembling. She simply continued to stare at Robin with gigantic stars in her bulging eyes, drinking in the sight of his unselfconscious resplendence.

"Gerrr—we… umm… wanted to… talk to you…?" Raven was a little quicker to get her tongue back under control, though she found herself no more able to peel herself from her knees than Starfire. The two of them together had been collapsed on the ground, kneeling and leaning on one another for support in the endless planar nothingness that they'd been stranded in at the culmination of their mutual nightmare. Robin had arrived, looking like he does, and Star had… well… evicted Raven from their hug, and that shock is what gave her the presence of mind she now possessed.

For example, she noticed how other things in their environment had changed besides this new, gorgeous slice of dream standing before them, while Starfire obviously hadn't gotten past this initial, impressive point yet. It turned out that they were, as suggested by Robin's attire, at a beach… again. The three of them were on what looked, for all intents and purposes, exactly like the crystal blue ocean-front of some far-flung tropical island. There was no civilization to be seen by a quick glance around the area, and the solid jungle behind them was far less inviting than the lavishly clear waters lying calmly before them in front of a distant coral reef.

"Well, here I am then," Robin answered amicably, regaining his rakish grin as he relaxed on his feet, sliding into a more comfortable position in an almost imperceptible motion that still managed to steal the breath from both women. "I heard you two wanted me," he went on, ignoring their newly glazed expressions as he glanced absently out at the sparkling island bay, "and so I rushed right over from the surf side of the island. Now, what did you need me for?"

"Muh… muh… muh…" Starfire was still at an utter loss for words, and Raven glanced at her this time, simultaneously disgusted by and unreasoningly jealous of her blatant attraction to Robin. When she actually got a look at Starfire, she had to do a double-take.

Starfire was no longer wearing her stylish dress. Nor, for that matter, was she smeared with blood and flesh-turned ash. She, like their environment, had transformed, and she matched their surroundings just as enticingly as Robin. She was wearing a string-bikini of a vibrant purple fabric that, through a tough opacity and just the right cut, managed to be incredibly revealing without being the slightest bit slutty-looking. The bottom was accentuated by a purple and white floral-patterned sarong, and, kneeling in the sand, she looked like a page out of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition… only… y'know… tasteful.

By impulse, Raven looked down at herself the moment she recovered from her shock over Starfire, and her eyes nearly fell out of her head. Adorning her now was a swimsuit she wouldn't have donned in a million years, much less purchased, taken off the rack, or even given a second look in the store. It was one-piece only by virtue of the fact that the cut-out areas didn't completely separate the top from the bottom, as the final product still revealed far more than it concealed where her pale, almost ghostly flesh was concerned. The deep blue material of the swimsuit was flecked with twisting crimson patterns, at least in those small strips of fabric it actually consisted of, and left revealed by its absences were her entire smooth stomach and back. Somehow it still managed to cling seamlessly to her flesh, no matter how she moved, as though it were painted on.

"Guys?" Robin asked, concerned by the long silence. He turned back to look at the two women again, now sporting an expression of calm curiosity that drew a slow sigh from each. The sun was glaring down at him from just above and behind, giving him a halo glow that brought a shining life to his bronzed skin, the sight of which made even Raven quite forget what she was supposed to be doing. "Seriously, what did you need?"

"How did we get to this wonderful place?" Starfire asked dreamily, her huge green eyes sparkling in a way that very much reminded of Robin's glowing skin.

"What? Are you okay?" Robin was seriously concerned now, apparently amazed by Starfire's question. "I mean, why would you ask me that?"

"She—uh—had a little too much sun!" Raven hazarded a random excuse as soon as she could, embarrassed for Starfire even if Star herself was too floaty to notice what a fool she sounded like. The switch from jealous to protective hit Raven like a slap in the face, and it didn't exactly allow for brilliant commentary on her part.

"Raven… Starfire is Tamaranean." Robin stated simply, giving the both of them a skewed grin, "She flies through space, y'know, without any ozone—and not even that is too much sun for her."

"Yes! Right!" Raven was on the defensive now, her face glossing over as she realized just how mortified she was to sound stupid in front of Robin, and simultaneously attempted to convince herself that this guy in front of her wasn't Robin. "Which is why I meant to say… she hasn't gotten enough sun! Fell asleep in the shade—it left her a little light-headed after the long flight here."

"We came here by boat…" Robin provided, giving her another odd look, raising an eyebrow in serious concern this time. He looked genuinely compassionate, and it was so much deeper than anything she'd seen from the various clones and shades of Robin they'd encountered so far in this absurd nightmare that it was all she could do to keep her heart from fluttering at that look. This clinched it for her, as she realized that wasn't how she reacted to Robin, not even when she allowed herself brief moments of feeling, and she expunged the dazzle he projected with a distinct effort.

"Yes, of course, I meant to say that," Raven dismissed the pleasant fantasy Robin embodied only by dint of the long training she had at controlling herself, but dismiss it she did, turning completely away from him and feeling an incredible release of some invisible pressure the moment she'd fully pried herself from any thought or sight of him. This was still a dream, and someone was still screwing with her and her friend. That this someone might just be her and her friend themselves… it was just one more reason to get the hell back to reality. The first step in that direction would be giving Starfire the same wake-up treatment she'd just managed for herself.

A balmy ocean breeze chose that moment to blow gently across the beach, and Raven felt air whispering gently over areas she should NOT have felt air so much as mumbling. She shuddered deeply, remembered what she was wearing, then reevaluated her priorities.

The First thing she had to do was get something between her skin and the world. To this end, she snatched up an enormous floral-pattern beach towel from an array of beach-going paraphernalia that languished oddly a short distance away. She could feel Robin's eyes examining her with ever-deepening confusion, and this was only slightly more irksome than the fact that she was now draped in huge, pink and green flowers. It sickened her on a very visceral, undeniable level, but she still wrapped the enormous, flowery towel around her body until it was hung around her like her own cloak would be, though it didn't quite reach past her knees. Her self-consciousness curbed, though her self-image aghast at what she must look like done up in pastel flowers, Raven turned back toward Starfire, still scrupulously ignoring Robin, who looked about ready to start becoming forceful with his questioning if something didn't clear up the weirdness soon.

"Are you feeling all right?" Robin finally asked, allowing his focus to fall completely on Raven as his concern finally overcame his natural respect for her privacy. The question startled her, seeing as it showed him to have a great deal more personality and intellect than she'd expected. She considered this as she shook her head and rather demurely refused to comment, causing him to reluctantly drop the subject, exactly as Robin would have.

In a sense, Raven didn't know how to take this most recent apparition, seeing as how he wasn't absurdly perverted or utterly mindless as all the past figments had been. As far as she could tell, besides his absolutely unnatural… well… hotness... he was exactly like the real Robin. That was bad, not the least because it meant Raven no longer had any clue what Lust was up to, especially not now that she'd been combined with her power source, the raw, undirected desire forced upon Starfire's unprepared body and mind. Raven knew better than to believe Lust was done just because things weren't disgustingly sexual anymore, and this change of tactics on the part of her own desires meant that she had to be even more alert than before, she had to anticipate what was coming next, and so she had to figure out just what in the world had happened so far.

Actually, it was becoming more and more clear to Raven just what had happened to cause this huge mess, and she reviewed as she walked across the warm sands to where Starfire was still kneeling in oblivious delight, gazing dreamily at Robin as he stared in mute dissatisfaction out at the ocean, still perturbed by the strangeness around him. Fate, or blind chance, or whatever one wants to blame for such situations as this, had conspired against her and Starfire, causing the most disturbing conjunction to take place. Starfire had been consumed by arousal, but her idea of lewd behavior was making out. The simple fact was that she didn't have a clue how to respond to urges like what the drug drummed up—she was rather freakishly pure of thought that way—and so they built and built, unsatisfied by her naive antics. Raven, on the other hand, had been having illicit thoughts for years.

Oh, she buried them, she denied them, she forced them down like she stifled every other emotion in her meditative discipline, but they were there, always smoldering just beneath the threshold of feeling. They weren't bad thoughts, not any worse than the average teenager experienced as hormones became equally as influential as neurons in the reasoning process, but Raven didn't have any time for them, and they made it impossible to swallow her feelings for Robin, not even considering the trouble they'd given her with that scum Malchior, and so she kept them under her thumb. With Raven unable to restrain her empathic telepathy, Starfire's frustrated lust had been sucked right into her mind, where it found a resonating, twin emotion waiting for it—one with teeth.

Starfire provided the force, Raven thought to herself as she tried desperately to come up with something she could say that would wipe the goofy grin off of Star's face, and she herself, or at least some small, primal part of her, provided the direction. Raven's own natural lust, energized by Starfire's drug-induced heat, had taken on semi-independent willpower to accost her with the things she didn't want to admit she felt. The message had been delivered, and things had been about to cool down, apparently because Starfire had been cooling down and so Raven's overblown emotion hadn't had anything to draw empathic reinforcement from. And then Starfire's condition had reversed… and things had gone nuts.

"Hehehehe…" Starfire giggled again, recalling Raven to the situation at hand. The red-head finally seemed to overcome her absent-minded admiration of Robin, though the thought-numbing spell they'd both arrived in this place under was still in full force, and she leapt into a low-level hover without the slightest care in the world. In a way, Raven couldn't blame her for slipping into the dream's embrace so readily, considering the experience they'd just left behind, the nightmare they'd only barely escaped. Raven wound up idly wondering exactly where in her subconscious desires getting torn to shreds by an army of mindless beasts shaped like her secret heartthrob resided, then dropped the concern, instead watching the way Starfire very slowly and timidly floated up behind Robin. She felt, in that moment of watching Starfire stress over her crush, the most unimaginably despicable combination of contempt for her cowardly display and envy for her proximity to Robin. It quite distracted her from her little strategy session.

She immediately hated herself, hated to feel that way about her friend, hated that she even had the capacity to have such treacherous thoughts about the only person who'd ever taken an interest in her life, and she wiped those unworthy contemplations from her mind as she stared on in silence. Starfire had finally gotten up the nerve to break Robin's quiet brooding with a gentle touch on his shoulder, and he turned, the two coming face to face, Robin having to look up as Starfire was still flying.

The moment Robin noticed who it was, a grin split across his face, probably from relief that she was acting normally again, that the smile she fixed on him was lively rather than dreamy or distant, and this time, no matter how hard she tried, Raven couldn't keep the throb of gnawing jealousy down. She wanted that smile pointing at her, and unlike in the past, she couldn't be happy for Starfire, couldn't even mitigate her envy with care for her friend's feelings. She wanted Robin's smile, she wanted his affections, she wanted his touch, and it was killing her that Starfire was getting all three instead of her.

So… what was she going to do about it? Looking over at the smile of her best friend in the world, the one person who really understood her and her problems, who didn't consider her even somewhat creepy, who she'd shared secrets with and whose secrets she herself held in sacred trust… she realized exactly what the answer to that question was.

Nothing.

She saw their lips moving, but did not have to hear the words to know that they were making plans for how to enjoy this sunny paradise together. Forestalling the explosion by counting slowly backward from twenty, Raven let her body meld with shadows, slipping out of what passed for reality here and willing herself away. She wasn't going to be able to hold it in this time, and when it came out, it wasn't going to be quiet.

--Speedy--

As the clouds of smoke finished coating the pier in an impenetrable cloak of opaque fog, Speedy listened for the sounds of choking and coughing that ensured it was having the desired effect. That the innocents were caught in the suffocating cloud was regrettable, but it was a little hard to feel sorry for that bunch of mostly-degenerates. In any case, the discomfort was essential to their safety, as was what he was about to do. With a flick of his finger, he activated the infra-red sensors in his mask, lighting the pier in a crimson hue that brought out the living bodies below him like bright beacons, even through the solid black smoke.

As he drew the first stun arrow out of his quiver, quite slowly as he was still differentiating the guards from the partiers through the low-resolution heat vision, he heard the dull thwump of a concussive explosion down towards amidships, and he knew Robin had done his part to cover his ass. That meant the first phase could proceed from the utter safety of his sniper's perch, and he let a malicious smile split his face as he slowly drew the first innocuous-looking arrow along his bow, feeling the particular way the high-tensile wire was bending tonight as his muscles strained against the enormous draw weight. He could hear the numerous composite springs and gears working inside his deceptively simple archery device as the arrow finally reached full draw, and his malicious smile quirked just once.

He let loose.

Twang, Twang, Twang

One shot was followed by two more far quicker than the eye could perceive, the first three shots exploding into boxing-mitts halfway to the target and striking with the force of high-velocity bricks. The first heat signature was battered backward as the first shot broke his wrist and threw the uzi from his limp hand, the second shot blasted him in the side of the head, flinging him away, and the third shot nailed him in the ribs on his way down, shattering bones and driving both air and consciousness from his body. Speedy didn't even wait for the string to stop vibrating, much less for the first target to hit the ground, he just flung his arm through the blur-fast loading motion as he sought out the rest of his targeting itinerary.

Twang, Twang, thwipthwipthwipthwip

The next two stun arrows each broke a face, bearing their targets to the ground with bone-cracking force, eradicating consciousness with the greatest of ease. Spotting his chance of the fly, he switched to the brightly glowing energy arrows, increasing his rate of fire audibly as these lighter projectiles needed much less draw poundage to do their job. The short volley of glowing-tipped projectiles buzzed a murderously fast path through the smoke, cleanly splitting a cheap assault rifle in half as the rest pinned the wielder to one of the pier's many enormous metal mooring posts by his clothing. Really getting into his groove now, Speedy started to get creative.

thwipthwipthwipthwipthwipthwip, Fssshhhh, Crackle, Twang, Splash

A new volley of energy arrows found homes in the firearms of a group standing in a convenient line as they stumbled through the smoke. With their weapons torn from their unprepared fingers, they panicked and, as a group of blinded, panicked living things will, took off in the same direction. A quickly placed freeze arrow created an ice slick with a hushed whisper of solidifying water-vapor, and the whole line of guys managed to slip as one mass over the pier's edge and into the icy sea, though not quite before Speedy got off yet another stun arrow, blasting a random thug in the back of the head and putting his lights out. Female shrieks of terror from his left drew his infra-vision that way, and he'd formulated another shooting order basically the same instant he finished evaluating the confused mass of red blobs on that side of the peer.

Twang, Zing, ZZZAAAPPP, Twang, thwack, GONGGG, Fsssshhhhh

A wild, off-the-hip snap shot just barely put one of Speedy's shocker arrows out towards the civilian-occupied side of the pier, where it proceeded to ricochet off of some stacked oil drums and peg a bandit before he could finish blindly brutalizing the gaggle of women he'd stumbled onto in the smog, electrocuting the thug mercilessly and lighting the clouds with yellow flashing in the process. Twirling to the side again, he caught another opportunity, processed the shot, drew, and fired off a stun arrow before he'd even finished turning around, the solid fist nailing some prick in the shoulder and spinning him forcefully face-first into an abandoned packing canister with a harsh clang like a bell tolling. Finally, Speedy was facing the gates again, and he celebrated this fact by pulling an explosive warhead arrow and lobbing it into the air full-blast with a sharp upward angle. A little something for later, if his instincts were right.

No sooner had he let this arrow fly than Speedy heard the sound of antagonists finally mounting the ship's deck somewhere behind him, and he immediately flipped an arrow smartly into his hand and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. Long before it's strongly magnetic tip made contact with the deck, Speedy was already over the railing and on his way down the ship's rusty old hull, a sturdy energy arrow's head dug into the metal and creating a terrible screeching sound as he used the drag to slow his decent. He left a jagged scar in the aged metal, but he seriously doubted anyone would care.

He was on the ground soon enough, fully concealed in a cloud of smog that he was well equipped to work within. Indeed, it was second nature to him to fight under such cover, and he slipped a gas filter mouthpiece between his teeth as he strode confidently into the shrouding smoke. There was the hollering and hacking coughs of still more gangsters he'd yet to punish, and as he walked toward the exit from the docks, he made sure to remedy that deficiency.

With his bow held at around hip level horizontal to the ground, Speedy pulled out a large brace of shocker arrows and held them between his knuckles. As he stalked the quickly dwindling smokescreen, he let these arrows off in a steady flurry. Every shot came off the bow with a whistling velocity that carved its own unique path through the smoke, leaving a twirling streamer of disturbed air in its wake before impacting brilliantly with a hapless target. Dancing electrical auroras leapt from screaming bodies as the arrows impacted in their quick succession, stumbling and confused belligerents quickly becoming slightly roasted deadweight, Speedy's assault reaping through what remained of his opposition effortlessly.

Suddenly, a cool sea breeze swept along the peer, and the already dwindling smoke parted and was carried away on its touch, disintegrating like the morning mist before the sun and revealing the pier in all its carnage. Speedy stood perfectly still amid a scene of destruction that included well over a dozen recumbent gangsters, several shattered weapons, and a feathering of energy arrows sunk in all over the place like rigid weeds jutting from the blank concrete. This was the sight observed by the five or so gangsters who'd been cowering since the smoke screen let loose, making themselves indistinguishable from the innocents surrounding them, now revealed in their gang colors as Speedy switched off his mask's heat vision function. He had no arrows drawn, but as he stared at the bandits cowering motionlessly between him and the exit from the pier, he showed no concern, merely spitting his gas filter into his open hand and fixing them with a contemptuous smirk.

"Well, what are you shit heads waiting for? RUN!" she shouted at them, bucking forward once in a mocking manner and breaking them from their terror and out into a flat sprint as they tried to escape. They were really making some headway, having gotten all the way out into the parking lot, and Speedy seemed to do nothing in response. Finally though, he pulled out a small device, something like a laser pointer, and painted the middle of the fleeing group with a small red dot. He counted down from three, keeping the laser painted among their fleeing formation.

Suddenly there was an earth-shaking explosion as the arrow Speedy had launched aimlessly into the air finally completed its return trip to the earth, arcing in on a perfect alignment with the laser dot he projected and coming in a streak of motion faster than any eye could follow. The concussive blast blew the five fleeing figures apart, draping their buffeted, unconscious bodies all over the street, ready and waiting for the police. Speedy just ran his hand along the shaft of his bow in a self-satisfied manner, grinning widely as he appreciated the enormity of his own awesomeness.

"Hey Robin Hood!" shouted an angry voice from up on the ship, right around the area Speedy himself had been sniping from only a few moments ago. Speedy didn't turn, though he tilted his head back up that way and glanced over his shoulder at the source of the shout. "Thanks for taking care of that street trash for us!" the voice shouted again, and now Speedy could see that it belonged to one of the party's private security personnel that he'd hear coming up behind him earlier. "Sorry we can't thank you more appropriately for doing our job for us," his voice was dripping with overstated sarcasm, "but our bosses have this problem with vigilante justice. Hell, who am I kidding—they have a problem with justice in general. Bye now!"

The moment Mr. Bigmouth shut his trap, Speedy was painted with half a dozen laser sights, the green dots trailing all over his head and back. The security guards made the mistake of holding off on pumping him full of hot light for several long moments, staying their laser rifles, most likely to savor the concept of victory over one of the masked crimefighters that haunted their existences. Speedy didn't hesitate, he just pressed a small button on his bow.

The little present he'd left them before descending to the pier made a loud beeping sound as it armed, drawing all of their gazes down to their feet in the critical instant before they could fry the red-headed archer. Most of them had enough time to get out the first phoneme of their curse word of choice before the concussion bomb draped their unconscious forms all over the ship. The dull thwump of the explosion brought an even bigger smile to Speedy's face as he slowly stretched out his muscles, realizing that with surprise and smoke cover on his side, he'd barely managed to warm up during that one-sided spectacle.

"Okay hero—that's enough of that!" yet another voice, this one actually vaguely familiar, accosted Speedy as he was winding down from the fight. He muttered a few choice vulgarities under his breath, shaking his head in exasperation, when a new voice made him stiffen in shock.

"Speedy Help!" shrieked a woman, and now Speedy was paying attention, because despite the intervening hours of drunken debauchery and brawling, that voice was still intimately fixed in his memory. On the pretense of holding a hand to his head in exasperation, Speedy palmed a mirror from his belt and used it to discreetly look back over his shoulder. His cursing became epic, almost baseball coach-esqe, within his own mind as he saw Alicia pinned under the arm of a gangster in a cheap suit, his grimy 9mm pressed firmly to her head.

"Ha, so you recognize the little whore? I knew we'd find your spandex-wearing ass if we tracked this slut down!" the man's voice was grating, but Speedy wasn't listening to him, he was instead evaluating the image he was able to gather with his mirror. "We're going to teach you why no one, not even a Teen Titan, messes with the Box-Town Boys!"

"That's right, just keep mouthing off asshole," Speedy whispered to himself, ascertaining that Alicia was bound by nothing other than the scumbag's arm, then noting that the man was backed up by a huge black crony and a small tattooed minion. It occurred to him that these were the three punks they'd busted up in that alley earlier, and he was simultaneously impressed and infuriated by the violent, extreme lengths these filthy crooks had gone through to get back at the crimefighters. He made sure that Jess was not around or in any kind of danger, then made his move before the suit-wearing crook, Don or whatever his friends had called him back in the alley, could even start the next part of his loudmouth, self-important ranting.

In a flourish of motion, Speedy turned, drew, and fired all at once, launching an energy arrow dead on to a target he'd seen only by reflection. He was already in full volley by the time Don reacted to his utterly unexpected strike, pulling the trigger reflexively just in time for the first arrow to strike cleanly through his gun, its shaft sprouting out of the side so suddenly that it might as well have magically appeared there. Not only did the interposed glowing tip shatter the firing mechanism, but the force of the impact drove the gun back and nailed Don in the teeth with it. He was indisposed then as the rest of Speedy's faster-than-the-eye barrage mopped up the other completely surprised thugs.

Nick was taken out immediately with a series of net arrows that wrapped him up three times over, his machine pistol firing uselessly into the ground with a terrible sound of ricochets as his hand gripped the trigger by reflex, but was born down by the force of the multiple nets exploding out from within the series of arrows launched his way. He was dragged to the ground, just barely getting his gun under control before he shot himself up, and by then Speedy had already launched his strike on the third, much larger antagonist.

Bruno, being third, actually had time to brace himself for the attack. As though to prove that he was tougher than the pathetic showing he'd made in the alley, he shrugged off the first stun arrow to hit him in the face, the punching mitt not having quite the same impact now that it lacked the advantages of surprise and point-blank velocity. Ostensibly believing he'd taken Speedy's best shot, the giant pulled his Desert Eagle around, only for it to be gutted from his fingers by three energy arrows. He had enough time to gasp in horror before the freeze arrow iced his feet together, the cattle-prod like shocker arrow electrocuted the fight fright out of him, and the set of two simultaneously-fired stunner arrows blasted him in either shoulder, knocking him backward and felling him like a giant oak.

"YOU BASTARD!" Don screamed, at the same moment that Alicia finally registered the flurry of arrows impacting all around her in the brief seconds the interchange had taken, breaking into a slow whimpering and collapsing in Don's grip. The big-cheese gangster was brandishing his ruined gun, only to notice once more that it would not fire with the arrow lodged in its mechanism. He was bleeding badly from the teeth, and he was disoriented enough to be thrown off by Alicia's dead weight on his arm. "I'm going to make you pay for that you little punk!"

"Right…" Speedy said, very slowly knocking another arrow on his bow and starting to walk sedately toward the scar-faced killer and his hostage. "You and what army?" he added sarcastically gesturing with his head to the mass of beaten, electrocuted, and concussed thugs that were strewn all around. It was a sorry sight, especially with the crowd of high and drunk civilians taking this lull in the combat to make a break for the gates stopping to kick and rob several of them, and Don's belligerence transformed almost mystically into fear as he realized just how alone he was here. He immediately dropped the useless gun and used both arms to hold up the girl like some kind of shield.

"You s-s-stay away!" he shouted, his nerve melting like cheap ice cream on a summer's day, the two of them backing away now as Speedy slowly advanced, his bow ready but not pointed, the easy grin fixed on his features. "I swear I'll break her neck! You know I will!"

"You won't do shit, Don," Speedy assured him confidently. "all of your chances to 'do' something have already been piddled away. I mean, Jesus, don't you and your stupid friends ever get tired of being walking clichés?" Speedy was winding up into quite the rhetorical mode as Don continued to back away, finally stopping with a panicky jerk as he found himself with his back to the water at the pier's edge.

"Stay back damnit!" Don screamed, his fear evident, his morale leaking away like the cold sweat running in rivulets down his back. He was showing his true colors, cowering behind the woman to stave off Speedy's wrath, his eyes gone wide in panic, baring his bloody teeth like some kind of feral animal threatened and cornered. Speedy did not stop advancing, merely continuing his tirade as though Don hadn't spoken.

"I mean, it's bad enough that you three are so bound by archetype—a bossy one, a skinny, knifey one, and a bruiser—but the big one actually changed his name to 'Bruno'! … are you kidding me?"

"BACK OFF!" Don screamed wildly, reaching up to grip Alicia around the neck with both hands. Finally, confronted by this threat, Speedy stopped his advance, not two dozen paces away, though he did not loose his unconcerned stare.

"And beyond that—you guys are just idiots!" Speedy complained in an almost good-natured way. "I mean Christ—I'm standing there, I think I've gotten every bogey down, I even put the coup de' grace on the party security—I'm a friken' sitting duck! Presented with this golden opportunity to shoot my bungling ass in the back—what do you dickheads do? You shout at me—get my attention—give away the element of surprise! What the hell were you thinking?"

"S-s-shut up!" Don tried to silence the criticism, but Speedy overran him out of hand.

"And then," Speedy was just icing the cake at this point, "sacrificing the element of surprise, what do I see when I peek back here but all three of you lined up like milk bottles on a shelf? You three fungal growths were so proud of the hostage you managed to snatch up, it never even occurred to you to deploy your superior numbers in any kind of intelligent way!"

"I said SHUT UP!" Don somehow managed to sound even crazier, his fear turning to rage as such things often do. The insults were drawing out the small-minded, violent side of him rather than the cowardly, shifty side, just as Speedy intended.

"So lets review," Speedy ignored Don's protests as the nothing they truly were to him, "I ambush you outnumbered dozens to one, and I kick ass. You ambush me outnumbering me three to one, and get your asses handed to you. Now, some would put that down to a difference in skill, luck, equipment, and psychological preparedness. However, I think it's because I'm a stud and you guys are a bunch of pencil-dicked wannabees who have to rape women because you prematurely ejaculate whenever a girl is actually interested—a rare occurrence, I'd warrant."

Speedy rattled off the string of insults and hit Don right where it hurt—his ego. The vicious little man seethed in his cheep suit, blood and spittle running down his chin as he snarled, momentarily unable to handle the flash of fury that blew through his mind, cleaning out the last of the terror and drowning it in a red haze. He almost strangled Alicia on the spot, but some small spark of self-preservation had survived the onslaught of fury, and instead he held her particularly close, his eyes blazing, and spoke out from behind her, one single thing on his mind.

"I'd like to see you say that when you aren't hiding behind that fucking bow of yours pretty boy!" Don sneered out, his murderous stare peeking out from behind the girl.

"Big words from a guy hiding behind a teenage girl—but I think I see your point." Speedy actually seemed to be considering his words now, much more than he'd been doing earlier, and he suddenly reached some kind of decision. "Hell, I don't need this to beat your pansy ass," Speedy hefted his bow demonstratively, "so I'll make a deal with you. I'll drop the weapons, you drop the girl, and we can settle this like men."

Don hesitated for the briefest moment, then nodded, the fire in his eyes gleaming ever brighter at the opportunity offered. He had no hope in the hostage stalemate he was in, Speedy would brutalize him if he hurt the girl, and he couldn't use the threat to get by him—the kid just wasn't going to budge. At least this gave him the slightest chance—he'd gotten to where he was now by being nastier and more cunning than any other punk around, and the dozens of brawls he'd weathered were attested to by the scars he bore over his pale face.

At his nod, Speedy let the tension off his arrow and slid it ever so slowly behind his back, reversing the long-trained arm motion that he could use to launch arrows at a rate of fire that would make a machine gun wet itself. Almost carelessly, he tossed the bow aside, then held up his hands to indicate their emptiness as obviously as possible.

"Arrows too smart guy," Don grumbled nastily, tightening his grip on the distraught hostage to punish Speedy's obvious ploy. The arrows were clearly still dangerous, even without the bow.

"Of course," and Speedy made out as though he'd merely forgotten, casually unbuckling his quiver and dumping it a fair distance away, opposite from where he'd tossed the bow as a show of particular good faith. When the clattering of high-tech projectiles died down to nothing, Don smiled murderously, then tossed Alicia aside like a sack of shit, dumping her into the concrete, where she proceeded to crawl to her knees in terror and skitter away, eyes looking back at the battle about to take place.

"I hope you're ready to die kid," Don said, managing to sound menacing, despite the fact that he'd been pretty clearly cowering only a minute or two ago. Speedy was never anything if not amazed by how deluded people could make themselves when it counted.

"Just bring it on limp-dick," Speedy snapped tiredly, crossing his arms in boredom and stretching his neck, utterly contemptuous of Don, even refusing to match the other guy's fighting stance. Don didn't wait any more—he answered Speedy's contempt with a bellow of rage and a headlong charge.

The fight lasted about three seconds.

Three seconds. That was exactly how long it took for Don to close the distance and get the shocker arrow Speedy had slid discreetly down the back of his armor jacket instead of into his quiver jammed into his sternum. Speedy had turned and pulled it with that same lightning-quick draw, never giving Don a chance to so much as notice he'd been bamboozled before he collapsed in a heap of electrified, twitching unconsciousness.

"Fucking sucker," and Speedy spat on Don, then turned away and left him to smoke in silence. The red-head had about four breaths to appreciate his final victory before he was accosted from a new, much more pleasant quarter.

"Oh Speedy!" Alicia was suddenly wrapped around him in an incredibly enjoyable way, all arms and chest and fair skin pressed against lightly sweat-sheened muscles and armor. "I—I only came—came to get a ride for Jess—from a friend here—when they showed up in the parking lot! I—I drew them away—so the others could go. I—I was so scared! I'm SORRY!" and she went from there to tears quite instantly, weeping steadily into his chest in an incredibly disconcerting manner. Speedy looked around reflexively for support, only to see that absolutely everyone had already cleared out—he and Alicia were alone amid the carnage he'd wrought.

"Hey—there, there, kid—nothing to worry about, it's all over now." He couldn't believe he was calling a woman about the same age as him a kid, but she was so utterly broken right now that he couldn't think of anything else to say. Earlier she'd been floating on delayed-action shock and the strength she had to fain to keep her ignorant little sister from panicking, but there was no one to protect now, and she was feeling every bit of her own mortality, the bruises already starting to rise on her neck where Don had been strangling her. Speedy just held her in silence for a few minutes and let her weep into him, looking somewhere between distressed and exasperated.

Then, her attention turned quite suddenly from weeping to something very different, and she leapt forward and surprised him with a deep, passionate kiss. She kissed him with a desperate need that took him completely off guard, and it was several seconds of leaning futilely away from her reaching lips before he managed to get a hold of himself and peel her off, dragging her back by her shoulders until he forcefully broke the kiss.

"Stop that!" he gasped out, more annoyed than outraged or angry, somehow indignant that she'd behave as she was right now.

"But—But—please Speedy, I love you! You saved me and—and I love you!" and though her words sounded breathless and genuinely excited, Speedy new better.

"You're talking out of shock," he informed her coolly, leveling a chilling, serious stare out from behind his masked eyes, "and I, for one, refuse to take advantage of a woman who isn't in possession of her proper senses. All of this will look different to you from the other side of some rest and a good meal, and I detest the thought that my affections would ever be the source of regret for a woman." That was that, and he started to pull away from her, only to be grabbed back up by a terror-fueled grip he couldn't break without hurting her.

"NO!" she shrieked, "I want you Speedy, I do! Don't try to deny that you want me too, not after the way you were flirting with me earlier!"

"I was doing that to bug Robin," Speedy was utterly cold, trying his best to shake her off with some false harshness, "I'd never seriously flirt with a woman who was nearly raped, not anymore than I would with you now after what just happened. Not even I am that much of a pig. Now seriously Alicia—go home."

He started to pull away again, only for her grip to tighten a third time, but only weakly. In fact it was not her grip that stopped him this time, but rather, the particular tone of her final plea.

"Please…" she whispered, her voice tiny as she clung to his back, "I can't stand to be alone right now. Please don't leave me alone."

This, at last, was genuine, and Speedy felt his attempt at coldness disintegrate under the force of need in her voice. With no pretense of passion or sexual desire, her true need for some kind of support after what had just transpired came through clearly, and that, at least, Speedy felt comfortable fulfilling.

"I suppose I can walk you home," was all he said, and those were the last words that passed between them for some time.

As the two of them made their way off of the battlefield, Speedy could hear the sound of the party continuing inside. Some of the partygoers had refused to acknowledge the insanity going on outside, and the people catering to their desires remained in turn, seeking to pump them for money despite the fact that their security forces had failed to report. Speedy made some inane, silent observations about the human ability to ignore the inconvenient in the face of the desirable, then collected his bow and arrows, remembering to drop a transmitter that would draw the police. Lord knows no one else that had witnessed the battle would bother to.

He left the scene slowly, a beautiful, now very frail and nearly broken woman wrapped around him, and he decided that everything else was just window dressing. A small part of him did worry about Robin and especially the girls, however. What the hell was happening with those two women?

--Starfire and Raven--

"Would you care to take 'the swim,' with me Robin?" Starfire asked cheerfully, her mind washed of all unpleasant nightmares by the sensation of the glorious sun on her bare flesh and the all-consuming presence of Robin. As far as she was concerned, she had never been accosted by an army of Robin-clones, nor had she ever intentionally harmed the Boy Wonder in any way, shape, or form. She was with him, here, in this paradise, and so all was right with the world. There was the nagging sensation that she was forgetting something important, but the haze her mind floated upon more than made up for this discomfort.

"Hey, sure," Robin agreed immediately, and Starfire instantly felt a fool for being nervous about asking. It was unreasonably hard to ask for his company engaging in such frivolity, at least when they were alone like this, and in her experience, he usually became nervous and flustered whenever she actually managed to work up the nerve anyway. That he was so openly willing to frolic in the calm, crystal blue waters with her was an incredible relief, and she felt her chest swell with joy as she floated right by him and prepared to plunge into the sea and preempt him on the splashing and chasing she was certain such play involved.

"Hold on!" Robin snapped out, only slightly irritated, and accentuated the command by snatching a very gentle, still extremely solid grip onto her ankle as she floated by his head. A brand new reflex Starfire didn't remember learning was triggered the moment that touch registered, and even without any leverage, her foot still snapped out at his face with force enough to shatter a block of wood. Robin swayed back away from the incoming foot with a reaction time that defied belief, releasing Starfire's leg as he turned the dodge into a tumble and rolled backward, coming up into a kickboxing stance before he knew what he was doing.

Reflex finally gave way to thought, and the two stared at each other, Robin still looking ready to break someone's bones, and Starfire still floating, now sporting a look of the most abject shock imaginable. Robin, standing down to a more casual posture with the slightest frown of embarrassment and confusion, was the first to break the silence.

"Sorry about that… I guess…" Robin admitted his fault for grabbing at her, still confused by her intense protest to the harmless touch, "But I was just going to suggest we invite Raven along. She'll probably blow us off, but it'd be impolite to not even ask."

"Raven…?" Starfire had completely failed to realize that the other girl was even present here, and with a sinking sensation in her heart that corresponded to her unintentionally lowering herself into the shallow water, she recognized this as the cause of a few misunderstandings. Robin hadn't agreed because he'd suddenly overcome his hang-ups about being alone with her, he'd agreed because there was a highly convenient chaperone around to keep this from being at all intimate. Compulsively reluctant to let this opportunity slip away none the less, Starfire said something she instantly regretted. "Let us forget about Raven!" she snapped out without thinking, "her presence would only deteriorate any fun we might have!"

"Starfire?" Robin fixed her with a blank look, utterly stunned by what she'd just said. With that look of combined surprise and disgust, the spell was broken, and the magical haze that had encompassed her mind so fully dissipated like a fleeting shadow before the sun. The world snapped into sharp focus, and she realized exactly what she'd just said. Immediately Star's hands flew to cover her mouth, her own eyes widening in shock, and after a moment of thought she found herself completely unable to account for where that comment had come from. It was as though a tiny voice had whispered them into her ear and she'd repeated them aloud without thinking about it.

"I—I—I did not mean—I did not think—" Starfire tried in vain to qualify her gaff, but Robin had already frowned and turned away, shaking his head. Her heart began to beat at a quick marching pace as her nerves exploded with concern over what he must think of her after such a thoughtless and nasty comment about their mutual friend, and it only worsened as he voiced his concerns.

"What's gotten into you two lately?" He asked, as he turned back and shot Starfire a crushingly suspicious glare out of the corner of his masked eyes. "I let you two tag along with me and Speedy because you assured me you'd be able to get by on your own while I keep the perverted idiot out of trouble. I've told you what he's like on these trips of ours several times now, after all. But now, no sooner do we get to the beach then you both start acting strangely! I mean, I'd expect a poor joke like that out of Beast Boy—but you? And what's worse… you weren't even joking when you said it!"

"Robin, I apologize!" Starfire made the statement almost desperately, flashing forward out of the water to stand behind him as she made her plea, "I did not think before I spoke, I do not know what overcame me!"

"It's not me you should apologize too Star, it's Raven. Tell it to her." Robin's statement was quite final, and he let his eyes drop down to the sand in disappointment, his very posture driving Starfire back with crippling shame.

Under normal circumstances, the thought she'd just spoken so flatly would never have even occurred to her, and had it actually passed through her mind, it would have upset her greatly. That was the worst of it then, the fact that Starfire knew Robin was right, and that her statement had been deplorably harsh and almost baseless besides, and this knowledge combined with his obvious disappointment in her to wring at her chest with a gut-wrenchingly hard embarrassment. She immediately turned away from Robin and scanned the beach for Raven, fully intending to apologize no matter if she'd heard the statement or not. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, when she looked and saw no one where Raven had supposedly once been, she almost melted with relief.

"Robin… where is Raven?" She voiced the question, unable to mask the sound of the stress leaving her as it seemed that her terrible words had never gotten the chance to hurt her friend.

"What?" and Robin's head snapped up as he too searched the empty shoreline from one sandy coast to the other as far as the eye could see before the curve of the island cut off the view. "Oh no…" and he sounded incredibly grave with those two simple words.

"Is… is something the matter?" Starfire truly did not see any reason for Robin's immediate concern, and the idea that she was missing something of terrible and dangerous importance colored her mind with fear and embarrassment anew as she glanced around reflexively in near-panic.

"I don't know…" Robin said it, though he obviously didn't mean it considering his next words, "something must have been wrong—she was acting strangely already—I should have asked her about it!" He suddenly broke into harsh self-incrimination, frightening Starfire anew.

"Whatever is the matter?" Starfire demanded now, needing some kind of relief to the terrifying suspicion that this fear and anger in Robin was somehow her fault. Robin could be the most wonderful man she'd ever known when he was content, but when he was angry… he scared her more than she could let herself admit and still feel the way she did about him.

"Something is definitely wrong here… I can feel it!" Robin answered her at last, his body tensing in agitation as his mind worked furiously, almost visibly, at the question causing him such strife. "Raven wouldn't have taken off unless something was seriously wrong… we need to find her!"

"Very well!" Starfire agreed instantly, relieved beyond words that his agitation was not directed at her, but rather, represented concern for Raven. At the same time, Starfire's heart grew heavy with worry of her own, Robin's hard reaction to Raven's disappearance infecting her with his sense of urgency. She had wronged her friend a moment ago, wronged her in a way she felt compelled to seek forgiveness for, and it was time to put even the glorious thought of Robin from her mind and attend to whatever was wrong with her best… and only… girlfriend in the world. Under all this, however, there was that tiny voice still whispering in her ear… the one that resented, nay, seethed over the idea that Robin would rather make certain of Raven's happiness than go for a swim with her.

She flew up and cleared the tree line without trouble, taking in the fullness of the island from her new vantage point, searching for likely places for the mystic's retreat. Considering Raven's incredible mobility, including teleportation, levitation, and wraithlike ability to phase through matter, there really wasn't anyplace she couldn't have gotten to, and Starfire looked for absolutely any clue as to where she might have gone. The island was tiny, not even a mile around all told, with a dense forest and cave-riddle rock formation in the center and glittering white beaches all around. From this height Starfire could also see where the island's reef protected the bay side and remained open on the surf side, naturally providing everything a vacationer could want from a tropical island. This was not her concern however, while a sudden wash of dark energy from a nondescript forest clearing most certainly was.

She'd found her.

Without ever considering any other course of action, Starfire descended to the forest clearing in a direct shot, zeroing in on the wavering black aura that had caught her eye. In a moment, as the aura faded in a sudden gasping hush, she could make out Raven herself, and her guts tightened in anticipation of what she'd have to explain and apologize for. It was only when she noticed the other figure in the clearing that her heart caught in her throat, she stuttered in midair, and then hastily plunged herself into the treetops at the edge of the clearing rather than approaching her dark friend as she'd intended. Something about seeing Raven, and then seeing Raven again standing next to herself, gave Starfire immediate pause, and she wanted to at least take a moment to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. Inadvertently beginning to eavesdrop, Starfire caught wind of the heated conversation passing between the two, and she suddenly knew that she wasn't the only one seeing doubled mystics.

"I was wondering when you'd show up again," Raven said moodily, and Starfire noted by her swimsuit and the flowery towel she wore that this was probably the Raven she'd gone looking for. She sounded kind of hoarse, as though she were congested, and as far as Starfire could tell from her hiding place, her face was flushed as well.

"What can I say?" The other Raven answered pleasantly, as though to spite Raven's sour tone, "I noticed that you needed some help, and I figured I was just the entity for the job." Starfire took a closer look at this Raven as she answered, and immediately felt a sense of foreboding as she took in the swirling purples and reds of her otherwise Titans-standard costume. Memories that would not quite come into remembrance danced teasingly along her brain as she listened to the two perfect twins further.

"I don't need any help," Raven muttered icily, though she still couldn't make her voice completely even. With a sudden flash of insight, Starfire recognized the roughness in Raven's voice, and along with her puffy eyes and particularly sour mood, she realized Raven had been crying. Her heart skipped a beat with horror as she assumed that it must have been her heartless comment that had elicited tears in her usually unfazeable friend, and she was horrified by the thought of causing her such pain. The concern ate at her as the conversation wore on.

"Oh, that's funny, I figure those trees over there would disagree with you," other Raven quipped sarcastically, and Starfire glanced to where she was indicating to notice with the slightest gasp the trees she spoke of. It was easy to pick them out because they still glowed faintly with Raven's power, and because they were about a million times more twisted to flinders than the trees around them. "Generally speaking," other Raven continued, seeming to revel in the way Raven squirmed in shame at what she'd done to the forest, "when the trees start getting tied into knots, its time for a little help."

"Shut up," Raven muttered again, and it was clear by her reaction that the other Raven had struck her exactly where it hurt, "what the hell would you know about helping me? All you've done is torment me since this disgusting nightmare began! Personification of what I want? HA!"

"Why Raven, I'm not sure what you're talking about." The other Raven responded immediately in a tone Starfire had only recently learned to distinguish as mockingly ignorant.

"Well then let me remind you," and Raven's tone had grown truly nasty, "it was just a few moments ago actually, and it involved me getting jumped by a gang of perverts you fancied up to look like Robin!"

The moment these words were spoken, something clicked inside of Starfire's mind, and like a huge gate opening and letting forth a flood, memories of this night's dreams poured past her eyes. Flashes of two harrowing encounters with a fiend disguised as Robin wracked her brain, even as the chilling battle with a million mindless beasts shaped like the object of her admiration played itself to its grisly conclusion before her mind's eye. She was shaking badly by the time the episode passed, on the verge of tears herself, even as dozens of little mysteries solved themselves. Her arrival in this place, the presence of two Ravens, even the magical encounter that almost happened with Robin, all seemed perfectly plausible now that she was once again reminded of the unreality she inhabited. She actually missed some of the discussion then, as their heated words were not going to wait up for her to overcome the memory obliterating effects of her dreams.

"…so I wasn't controlling them," she heard Lust, the spiritual aspect of Raven who'd invaded her nightmares, finish some explanation or other. "I'm only a small part of your mind and powers Raven, and this weird event is affecting all of you. Starfire's emotions were drawing our empathy in like a black hole, we were both going one way or another—the overly friendly Robin shades were just the way the forces manifested, not something I had control over."

"Don't try to feed me that bull!" Raven snapped, suddenly furious, and Starfire was shocked by the flash of emotion from the dour woman—almost as much as she was shocked by the blast of power that sundered apart the tree next to hers in a lick of black lightning that was perceptible only as an afterimage and a thundering sound. "I saw you create the first two Robin shades, I know they were your doing! I saw you go straight for the manifestation of Starfire's lust the moment we got here, and the same shades attacked me to keep me from stopping you! You're up to something, don't try to deny it!"

"Would you stop that?" Lust complained, utterly unimpressed by Raven's fury, despite the cloud of roiling black power that danced menacingly around her, fluttering the incongruously cheery beach towel with its passing. "The only reason you have any power at all in this place is because you began to acknowledge me. If you start getting bitchy, I can take it away again. Now get off the rag for a few seconds and I'll spin you a little tale that should set your troubled mind at ease."

The utter bravado of the comments seemed to take the wind out of Raven's fury quite readily, and she seemed to cave in on herself as the power bled from her aura. Starfire, who'd been ready to bolt for the sky, looked on in wonderment as, with a few deep breaths, Raven came back from the brink, focusing Lust with a steady stare that seemed to say, "I dare you to rationalize this mess."

"Let's just start at the beginning, shall we darling?" Lust began without hesitation, "where you and Starfire were drugged. I'm going to explain to you what we, or at least you, have been able to discern about the drug, because apparently it hasn't sunk in yet. First of all is that it's blocked your direct conscious access to your powers and other areas of your nervous system. You can't move, and you can't exhibit either active restraint or control over your natural abilities, unless prompted by an external stimulus."

"I'm painfully aware of my disabilities," Raven squeezed the words out between clenched teeth.

"Of course," Lust acknowledge that as a given, seeing as how she personified Raven's current lack of the restraint she usually held perfectly in balance. "But here's where things start to get interesting. As I was trying to explain back in your own dream, you've been empathizing with Starfire quite accidentally for hours now. Starfire has been infected with the same chemical as you, but it affected her in an entirely unexpected way, latching quite insistently to whatever she uses as a pituitary gland and simultaneously submerging her natural inhibitions and self-restraint—a lot like being drunk, but without the loss of reflexes, and with a great big dose of sex drive."

"Starfire doesn't have a sex drive," Raven bit out, half defensively and half derisively, "I'd be surprised if she knew what sex was."

Starfire, for her part, became particularly attentive as the conversation shifted to her, understandably eager to have some further light shed on why these dreams were so extraordinarily unprecedented for her. They kept using the word 'sex' which she knew to mean child-making, but the context it was used in eluded her completely, and she found herself blushing furiously as they continued to speak of her.

"Don't be dense," Lust admonished Raven with a wave of her hand, "we're all animals at heart, no matter how many layers of higher thinking you strap over the beast within. Starfire is well past the age of sexual maturity… introduce the right chemicals and remove the prohibitive mask of social inhibitions… and you get the barely coherent sex fiend that accosted Robin earlier. She doesn't have to consciously want it—she doesn't even have to know what 'it' is—sex was governed by hormones and proteins for eons before it was governed by romance, emotion, or active, conscious thought, and all it takes is a little manipulation to make it that way again. Do you get it yet? Do you understand what kind of feelings you've been accidentally leaching into yourself for so long?"

"Oh… my… god…" Raven's anger seemed to crumble quite suddenly under the magnitude of what was occurring to her. Starfire was almost jealous, because their conversation had gone right over her head in a very fundamental way. She could remember the terrible dreams she'd been having, even the ones that occurred before she realized she was dreaming at all, but she did not know what they were speaking of when the referred to her 'accosting' Robin. As far as she knew, it had been most disturbingly the other way around.

"That's right, your brain's been sucking up undiluted, feral sexuality for hours on end. Is it any wonder then that I came into being? Is it really so hard to believe all that's been going on considering the source of these phenomenon? Of course I went straight for the drug-induced lust the moment I got here, that's what sucked us in here in the first place, the draw might as well have been magnetic for all I could have resisted it, for all we could have resisted it. It's been powering my manifestation all night, and when it beckoned, I came."

"And just what was all that fancy light about then? What the hell happened between you and your illustrious power source?" Raven asked, her anger cooling fully into more of a dull suspicion. Starfire was utterly absorbed, despite the extensive tracts of the conversation that eluded her understanding, as she was desperate to know more of this drug she'd been infected with and its relation to the miserable dreams she'd been having.

"Oh… yes… that…" Lust sounded almost embarrassed now, and this seemed to surprise Raven enormously. "Well… let's just say that she and I… interfaced. We came to and understanding, and I—we—actually managed to exert a modicum of control over her. Why do you think you ended up here when the smoke settled?"

"And where exactly is here?" Raven wasn't letting up, despite the mellow, calming way Lust had with words. She seemed determined to find some fissure in Lust's story that she could attack until the whole neat package disintegrated, but was so far having little luck. At this rate, Starfire thought, even Raven would have to give up her suspicious nature and admit that the worst had passed. She knew little of the conflict between the Raven she knew and this mysterious manifestation of that woman's powers, but it seemed as though the mystic had, either herself or through this Lust character, saved her from the uncaring, frightening thing stalking her dreams, and she was grateful, no matter what else came to light.

"Why, this is a dream of course. One of the nicer ones Starfire tends to have, with a few embellishments of our own, of course. Do you like it?" Lust asked, genuinely curious, trying to get the conversation on to other things.

"Gee, let me think," Raven said sarcastically, before throwing her beach towel off of her shoulders and letting it settle on her arms, revealing her exceptionally well-cut one-piece, "does this look like something I could enjoy myself in?" It was the first time Starfire had gotten a good look at it, and she recognized it immediately. She thought bemusedly that it looked quite as good on Raven as she thought it would when she saw it on the store rack, and this thought lead her to an epiphany on the nature of this dreamland before Lust could even finish explaining.

"Whoo-hoo!" Lust hooted mockingly once, prompting Raven to conceal herself again, before she went on to explain, "that's a little number from the Starfire side of dreamland. Apparently it's what she'd imagine you wearing to the beach, whether or not you'd ever give it a second look. Personally I don't know what you're complaining about—you look hot."

"Personally, I don't give a shit what you think," Raven snapped out the words with an acid edge, making them sting into the air with the force of her discontent. "Starfire can dress however she wants—I'm not about to criticize her culture or her species' fashion sense—and she has the personality to pull it off besides. I, on the other hand, look like a bimbo in this getup, and I hate it. Now stop trying to change the subject and explain to me just how you managed to take control over so much undiluted, primal emotion."

"You don't look like a bimbo," Lust ignored Raven's command, causing the other woman's eyes to light with the blazing edge of fury once again, "You really do look hot. I know, trust me on this." Incredibly, the words actually seemed to get through to Raven, and the fury sputtered out as she took a moment to consider that heartfelt statement from Lust. Lust even had the courtesy to pick up the discussion without being asked again.

"The method I used to contain the lust running rabid in Starfire's dreams is inconsequential. The important thing to know is that we came to an understanding, and as a sort of apology for jumping you two with a horde of lust-drones shaped like Mr. short, dark, and utterly ripped himself, we cooked up this little vacation spot for you. We even managed to populate it with a genuine article manifestation of Robin pulled from your mutual memories of him. It was supposed to be restful—to take your mind off of the shitstorm you've had to weather since the Joker pulled his most recent gag. But what do you go and do… the very moment it's about to get interesting?"

"Don't!" Raven commanded Lust, as though there was some chance of her being obedient now when she hadn't been before. "Just Don't!"

"I mean, I told you it was time to start asserting yourself, to start expressing your feelings rather than denying them. I told you," and now Lust was becoming very different, menacing and imposing rather than placating and pleasant, and Starfire felt a chill wind sweep through the land, the whole world seeming to darken as Lust's mood swung violently to the opposite pole. For some reason, Starfire was filled with a staggering foreboding that had nothing to do with the environment change and everything to do with a horrifying sense that she was about to be faced with a world-shattering revelation.

"You don't know what you're talking about. You can't understand—you can't comprehend what it is to look at those two, at the way just being next to him makes her light up, the way he lets his guard down more for her than for anyone else! You're not me, you're just the worst part of me, the small-minded, selfish part that I've learned to live without. I don't have to take my marching orders from you, no matter how many drug-trips inflate you past your means! I'm not going to do anything to hurt my friend, no matter how much I suffer in turn!"

"BITCH!" Lust screamed, and there was more to her voice than ever before, terrifying undertones that played along Starfire's ears with the strangest tingle of familiarity. "How dare you deny me? How dare you deny your feelings? You know what happens when you don't acknowledge every part of your soul! Do you want another dose of what I gave you earlier?"

"Go fuck yourself," Raven spat the curse into Lust's face without hesitation. "Oh wait, you might enjoy that, slut!"

"WHAT?" and Starfire found herself silently echoing Lust's amazement, even though she had little understanding of Raven's insults beyond the fact that it would be difficult for them to be more offensive than they had been. The ever-growing sense of impending doom was joined by an almost bemused admiration for the incredible drama taking place before her. It was a disturbing dichotomy.

"Do you really think me so gullible, Lust—or whatever the hell you are?" Raven asked, and Starfire was mystified by the accusations she was making. "I may have been having some issues lately, but I know myself, and you're no part of me, so I can deny you all I want. I'll admit you almost had me going, when you came to confront me for crying over him," and Starfire felt a sudden thrill of terror at these words which she was unable to account for, "because Lust did the same thing back in my mind. But you're not her, you're nothing that was ever me, you're just the end product of a madman's insane plan to torture me and my friends. None of your lies can conceal your true nature from me."

There was a long pause after the accusations hit the air, and the world seemed to hold its breath.

"Very good Raven," Lust said, in a completely different voice, and Starfire felt her mind stutter over this rearrangement as, confronted by Raven's utter certainty, the thing impersonating Lust confessed outright. To Starfire's combined amazement and disgust, Lust transformed in a twirling vortex of green energy, becoming, rather than a clone of Raven, something very much resembling Starfire herself. Oh, she was glowing with an all-over green sheen, and she maintained a surly smile more at home on Blackfire, but it was definitely some terrible doppelganger of Starfire that now occupied the clearing across from Raven, and the sight made Star's blood run cold.

"So you finally made you're appearance, whatever you are," Raven called out her new opponent, seemingly quite satisfied at her victory.

"You can continue to call me Lust. In a way, the name fits me far better than that delightful little morsel that was so easily assimilated." So that was it, Raven and Starfire realized at the same time—this thing had consumed Raven's emotional aspect of desire after sucking Raven into Starfire's dreams. The very concept numbed Starfire with a horror that did not dissipate the lingering feeling of impending misery, but increased the cocktail of nightmarish feelings this paradise had become home to.

"I'm not sure what you are," Raven admitted, her voice edged with anger and that coldly threatening tone she used in combat, "But I know every moment of suffering Starfire and I have endured is your doing one way or another. I've no doubt that before you consumed a part of my mind and gained insight into the 'mechanics' of what you wanted, you tormented Starfire with visions of Robin presented in ways she'd never even remotely considered. After you sucked down my vagrant powers, you became a little more creative."

"Why thank you Raven, I'll take that as a compliment," and the glowing mockery of Starfire's form seemed to preen as she hovered arrogantly before Raven. "I owe it all to you, after all—this evolution. Who would have thought a humble little overpowering urge like me could advance into what I've become? Who would have imagined there was such a world of 'activities' that so perfectly satisfy the urges I personify? Starfire was clueless… you can't comprehend how frustrating that is—but you… you have quite the wealth of information. That made it easy to 'screw' with you."

"It's called 'being an American teenager,'" and Raven sounded almost disgusted by what her own thoughts had become twisted into. "You can't even watch network television anymore without getting a pretty good idea of how it all works—you have no idea how frustrating some of Starfire's innocuous questions can be. It's actually pretty cute—when it isn't unbearably embarrassing. Now it's time to stop 'screwing around'. We want out. Now."

Starfire felt a thrill as she listened to her friend fearlessly talk down to the apparition that had been tormenting them, and only the foreboding terror that still nipped at her heart like a hard frost kept her from shouting out a whoop of support as Raven told this thing, this 'Lust', what was what. Lust's response, on the other hand, was less than confidence-inspiring.

"MmhmhmHAHAHAHA," she laughed powerfully, fixing Raven with a newly arrogant smile, as though her demands had been perfectly amusing. "You presume to order me? In case it has eluded your notice, I am in control here, you and the ignorant one are just passengers, bereft of any semblance of command you may have once had. Starfire was unable to resist my influence, even when she was conscious. And you, my pretty little empath, have but the barest shadow of your power. Even what you demonstrated earlier are mere table-scraps granted to you by your instinctual reaction to my brilliance—otherwise you'd still be as powerless as the drug left you earlier."

"We'll just see about that!" Raven snapped out in a challenging bark, then, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" A swirling black cloud emerged from her outstretched fingers, the smog flying in a living swarm to envelope Lust. Lust waved her hand, and the cloud dissipated, vanishing without a trace, as though swallowed by the air itself. Raven didn't seem at all perturbed by the attack's failure, and was about to follow up when Lust snapped her fingers in an easy, almost idle gesture.

"Eee!" Raven let out the slightest screech as she was roughly grabbed up by arms that blasted forth from the soil itself, gripping her by the ankles and thighs. Before she could finish directing her power to eradicate the offending appendages, they had tripped her to the ground, where another dozen hands grabbed her up and down her arms, two sets hugged her around the waist, and a final group clenched onto her head, one set clamping down over her mouth and eyes to choke off her power. She struggled valiantly against their multi-faceted grip, but she was simply overpowered.

Starfire was torn, completely bisected over what to do. A very large part of her demanded that she strike immediately to aid Raven, who had been trying to help them both by vanquishing the terror that stalked her dreams. At the same time, she was still gripped by a fear that defied rational quite stubbornly. She was frozen in horror, her body refusing to rise to the call of battle in a way that she'd never before experienced. She was no coward—she'd been blooded in the crucible of combat more times than she could rightly account for—but something about this situation chilled her warrior spirit, quenched her will to fight, even in the face of her dear friend's distress. So she did nothing, and she hated herself for it, but the shadow of the doom she'd sensed for so long now stretched ever further over her.

"Do you still not see the situation you're in here little Raven?" The Lust shaped like Starfire asked mockingly as she hovered slowly toward the blinded, gagged, and bound woman. "'At my mercy' does not even begin to describe it. You are both slaves to me. You are my playthings, my little dolls with which to act out every dark little fantasy you've ever even heard of. Because this isn't about what you want, not anymore. This is beyond your mind and thoughts now, this is about what your body wants, what your flesh wants, that's what I am. Oh… yes… I want to try it all."

"MMMPFH!" Raven tried to rage against what she was hearing, but could make no coherent sound past the hand gagging her mouth. Starfire, for her part, had to clamp down on the urge to fly away as fast as she could, something she only managed when she remembered her equally intense desire to break through the chains of terror and rush to her friend's aid. She wavered between the two extremes, the irrational fear and the call to action, and did nothing. What she knew for certain was that if 'what her body wanted' was anything like the hot, moist, frighteningly intense sensations she'd been assaulted with earlier, then she would sooner exile herself from Earth than submit to the Lust again. No matter how nice it may or may not have felt, these were definitely not the circumstances she wanted to experiment with them under. Her futile attempt to avoid the conflict facing her was broken when Lust spoke again.

"We're going to have such a time!" Lust exclaimed excitedly as she floated ever closer to Raven, then finally touched down right next to her bound victim. "I'm not sure how to start, but I was thinking we could go classic style—" and she suddenly shifted in form, near-instantly becoming a perfect duplicate of Robin, dressed in full Titan's uniform. "This one seemed to work great on Starfire," she said with Robin's voice, "even before I gained my new 'understanding.' I'm sure you'll both enjoy it too—or rather, I'll see to it that you do." Starfire prickled with a new flash of anger at this plain proof that the 'urge' before her had been impersonating Robin in her dreams, but it was not enough to overcome the mysterious quailing in her heart.

"Or maybe we could try—" and she shifted again, a green halo coalescing into a familiar, slightly boyish form. "This," she said in Beast Boy's voice. "It's not quite as stacked as the last one, but it has that cute, 'robbing the cradle' appeal. Besides… he can transform parts of his body… so that 'hung like a horse' isn't just an expression. You can't tell me that never crossed your mind—I know it has." Raven merely struggled more fiercely against the arms, apparently trying to ignore Lust's taunting.

"We could also try—" she transformed in a blur of deep blue, becoming the magnificently cut Aqualad, "this. Or perhaps—" and this time it was a yellowish blur that transmitted her to Speedy's shape, "this. And then there's—" and a bluish-grey blur made her Cyborg, "this. None of us know how much of him is still man rather than machine," she quipped in Cyborg's thick, powerful voice, "but I'm sure it's enough to make ya scream." Raven suddenly redoubled her efforts to escape, still uselessly, but Lust's words were becoming more and more disturbing.

"And then, as a finale—" Lust transformed back into the greenly glowing copy of Starfire, "I might have a little fun like this too. I know the very thought makes your skin crawl, but that doesn't mean it won't feel good, and isn't that what matters, when you get right down to it?" The hands gripping Raven's head suddenly forced her to nod in agreement, and she screamed protest against the hand gagging her. "I'm glad you agree! We are going to have so—much—fun! And imagine, you'll finally get an unrestricted shot at Robin… or at least something that looks like him."

With those final words, something clicked in Starfire's mind, and all the terror that she'd had no conscious reason for feeling, along with all the growing anger and frustrated desire to act she'd been bottling for reservation of that terror, all burst like a lanced boil, exploding with the realization that had finally beaten its way into her brain. An icicle of horror stabbed into her heart, and from here, it only dug deeper. The reason for Raven's tears, the reason for the mysterious form of their common tormentor, the many strange comments made by Lust, they all pointed to one incontrovertible fact. This fact tore out her heart and consumed it.

"That's what all this was supposed to be, do you realize that?" Lust said, somewhat cryptically, changing tracks without warning and not bothering to ungag Raven to allow for her to respond. "It was an experiment, to be sure, an attempt to ease you into the experiences I intended to enjoy tonight. Let me tell you, that's the last time I bother with subtlety—I didn't need it before, and look what happens when I try it! You take one look at those two hitting it off, as they always do, and you crumbled like a sandcastle in the wind. All that resolve you showed Lust, all gone in one pathetic crumbling. Before we go grab Starfire and start the party, I have to know—I thought you loved him, and I know you lust for him. What happened?"

Starfire had been doing a magnificent job of latching on to denial, but this effort staggered as the evidence mounted before her. It was a concept that had never occurred to her, a scenario that she'd never considered—it was simply too heartbreaking to have ever crossed her mind, though it now seemed as though she should have noticed, that it was some lack in her that had let her ignore what had been right in front of her. She was still chilled, the ice eating out her entire torso as it spread out from the dagger in her heart.

Raven, meanwhile, slumped in the gaggle of arms, going limp as she was confronted with the very misery she'd distracted herself from by attacking Lust. As she lost all of her fight, Lust let the hands off of her face, revealing the crushed expression underneath the choking, blinding palms. She was grimacing magnificently, and the expression told Starfire more than anything else that this terrible fact was really real, and not just the slanderous machinations of the terrible beast their twin drugged minds had brewed.

"I do…" Raven mumbled, "I—I can't stand it!" She became angry suddenly, then slumped just as quickly back into misery, "They're my best friends. I could never hurt either of them—I can't even imagine it! I sooner lay down my life than see either of them in pain. But… but Robin… I… I see her with him… and I… I just can't take it." These last words were so quiet that Starfire could barely hear them, not that she really needed to at this point. She had only to see Raven's lips move, to see them form those three words, those three wonderful, terrible words, the same ones she'd longed to express herself, to know with an utter, spirit-crushing certainty that her every terror of these past minutes had been disastrously justified.

The moment she could no longer deny the obvious misery that had crept from the shadows to torment her, she was overcome by a sensation of hopeless pain that dwarfed anything she'd felt before. Her flight ability, wavering in and out of functionality as she was alternatively thrilled and terrified by the drama playing out before her, finally sputtered and died as her heart shattered, and she fell from the sky like a stone, impacting with the earth in a resounding thud that neither being she'd been spying on could possibly fail to notice.

--Robin--

Robin careened into the medical floor off the elevator like a shot coming out of a cannon, caught himself on the door frame of the stasis room, and jerked himself into the space containing both women with a motion that sacrificed any kind of grace for pure, panicked speed.

His jaw dropped.

The room was a mass of crackling black energy, the rippling waves of heatless fire dancing in myriad twirls around the perfectly still, recumbent form of Starfire, which seemed strangely peaceful considering the insane jumping and beeping sputtering forth from the life signs monitor next to her bed. The walls, ceiling, and floor had all been ripped and scored, as though by some terrible storm of heat and electricity, and the robotic arm that had once dominated the space was now twisted and warped into an unrecognizable lump of slag.

He quickly got over his amazement at the state of the room as his concern for the women blazed brilliantly back into the front of his mind, his urgency focusing him on the task at hand. Gazing through the will-o-wisps of dazzling flame, he saw that, considering she was in stasis freeze, Starfire's pulse was racing at an unbelievable relative rate that would have caused a human heart to stall and fail in moments, and that her brainwaves were doing things that didn't belong in any mind not high on cocaine. Something had gone terribly wrong.

He glanced next to Raven, but her life signs were not nearly as interesting, and she was not surrounded by a cloud of flickering, cold, disembodied candle flames, so he paid her only half a mind. He turned to the computer terminal that was supposed to be monitoring the two women, then did a painfully sudden double-take and jerked his head back at Raven's side of the room, eyes wide with mind-numbing shock as he confirmed what he'd only thought he'd seen.

Sure enough, her brainwaves were flat-lining, her pulse almost nonexistent, and Robin felt himself chill from head to toes as his heart almost stopped. Those were not the readings given off by an effectively live person, even in stasis, and for one cardiac-pummeling instant, he knew he'd failed to get back in time, and that she was gone.

Then he noticed the black flames, flickering so easily and languidly, as though they had no greater purpose in the universe than to float around mysteriously and give of an occasional twinkle. It was unmistakably Raven's power, and as it crowded around Starfire, Robin felt his heart re-inflate like a balloon touched to a helium pump. Her power meant she was still alive, and as though to support this conclusion, her heart monitor gave of the faintest beep, before falling back into silence, her body living on even with zero brain activity.

His worst fears momentarily averted, he turned to the computer once more, working furiously at the keys to get some kind of grip on the situation, his mind wracked with guilt that he'd been so stupid as to leave them alone and untended when their health was still in question. There was no doubt in his mind now that his need to be away from them to collect his thoughts had now caused them some kind of terrible trauma, and the guilt made every beat of his pounding, worry-stressed heart a new, unique agony. Anything that happened to them at this point was entirely his fault.

The computer responded to the queries he input with obnoxious neutrality, as though to mock the rushing urgency that possessed him so utterly. It informed him in no uncertain terms that the antidote would not be ready for some time, and that Starfire was currently in exactly the kind of critical condition one didn't tempt by breaking the stasis lock. Any disturbance when her vitals were spiking like this could prove instantly fatal, and so Robin found himself helpless to do anything at all. At the emotionless mercy of the medical computers, he could only turn and stare forlornly at the two beauties lying helpless in the grip of who knows what horrors. He'd heard stories of the early days of stasis, of the nightmares people had, and now, they were suffering the same, or worse, because of him.

He was distracted from such dark considerations quite completely when the veritable smog of black flames began to quicken, coming to a new life before his amazed eyes. As he watched, black lightning began to play between the individual snipits of flame, and soon they were all joined together by the dancing streamers of ebony. Like a system of concentric hoops, the rings and knots of lighting began to spin and twirl, slowly at first, but faster on until they were like solid bands of vicious black energy wrapping Starfire around a million times over. Something was definitely happening, and he was helpless.

--Raven and Starfire--

Raven looked toward the unexpected sound of impact, and what she saw struck her through with a terror that blew every other concern completely out of her mind. Starfire was crouched in the grass, staring at her with the wide-eyed, empty expression of a beaten child or a shell-shocked warrior. In that chilling instant, Raven knew she'd heard her say it, those three words that she'd never had the courage to voice outside of her own mind until it had been dragged from her by the uncaring ministrations of the demon of primeval drives that had risen from the depths of their combined subconscious minds to torture them. Three words that changed everything, three words that could ruin three lives, three words that Starfire, of all people, could never hear her say.

I love Robin.

Tears were running down Starfire's face now, seeping slowly from her unblinking eyes as they focused that thousand-mile stare into Raven and down to her very soul. Raven was shocked to feel tears in her own eyes as well, and they flowed ever more freely as she realized the magnitude of this nightmare situation. Starfire knew. She knew that Raven had betrayed her trust, that she had been mocking their friendship in her secret heart of hearts, mocking the closeness they shared with her unforgivable desire for the same man her friend had been cultivating for so long now.

The things she must be wondering, the terrible questions that had to be racing through her mind—just imagining them staggered Raven, clipping out the universe besides herself and her friend. She must be wondering the most terrible things, things that chilled Raven even to consider them. How man times, she must be asking, did she confide in Raven about what she felt for Robin only to have the woman resent it secretly? How much of the advice and comforting words Raven had provided had been in secret bad faith, steering her wrong lest she succeed with Robin and rob Raven of any fantasy of the same success? How often had Raven seethed with jealousy and hatred, even as she chatted pleasantly with her secret rival?

It was staggering, and Raven silently railed against the thoughts, shaking her head visibly against these things that must be sizzling through Star's brain, as though her outward denial could possibly quell her fears. She didn't know how she could say it, how she could convey the agony this had been for her and make herself credible. How could Starfire believe that she'd spent extensive tracts of meditation every day submerging those treacherous feelings, grinding them away lest they surface and destroy their happiness? What reason could she have to be understanding if Raven tried to express what an agony it had been keeping her damnably backstabbing emotions in check every time she saw those two having fun, smiling to each other, or standing close in an empty room? It had been a nightmare, a nightmare she could not even seek relief from in the confidence of her one true friend. Starfire… Robin… they were never supposed to know, and now they both did. Raven's world was coming apart at the seams.

"Aww, isn't this a sorry sight?" Lust said, cruelly indifferent to the agony now shared by the two women. "I was wondering when the ignorant one was going to come down from there and join the party, but now it looks like she's not in the mood for my kind of fun. That's too bad… for her."

Starfire and Raven ignored her, far too wrapped in the emotional destruction passing between their wide, weeping, linked eyes. Lust did not appreciate being ignored.

"Enough!" She shouted, and the world shook around them with the force of her rage. "This is supposed to be a party! Or rather—it's supposed to be an orgy, but give it a few minutes. I even know just how to start this out right!"

As her words faded, the arms gripping Raven sprang to life, ending their indifferently ironclad grip and transforming it into something far more intimate. Clearing space by letting loose their hold on all but her wrists and ankles, the remaining freed up hands began to massage Raven everywhere at once. There were suddenly hands pressing up and down her back, running across her thighs and legs, squeezing her shoulders and biceps, and even gently gripping at her feet. It was a far cry from what it could become at Lust's merest whim, but it was still enough to bring Raven back to the immediate concern of her captivity, and she started to struggle right away. There was very little between her and nudity right now, and she had no illusions about where those hands would get to through the gaping holes in her swimsuit if she gave them the chance.

The moment she broke eye contact, Starfire reacted, reaching out as though to touch her, even across the clearing that stood between them. Her face was still plastered with an expression of combined horror and disbelief, as though she'd just witnessed a train wreck, and, in a way, she had. Lust noticed her start to get to her feet, and she ignored the utter lack of threat expressed by her face and body language, snapping her fingers distractedly as she watched the hands do their work

"No need to rush, you're turn is coming," Lust said chillingly, as phantom arms sprouted from the air to grab Starfire by the shoulders, jerking her back and away from Raven and Lust.

"No—stop this!" Raven shouted, as the constant massage worked its slow magic, her body responding to the so-far innocent touches in a way she hadn't imagined possible. She was actually heating up from the inside, just from the massage, and it disgusted her even more than anything that had happened earlier. At least that had been masturbation—of a sort—but this was going to be rape! "Azarath, Met—" she began, determined to escape from the unwanted ecstasies this thing intended to play out upon her flesh, only for one of the free hands to gag her again. She shook her head to try and escape the choking grip, but her body was loosing activity as the massage turned her muscles to jelly. Her free eyes did say something, however, as they glanced over to Starfire with a pleading deeper than any they'd ever held.

Starfire's broken gaze caught Raven's hopelessly pleading eyes, and she glanced away, as though unwilling to even behold such a request from the one who'd betrayed her so despicably. That was it then, Raven realized as the hands began to edge ever so slowly toward more sensitive parts of her body, rubbing the exposed flesh of her back and stomach through the holes in her suit, Starfire wasn't going to help. She must have thought her deserving of whatever violation Lust intended to mete out, and in a way, Raven couldn't blame her. She had done something terrible, something she wasn't sure she'd have ever forgiven if she were in Starfire's position, and no matter what else, perhaps she did deserve a punishment. If this dream rape was to be it… well…

Starfire suddenly exploded with green power, her fists becoming two brilliant auroras of intense fusion energy as heat blasted out of every inch of her body. The hands gripping her incinerated, having no hope of withstanding that power while in contact with her skin. Raven could see it, her eyes wide in amazement, she could see the heat rolling off of Starfire's body, emanating from every pore left exposed by the skimpy bikini that showed off her magnificent alien body to such incredible effect. Raven felt a moment of burgeoning hope, hope that Starfire might forgive her, hope that she might yet be spared from the terrible humiliation and degradation this thing intended to work upon her.

The hope died when Starfire turned her eyes back toward the two in the clearing, because there was no mistaking the fury bleeding in green flames from the emerald slits in Star's face. They were like two green suns, and their flames were for Raven only, boring into her like the burning pools they were. That was it, Raven realized, with a mixture of compassionate appreciation and heartbreaking resignation. Starfire was going to rescue her from humiliation… by punishing her herself. This was a much more agreeable fate, one she accepted as only right, under these extreme circumstances, and she did not flinch as Starfire pounced across the ground, running with a speed more akin to jungle cats than anything on two legs.

The first glowing green fist was in the air and about to strike before even Lust could do anything to counteract the attack, though the way it was directed expressly at Raven probably didn't hurt as far as her lack of reaction was concerned. It was probably the only reason the attack succeeded, actually.

At the last conceivable instant, Starfire's fist reversed momentum expertly, changing from a downward plunge that would have eradicated Raven from the face of Starfire's dreamscape—possibly plunging her into brain death, and certainly not letting her off with less than insanity—into a backhand directed at a very different target. The iridescent fist caught Lust across the jaw with enough force to cave in the side of a main battle tank, and she felt every last little bit of it.

Like a marble flung from a slingshot, Lust went flying at incredible speed, skimming along the ground for two dozen feet before her head clipped the earth and she set into a flesh-peeling roll that kicked up the root-encrusted forest floor in a cloud of blood and grime. Finally, she was flung off a protruding root into the air again, where her face impacted with a tree trunk, and the rest of her body wrapped itself around the plant before tumbling back to the ground with the last of her momentum. It was stunning just to watch, and it took Raven several moments to even conceive of what had just happened.

"Mrrphire…?" Raven made an inquisitive sound through the hand-gag, hoping against hope that this act meant what she thought it might mean.

"Do not speak to me right now Raven. Not about that. Just… do not." Ah… a reprieve, but only a temporary one. They would settle this after they'd escaped this freakish amalgamation that was trying to turn their flesh against them, and Raven, despite her lingering concern for the future, was absolutely relieved that this was the case.

"Do you believe you might still respond to direct commands as that thing said you were forced to?" Starfire asked unexpectedly as she incinerated the hands accosting Raven with beams from her eyes, then helped her friend-cum-romantic rival off of the ground. It was an incredibly insightful question, and Raven instantly knew what Star planned.

"I'm not sure. I've had free will to move and act in these dreams, but my powers, my true powers… they might still be under the command restriction." This was good. Businesslike, professional, just two super heroines fighting their way out of a terrible situation. Yeah, right. "I can't be sure though."

"Well, we are about to discover its truth the difficult way. Here it comes!" Sure enough, Starfire pointed with one glowing hand, and there was Lust prying herself out of the forest, yanking bark from her flesh and extricating a tree branch that had impaled her throat. Before their eyes, the wounds vanished, as did the blood, and she was whole and perfect once more, not to mention furious beyond reckoning.

"I will make you scream out in the agony of absolute bliss!" the apparition stated in a monstrous howl, its voice no longer resembling anything remotely human. Its green glow was run through with crimson, and it seemed to grow even as they watched, distorting out and away from its resemblance to Starfire and into something much different, much more… appropriate.

"We shall see, creature!" Starfire stated confidently, expressing a great deal more bravado than Raven thought her capable of. The almost feline hydra before them only roared its rage against their defiance, stomping forward on perfect feminine legs like the trunks of saplings, its impossibly perfect female body playing contrast to its inhuman face. "Raven, hear my command!" Starfire started, staring bleakly at the beast with her lantern eyes, "make that fnargling drenthack pay for screwing with us. Make her suffer!"

It was the single most vindictive thing Raven had ever heard Starfire say. Who was she kidding—it was the only vindictive thing she'd ever heard the gentle warrior say. Even when her sister had betrayed her and nearly sold her into marital slavery for a bauble and the throne, she'd only been angry, or indignant perhaps. But this—this was revenge, this was violence and bloodshed put into words, this was a deeper hate than Starfire had ever expressed before, and Raven couldn't help but fear that she was more the cause of it than Lust. None the less, it worked.

"Yes…" she heard the word come from her lips, but she hadn't spoken it. Then, like water filling an empty vessel, her power returned to her. It came to her slightest whim as though it had never left her, as though she hadn't been operating on the tiniest shadow of it since the moment her own Lust removed its restrictions. Just as predicted, that direct command unleashed every bound the diabolical drug had placed upon her, and she was energized as she hadn't felt since this nightmare began. Oh my… the tables… how they turn. She smiled, and it wasn't a kind smile.

"AZARATH!" the first word of her mantra escaped her lips in a projecting shout, and she could feel the power come to her call like a dog to heel, crackling along her nerves, waiting only for the release it knew was coming.

"METRION!" it bucked against its restraints within her, desperate to get at the twisted sister energy before it, to exact vengeance for its mistress, to meet the lumbering kismet charging towards them even now.

"ZINNNNTHHHHOOSSSS!" the last word was drawn out as power unfathomable rolled forth from Raven's body in a veritable tide, pouring into the soil in front of them like it would feed the earth. In immediate response, the ground bucked, the fabric of this dream rearranging itself to the demands of its new mistress, then spewed forth to take on this ten-foot-tall, cat-faced demon of unrestrained carnality. Soil turned to solid rock by Raven's power molded into chains and wrapped around Lust a dozen times in the space of a single breath, moving in blur-fast strikes to clap her down to the ground, utterly immobilized so close that either woman could have reached out to touch her. Lust screamed her frustration to the world, and the world shuddered in sympathy, but no matter how she strained against the bonds, they would not budge.

"Oh, let me tell you bitch," Raven said, the black glow never leaving her eyes or hands as she strained against Lust's attempts to escape, "I'm going to make you regret those gropes! No one even touches me without my express permission, and you are a serious violator. I've been dominating feelings stronger than you since I was old enough to feel them, and you've earned a little treatment I like to call, 'The Geas of Austerity.'"

"NOOOO!" Lust shrieked, thrashing under the bonds fiercely enough to draw a rock-crushing bitch slap from an incredibly irate Starfire. Despite the size difference, Lust's feral visage snapped around and a trickle of spittle was knocked from her lips.

"I'm going to erase you, drug hormones be damned," Raven said with tangible finality as she began to draw arcane symbols in the air in front of her with both glowing hands. "Magic will kick the ass of human science any day of the week. By Azar—you're lucky this is Starfire's mind, or I'd just neuter the brain and cut you out at the roots."

"You won't cast anything—not when you're writhing in pleasure!" Lust shrieked in her bestial voice, and just like that, the ground all around them, all the soil Raven's power hadn't touched, came to life. Rising from the earth were Robins, Robins yet again, all dressed now in his costume, at least, but staring at them with dead, mindless eyes. They stood free from the earth in ever expanding rings, and in mere seconds, they could not be numbered. Their ranks spread forth as far as the eye could see through the trees, and they paused only a moment before they rushed forward as one single mass.

Starfire and Raven took flight instantly, Raven struggling not to loose the thread of her spell or release Lust from her bindings. The Robins closed in beneath them like a swarm of ants, and the two women rose higher, until Raven stopped at as far away as she could go without bungling her spell. Again like ants, the Robins began to swarm over one another, uncaring of how many were crushed in the rabid effort to build a tower of earthen flesh to reach their ordained targets.

"You have to hold them off!" Raven told Starfire, "It'll only take one to ruin the spell! This is going to take a minute, and I can't be disturbed. Can you…?"

"It would be my pleasure!" Starfire said eagerly and almost too quickly, her eyes flashing a particularly brilliant shade of green. The expression on her face was not pleasant, and Raven once again felt a hole in the pit of her stomach where the fear resided—the fear that all this new aggression was Starfire displacing something she felt for Raven after the revelation. "This is still my mind—I'm still the powerful one here. These things will regret trying to control me, trying to violate us. There will be no mercy!"

"They still look like Robin," Raven reminded her, almost tentatively, "are you sure you can handle it?"

"I no longer see Robin's face when I look at them," She said grimly, not bothering to spare Raven the slightest glance.

Oh. Right. Raven definitely regretted asking.

"Is there anything else?" Starfire asked, almost resentfully.

"Be careful." Raven was utterly adamant, and this time Starfire did glance at her. The expression there was a mixture of agony and misery, and it made Raven hurt just to look at it. It seemed to say 'as though you'd care' and that sentiment hurt Raven more than any physical injury she could remember suffering. "I just mean…" she tried to finish her statement, and finally managed, "to die here, in a dream that cannot be naturally awoken from, invites insanity, or worse, in the real world. I couldn't stand to see you hurt."

"Too late." That was the last thing to pass between them before Starfire began to release all that pent up aggression in the only way that made sense just then.

"GAAAAHHH!" Starfire opened with a truly impressive battle cry as she gathered an enormous starbolt in both hands and projected it directly down in a solid beam that must have been three feet across. The beam struck through the direct center of the conical tower of writhing and crawling Robins working its way toward them, and where it touched, they were destroyed. In the barest flash of an instant, the beam had struck all the way through to the ground, and like a candle plunged into a Chinese lantern, the tower of bodies began to glow with an internal light. The light spread and intensified, finally striking out in solid green beams from nooks and crannies between the bodies, building in pressure and heat with an audible groaning from the mob beneath them. The pressure buildup snapped without warning, and the pile of bodies detonated like the stack of inflammable objects that was all it was before Starfire's fury-driven powers.

Like dirt thrown from the dynamite bombs used to move mountains, Robins and bits of Robins were tossed into the air willy-nilly, and before they had a chance to begin their return trip to the earth they were spawned from, Starfire was already descending into the gap she'd created like a bikini-clad avenging angle, green streaks bleeding from her eyes to form trailing streamers as she rushed into the fray.

Raven, meanwhile, had moved into the final stage of her spell. Her beach towel, which she'd somehow managed to hang onto despite yet another round of happy-fingers with Lust, finally fluttered away on the supernatural wind summoned along with the gross of her power, and she was left in naught but the cut-away one-piece Starfire herself had chosen to place her in. The clouds spun and boiled above her, a vortex forming in the bleak overcast in reaction to the intense forces she was bringing to bear, and as she twisted her palms through a final, exceedingly complex pattern, she thrust her hands forward, and palm-shaped clouds took form directly above her, mimicking the gesture perfectly. Lust looked up with cat-eyes wide, and she saw her doom approaching.

Starfire reaped through the dirt-constructed Robins with great violence, their bloodless bodies shattering and sundering before her unstoppable onslaught. She'd swing a fist, but could not swing fast enough to strike them, for the heat coming off of the starbolts she held in each palm was such that their earthen flesh vaporized before she made contact. Each arm swung through their ranks like a sphere of annihilation, rending them apart in twin paroxysms of unquenchable heat.

She turned to obliterate one flank, only for a new mass to leap upon her back, pawing at her bare flesh and trying to dig their grimy gloves into her scant swimsuit, possibly attempting to strip her. A brief concentration pressed a wave of heat out of her back so intense that they either melted or burst into flame, spreading the scent of scorched earth into the air in great nose-stinging gouts. She found then, as she had noticed a few times now, that her power in this place was magnified enormously, and with an almost manic smile, she struck both glowing hands into the dirt at her feet, creating a expanding green sphere that blew back the Robins on all sides, washing over her harmlessly to clear out a perfect circle around her, leaving her standing in a burnt-black crater.

She had breathing room now, so she focused on her hands, gathering all of her starbolt energy into the smallest possible point in each palm. When each expansive globe of energy had shrunk down to the size of a marble, she focused again, directing a marble to the tip of each index finger. She didn't know if this was going to work, but if it did…

She jabbed out with her right finger, pointing emphatically at the first Robin to dare an advance. The pencil-thin laser punctured his chest as though he hadn't been there, then continued into the crowded and packed Robins beyond, slicing a minute hole through everyone in a perfect line from her pointing finger. Eyes wide with wonder at her own violent invention, Starfire jerked the beam to the side in an expansive sweeping motion, and suddenly the tiny starbolt became a cutting laser of hideous power. Nothing the beam touched could withstand its concentrated force, and Robins were sliced cleanly apart in a descending line that started at mid-chest and ended at waist level. They continued to stride forward for a moment, as yet unaware of their deaths, then tumbled apart, separating wherever the laser had touched them, falling to the ground quickly and in many pieces, along with numerous now-burning trees and most of a boulder that had also felt her power's touch. The other side was advancing, and so she sliced another great wave of them to bits with the marble of green heat on her left index finger, and once again they did not have time to even recognize their destruction before their bisected bodies separated.

It was all for naught, however, as no matter how quickly she destroyed them, more still poured forth from the soil, never-ending tides of them ever advancing, ever approaching, their hands reaching out to grasp, to maul, to paw, eyes ever empty of anything, but faces, each and every one, a perfect mask of Robin himself. Her fury actually slaked by the intense violence she'd wrought, she found herself retreating before their untiring ranks, first on the ground, but then into the air as she was surrounded yet again. Repeating the trick with the pinpoint starbolts, she flew upward, spinning as she discharged both hands downward, creating a rising cone of murder, the lasers severing each and every one of the Robins below her in dozens of places, leaving them to fall to the earth in slices and ribbons like julienned potatoes.

Still they advanced, and the last ranks of whole Robins managed to leap up and grab her by one bare ankle. She lashed out and shattered his head with her foot, he being not near nimble as the 'real' Robin, who'd avoided that same reflexive attack without effort, but still she was dragged back to earth as Robin after Robin latched onto the first, crawling up him like a ladder and weighing her down. They quickly formed a tower of bodies to try and pin her to the earth, and try as she might to burn them away, she simply lacked the strength. She'd spent herself, even in her own mind, and now everything rested with Raven. This was the last she thought on the matter before she was too busy incinerating offending hands and arms to think about anything else.

Raven had finished her necessarily long preparations, and so she spoke the words of her spell.

"Durus…Blandus… Insapidus… Moderatus… Exmovere Cancellare!" she shouted, her voice gone dark and powerful with the magnificent forces she now wielded. The spell filled her outstretched palms with black energy, and she had only to let it fly to strike down the unnatural amalgamation of drug-induced lust and suppressed teenage sexuality. She paused, though, when she saw the look in Lust's eyes.

"You're going to regret missing this experience!" Lust screeched in that beastly voice, even as she railed against her chains yet again.

"I'll get laid when I'm good and ready, thank you very much!" Raven shouted back, then let loose.

The sphere of power in her hands belched forth a tiny streamer of black energy almost gently, and it floated toward Lust like a feather on the winds. The stretching line of darkness touched Lust, connected her to Raven, and completed the circuit. As a thunderhead spitting forth its brilliant fire, the palm-shaped tower reaching down from the overcast above Raven let loose with a black lightning bolt that struck the young woman, then traveled down the streamer in a jagged line that ended in its incinerating embrace of the chained Lust. Again and again the black lightning struck down the line Raven had formed, each time describing a unique pattern through the air, each time enveloping both Raven and Lust, inverting their colors and leaving them as inky black shapes described by white outlines. On the final strike, Lust vanished, leaving behind a black scorch mark, a wisp of smoke, and absolutely nothing else.

Raven fell from the sky.

Beneath her, Starfire was just about to lash out with another starbolt when her latest assailant disintegrated into dust, and a moment later, so did every other one. She was free of their grip, and she reveled in that freedom for several moments, so incredibly relieved that it was with a smile that she turned to look up above her at where Raven had been acting from. She wasn't there.

A quick search allowed her to spot the slight, pale figure plummeting to the earth, and to her everlasting shame, Starfire hesitated in that moment. Having just been rescued from some unknowable torture, having just been rescued from an army of mindless zombies, having just been rid of a terrible drug-induced insanity, she still did not act immediately to save Raven. How easy it would be, to simply fail to act, to let Raven plummet to the ground, to have her mind dashed to bits, rendering her vegetative or insensible, removing her forever from competition in the quest for Robin's heart.

It was a very passing thought, but that it occurred to her at all made her chest ache as she darted in to catch Raven's petite, barely-clothed body in her own bare arms. She had been furious when she found out, when all the dark suspicions clouded her judgment, but now that she'd spent her fury on her opponents, as always with such things, she saw very differently. The thoughts occurring to her now made her want to weep, not murder.

With Raven's limp body safely in her arms, Starfire took up a holding flight position, staring down at the black scorch mark that was all to survive Raven's attack. Particularly, she noted the way the blackness began to quickly spread, consuming everything it touched with an infinite darkness that was more than just darkness. She knew, somehow, that this dream was coming apart at its most basic level, and that if they were still dreaming it when it finished vanishing, they would not enjoy the experience. Or perhaps 'survive' was the word she was looking for. Alone then, utterly alone but for the unconscious empath that she owed everything to, Starfire felt a plea, a prayer even, leave the depths of her heart and rocket towards the heavens.

"Please…" she prayed, "Please let us awaken from this nightmare… don't let this be the end… not before I've settled things with her… not before I've told him. Please… help us."

--Robin--

The swirling came to a complete halt so suddenly that it took Robin's dazzled eyes a moment to notice the change. The flames and lightning all stood perfectly still, as though frozen in mid flicker, stopped in mid-dance, and it was simply the most unnatural thing he'd ever witnessed. Beneath the mass of fire and lightning was Starfire, her face contorted in the most pitiable expression of agonized pleading Robin had ever seen. The life sign monitors were more intense than ever, but in that moment, he no longer cared. He was ending this now.

"Computer, override safety protocol!" he snapped, barely managing to wrench his eyes from the spine-tingling sight of motionless 3-dimensional lightning.

"AUTHORIZATION?" typed itself on the screen in response to his urgent verbal command. Robin proceeded to rattle of an incredibly complex series of letters and numbers that constituted his override code, along with his voice-print. It was too easy to imitate voices these days, and codes could be tortured out of people, so he'd insisted it be both in the security specifications he gave Cyborg. The big man had seemed strangely aloof on the whole subject of security, and come to think of it, this was the first time Robin had used his code. He didn't have any more time to think about it, however, as he finished the absurdly long sequence.

"ACCESS DENIED, INCORRECT CODE." The computer stated indifferently, and Robin nearly choked on his tongue, so intense was his gasp of disbelief.

"That's impossible!" he shouted in frustration, "I memorized that code perfectly!" and he punctuated his protest by slamming a fist against the side of the computer terminal. As though to answer, the computer began running a protocol labeled 'ah-ah-ah!' with an emoticon of a smiling face shaking an admonishing finger at him.

"Now, now Robin," a video of Cyborg came to life on the screen, giving him a condescending glare, "you know I'm the only one who works on the computers. Those codes are only effective on the security system, so don't go tryin' to mess with mah babies anymore!" and the video ended just as abruptly as it began.

"Damnit Cyborg!" he screamed out his frustration, staring in disbelief at the little blinking prompt that flashed out 'access denied' over and over again, "and you call me arrogant! ARGG!"

Robin turned from the computer in a semi-panicked huff, gazing once more at Starfire. Her face was a frozen portrait of desperate need, and just looking at it made his heart bleed in a way he'd never experienced before in his admittedly short life. That clinched it.

"DENY THIS!" He shouted, and turned on his heel, driving his fist at the computer terminal with the same punch he used to shatter cinderblocks in training. The blow whistled in like a hammer's fall, struck the metal of the computer casing with a resounding clang… and rebounded like he'd just punched a brick wall.

"JESUS FUCK!" he shouted in pain and frustration, shaking his hand in a futile attempt to mitigate the agony reaching through the bones. Only the metal plates in the fingers and backing of the glove, the ones he used like hidden brass knuckles in combat, had kept him from shattering his hand on the plated steel of the computer casing.

Okay, so maybe punching it hadn't been the brightest idea—he admitted to himself silently as he muttered out a string of further curses and slipped a small bomb out of his belt—but he'd been caught up in the drama of the moment, and shattering the computer with his fist would have looked really cool. He stepped away from the bomb slightly, covered his ears in an easy, confident motion, and turned his head, letting the tiny shaped charge do the rest. There was a flash and a bang, then the computer caved, melted, and burst into flame the next moment. Robin couldn't suppress a certain grim satisfaction at the violent explosion considering the lingering ache in his hand, and he grinned even further as he listened to the stasis machines die as their safety mechanisms cut in. In a moment, neither woman was frozen anymore.

The black flames were the first to move, drawing toward Raven suddenly and with no apparent cause. Then, a swirling black sphere belched forth from Starfire's head, her whole body arching for a moment as it spewed from her skull, floated languidly through the air collecting the stray energy in a swirling pull not unlike the flush of a toilet, and plunged into Raven's skull with much the same body-contorting effect it had had on Starfire. Instantly both women were tossing and turning on their hospital beds, as though in the throes of a terrible nightmare, and even as Raven's quickly calmed, Starfire's intensified. Terrified for her, Robin leapt forward to her side, shaking her shoulder forcefully to rouse her from the terror of her dreams.

"AHHHIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" her nightmare bled forth in the form of a scream as she sat up suddenly with enough force to throw Robin back against Raven's nearby bed, and he barely caught himself as he watched her eyes flash open. Her hands were flailing in panic, and he reached out to grab one, to try and get some sense into her.

The moment he gripped her wrist, her eyes focused exclusively on him, and rather than the calming effect he'd hoped for, she seemed to panic even further, her eyes going wider than ever, then flinching away completely as she stiffened in horror at his presence. He had enough time to be devastated by her terrified expression before a starbolt blasted out of the hand whose wrist he held, nailed him in the chest, and carried him across the room like he weighed nothing. He slammed into the far wall, the air driven from his body, and the starbolt finally dissipated, allowing him to slide down the side of the room and hit the floor.

"Oh dear," Starfire said, taking a second look at what she had so hastily smote, "Robin?" But his consciousness was already dipping down into the deep black.

--End Notes--

HPV—the single most disgusting image I recall from those horror-picture-shows they put on in high school health. If ever there was a better reason to practice safe sex, I don't know what it is. I mean, at least AIDS kills you eventually—you have to LIVE with genital warts. UG.

Beacherific—I went to the beach in the last weeks of the summer, and I really wanted to do a fic recently focusing on the Titans at the beach for a day. An old idea, yes, but one I believe I have a very great take on. It would involve the Fearsome Five from the old comic books (they ripped Jinx, Mammoth, and Gizmo from these five for the show, then dropped the two others, possibly because both were even more homicidal than the three they actually kept!) and epic amounts of comedy and innuendo. I may yet write it, but all in good time. I did this scene to tide me over.

Speedy—how many of you reading this have seen Speedy in a detailed fight scene before? I haven't seen any, so I took the opportunity to be as creative as possible, and I think I did a decent job. I tell ya though, that scene took for friggen ever to write, as without much in the way of pointers from the show or comics, I had to make up sweet gizmos and ass-kicking techniques from scratch by and large. Anyway, watch out for him to battle an actual super-villain later—I always felt he got an incredibly raw deal in Titans east, especially considering how he held his own against Robin in Winner Takes All, and its about time someone gave him a good treatment. I just figure that can be me.

Big Dream—Okay, do you get it yet? I know it was incredibly convoluted, but I went to great pains to explain everything as plainly as possible. Neither Raven nor Starfire is any kind of slut or whore… they're just alive, and as such, are subject to certain urges when under the influence of certain chemicals. Anyway, we're off the subject of Rape and Sex for quite a little while now that the drugs are in the past, so anyone made uncomfortable by those things can breath a great big sigh of relief.

I took untold liberties with powers and fighting, mostly because… I can. They never make Star powerful enough, and Raven never casts enough actual magic, and so I took the opportunity to play with both concepts for a while. Hope you liked it, it was a joy to create. The fighting in general was the focus of this, mostly to show that I can write detailed fight scenes, I'd been getting some requests on private channels to do just that, and I hate to disappoint. Besides, it was time for a change of pace, just like right now. Which brings me to—

Future—Chapter 6: Heart to Heart to Heart. I'll give you one guess what this one is going to be about. Drama fans rejoice.

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