Author's Note: Finally, a new chapter. Ok, let's try this again.

Chapter 5

"Ok, so we have a psychotic houseguest with a big pet cat, how bad can it be?" Beast Boy mused. The rest of the group just glared at him.

Mimic groaned. "I'm thinking about moving back into the H.I.V.E."

Robin shot him a glare, and the others kind of blew him off. "Alright, team, we have an AWOL team mate who appears, for all intense and purpose, to have turned on us, and is currently under the directive of a psychic commandant with a high intelligence and a low degree of maturity. We need to fan out and-" he was cut off by radio static pouring over his communicator.

"****We have multiple targets****closed room*****flank from all sides*****-" it cut off, but there was still some feedback. Robin looked around at his team, and motioned to the doors. They nodded, and each took point. Raven and Cyborg guarded over a side door, and Robin and Starfire took the opposite dies. Mimic and Beast Boy stood on either side of the main entrance.

It didn't help.

The doors next to Raven and Cyborg slid open, and Cyborg stepped in front, sonic cannon at the ready. Even with his enhanced vision, he didn't see anyone in the hallway until it was too late. As three Scorpion missiles struck him in the chest, he went flying into the couch, landing with a heavy crash. Raven shielded the door, but her attention waned when she heard an explosion behind her. She whipped around in time to see Robin and Starfire go flying, landing on top of Cyborg in that order. It shook her just enough, that she felt a heavy thud across the back of her neck, and a sharp, burning pain seared across her skull, and she blacked out.

"Raven!" Beast Boy screamed. The next thing he knew, he was rushing down the halls of the tower at breakneck speed. Literally, when he stopped, he felt his neck crack a little. He looked up from being dropped on his ass, and saw Mimic engaging the locks on his bedroom door. "Dude, what the hell are you doing?! We have to go back!"

"They're going to be fine. Before I rushed you out of there, I dropped them off in their own rooms. But listen, they should wake up soon, completely split apart. They're going to freak out when they wake up, and we have a tower of soldiers now. So we need a plan. You've been here longer than I have, are there any rooms that are psychically guarded? Anything with some kind of uber protection?" Mimic shook Beast Boy by the shoulders.

"Calm down, dude. Ok, let me think. Alright! We still have the Blue Room. It's where we kept Raven when we were trying to keep her from Trigon. Now, he was able to make contact with her, but that's because he was an all-powerful demon god thing. This Caroline chick shouldn't be able to do anything to us there. Let's try and get everyone into that room, ok?" Beast Boy paced around the room, thinking while he talked.

Mimic nodded. "Alright. I'm going to need a moment to change power sets, Kid Flash isn't going to cut it. We need something more bulletproof. I'm thinking Argent," he thought out loud. He sat on Beast Boy's bed, throwing some stuff aside. He closed his eyes and focused, while Beast Boy sat watch for a few seconds. He looked up in time to see Mimic open his eyes, as his pupils emanated an intense red ring that bled into his irises.

Beast Boy turned into a wolf, and Mimic coated himself in a thin, red armor. Together, they set forward through a hall down the main hall. After a few doors, Mimic took a look into a room with a door that didn't match the rest of the tower. It was a simple wooden door, with a metal knob. Like something you'd see-

"-In an office building. Why the hell is this here?" Mimic thought out loud. He took a quick look around the room. It looked like someone had trashed the place for something. He took a quick look around, and saw a single piece of paper on a clipboard next to the keyboard. "The hell is this?" He took a quick look over the sheet.

Replica Cloning Batch 7 Recruitment Acquisition Form 34d-9

"Replicas? What are.." he trailed off as he kept reading. The rest of the sheet was mainly technical information, but Mimic was able to gather enough information from it to see that it was a request from for clones. And that the clones were part of The Psychic Soldier program that Robin had told them about. It didn't take much for him to put two and two together. "Beast Boy, you should see this." He read over a few more sections, then realized the room was still silent. "Beast Boy?" he turned around. Nothing. The door was closed again, but he didn't remember having done so. He took a quick look out the small window next to the door, and saw nothing but empty hallway. "Great. He must have kept walking when I came in here." He grumbled to himself about the green teens attention span, and threw the door opened. Then, a flash of brilliant darkness consumed him.

"Mimic, I don't think we're going to find anyone here. Either they cleared out, or…" he stopped when he realized he wasn't being followed. He didn't hear any footsteps except his own. He wheeled around, and saw that the hallway was empty before him. "Mimic?" he looked around, and saw that the hall behind him looked nothing like their normal décor. Instead, it had been terraformed into a hospital hallway, with a pale color palette, and white tile ceiling. He turned back around, and the rest of the hallway had changed to match.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." he took a quick inventory of the area, and saw that aside from the changes to the décor, the hallway was completely barren. He saw on one end, a pair of double doors that he could see a light on the other side of, and the opposite end of the hall, the same double doors. Except he saw licks of flame in the windows.

He tore down the hall towards the burning room, morphing into a rhino on the way down. Bursting through the double doors, he was greeted by a flash of white light, and he felt himself slow down exponentially. He looked to each side, and turning his head he realized he had returned to his human form. He would have taken a second to gather his bearings, but the laughter of a child rang in his ears He spun around, and saw the door behind him had disappeared. Spinning back around, he discovered that the room had been replaced with an empty void, and he stood amongst a circle of flames.

"They never accepted me…"

Beast Boy spun around once more, and felt a heavy impact upon his chest.

"They took me away from mommy and daddy…"

THUD. Another impact against his side, and he felt his head reel. His vision blurred, and he buckled over. Then he felt himself sinking into whatever floor he had been standing on, as if into a deep quagmire. Then another flash of light, and he found himself falling into a bright room.

"They were bad people. They tried to hurt mommy, but daddy didn't let them. So they hurt daddy…"

He stood up, and saw that he had landed in a well-dressed living room, unbeknownst to him, the same one that Stray had found himself in hours before. He glanced around, and saw a little blonde girl sitting on the couch, staring at the tv. Her mouth didn't move, but what he now realized was her voice echoed through the room, through his head.

"They hurt others, too. My friends. The other kids in school. They even took some of the others away…"

The little girl turned her head and looked up at Beast Boy, with crystal blue eyes, and she frowned. Then, she slowly dissolved into ash, and sunk into the couch. He heard a scream from behind him, and turned so quickly he nearly stumbled to his knees. What he saw in front of him, almost finished the drop. The room remained, but around him, there was nothing left but decay, blood, and a hint of flame.

Before him was the corpse of an old man, riddled with bullets, laid out on the floor. He saw a simple, wispy after image of the same man running though the door in front of him, followed by similar after images. He heard a mesh of screaming, orders shouted, gunfire. The echoes of the tragedy rang through his body like the casing of a church bell. As the wisps ran past him, he followed with his gaze, and saw against one wall an aged woman cowering against a wall, holding for dear life onto the small girl he had seen earlier. The girl herself was clutching a very familiar white rabbit.

As the images reached her, she let out a scream, and they dissipated. Beast Boy noticed the group of dead soldiers along the ground. They looked as if they had been shredded by the air around them, until even the bones had been scratched to the marrow. While he was staring blankly at the corpses, still trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing, he heard a loud burst near his right ear, which started to ring straight after. Flinching from the explosion of sound, he shook his head, and when he looked up, he saw the old woman had been shot, and the young girl was being dragged away. As the stuffed rabbit fell from her hand, Beast Boy's vision blurred, and went black.

Mimic's vision cleared to find himself standing in the basement of the tower. He took a quick survey of the area, then reestablished the aura of armor he had shielded himself with. He then metastasized a blade from each arm, and took a step forward. He had a split second to notice the red blinking light from the corner of his eye, before the proximity mine launched into his line of sight, and he reacted. He pushed forward with everything in his mind, and a surge of red matter launched forward, propelling the mine further into the room before it detonated.

The blast left his ears ringing, but he heard a few soldier cry out in pain. He dived behind a crate, planting his back against the metal casing. He heard shouts behind him, and heard a few bullets ricochet off of the ground next to him, and realized swords wouldn't cut it, even with his armor. He glanced around for a stray weapon, and that's when he saw it. Lying inconspicuously against a wall, innocently angled on it's side. Almost as if he had put it there himself. He grinned wildly.

It was a grenade launcher.

"YUS!" he shouted, diving for the weapon. He heard more bullets ricochet wildly around him, and felt one chip the armor on his shoulder. He flinched as it grazed, the impact resonating through the shoulder he'd forgotten was slightly chipped. He wondered at what point he'd started to move it again.. As he lay hands on his dream weapon, only three things ran through his mind.

One, he was receiving heavy fire from several assailants.

Two, he knew now that they were little more than clones, meat puppets. Not alive enough to be considered human, not dead enough not to be a threat.

And three, it was loaded.

He launched himself to his feet, and took his first shot wildly. As if guided by the graces of his own guardian angel, he grinned as he saw the projectile soar true, landing square into a soldier's nose. Had he kept Kid Flash's reflexes, he would have seen it break his nose the split second before it detonated.

There was nothing left of the soldier from the waist up but a splash of blood on the walls.

Then the other soldiers reminded him of their presence, as a bullet landed square into his neck.

Had he not had his armor, he would have died on the spot, but he marveled at the sheer strength of the energy he had created, after he had drawn himself to his knees behind another crate, and reminded himself that real soldiers shouldn't be able to survive more than one bullet.

He peeked over the side of the crate, and saw a shadow of movement. He reeled up, and launched another projectile, which bounced against the wall, and clunked to the ground. He feared for a split second that it was a dud, until he heard someone yell, "FUCK!" followed by the sweet, welcome sound of an explosion. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another splash of blood, and heard over his comm, "I need backup! I'm the only one left!"

Mimic grinned. He decided he didn't need to waste any ammo. So he glanced around, and saw the gun one of his victims left behind, so he tried an experiment. He drew a section of energy across the ground, slowly stretching it in a thin line, releasing some of the shielding around his legs. He pulled the string of energy around the grip of the weapon, and tilted it up, slightly. He drew it towards him, and knelt further to draw it from the ground. His shoulder surged slightly with pain, as he remembered to reach with the other hand. His adrenaline was wearing off.

He gripped the gun by barrel, using his borrowed powers to solidify his hold. Taking a glance around the other side of the pillar, he saw a shadow step up beside him, and he glanced up in time to see a soldier snap his gaze down at him. He swung out with the gun, cracking it across the soldier's chin. The man reeled from the blow, so Mimic took another swing, bringing it across his temple. The man fell to his knees, so he shifted the gun, gripping the trigger.

And unloaded three rounds of the assault rifle between the man's eyes.

Raven awoke in her room, and the only thing that convinced her that it hadn't been a dream was that she woke up on the floor. She took a look around, and saw that nothing was out of place, save for the path from her door to the spot she had woken up in. It seems she had been rushed in here. She took a quick mental inventory of the events leading up to her blackout, and made a note to thank Mimic for keeping Kid Flash's powers on cue. Standing up, she decided to try to contact her friends. Hopefully, Caroline's influence had dug deep enough to affect her powers in her own home.

She took a meditative pose on her bed, and slowly began to chant her mantra. After a few renditions, her head started to spin. Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself floating three feet above the roof.

"What. The. HELL?!" she exclaimed, taking to her feet and glaring around. She took a few moments to settle herself, as she felt the floor underneath her shake under her influence. Then she realized it wasn't her influence, as she heard a mechanical whir behind her.

She spun around in time to see the barrels of the Gatling gun on each arm of the powered armor before her level at her head. "For the love of Azar," she muttered, throwing up a telekinetic field and minimizing herself as a target by kneeling under her cloak. She felt the stress on her mind rage in burden as round after round assaulted her energies in an angry riot of fire and metal.

It wasn't long before she was forced to retract her shield, lest it break under the strain. With the realization that not all her powers were limited in this new environs, she took hold of the mighty construct through sheer force of will, letting her mind consume the mechanical beast in darkness. Soon after, it was flung skyward, arching over the side of the building. She levitated after it, only to see it burst against the rocks in an explosion of brilliant blue.

"I just hope to whatever power would save us now that there wasn't a person in there." she told herself. Walking back onto the roof, she leaned against the door, pressing an ear against the metal to listen for anyone that might await her in ambush in the stairwell. Voices on the other side forewarned her of another presence, but their tone and inflection left her doubting whether or not they were her enemy.

She creaked the door open silently, and stared into the void of the unlit stairway, and heard a familiar voice.

"Raven?"

Robin awoke with a splitting headache. His ears were ringing, and he felt a great deal or rage well up within him. The only thing that comforted him was that he'd woken up in his own room.

Which gave him an opportunity to rearm himself. It was time he did his part to fight back.

Loading up his utility belt with various weapons, he took a recap of everything that had brought him here. Receiving the call from Batman, informing him of a medical facility having reported a break-in. Fighting off a small militia of well-trained and organized soldier with advanced firepower. Stray's erratic behavior, leading up to his betrayal, which Robin prayed he could attribute to the young met human's genetic and mental instabilities. He kicked himself for not seeing the young Titan's shortcomings as the real threat they were.

Focus, he told himself. Keep going. The massively intricate metastasization they had awoken in. Mimic's injuries, the group splitting away. Raven's powers switching on and off like a car blinker with no timer. The insurgence into the tower's living room. The last thing he remembered was a flash of light and Starfire calling out his name. Starfire, he thought to himself. I have to find her and the others.

He jammed a birdarang into the edge of his door, and slowly slid it open, taking a small glance into the highway. He didn't see much, except the usual emergency lights. Had this been any other night, he would have assumed they had suffered a power outage.

He took his first few steps into the hallway with little issue. Save for his cape catching in the door. Tugging himself free, and retrieving his birdarang, he took one last glance into the room, to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. At first, he noticed nothing, then, a flicker in the corner of his vision.

Caroline.

He did a double take, and saw her image slowly dissolve in the window, her laughter ringing throughout the room. "God," he muttered to himself. Shaking his head, he turned back into the hall. Coming upon his first intersection, he found nothing around the corner. At least, until the door to his left slid open.

Then the Heavy walked out.

Half a ton of mobile metal armor, wielding what looked to Robin to be a triple-barreled bazooka. He dove behind the corner, in time to feel the wall shake with the explosion of the missiles. He counted to himself, and felt another barrage. Three second reload rate. I can do that. He pulled out tactics from the back of his head, weaving a plan into motion the best he could. He thought about waiting until the armored soldier ran out of ammo, but figured the best bet would be to assume that he wouldn't. We're not in Kansas anymore, he told himself.

He felt one more barrage hit the wall behind him, and felt it start to give. Then he leapt into the hallway.

His first response was pure instinct. Taking a few exploding pellets from his belt, he heaved them at the small tank of a soldier, and then wrapped his cape around him to guard from the flash of light. When he looked up, he saw the barrel leveling at him again, but noticed a slight give in the man's shoulder.

The only thing that would have caused him hesitation at that point was his lesson never to kill another person. That sense of duty was washed away with the realization that the environment around them had become unpredictable by their standards. He figured it was safe to assume that their opponents were little more than constructs. With heavy weapons.

He lunged forward, bringing his birdarang longsword down against the launcher itself, causing the weapon to spark slightly, and slam to the ground. Then he felt a heavy thud against his back.

Had he not already been moving forward with his swing, the blow may have knocked him out on the spot. But with his forward momentum, aside from hurting, it did little more than cause him to roll behind the soldier faster. At which point he swung behind him with his blade, taking the edge down on the crook of the neck of the armor. He felt the heavy leather give a little, and the man staggered. So he swung again. He felt a greater give, and saw blood burst from the armor, as the man fell to his knees, then collapsing entirely.

Robin took some time to check the man's vitals, and felt nothing. He contemplated taking the launcher with him, but decided to look for lighter weapons. He needed to remain as agile as possible. Continuing his route, he expected to see more soldiers, after having eliminated one of their Heavies. He hadn't made it halfway down the hall when he saw a glimpse of movement at the end, the figure of a small child just turning the corner.

He darted forth, chasing after the figure, but by the time he had reached the corner, she was nowhere to be seen. Then he looked up. Again, at the end of the hall, he saw the small figure again, this time taking a moment to look at him, almost appraisingly, before walking behind the wall again. Robin gave chase.

This continued for several hallways. It occurred to him that she was leading him on, but she was the only clue he had, so he kept going. Until he saw the girl stopped in front of a door. She laughed lightly, the echo resounding through the walls, and walked through the door itself. He noticed it didn't slide open.

He rushed to the door, and saw that it was Cyborg's room. With most of the power in the tower out, the door wouldn't open. He started to wonder what had been supplying power to the door in his room, when he heard a loud crash, and what sounded like Cyborg screaming. Putting away his longsword, and pulling out his bo staff, he struck the door with everything he had. It gave way, as if it had simply rusted around the edges, and collapsed in front of him. He glanced into the room, and saw Cyborg lai9d out on his metallic slate of a bed, seemingly asleep.

"Cyborg? Cyborg!" he yelled. He knocked the metal Titan's head a couple of times with his staff, then saw that he was being kept asleep by his systems. He followed the cords to a terminal in the corner of the room, and keyed in his partner's reactivation sequence.

Soon after, he heard a groaning behind him, as Cyborg returned to consciousness. The big man glanced around, and saw Robin, then leapt off the table. "Man, am I glad to see you. Last thing I remember is taking some kind of explosion to my chest."

Robin nodded. "You were hit with a rocket launcher. I've already taken out the soldier using that weapon. I don't think there's that many of them around. I've only come across the one."

"Freaking a, Robin. How the hell are we going to take this chick down when she can throw us anywhere she wants?" Cyborg moaned, while he checked his systems. "It looks like she hasn't messed with me too much. Everything looks in order."

Robin shook his head. "I honestly have no idea what her plans are. But all I know is that we need to keep moving forward. We may find a way to stress her limits, give ourselves an opening. I think I have an idea of how to-"

"How to what? Cyborg asked, still tampering with his arm readout. "Robin?" he asked again, looking up. Then his eyes widened.

Robin was just standing there, his eyes slowly rolling back into his head, as a trickle of blood poured from his mouth. Cyborg looked down, and saw a clawed hand protruding from The Boy Wonder's stomach. "ROBIN!" he shouted, as the hand yanked its way out, and Robin fell to the floor. Cyborg looked back up to see Stray standing there, licking his claws.

"How anticlimactic," the feline mused. It barely registered with Cyborg that his outfit had changed again. He had donned his gakuen uniform again, but had cut slits in the cap for his ears. "I expected to have to fight to the death with him, but I guess sneaking up and impaling him works too. Can't do that with you, though, tin man. Guess I'll have to get creative," he grinned.

Cyborg snapped out of his shock, and leapt back, landing on his table. He leveled his sonic cannon at the traitor, and opened fire. Stray leapt up, and latched onto the ceiling. "You bastard! You killed Robin! I'm taking you down!"

"Taking me down? Is that the best you can do, tin man? I've heard much better one-liners. Hell, I've heard better newspaper headlines. Like my favorite," he added, leaping from his place on the ceiling, just as Cyborg opened fire again. He dodged a few more shots, then posed on a chair. Raising a hand, Cyborg saw a line of red light, almost like thread, reach out from the feline's "paw" and sink into Robin. Cyborg twitched as the bloodied corpse rose to it's feet again, then took a battle pose against it's old best friend.

"The dead walk."

Raven looked down at Starfire. "Starfire? What are you doing here? Where are the others?"

The young alien looked sad. "Truthfully, I do not know. I had awoken in my room, and merely wandered the halls. Then I heard loud noises coming from the roof, and rushed here to see if everything was okay."

Raven nodded. "I had a visitor, and a tiny mind trip, but I'm fine. We need to find the others."

"Agreed." Star nodded, and they set back down the stairs. Almost as soon as they hit the next floor, however, they heard screaming down the hall. The voice was familiar.

"Cyborg!" they yelled as one, and flew down the corridor. They hit a corner in time to see Cyborg crash into the wall before them. Starfire helped him to his feet.

"Cyborg, are you hurt?"the pale cambion asked. Cyborg just scowled, shook his head, and pointed down the hall. Starfire's and Raven's gazes followed his gesture.

That's when they noticed Robin, who, aside from the gaping hole in his stomach, looked more than well, and more than willing to fight. Raven then noticed Stray standing behind him, weaving a red thread that led into Robin's back. Raven recognized the process almost instantly.

"Stray, you freak! Since when did you learn necromancy?!"

Starfire gasped, and followed her partner's gaze. Then she screamed in anguish. "You have murdered my friend and befowled his corpse! You are not fit to call yourself a warrior!" she bellowed, then let loose with everything she had. Pouring the energy of stars into the hallway, flooding the corridor, her teammates had to shield there ayes from the brilliance of her rage. When the light cleared, Starfire's jaw dropped, and she fell to her knees.

Robin had thrown up a kinetic shield, the device merely sitting in his palm. "Don't think I don't have any more tricks up my sleeve, Star. I know everything Robin knows now. That's the advantage of gaining these abilities when you're still alive. Caroline's been pretty good to me lately."

Raven just shot him a scathing look. "How is she doing this?!"

"Because I let her," he said simply. "Remember the blood I drank earlier? Most of it was from Replicas. The very clone soldiers she was programmed to command. Now, she can work through me all she wants. And thanks to dear old mommy and daddy, I'm perfectly capable of handling the power. I'd never figured that Mimic's and my parents worked for Armacham itself," he mused.

The three titans just glared at him, taking defensive poses. "Just what do you intend to do?" Starfire demanded.

The feline gave her a snide grin, wrapping his arms around himself. "Whatever she wants me to," he answered, then threw his arms out, screaming wildly.

The telesthenic blast blinded the three heroes, and when they glanced up, Robin and Stray had gone.

And Starfire began to weep.

Author's Note: Just this: I always did hate this Robin. Egotistical jackoff.