The five residents of Croft Manor were once again gathered in the library two days after the Trinity base assault. Sam had been happy to have them back no worse for wear, but she wasn't so sure about Harry and Beast Boy's moods.

Indeed, the two had been rather irritable ever since they left Venice. Sam, Lara and Alice kept glancing at the boys, who were both sulking in their own ways. Alice especially was glancing up from her textbook rather often, brows furrowed.

Finally, Beast Boy threw the comic he was reading onto the table and practically glared at Harry. "You know that was a freaking disaster, right? I mean, it was downright embarrassing."

Lara looked up from her computer, where she was reviewing the list she'd gotten from Trinity's files, while Sam paused Rise of the Tomb Raider to listen in. Only Alice didn't react, though it was obvious she was listening.

Harry sighed as he put his phone down from where he'd been watching a show. "I know, BB. Not only did we manage to not capture anybody for interrogation despite trying to keep them all alive, which was pointless considering the damn self-destruct, but I was a moron for not using a simple Reparo to get us the shredded documents. Sure, anything printed out was almost certainly useless, but that doesn't change the fact that there might have been something useful." He groaned and let his head fall back. "Honestly, I blame the fact that I'm a freaking amateur. I may have been able to harass the DEs with my raids, but that doesn't mean I have experience with full-fledged assaults like what we tried. I need to look into military operational procedures and the like."

Beast Boy nodded. "Can't say I'm much better, man. With Doom Patrol and the Titans I was mostly muscle. I left stuff like information recovery and things like that to my teammates. Doesn't mean I can't do it, just not used to being in that roll."

The two boys sighed, but Alice rolled her eyes. "Honestly you two, it is not the end of the world. Yes, mistakes were made, but you can learn from them, and we still obtained a good amount of information. Isn't that right, Lara?"

Lara nodded. "Yes. The list I'm looking at, for example, is both fascinating and worrying. It details potential items of power around the world, along with their possible locations and plans for retrieval." She frowned. "It seems I was not the only archeologist they are keeping tabs on. I have here information from several well-known names in the field that I recognize."

"What kind of items?" Sam asked.

Lara trailed a finger down the list. "Hmm, well, there's an Aztec dagger in Mexico that might have power due to the human sacrifice that was practiced there. They think it might be able to grant someone the power of those killed with the blade. That's worrying…"

"I'dda thought that Trinity would focus on Christian artifacts." Beast Boy said, confused.

Lara shrugged. "I don't think they care much as long as they can make use of it." Then her eyes widened. "Oh… Oh my…"

"What?" Alice asked curiously.

"I think this item is what I've been looking for." She clicked on her mouse a couple of times. "Pushan's Lance." She read through the information. "Pushan is the Hindu god of meetings, marriages, cattle, roads and journeys. His lance is said to have many powers, but the one Trinity is interested is one said to allow passage to realms other than the human one. Trinity believes that it could lead them to a heavenly realm."

Beast Boy raised an eyebrow. "They do realize it probably leads to a Hindu heaven, right?"

Harry, however, saw what she was getting it. "If it leads to other realms, maybe it can be used to access our home dimension."

Lara nodded before hesitating. "There's a problem, however."

Harry smirked sardonically. "Of course there is."

"According to this information, their expedition to obtain it began yesterday. There's no telling how far along they are in its recovery." Lara said, eyes serious.

Harry glanced at Beast Boy, who nodded. "Guess we should get some tickets to India, then."

Lara promptly open up a travel site, quickly looking for flights to New Delhi.

Sam sighed sadly. "You're leaving me behind again, aren't you?"

Lara paused before turning to look at her best friend. "I'm sorry Sam. Jonah will know to come by and keep you company again, though."

The American girl got up and wrapped her arms around Lara. "Just… come back."

Lara hugged her back. "I promise."

Two days later most of the quartet was riding elephants through the dense Indian jungle, heading towards the location outlined in the documents.

Alice was delighted at the experience, patting her mount happily, acting her age for once, in spite of Cheshire's snide comments in her ear.

Lara was just glad for Harry's cooling and bug repellant spells. It made travelling in the jungle much more bearable than it could have been.

Beast Boy had taken the form of an elephant as well, Harry having used a spell to make their guide/elephant wrangler ignore the change and the odd coloring. It made things a lot simpler for the boy, as he didn't have to worry about tripping on something.

"According to my notes we should be approaching the temple to Pushan that Trinity was searching for." Lara called so the others could hear her. Then she bit her lip. "I can only hope that we're not too late and they've already left."

"If they have then we will simply have to search for any clues and keep trying." Alice said calmly as she turned her head to look at Lara. "I do not believe we have to worry much, however. We doubtlessly would have noticed something if th-" She was interrupted as a loud gunshot rang out, spooking the elephants even as Alice was launched from her ride's back by the force of the bullet slamming into her chest combined with its panicked moving, falling to the ground with a cry of shock and pain.

"Take cover!" Harry cried as he slid off his elephant's back even as another shot barely missed and buried itself into the tree behind him.

The elephants were panicking, and Beast Boy tried to keep them under control along with the handler. He gave it up as a loss when the man got shot in the back, dropping to the ground. He shifted into his human form and moved to the man's side, putting pressure on his wound. "Medic!"

"We don't exactly have one!" Harry yelled as he brought his gun up, aiming for where he thought the shots were coming from. He pulled the trigger and smiled in satisfaction as he heard a cry followed by the sound of someone moving through the brush.

Alice had recovered, though she had an ugly bruise forming on what was visible of her chest, and scrambled over to Beast Boy and the guide as the elephants stampeded away, knocking trees down. She reached for her bag, pulling out some bandages she'd put away just in case, and started wrapping the man's chest as best she could. "We need to get him to a hospital, now!"

Harry glanced over to the three even as he kept his gun up warily. "I can make a portal to the hospital we passed in New Delhi. I made sure to memorize its location. Get ready to move him."

He jerked back behind the tree when another shot almost got him in the head, hitting the tree a few inches away instead. He was about to fire back when a cry of pain echoed out from where the shot came from, then nothing.

Harry took the chance to open the portal, Alice and Beast Boy quickly moving the guide through it as gently as they could afford to. As he did, Lara came out of the jungle, one of the climbing axes she'd had at her side in her hand, the end slick with blood. She sighed as she looked around, her eyes briefly on the portal before turning to Harry. "Everybody alright?"

"Merash took a hit to the back. The others took him to a hospital." Harry said. Even as he spoke, Alice and Beast Boy came back through the portal.

"They rushed him into surgery as soon as we got him there. No clue if he'll make it, though." Beast Boy said grimly.

"I'm assuming our attacker was with Trinity?" Alice asked as she turned to look at Lara, who was leaning her axe.

Lara nodded. "Yes, he was. He had the Trinity patch on his sleeve."

"Good." Harry said, nodding. "That tells us they're still around, so we might still have time. We should keep moving. Keep an eye out for any more guards. BB, shift into something inconspicuous and scout ahead."

"You got it." Beast Boy quickly shifted into a monkey and took to the trees.

As the three currently humans began to make their way through the thick jungle, Lara leading the way with her greater experience, Harry glanced at Alice as she winced, bringing her hand up to her chest. "You alright?"

"Yes, just some bruising." She said, smiling at him. "The amulets you made for us seem to be working, considering I do not have a large hole in my chest right now. So I can deal with a bit of discomfort."

"I'm glad." Harry said with a sigh and a smile.

The walked for a further fifteen minutes, all of them wary of any more ambushes, when Beast Boy dropped from the trees. "Found the temple. It's about half a mile away. And there are definitely Trinity agents there. Place is crawling with them. Not sure if a frontal assault is a good idea, but I don't see any way past them into the temple, at least not at first glance."

"Could you perhaps perform some further recon? Maybe turn into a bird and fly around to look for any other entrances? If not we might need to make our own, and I'm loathe to damage the ruins." Lara said.

"I can try." Beast Boy said.

"BB, if you can't find an obvious entrance, find us a location away from prying eyes so I can make us our own." Harry looked at Lara. "Don't forget, I can repair any damage we cause, so don't worry about any holes we open up. Our priority needs to be to keep Trinity away from the Lance and whatever else is in there."

Lara sighed but nodded, reassured. Beast Boy promptly turned into a local green bird and headed off to the temple, the others following behind him.

Before long they reached a small cliff overlooking the temple, the three of them taking care to be as stealthy as possible. They looked over an impressive looking temple ruin, which was surrounded by dozens of Trinity agents and equipment. Guards kept a wary eye out as what appeared to be researchers wandered around.

"Looks like they haven't found anything yet." Alice whispered. Lara nodded, but before she could respond there were shouts from the entrance to the temple. The three turned to see a couple of men dragging a soldier out of the temple, his left leg missing from above the knee as he screamed his lungs out.

"I think we can see why. There must be defenses on the Lance." Lara said.

"Great. Let's hope it's not an asura or something." Harry said before turning as a certain green bird fluttered down onto a nearby branch. The bird whistled before tilting its head to the side. Then it fluttered to another, further, branch.

Easily getting the picture, the three followed Beast Boy as he led them around the side of the temple to an area where a wall was up against another, higher cliff. Beast Boy dropped to the ground and transformed. "Alright, nobody is guarding this area except up above on the cliff, and they don't have a good view of this area. You should be able to make an opening here without being noticed, as long as it's not loud."

Harry nodded. "Alright, should be easy enough." He set his hands on the wall and slowly ran them along it, the ancient stone turning into liquid and dripping to the ground as his hands passed it.

Lara and Beast Boy kept an eye out for any enemies, but thankfully nobody had come by before Harry was done making an opening into the dark halls further in.

"Ready, guys?" Harry asked, and his three companions nodded. Taking a breath, Harry created an orb of light above his open palm, and stepped into the temple.

Short chapter. It's mostly transition, but I need to figure out what's going to happen in this new dungeon/tomb. I have some ideas. We won't be there long, though. I'm looking forward to moving to the next universe, even though I know I'm going to get hate for it. Oh well.

Lot of people pointed out that Harry could have reparoed the shredded paper. I know, trust me, but much like Harry getting shot in the manor, this is about Harry learning and growing. A stupid mistake like that is bound to happen. He isn't suddenly going to a perfectly savvy agent.

As for Harry's non-lethal tactics in the last chapter, I feel like I've explained that sufficiently in this one.

That said, don't hesitate to point out when you think I fucked up (politely, please). This is, after all, a learning experience for me too, and if nothing else it'll give me the chance to cover my ass in the next chapter somehow.

On another note, I've removed two universes to the list of ones planned for visitation, primarily because I don't have solid plans for what to do with them, or with elements from them. Since they're no longer going to be used, I see no harm in informing you of what they were.

The first came from the idea that I wanted to get Alice a pet. No, Beast Boy doesn't count. However, I didn't know what to get her that wouldn't be a burden or pointless.

So I decided to send them to Pokemon to get some critters.

Each team member would have had their own type, with Harry getting Dark type pokemon, and Alice Fairies, for example.

However, I couldn't think of how to use the pokemon in the future. Sure, they could be potentially useful, but I never actually considered them as an asset in any of my planning. The entire point of getting them pokemon would have just been to see which ones I'd give who. And that works better as an omake.

The other cut universe was Babylon 5. I had the idea of the team showing up at the station and causing a panic, but beyond that, no real idea for how they'd affect that universe for better or worse. Another idea that fits better in an omake. So I scrapped it.

Pity, though. I love Babylon 5 to freaking death.

I think that's all… Oh, for those who didn't notice, the HP/Castlevania story won the poll. It was updated about a week ago. Check it out if you haven't. I might update that next week, but I was thinking of something for Dragon… Well, we'll see. I have the weekend to think on it.

Thanks for reading this shorter than usual chapter, guys. Hope you enjoyed. Till next time, please review.