Chapter Twenty: Trace Evidence

Robin crushed small shards of glass with his steel-toe boots, staring up at the broken skylight. The museum had been robbed last night of a worthless painting. All the paintings here were worthless, they were done by local artists. So why would someone steal something for no profit?

"Robin," Cyborg waved him to where she was standing. He was fiddling with something on his robotic arm, and simultaneously talking to the museum guard. "Says it was X."

"Wh..." But Robin couldn't get his sentence out.

"There was a girl, too. One without a mask." Cyborg was his normal, loud self. Something was up.

No, it can't be. It was all a coincidence...

"Any evidence it was her?" He gawked. Cyborg twisted his arm around so Robin could see too.

"There was a hair sample." One the screen was Blaze's face, smiling with her auburn hair hanging loosely around her shoulders.

"Raven!" Robin yelled, quickly searching for the sorceress. "RAVEN!" He yelled louder. There was no scale in the world that could measure how thoroughly pissed Robin was at this point.

"I'm right here!" Raven retorted back, hovering over the ground inches away from his turned back.

"Can we still do the spell?"

"What?"

"The spell! Can we still do it?"

"We need Blaze up in Olympus... but yeah. Why? This wasn't her, was it?"

Robin didn't answer. His head slowly found it's way into a slight nod, fists tightly clenched. "This is because of her powers. If she still had them, she'd be with us."

"You mean with you?" Beast Boy came up behind them. He realized he didn't think before he said it, morphed into a mouse, and hid behind Cyborg.

Robin's face went red, but not with rage, with embarrassment. "No, I mean us." he spat.

Starfire in through the skylight and landed next to him. "There are the tire marks on the pavement. Is that something?"

Robin shook his head. The sight of Starfire made him calm down, more and more. "I don't think so. We know X travels on a motorcycle."

"How do we know it was the Red X?"

Robin forgot that he hadn't told anyone about the other night. Only Raven knew, and that was because Blaze told her. "I'm positive, Star. It was him and Blaze."

Starfire cringed at the name, but swept Robin up in a tight hug. "We shall save her." she whispered but it was still loud enough for everyone to hear. Starfire didn't want to say it, but no matter how much Starfire didn't like her right now, Blaze was still her friend.

"I don't know if she can be saved." Raven hung her head.

"But we can try." Cyborg chipped in, a smile quickly spreading across his face, "I ran a scan on the hair strand I found. There are traces of sewer water and dirt molecules. A couple traces of pipe, too. Old pipe. They don't build with this stuff anymore. "

"What's that mean?" Beast Boy morphed back to normal and was scratching his head. He was being just as clueless as always. Raven gave him a small slap on the head for it.

"It means that she's still in the city," Cyborg informed. "This says

"No, not in. Under. Her and X are in the sewers." Robin, too, began to smile. "Raven, you and Starfire head back to the Tower. See if you can find a way to get Blaze to Olympus. Beast Boy and Cyborg, you come with me." Robin placed his motorcycle helmet on his head and swaggered towards the doors of the museum.

"Road trip!" Beast Boy jumped in line next to him,"Where are we going?"

"To the old part of town. Where everything is full of holes and dirt. Like the sewers."

"EWWWWW!" Beast Boy screamed. He stopped and had to be carried out of the museum, kicking and screaming.