The Board When Set

"I'm telling you it isn't natural!" Bumble Bee, another member of the Teen Titan's but apart of a different team, shouted from the big-screen TV at seven in the morning. "It's only been snowing for three hours and we have seven feet of snow!"

"And I'm telling you there's nothing to be done about it! There isn't anyone who can control winter weather." Cyborg snapped back at the dark-skinned woman. Snapping seemed to set her off more.

"I know you don't know anyone who can control snow! But Thunder and Lightning might know someone! I'm telling you to ask them!" She was mixing in between growling and full-blown yelling at the metal man. I cringed from the safest part of the Living Room: the little kitchen. I was sipping tea with Raven before we went to practice with my dark matter. I was also sampling some of the bread Beast Boy had purchased for me. Buttermilk was better than pumpernickel.

"Dammit, Bumble Bee. There isn't anything wrong!" I couldn't really fathom how the simple request the woman asked for was getting Cyborg worked into a frenzy.

"I want another opinion. I can't talk to you when you're stubborn like this." She crossed her arms over her fluffy coat and glared at the man.

"Oh man." Beast Boy muttered. He was munching on tofu waffles – not something I was ever going to sample – and sank down lower in his chair. Before I could enquire what was wrong Cyborg began yelling that the woman on the screen. There was lots of swearing involved. I cringed again.

"Chill." Robin commanded. With that one word I watched both Cyborg and Bumble Bee shut their mouths and stare that their leader. "Cyborg, just ask Lightning if there something up with the weather in the east. Those brothers keep a lot to themselves, they might know something. Bumble Bee, Cyborg is your superior, I don't care if Titan's East is your team, you will not talk that way with him. Christ! We are not children."

With his piece said Robin moved into the kitchen and took the coffee mug Starfire offered him as Cyborg promised Bumble Bee information when he got it and she thanked him. There was silence when the screen went blank. I found new respect for Robin after our sparring last night, though I did not like him any more than before. If he used that voice with me, I would consider listening to him. Because of my attitude, I would only go so far as to consider.

"What was that all about?" Raven asked as Cyborg sat down next to me – the only available seat – and stared at his untouched and now cold plate of eggs.

"Nothing." He muttered.

"I don't want to hear that ever again from you Cy." Robin said.

"Yes sir."

I waited for there to be more said, but there didn't need to be. Cyborg knew who was in charge, and he probably felt pretty stupid for letting the woman provoke him. The work of a true leader.

"Come on Maeve." I looked up at Raven and was about to start an argument when Starfire interjected.

"Oh, may I come watch the training?" I turned to her, about to unleash a pretty nasty remark when Beast Boy's outburst stopped me.

"Sweet! This should be good! Come on Maeve!" He shot up from his seat and sped to the elevator that would send him to the training garage. No. I did not want all of them to watch me.

"Shall we commence with the garbage talk?" Starfire raced after the changeling. What in the name of Siber was happening?

"I could use a distraction. I'll join y'all after I make a call." I glared at Cyborg. I was not some thing for them to look at and entertain!

"Maeve. You can't run from this. I gave you all day off yesterday." Raven's calm voice irked me more. I wanted to hit something. Why weren't any of them listening?

A gloved hand gripped my shoulder. "Don't worry about them. You're like a new toy or something."

"That is not reassuring, Robin." I growled.

"Maybe not, but it's a fact. You can't control them any more than I. Just listen to what Raven says and don't hurt yourself." That made me gape at him. He said to not hurt "myself." Not Raven? He didn't say anything about Raven? Did he trust me? Or did he think I couldn't hurt Raven during the training?

I grumbled all the way into the garage.

"You aren't even trying!" Raven called at me from miles away.

"Getting hit repeatedly by a dark matter hand is what you call "Training?" I screamed at her as I gathered my feet under me. I ached everywhere. My little exercises with Robin last night had not been the smartest thing for the short run. Oh yeah, I did learn plenty about the guy, but the injuries I received to do so was rather stupid of me.

"You have to learn to sense the matter, Maeve."

"And you have to give me more than that to go off of!" I leaped out of the hand's range and it did a one-eighty to attack me from in the air. With no where to go, I was smacked another dozen feet or so.

"You're beginning to know where it's at least coming from. But anyone with an ounce of awareness can do that." My little sister stated closer to me than before. Which way had that thing hit me?

I rolled out from the outcome of becoming a pancake and ran as fast as I could from the little neverah. "I do not call this training!" I shouted without looking back.

"You're afraid?!" She bellowed at me. But she had used that one already. The neverah thought if she exposed my pride as a fearless Rokakas then I would be less likely to flee her training. But I held plenty self-preservation genes. I fell for her tact once; she would not fool me with the same trick again. I'm sure there was a famous Earth-saying about that kind of thinking too!

So I merely sped my pace and made my way for the doors to the elevator. I'd take my chances with my dark matter ripping a hole in my stomach then sit through one this girl's motivational seminars!

"Shove it neverah! You're insane!"

But she melted through her portal in the doors. Her real hand outstretched as if to stop me. Her hood had been drawn back, and her eyes flashed dangerously. "We still have work to do, Maeve." She really hated her pet name.

"No thanks." I skidded and turned swiftly out of her matter's clutches. "There is no way you were trained like this!"

"No, I went through several different methods. Your matter is different than mine. So I have to treat you like this."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were taking your anger out on me."

"When I get angry, you'll know it."

Her matter became a wall that I slammed right into. She could control it so fluidly. It wasn't fair for her to be attacking me like this. To strip me of my weapons – AGAIN! – had been her first rule. She needed to reenact what triggered the awakening from the first time, and I didn't have my blades at that time. I think she was just trying to make sure I didn't kill her in the heat of battle.

Not that I would, I couldn't kill my own blood any more than she could. But wounding her was not the same as killing her.

With grace I landed in a tight crouch as I eyed my sister. She did not appear to be enjoying herself, so what was all the violence for? The matter was materializing from my left and I rushed towards it this time. Running was getting me no where. I was either going to break a couple of vital bones, or I was going to catch Raven by surprise and be done with this whole nightmare.

There was a split second right before I made contact with her dark matter where I figured I could have made a more idiotic choice, the thought vanished as I brought my right hand up like Raven had and thrust a misshapen blob of my own dark matter into the center of my sister's and shattered its form. The undeniable joy, which forced a crazy grin on me and sent my body into the biggest relief-induced adrenaline-rush ever, did not go unnoticed by the neverah.

I shoved a childish finger in her direction and laughed at her stunned expression. "I thought that was why we were here!" I taunted and loved every second of her seething. I should not have taken such relish in my little sister's behavior. But I couldn't help myself. It was like sparring with Arsenal and winning by using a move he didn't know I had.

"Why are you so cocky?!" She demanded as another amount of matter came my way. Black tentacles slithered through the air and I twisted my body to avoid most of them. The ones I didn't wrapped around my thigh and waist and I felt them try to drag me towards Raven. "So you can call it out. Can you control it? Can you use it?" Her glare was fierce and sweat coated her brow.

She had been worried I'd lose control. Did no one think she would?

With a serious amount of force, driven by my will not to be too close to a pissed off magician, I brought down a my dark matter like a machete I had seen on one of the cheesy horror movies Beast Boy forced me to watch. I cut at her tentacles as if they were weak and defenseless vines.

Raven's dark matter recoiled as if I had actually injured something tangible. I stared at my sister's astonished face. "Why are you so shocked?" I snarled. Really, was it too much to ask for a little professionalism? "I'm doing what you're asking of me." Without much thought I began to circle her. Her tentacles twitched and jerked.

She eyed me for every step I took. Her bewilderment was only too obvious as she tried to think of another method to attack me with. I couldn't understand her actions. I was only protecting myself. Now that I knew the matter was there, I needed to use it for my defenses. It was only logical I would use the one thing I had left up my sleeve. Why was Raven so upset?

Suddenly, several dark-enveloped instruments came at me. I couldn't tell what they were; I didn't really stay still long enough to figure it out. By second nature I maneuvered out of most of the debris's way. But I was struck twice and both by massive amounts of weight. When I hit the floor I realized she had tossed cars at me. Four-door sedans, to be precise.

"In Siber's mercy, are you trying to kill me?" My outrage was only barely caged. One more move like that and I might just knock the girl unconscious!

Another handful of sedans sped for me, I wasn't even up yet! It took several seconds before I finally found my footing. With both hands gripping the hot matter I created, I slashed the cars to ribbons. When the dust cleared I was still holding my wild-looking sword. The one I had used on Red-X. The one that moved and breathed with my own heartbeats. It grew when I attacked Raven's cars, but right now it was as long as my forearm. All stealth and lethal beauty emitted from my aura, the dark matter sword pulsed with my hollow breaths.

Raven could not have looked more afraid if she had tried. That kind of fear was potent; I could taste it from the dozen of yards that separated us. In that moment, while I heard the pounding of the other Titans' footsteps as they rushed toward us, I knew what Raven had expected of me. She had expected me to lose. She had expected me to let her beat me into the ground. She had expected complete dominance in this fight.

Because that was what it was now. This was not a training exercise. We were not testing my abilities at all. Raven had craved a thrashing. She had craved for my blood split by her hands. We had fought and I had won. I doubted the others would know that was what had happen, as I locked eyes with my little sister. She would be able to lie, and I would be able to feed that lie. There was no room for anyone else in this fight.

I narrowed my eyes. Our mom had said her dark matter would not be able to harm me. Guess she was wrong there. That woman had not mentioned a lick of my own ability. How much could I trust in that woman's words?

But what I was worried about right now was where Raven's hostility came from. She had been rather accepting of me last night. She had even joked with me. Had that all been a lie? Had she hated me so much?

No. That wasn't it. If that were true, she wouldn't have enjoyed the time at the bakeries yesterday. If she really did hate me, she wouldn't have allowed me to leave her room last night without a punishment or deadly word after my stunt with her book. No. Raven did not hate me.

Then what was this? The training had even started off civilly enough…

"Raven!" Robin's commanding voice did not break our vision as we glower at each other.

"Rea," Beast Boy sounded so lost, "what was that about?"

"Friend Raven, are you not feeling well?" Starfire asked as she touched Raven's shoulder. The girl blinked, and I saw something… else in her eyes. A darkness that had nothing to do with Raven stared at me through her body. It was haunting and not something I had ever witnessed before. The… essence was violent and… hungry…

I knew of this much: whatever had happened between the middle of the fight, and right now, had very little to do with Raven. She blinked again, hard, and the essence was gone.

I erupted in laughter. It was loud and boisterous, and it echoed in the garage eerily as the lone sound in the whole room. "Good goddess!" I exclaimed as I held me sides like Beast Boy did when he rolled on the floor in hysterics. "That was the most fun I've had since I showed up to the ruddy section!" I heaved as I fought for breath. Wiping tears from my eyes I watched the team of heroes stared at me with mixture of uncertainty and horror. "That's what I call a fight! Forget training, I think that might be what triggered the awakening!"

That snapped Raven back to reality. "What?" She looked around her in confusion, as if she couldn't remember where she was.

I laughed harder and pointed a finger at her. "So sly! You knew I was fighting to save my life when I wielded the matter against Red-X! So you figured if you endangered me, I'd be able to tap into myself and control it! So very smart, Raven. Oh, what a clever girl you are!" Quick strides brought me to my little sister; I patted her back slightly harder than necessary. The others didn't know how to react to my behavior so they simply stood still as statues.

"You should watch yourself though," I muttered close to her ear as I moved passed her, "I don't take a threat to my life kindly. Be glad you're my blood. Anyone else is fair game." And I made my way for the doors. That last message had been for whatever was lurking inside of Raven. I could feel several pair of eyes on me. Right before the doors opened I turned back to the group of stunned faces. "I'm going to take a shower. Don't be too hard on her, she was only thinking of what was best for me."

In my room I contemplated what to do about Raven. Never had I witnessed such malevolence from one being before. My little sister did not seem like the evil-type. She had morals and a code to live by. There were limits she placed upon herself willingly. No, what I saw had not been Raven.

What then?

What could be living inside of her? Did she have an inner demon? I heard of stories, but they were mostly vivid retellings of one's dark desires one keeps hidden. There were no such things as inner demons. There were… fairy tales…

The problem wasn't exactly what it was, but more to the point of what it wanted. By the bruises and racing heartbeat, I knew what it was trying to do back in the garage. The supernatural thing inside Raven had wanted to hurt me. And it would have succeeded if my dark matter hadn't decided to wake up and start fighting back.

Which brought a whole other set of worries, Raven's matter should not be able to hurt me and mine shouldn't hurt her. That was what that woman had said. It had even been proven true when I first met Raven. She had lashed out at me and I had been shielded by, what I now figured, my dark matter. So, she could hurt me, in theory. If I didn't defend with dark matter, then I would be hurt.

This was so messed up.

The alarm went blaring and I welcomed the distraction. Quickly I rushed to the living room and found Cyborg yelling at a yellow-skinned, spiky-haired, teenager. The flashing red light did not seem to mean anything to the two as they argued about a woman named "Winner." But Robin silenced them with efficiency and they gave their goodbyes. Did Cyborg have to fight with every piece of machinery? I knew he was putting my Firefly off of his list of priorities, I had thought it was because Robin told him to. Now, perhaps the metal-man hated my Firefly?

"Titan's to the old factories on the piers." Robin announced and we raced to our destination. Starfire, Beast Boy, and my sister took to the air as Robin, Cyborg, and I went for the garage.

I sat in silence with Cyborg in his T-car moments later. He gritted his teeth at nothing in particular. I didn't want to talk to him about his problems. There was probably very little I could about them anyway.

So I wasn't sure what made me ask, "What is wrong with you?" Of course I doubt blaming a man for his own misfortune is not ideally a great means to stoke a conversation.

His response was to be expected, "And what makes you think there is something wrong with me? Why is it always my fault when things go bad with Bumble Bee? Can't a man just let off some steam without getting grilled for it every time?"

"Of course, though I highly doubt Bumble Bee appreciates being your convenient source for letting off steam." I stared out the window. Eye contact was something I should avoid in these types of situations. "But it wasn't just Bumble Bee. Lightning received your foul mood, too. And you were subdued at breakfast." I waited.

"She never calls just to talk. There's always something she needs of me when she calls." He sighed and it was a massive sigh. "I didn't mean to let it out on Lightning, but he said the same thing you did when I talked to him about Bumble Bee."

"You care for the woman. More so than the others."

"Yeah, well, we used to be close. But times change and people change with it."

"What of this 'Winner'?" I asked to ease him off his misery.

He frowned, but he was no longer sighing. "Lightning believes she might know about the strange weather in the east, but she's a hard person to get a hold of. She's a recluse. And he fully believes she has nothing to do with the weather."

"Dead end."

"Yes."

I wanted to jump out of the car and take my chances walking.

"A mysterious person was spotted at the piers." I narrowed my eyes at the window. Why was he telling me this? To be wary? To know what I was fighting?

"And you take house calls to "mysterious persons?" I mocked.

Cyborg did not find any of my humor, "No, there were four dead bodies found inside one of the factories."

For a moment, I almost scoffed. But then I remembered where I was and who I was talking to. "So you just rush straight ahead with not much to go on, other than it's a killer?"

"In my book, that's all I need to know."

Mercifully we reached the piers. I jumped out of the car much more enthusiastic than necessary, maybe. Space, I needed space from Cyborg. The feeling that I was an interesting bug under his microscope slipped through my mind more than once. Maybe my dark matter would allow me to fly, like Raven. One could only hope…

The Factories were not vacant, in fact in looked more like the beginnings of a Nickleback concert. I smirked to myself; I really was getting better at learning the trends and times of this section. There were police officials everywhere, a nervous place for Rokakas. Civilians crowded around the yellow caution tape to catch a glimpse of a corpse. Odd, how humans find such devastating situations fascinating. Vehicles were parked for miles and I turned to Starfire who was the closest to me, "Why are there so many people here? I thought they were abandoned factories."

She shrugged and floated over to Robin and Cyborg who were heatedly speaking with the officials. I hung back with Raven and Beast Boy, but I could hear everything just fine. There had been some kind of party going on here. The four corpses, all male, had been teenagers apart of the festivities. Some kind of animal, bigger than a wolf, ripped their hearts out. And only their hearts were missing.

"I want to see the bodies." I demanded, interrupting whatever Robin had wanted to say. I wasn't looking at him though. This territory belonged to the officials.

"Why?" The others asked. Starfire looked sick, had she never seen a corpse? Beast Boy looked pale. Raven probably wanted to put a leash on me and haul me back to the tower. Cyborg gave me a calculated glare. Robin didn't give me anything.

"I want to see them." I repeated to the police official.

She glanced at Robin, "She with you?" He merely nodded. "You a forensic specialist?" She turned back to me.

I wasn't sure what that meant, "Not really, but I could be. I've seen plenty of death; I may be able to help."

"You know what steals hearts from a seventeen-year-old boy?" The official did not look pleased at all. She didn't seem like the type to grow emotional over her work, but they were children. I learned that humans, both male and female, could become rather unstable when children were hurt or killed. That's why I didn't call them corpses to her face.

"I won't know until I see the damage."

She turned back to Robin, "She's your responsibility. If anything messy happens I'm holding you, Robin, accountable." She glared at me, "This way."

"That seems to be the way of it." Robin growled. He was staring at me without any emotion however. Was this his "game face" for the officials? It made him more intimidating and the police men and women spread from him as he followed the woman.

Only Robin and I moved towards the black bags. I leaned over to him, "Why aren't they coming?"

"It's against Starfire's culture to look upon a dead body. And Cyborg is interrogating the other kids who were here. Raven, I think, is squeamish around death." I almost laughed, but I remember where we were and restrained myself. "Her people honor those who have passed with a dignified ceremony, once the body is dead; it is no longer of any importance. It's like a dried up vessel, or something. And Beast Boy says the smell gets to him." His eyes narrowed as we reached the corpses. "What about your kind?" He asked when the official left us, though she didn't go far.

"Rokakas believed the greatest honor was to kill, we don't hold death in any high regards, and there are no celebrations except for the Mother's death. But that's more like an initiation for the new Mother. It's apart of life. We are born. We live. We kill. We die." I could tell my words bothered Robin. "I…I mean they."

"No. That is apart of who you are, Maeve." The man crouched beside the first body, "Don't forget that."

I nodded as I hunkered down next to him. He lifted the material concealing the body and I held my breath. It wasn't the worst corpse I'd seen. Everything from the neck up was perfect. The body was pale, but it only looked like the man was sleeping. There was no blood or dirt in his hair and his face held no cuts or bruises. But that was all that was peaceful about him.

A gaping hole, the size of my fist, showed mutilated flesh and muscle into the body, about as deep as my wrist. It reeked too. I could understand Beast Boy's hesitation now. The changeling had animals senses in him, if I gagged on the stench, then he would have passed out from it. But I overlooked the smell to examine how amazingly thorough the beast had been. There were no claw marks, not one slash or gash. The corpse was clean except for the rotting hole where his heart should have been. I moved closer and checked to be sure there really wasn't a heart. There wasn't. The veins and arteries that connected to the organ were still oozing blood. But even the extraction was clean.

"They're sure it was an animal and not a machine?" I questioned quietly to Robin as I covered the first kid and moved to check the next.

He was standing away form the bodies now. His arms folded across his chest, "No, no one's claimed to have seen anything. Why?"

"It's too clean." I muttered as I placed the material over the second body. It was in exactly the same shape. "The bodies don't have any other marks on them. The cause of death appears precisely the same on every one. There are no defensive wounds that I can see and the extraction is cut very nicely." I watched him cringe at my word choice. "Not nicely, I mean…"

"No, I got it. Do you think it was a machine that did this?"

"Well, even if it was, the kids would have been able to fight back, or someone would have heard it. There aren't many machines that could work without making any sound."

"What about the Tin-Man?"

I shook my head, "The First would not kill anything from the Seventh."

"No, could something like the Tin-Man do this?"

"Unlikely. Something of the Tin-Man's caliber doesn't take children's hearts."

"Do you know of anything that would need a child's heart, then?"

I wondered briefly if he really thought that I hung out with heart snatchers on a daily basis. But I did say that I might have been able to pinpoint the killer from my own experiences with death. "I know of a couple of creatures that eat hearts, most of them live in the Sixth. They don't hunt in the Seventh because they are pretty primitive and stick to their planet. There are others, but they wouldn't be so clean with their meals." I gestured to the black bags, I already examined them all. "This looks like a ritual hunt to me."

Robin's spine straightened, though I wasn't sure how since he was so tense to begin with. "Would Raven know of it?" he seemed almost reluctant to ask that question to my sister.

I shrugged, "Don't know. Not all magicians know everything about majicks." I frowned at the corpses, for some reason I no longer wanted to label them as that. They had been children, their moms would be so sad to know of their deaths.

"I do know that rituals can use death as a conduit to perform big majicks, but if that was the case, they wouldn't have left the bodies."

"The police said that the kids heard screaming and found the bodies. Maybe they stopped the thing from taking them." He began moving away from the bags, I followed desperately wanting a shower. "We should see if Cy found anything out."

We? He was including me now?

It turned out the kids did disrupt something. As the shock began to ware, several young girls began describing a shadow that was seven feet tall and had long claws on one hand. There was little else that made sense after that. Their stories began to change and the differences were too wide to tie together. Cyborg did not like it.

"Ring a bell?" The metal man asked me once we moved away from the girls.

"There are all kinds of creatures that are tall with claws." I muttered. I was beginning to grow sick. The sun was shining and I wished that I could simply crawl under my blankets and sleep. I had never actually examined a body before. Once I watched someone die, I left them there.

Starfire sighed, "I do not know of such a creature." She frowned. "Except a Glo-Glo-Max."

"What's that?" Beast Boy asked, the guy looked worst than all of us. He was a pale green-gray and his ears drooped as he covered his nose and mouth with one hand.

"It's a nightmare creature." The Tameranean answered. "It is believed to feed off of our nightmares. Once it is strong enough it comes for you during the day and eats your heart." She shivered, "I was told if I ate my Globax, then the Glo-Glo-Max couldn't get inside my dreams."

"Eat your what?" The changeling asked.

"Eat her vegetables." Raven answered. She groaned and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.

"A headache?" Robin asked.

"I'm fine," my sister said.

"I don't think this was a nightmare, Star." Cyborg frowned.

"It could be a doppelganger." I said suddenly.

The Titans stared at me. "Those aren't real." Robin said immediately.

"Sure they are." I snapped.

"No, they are apart of science-fiction." Beast Boy muttered.

Science-fic… How could there be science-fiction when all science wanted to do was prove fiction wrong? "They are real." I said again, I turned to Raven. "And you know they are." She flinched at my voice but did not say anything. "Come on. They live on your planet, Raven."

"What?" Starfire looked at the other woman. These two were from the same section, perhaps that was where the nightmare terms came from. Because a Tameranean saw a doppelganger and didn't know what else to call it.

Raven narrowed her eyes at me, "There are no such-"

I grabbed her arm and began to drag her to the scene where the kids had been found. Inside one of the factories, where there was very little light. There was practically no blood on the ground, only four small puddles. The stench wasn't nearly as bad here, but it smelled just like the corpses did.

"Tell me what you see, Raven." I pointed to the puddles. She walked past me and glared at them. Starfire illuminated a green orb around her fist to give more light.

"There is nothing her Maeve." She snarled.

"Yeah, isn't that convenient? No DNA at all? No hair samples? No foreign blood? No skin follicles? Isn't that odd?"

"She's right." Cyborg agreed as he stared at his sensors. "There's nothing here but the four traces of blood from the victims."

"Guys, I don't feel good." Beast Boy muttered.

"Do you smell anything other than human blood?" I asked carefully. I didn't want to be short with the changeling, he had enough to worry about.

"What?" He seemed alarmed by my question. Did the others never ask him to trace anything before with a nose like his?

"Human blood. You know what that smells like, but is there anything else?"

He looked at Robin, "I don't want to."

"There's nothing we can do for those kids, but we could stop this guy if you can sniff him out. I'm not going to push you Beast Boy, if you don't want to you don't have to. We'll find another way."

The green man clenched his eyes close moved his hand away from his face and took a deep breath. There was a painful pause as everyone waited for his response. After a moment Beast Boy inhaled again. With his eyes still closed he morphed into a dog and inhaled again. This time his cringed and morphed back to tell everyone what he found.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean?" Starfire looked worried.

"Beast Boy, how can that be?" Raven was next to him holding him as he shoved his face into her cloak.

"Only the kids' blood. There was nothing else." Then the changeling ran from the factory. Everyone let him go.

"What does this mean?" Starfire turned to Maeve.

"It means it was a doppelganger. No one has ever seen their true form, they take on whatever suits them best for whatever purpose they set out for." She sighed and stared at Raven. "I believe Trigon used them on you last time."

A collective silence fell around them.

"You mean the evil Beast Boy, Cyborg, and I?" Starfire shuddered. Cyborg took a step back.

"Yes. I read that report a hundred times. I know what attacked you. Those were doppelgangers, young ones. I believe this thing that attacked these kids was a matured doppelganger." She locked eyes with Robin. "I believe it stole these hearts because it is going to use them in a ritual. I also believe that this ritual might bring Trigon back from the Void."

TheNewAbomination

I ran without any real thought behind it. I needed air, fresh air. I needed to be in an open space. I needed to get away from the piers. It felt like hours but I had only run for forty-five minutes before I collapsed in the Park of Jump City. Cold grass hit my flushed face and my stomach settle slightly as I gulped in clean air.

Never again. I would never use my senses again! I curled into a ball and dug the heel of my hands into my eyes as hot tears began to sting them. Too involved in my own misery I didn't feel the presence behind me until I was pinned with my back to the grass and my wrist next too my shoulders.

A broken skull masked glared down at me.

"Dude, I don't swing that way." I growl but it probably had little effect with tears streaking down my cheeks and snot dribbling down my nose. What the hell was this guy doing here?

"Don't worry, you're not my type." Red-X snickered and I saw the smirk as I heard it in his over-confident voice. It was weird to see the guy smirk. I had always pictured him faceless. Even when he took the mask off, as I'm sure he did, I didn't think he had a face. Like he was born faceless and it caused his upbringing to be traumatizing and that was why he was a two-faced villain who could play both sides of the game.

"Alright, then get off me."

"Where is the Wild Card?" He demanded, not moving away from me. If I wasn't so shaken from the nightmare in the factory I would have morphed into a water moccasin and bitten him. But I couldn't focus. Truth was I was scared to turn into anything and have my senses overtake me.

"What wild card?" I cried out in frustration.

He narrowed his eyes. "Why are you crying?"

"Did you only just notice?!" I yelled at him.

"Why?"

"Why do you care? Get off!" I morphed into a cougar and he finally moved out of the way with one of his flips. Nausea crashed over me and I morphed back to puke my lunch out. I heaved and my whole body shook. Maybe Red-X got disgusted and ran off. Stupid, flipping, prick.

There was a hand at my back as I puked again. I couldn't even ask the guy what his problem was. If his philosophy was to only look out for himself, then what the hell was he doing? Oh God! What if he did think I was his type?

I shoved the hand away. I didn't matter what Red-X thought, he was a villain and he was Robin's nemesis. "Get back." I growled and it sounded far more animalistic than I had meant for it to. What was happening to me?

"You need a hospital."

"No. I'd be worse there. Small spaces, too many people." I sighed as I felt my empty stomach calm down.

"Then where should I take you?"

"I don't need you to take me anywhere, Dude." With shaky movements I got to my feet. "What the hell do you want anyway?"

"The woman, the trainee, where is she?"

"Uh, what trainee?"

"The woman who fought me and beat me the other night?"

"Maeve? You're talking about Maeve?"

A slow smile spread across him exposed mouth, creepy. "Maeve, huh?" He stretched her name out as if tasting something worth savoring. Uh-oh. Did I just do something stupid?

"What do you want with her?" I snarled, it came out in one long ripple of a growl. I fell back to the grass. My body was hot, did I have a fever? I had to. I couldn't even talk human.

"Beast Boy." Red-X was kneeling beside me. "I'm taking you back to the tower, will you be better there?"

"How do you know where I live?" My voice was rough and I was really thirsty.

The guy chuckled low in his throat, "You're delusional."

"Just don't take advantage of me."

"I already told you, you're not my type."

Yeah, I had to have a fever; there was no way I could be joking around with Red-X while he offered to take me home. No way in hell…