Chapter Three: Righteous Fury
Just before they had attuned Raven's meditation mirror to link to Starfire's mindscape instead, the sorceress had mentioned a noteworthy but ultimately trivial side-effect. Upon entering one's own mind, she'd said, one might connect to it in a way that opened the door to the mindscape in other circumstances.
For the most part, those "other circumstances" really just applied to dreams. Starfire had already dreamt about the colorful forest in the Gikha Desert once or twice since her original foray, so it came as no surprise when she suddenly found herself on the hill just before her family's k'non.
With a small huff, she shook her head and placed a hand against it. Something felt just a bit off, and not because she could tell she was dreaming. These mindscape visits were much more stable than normal dreams anyway. Her current lucidity made that much clear.
Despite this, her recent memories were still fuzzy. What had she done today again? She was sure it had been meaningful. But those thoughts were all a jumble, as was expected in a dreamscape, and she wasn't sure she would remember before she woke up.
Well, she was in the right place to fix that. The forest wasn't just home to her k'non – they had prompted its organization, true enough, but it also held lesser bonds, significant memories, and much of the emotional energy those memories tied themselves to.
Starfire let her gaze sweep over the trees until it landed on one that she recognized by pure instinct as her mother's. Almost on a whim, she thought of the woman's kind heart and strong soul, and she let those thoughts buoy her into the air.
It was comforting, she reflected, to draw flight from those she rarely saw or had lost altogether. When joy was an immediate need, her quick and natural reaction was to use one of her most constant current sources – if not Robin then one of her other teammates and dearest friends. But for her, k'non were as much a private honor as they were a set of emotional tools.
Perhaps that was why she had so many.
Starfire drifted through the forest for a time, stopping on occasion to touch a vine and relive an old memory. She had no real goal in mind. She was technically dreaming, after all. Even finding a recollection of the day before was more a passing fancy than a real concern.
In time, she found herself near the heart of the wood. The bushes – lesser bonds like allies and civilians she had befriended – were more plentiful here, and she took a moment to look a few of them over until they identified themselves to her.
One of the bushes stood out from the rest. Draped in green and yellow, it was a little taller and thicker than the others, as if attempting to break beyond its bounds and join the trees around it. Starfire cocked her head and floated closer, trying to reach through the mild haze in her mind and remember what she had considered forming into a new k'non.
It only took a moment. A sky red as blood above and hellfire below, people and buildings and everything in ruins, and all from the mere presence of such a vile being. The force of the realization threw her out of the air, and she held her head and groaned.
She remembered now. That had been today, and for all the raw fury Trigon inspired, there was still too much fear there for her to build a useable k'non.
She took several deep, calming breaths. He is gone, she reminded herself. We defeated him. Raven banished him.
So why did something still feel wrong? She had thought it might have something to do with her memory, but that was not the case. It was as if some tiny part of her was missing.
Something rustled behind her, and she froze. Her mindscape was not like what Raven had described of her own, with sentry creatures acting as mental guards and leashed emotions picking up minds of their own. She – this manifestation of her consciousness – should have been the only animate entity.
Starfire turned toward the source of the sound. Her k'nonaki was there, but there was someone perched in its branches. The being seemed quite comfortable, lounging back and looking down at her with a mocking smirk.
And the being was her. Darkened, stripped of all color save the demonic red in its eyes, but unmistakably her.
That part of her was not missing, Starfire realized. It was loose.
"I was beginning to wonder if you would even notice me," the dark mirror said. "You have always been far too wrapped up in sentimentality."
Starfire didn't even need to focus – the mere sight of her personal demon was enough for a pair of warning starbolts to flare to life with a simple thought.
"Beast Boy destroyed your body," she snapped. "You have no power in the outside world."
The smirk broadened into a wide grin. "Yes," the dark mirror purred. "Beast Boy defeated me before, when you could not." She leaped down from the branches of the k'nonaki.
"And now we are within our mind, and utterly alone. I believe I have the advantage here."
Starfire's eyes narrowed, her posture tense and battle-ready. "I fail to see your advantage. Our abilities are the same. I still have my k'non, and as a part of me you must use the same ones as I."
The dark mirror threw her head back and laughed.
"You truly believe that we require such tools?" she asked when she was done. "The fight alone provides even you with much of your power. Why would I, untethered by pitiful sentimentality, need anything else?"
Starfire grit her teeth. She should have known – this creature was made of only her darkest thoughts and most selfish desires, yet she still flew. Separated from those thoughts like this, Starfire could now hardly imagine a desire for them. But she still remembered times when she had felt them before, and in their first battle the mirror had been all too eager to remind her.
Bloodlust. Fatalism. Possessiveness. Isolation.
A fitting name, she thought, for the thing that preyed on her greatest fear.
"We do not need to pull strength from these bonds," Isolation went on. "They only open the doorways to weakness. Rutha'an ru gekta."
Starfire regarded her carefully, considering her odd choice of phrase. It was a quirk of the Tamaranean language – its literal translation was 'You weaken yourself to them,' but in practice it simply referred to doing someone a kindness.
"You and I both know that is not an insult," she finally retorted. "It proves nothing."
Isolation cocked her head. "Oh?" Glancing back to the sprawling tree behind her, she reached out and tapped a lone yellow vine.
Some link between the two consciousnesses must have remained, because a vision of the memory appeared to Starfire as surely as her counterpart. Seething anger on his face over something she could not see. He grabbed her arm with just enough force to cause some small pain, but far worse was the force with which he lashed out at her.
"Slade ran right by you! How could you let him get away?!"
The shock of the painful memory shattered her concentration, and her starbolts flickered and died. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and tried to push the memory away.
When she opened them, Isolation was hovering just before her with her own starbolts at the ready.
"Rutha," she hissed, and let them fly.
Starfire just managed a dodge, but her counterpart kept up the barrage. With inadequate speed on the ground and no time to focus enough for flight, she raised her arms in a block. Her gauntlets managed to absorb some of the energy from the next pair of starbolts, but their force still threw her back several yards and onto her back.
Isolation sauntered over, another taunt no doubt at the ready. Starfire ignored her and reached for a joyful thought, but the strange haze of the dreamscape remained. Memories were still sluggish without a direct line of contact.
"Is that truly the best you can manage? This fight will be dreadfully disappointing if – Gah!"
Starfire was up again and returning fire. Isolation was forced back, growling as she darted among the trees in an effort to shake her pursuer.
Starfire tore after her, thoughts of Robin's faith and Raven's strength fixed in her mind. She flung starbolts as quickly as she could aim, but against Tamaranean speed and the cover of the forest, she couldn't quite land a hit.
Eyes narrowed, she considered her options. She needed to end this battle quickly – fighting a mirror of herself was tricky business, and she didn't want to know what would happen if she got knocked out or defeated even temporarily in this realm. She needed herself at full power, and perhaps something to throw off her enemy.
Brightly-colored vines sped by as she followed Isolation in a tight bend around a k'non. Most were orange – confidence, strength. She could use some extra confidence in a battle like this.
On impulse, she reached out and brushed her fingers against one of the last passing vines.
The training room walls were a blur as she zig-zagged out of the sonic cannon's line of fire and Isolation slowed her flight, disoriented. Whirling around, she peppered her slower opponent with starbolts before swooping in for a more direct attack.
Isolation snarled and cast her eyes around the illusion and Cyborg grunted as she knocked him onto his back. She was picking up speed again, but that moment of hesitation was all Starfire needed to catch up, barreling into her and using her high-strength to smash them both to the ground.
"All right, all right, I yield!" Cyborg let out a good-natured chuckle and let her help him up. "Guess we know which of us would win in a real fight. Remind me not to go up against you on the field."
The memory finished playing out to Isolation's cold glare. "You thought that amusing, did you?" she snapped. Glancing down, she grabbed a stormy grey vine off the ground.
She dug through rubble at an almost frantic pace, checked only by the need to ensure that it would not settle and cause further harm. Starfire flinched back, but her mirror pulled and the vine followed. Without warning, she lurched forward and snapped the vine around Starfire's arm.
Civilians usually managed to vacate the area when the odd monster or supervillain showed up, but this one had been so fast. Everyone save herself and Beast Boy were still busy quelling its rampage, and she could only pray that they had not been too late.
Starfire hissed and tried to pull away, but some new trick of the mindscape held the memory fast to her arm. It offered little resistance when she moved, though, so she returned her attention to the inner demon now lunging at her.
Isolation's hands were alight, and Starfire had to duck and scramble to avoid her empowered strikes. Clenching her jaw, she drew confidence from the green-and-black gorilla still hauling rubble beside her memory-self and combined it with her battle fury.
A face, bloodied and unmoving, took form through a gap in the stones as Starfire traded blows with her other self. One, two, three strikes and Isolation was thrown back against another k'non.
Starfire flew after her, but when Isolation raised her arms in a block she darted to the right. She grabbed a secure purple vine as she did, leveraging herself to aim a hard kick at her mirror's side.
The terrified child clung to her neck as she carried him to safety and Isolation fell back hard on the ground. A shriek sounded as another child lost her grip on the crumbling balcony, but before Starfire could react a streak of green shot past.
Isolation growled and leapt to her feet, ignoring the new memory playing out around her. "You are weak. You use your friends as a crutch and fall apart when they fail to provide you their strength!" She punctuated the statement with a hastily-flung starbolt.
Starfire flinched at that accusation, and her moment of hesitation allowed the starbolt to connect. She grunted as it threw her back and slammed her against a tree.
She sucked in a painful breath, but the girl, now secure in Beast Boy's Pteranodon claws, began to cheer and chatter over the "awesomeness" of her rescue as he carried her to solid ground. After a moment, the boy in Starfire's arms did the same. She smiled a little and let the memory return some strength to her limbs. This was a cruel game Isolation was playing, she reminded herself, and she refused to let the demon win.
"I do not… fall so easily," she said, hating the note of hesitation in her voice. She shook it and added, "And the strength I gain from them is added to my own, which is leant to them in turn. That is what teammates do."
Isolation frowned and drew her hands back, but Starfire was quicker on the draw. She forced her mirror into retreat with a flurry of starbolts.
Isolation snarled. "Our sister needs nobody but herself, and she is stronger than you!"
The outburst had caused her to slow, and a starbolt connected and threw her back. Starfire followed it up with an eyebeam, but Isolation recovered and darted to the side. She kept ahead as her original's beam attempted to follow.
Starfire broke off the attack and drifted back, careful to keep distance between herself and her mirror. Isolation disappeared briefly behind a k'non, so she rose higher in the air to keep a better eye out.
"I have defeated Blackfire twice now!" she snapped, a careful eye on the foliage she knew her opponent was hiding in.
A howl of frustration broke the air, and grey and red flashed through the leaves of the k'non. Starfire prepared another eyebeam.
"You do not get it, do you?!" Isolation snarled, appearing again with a vine in hand as the scenery around them melted into another memory. She threw the vine upward even as Starfire shot her with a beam, driving her into the ground.
"Beast Boooy!" The haunted voice, Terra's voice, tore through the mindscape, and it alone was enough to make Starfire falter. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment the vine clamped itself around her calf.
She whirled around to see her new friend, so alone and uncertain, back away in horror from the rubble pile that had not been there a moment ago. Terra lashed out at a few of Slade's robots before turning to run.
Starfire looked away from the image of the retreating figure and kept her focus on her opponent. Beast Boy had been fine; the real tragedy had come later. Isolation was just trying to distract her.
But then Isolation looked up at her with a smirk and she realized the boulders were much heavier than they should have been. She dug desperately, but the shock and fear of the situation were hindering her confidence and making it difficult.
Isolation darted away and grabbed another vine before Starfire could react, the old memory bleeding into a new one. "They are not worth your reliance!" she roared, and the memory flew almost of its own accord and secured itself to Starfire's other arm.
Isolation darted off again, and between the pound of memories and the tangle of vines, her original could not keep up. Vine after vine secured itself to her arms and legs and torso and neck, and it was all she could do to stay aloft.
Beast Boy hurt her, however accidentally, and flight became such a hassle that she switched to running.
A dilapidated mockery of Titan's Tower stared down from an icy world, and strength left her.
Cyborg was horribly ill but active, the only way to help him through forceful restraint, but she could hardly manage to conjure her starbolts.
It was a simple misunderstanding, she knew she was missing something, and yet Robin's refusal to talk cost her every power she had.
The sheer weight of the memories tore at her, and she squeezed her eyes shut in a vain attempt to shake the crash of images and voices. Opening them again, she pulled upward and struggled against the vines. They only held tighter. She could feel her flight faltering, but she refused to give Isolation the satisfaction of letting it fail completely. It was harder than she cared to admit – her demon had chosen those memories well, and despite every encouraging thought, every scrap of confidence, and for all that the worst of her self-doubt had gone with Isolation…
It could not be denied that this, all of this, was still a part of her.
"We are a proud warrior, even if you have forgotten it," Isolation purred, drifting closer with a twisted smirk. "Do not worry. Once I am in control, I will ensure that everybody remembers."
Crimson energy pulsed to life around her hands, and Starfire pulled again against the memories. They pulled back, and her swing was clumsy and easily dodged. "No…" she wheezed, the memories around her throat threatening to choke her.
Isolation's smirk only grew, and she glanced down as an idea flashed across her features. From their position, Starfire could see that the two of them had ended up just over her k'nonaki.
"Who is to know?" Isolation asked. "Perhaps I shall do with Robin what you were always afraid to after all."
Starfire snarled. That flippant comment, that underlying threat, could not go uncontested. She would not allow it.
She could not quite explain how she did what she did next. Instinct, she supposed. Perhaps the sheer power of will, taken form in this place that was, after all, her own mind. But all she knew for sure was that if this creature, this tiny part of her, could latch memories around her wrists with a simple toss, then she herself would just have to do more.
In the moment Isolation drew a hand back to fling a starbolt, Starfire lifted her own hand and gave a hard mental tug. From below, a bright red vine snapped up and wrapped itself tight around Isolation's waist, the force of it causing her to misfire.
The snarl of the approaching monster underscored the pounding of her own heart – they were backed into a corner, and even with all that had been said and done, her joy was still too shaky to trust just yet.
But then Robin slipped his hand into hers, his expression relaying enough trust and confidence for the both of them.
"As long as we're together, we'll be okay."
Isolation sneered and moved again, but with a flick of Starfire's wrist, another vine shot up from below and pulled her hand back before she could fire.
"He is not a prize for us to claim!" Starfire snarled. A faint haze in her vision told her that her eyes were now blazing a brilliant green that matched her mirror's deep crimson. "None of them are!"
Isolation struck her with an eye beam, but it was a hasty shot and she recovered quickly. With a gentle thought, no more struggle, the vines around her right arm loosened and fell away. When it was fully mobile, she reached over and tugged gently at the vines choking at her neck until they too came off.
As they did, the sights and sounds and feelings that she had sent to Isolation were replaced by the more negative memories that she now touched. But she found that she no longer cared.
Isolation growled. "You still hide behind them?!"
Starfire made a slashing motion with her free hand, and several orange and purple vines sprang from the nearby k'non and latched themselves to her mirror. "No," she replied simply, "I stand beside them."
Another volley of memories, and Isolation was bound as tightly as her counterpart.
"That is the real difference between you and I," Starfire reflected. "I see it now. Yes, there are obstacles to overcome, but there is so much more that I can gain from my friends and family and the people I protect. Yet you only see weakness there, except where there is something to be exploited. You call yourself strength, but in truth you are little more than fear."
She lowered her hand, and the glow in her eyes faded. "You really do remind me of our sister. I do not think I have ever pitied her as much as I do now."
Isolation snarled. "You deluded little –"
"Silence!" Starfire roared, blasting a high-powered starbolt into the ground below for emphasis. Her gaze hardened.
"There is something else I have realized. I do not need you anymore."
Isolation barked out a short laugh. "You cannot be rid of me! I am a part of you!"
Starfire lowered her free arm, and a fresh set of memories arose and tangled themselves around it. "No," she said. "But I can contain you. And now I know better than to heed your words."
Isolation opened her mouth to speak again, but Starfire would not give her the satisfaction. With an incline of her head and a hard mental pull, all the vines drew taut and both consciousnesses were dragged down and down, into the very ground of the mindscape.
Because it was, after all, a part of her.
Starfire awoke with a start. She lay still for a few moments, blinking the sleep from her eyes, and then let out a low groan and pushed herself into a sitting position.
It was tempting to believe that everything she had just been through was no more than an ordinary dream. Perhaps a bit of an elaborate one, but…
And yet even as she entertained the idea, and with it the thought that her rather literal inner battle might fade in a few hours, the new memories came trickling in. Memories of fighting herself twice over now, of the real world going black and being replaced by a strange and silent forest, of hating herself for all her weaknesses and for how much she had always held back.
She shuddered at the lingering thoughts of her darkest self. She could almost hear it whispering in the back of her mind. "You cannot be rid of me."
A low warble broke her out of her musings. She glanced over to see Silkie at her bedside, looking up at her and pawing at her sheets with a stubby forelimb.
Starfire let a small smile cross her features. "Did I awaken you, little bumgorf?" she asked in a low voice, leaning over to scoop up the larva.
Silkie didn't answer her question, of course, but he trilled at the attention. Starfire chuckled as he settled into her lap, snuggling up against her stomach.
In all honesty, she wasn't sure whether to be upset or relieved that she'd awoken in the dead of night, without her friends available for comfort or advice after her latest encounter. A part of her feared that it was Isolation's influence making her hesitate at the thought of going to the others.
But the quiet presence of her pet, at least, was soothing, and after a few minutes of rubbing his head she was able to banish those niggling doubts from her mind. She would be all right, and if she truly needed someone to talk to… well, she could worry about it in the morning. She might be able to get back to sleep yet.
And in that moment, somewhere in a realm that existed only when a consciousness had access to it, a soft purple vine sprang from the ground and wound its way around a tiny tree.
A/N: And that's it for the main story! I have to say, Joy and Fury was an interesting beast to write; it started life as a collection of ideas about what methods Starfire might use to give herself the right emotions to use her powers, what her mindscape might look like with those methods in place, and (as I mentioned in the beginning) what she must have been thinking/how things went so sideways for her in the episode Stranded. It made for a very internal and thought/memory based narrative, which provided more of a challenge than I would have expected when first starting out. I think it turned out well, though – this last chapter in particular was an absolute blast to write.
Now, as I mentioned, this is just the conclusion of the "main" story. There is one more chapter to the fanfiction after this, but it's not so much part of the main narrative as it is a just-for-fun "bonus" scene to round out the chapter themes. For now, though, I hope you all enjoyed this little piece of character exploration. Thanks for reading!