181. We are the Titans part 2
The red sky.
Viper hung like a fly in silky pendulum strands.
Robin hobbled across the metal platform.
Pale.
Bleeding.
Wheezing.
He looked up.
Half an eyemask.
Half a blue pupil.
The hero.
The boy.
Breaking down the middle.
Capeless.
She saw the alien girl.
And tears formed.
And his lips quivered.
A chirping sound filled the air around him.
Like an electronic bird laughing a death song.
And Robin sighed and Robin gasped.
The detonator clicked.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
Plasma.
Flame.
Clouds of hot red orange.
They erupted up and through him.
The alien girl faded in smoke and ashes.
The red sky vomited down into crimson tongues.
The fire.
The fire.
PHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!
It crept up Robin's legs.
It bit up his ankles.
It burned up his thighs.
It singed his privates, his hips, his waist.
The spaces between his organs exploded in gas and steam.
His lungs quivered.
Filled with smoke.
Choked on ash.
The flakes of his own scorched skin falling into his howling lips.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!"
The concrete sarcophagus raised.
The sarcophagus lowered.
The tomb was closed.
And inside……
Alone……
The radioactive depository became an oven.
The flame and plasma dancing up came splashing back down.
Sloshing over his figure like lava.
Flickering off his limbs like red flags.
And his skin started melting.
Curling into his bone.
Sending muscle flapping about and evaporating like shrieking strands of meat.
And his eyes……
They popped.
They hissed.
Bursts of blood shrieking up and into the hellfire.
And what was left of his senses was the smell his own insides roasting.
"AAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!"
His dark hair flew off.
And in a high-pitch squeal like crackling lobsters.
Robin's body melted……melted……melted……and collapsed to the industrial brimstone like a molting wheat sack.
THWUMP!!!!!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!" Starfire screamed. She sat up on a windowsill and clutched at her red strands of hair, panting. Eyes clenched shut. "Nnnnnnnnnnnghhhhhhhhh!!!! X'Hal!! X'Hal!!!!"
She hyperventilated.
Sweated.
Gasped.
Swallowed.
"……………"
Her green eyes popped open.
Quivering lips opened.
With moist optics, she gazed to her right.
A throng of rescue workers stood—frozen in the middle of their urban excavations. They all stared worriedly at the alien girl.
"…………….," Starfire lowered her trembling hands from her hair. She shuddered. She stood up on wobbly legs and exhaled. "I am…..f-finished with my nap….," she muttered. A brave gulp. "I am….adequately ready to approach the heavy girders that require lifting again…."
Silence.
The workers slowly returned to their work.
The alien girl sighed. She hugged herself. A cold chill….she shuddered…then slowly floated over to reconvene with super-powered excavation in the Downtown district of the City.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The Titans stayed together so long not because of the perils they faced—I'm convinced—but because of the friends they had made. Because of how close they had gotten to the companions they each turned out to be for each other. Starfire found Robin. Beast Boy buddied up with Cyborg and eventually met Terra. Despite who would desire or not desire admitting it, Cyborg and Raven found each other.
But I, Diana, I don't know who I have 'found'. I like to think that I've 'found' all of the Titans. I acquired a family. Something to live for……and don't take that as something unnecessarily grim, but it's the truth. The Titans gave me purpose. Motivation. And—yes—acceptance.
But now, with Robin dead, I see the iron forges in everyone being challenged like never before. And as much as I'd love to keep this 'family' of mine, I seriously would not desire to stay close to a family that is apart and not whole. I headed East for many things, Diana. Many………personal things. But one of them was that I could not stand to stay in a place that only reminded me of collapse. And of Destruction. And of torture and pain. I had to make a future for myself. A stable future. One that would stay together. And if that meant that the only one single person I would ever 'find' in being with the Titans is myself, then so be it. I've spent a long, long time relying on myself……and trusting only in myself. It should come as no great challenge to me.
I am worried about Tempest. I don't know who he has found. And I don't think he knows who he has found either. If worse come to worse and the Titans do fall apart, he will be second after Starfire to run off. But what's even more terrible to conceive is……where exactly would he go? Tempest and I are both similar in one respect…we are both banished souls. I have my own reasons for 'banishment', but Tempest has the entire seas……two thirds of the world rejecting him. And on social-political bases to boot. This crime-fighting club was supposed to be a haven for him. But what has it turned into now?
Which is why I'm inclined to believe, Diana, that the ultimate answer for Prince Garth does not lie in the Titans……but in the Earth. The beautiful, bleeding earth of this raped City.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Okay!!" a worker uttered loudly from a large group of hard-hatted men circling a crushed building site. "Let 'er rip!!"
Raven breathed out of her nostrils and droned. "And 'rip' she will…." She posed her fingers meditatively. She lowered her eyelids. Pupils glowed a hot gray, and she chanted: "Azarath……Metrion……Zinthos……"
A huge hulk of buildingside lifted up into the cold November air besides the shipyards.
Raven concentrated, twisting her wrists and raising the debris higher and higher.
Nearly one hundred rescue workers and volunteers kept their distance. They stood in the early afternoon sunlight with tools and equipment at ready. They were all dressed for rugged digging and excavating. A good number of them had the trademark yellow ribbon around a wrist or two.
Tempest sat on a pile of crates where the wooden docks met the concrete of the waterside. His crutches rested beside him. He craned his neck and prepared two hands, stretched towards the levitating rubble.
I stood towards the far side, keeping people at bay. Eyeing the floating wreckage through my shades.
Raven breathed steadily….carrying the heavy mass slowly….slowly….slowly….towards a freighter bobbing alongside the concrete barge.
A worker or two stepped out of line.
I whistled, stepped over, and gently shoved them back.
The men swallowed nervously and kept their distance.
Raven's forehead tensed.
The wreckage started to vibrate in the air. Cracks were forming….
Raven hissed out of one side of her mouth: "It's starting to break, Tempest…."
"Right….," the Atlantean shifted in his seat. His dark eyes glowed a hot purple, and his hands followed suit with a violet aura.
SLOSH!!!!
A tentacle of water sprouted up from the Bay and circled around the floating bulge of wreckage. The 'tentacle' wrapped around and around until the debris was surrounded like the red stripe on a barber's pole. Then the water fanned out and circled the rubble entirely.
Raven took a breath, concentrated, and enveloped the water 'bubble' with her telekinesis.
Both Titans worked slowly….floating the debris all the way to the freighter.
I blurred over and stood on the edge of the freighter. I whistled. I motioned with my flesh and metal fingers, guiding the Titans' movement of the heap. I gestured them out further so that the debris floated directly over the open bed of the freighter. I gave an 'okay' sign and motioned 'down' slowly. The debris was lowered in a sphere of water and black energy. Then both telekinetic streams were released.
FLASH!!!
SPLOOOSH!!!
The wreckage was relocated successfully.
Raven exhaled.
Tempest's shoulders slumped and he panted.
A sigh of relief washed over the workers present. Swiftly, they returned to their job. Many of them searching through the crater unearthed by the work of the two Titans.
I hopped down smokily and stood besides Raven. I looked at her blankly.
She swallowed and nodded: "I'm okay."
I smiled hopefully.
The dark girl rubbed her temples. "Only two mountains of junk like that left. I swear…I didn't know the fiends in the black jeeps caused so much damage here."
I shrugged. I gazed off at the dockyards, where seven buildings had been damaged beyond repair. The hundred-or-so men swiftly went about setting up the next to the last relocation.
"It begs the question why Cyborg sent you here…," Raven droned.
I glanced at her sideways through my shades.
"I suppose he wanted to be alone when he went to 'resurrect' his Uncle," she said. She dragged her hood back over her head and stared with concealed eyes out over the gray waters of the Bay. "Or maybe he just wants to be alone in general."
"…………," I gazed at her.
"Not that I can blame him…," her lips were as cold and blue as the dying November air. "…I've pushed him away so much that I'm surprised he can stand. And Starfire isn't talking anymore. Beast Boy can't seem to eat, sleep, or drink peacefully anymore." A pause. She added: "Tempest might just as well be drowning….."
"………….."
"For once….," she uttered quietly. "For once in the Tower, everything is quiet. And everything is peaceful. And I can meditate. And I can read. And I can lie in the shadows uninterrupted."
A beat.
She tilted her head away from me and muttered: "Why….Why…do I now……not desire the fulfillment of all my dreams?"
"……………"
"Robin's death. It is so silencing. So naked. Like bone exposed to a winter flurry of snow. The tiniest heat feels like the hottest furnace. I can almost feel……my father. Without looking. Without so much as trying to smell him." Silence. She looked at me. Past me. "Was this what I truly wanted?"
I didn't answer.
Tempest hobbled over on his crutches.
He sighed.
He said: "How long must we be here?"
Raven instantly grumbled: "You've got better things to do?"
"………never mind," he frowned and started to hobble away. "Why do I even bother asking you?"
Raven turned to glare at his shoulders. "That isn't an attitude a Titan should have in public…"
"And just what is anymore?"
"………."
"………."
I sighed.
Tempest was shuffling off…when he paused at the sight of something.
Someone.
His dark eyes blinked. "Oh."
"???" I looked over Raven's hooded form.
A car was parked outside the perimeter of the salvaging sight by the Bayside.
A couple of vaguely familiar teenagers stood around it, some leaning against it.
But standing closest to the 'off-limits' tape was a freckled teenager with stringy-brown hair.
"……..," I glanced at Tempest.
He exhaled. He looked at me. "Erm….sorry, man. But….uhm….."
"???"
"P-Permission to be excused? If just for a little bit?"
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
A beat.
"You're the one in charge, Noir….," Raven reminded me numbly.
I winced.
Oh yeah.
I motioned Tempest along.
He nodded his head, turned, and hobbled sadly off.
Raven shuffled off and paced lonely along a wooden dock.
And I stood alone.
In the grayness.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"The guys drove me here….cuz…..well….," Lindsay simpered. "I had to check on you. I-I hope you don't mind…"
Tempest hobbled beside her as they strolled alongside the concrete barges overshadowing the cold Bay waters.
He said nothing.
"I heard about you and Raven and Noir doing work here on the shipyards…," Lindsay spoke. "And I thought it'd be the best way I could run into you. I mean….it's not like I have your phone number or anything. Hehehehehe."
"……….," Tempest exhaled.
Lindsay glanced at him. She bit her lip. She looked off towards the bulk of the City.
Silence.
"I can't swim anymore….," Tempest muttered.
Lindsay looked at him. She took a breath. "Are you sure?"
"Pretty much…," he uttered, his crutches clanking as he spoke.
Lindsay swallowed. "H-Have you even tried?"
"What's the use?" Tempest exhaled. "It's not like there's much left for me in the World of Water."
"………," Lindsay stared.
Tempest hobbled to a stop. He sighed. He looked at her, his dark eyes thin: "What are you really here for?"
Lindsay twiddled her fingers behind her back. "To see you."
"But why?" Tempest blinked. "All I'll ever have to share is death." He gazed off across the waters. "All the Titans have now is this…..breath of death. It hasn't stopped curling the hairs on my arms for days…"
Lindsay ran a nervous hand through her stringy brown hair. "I…..I-I don't believe that."
"…….," he glanced at her sideways. "What, exactly?"
"The Titans aren't so….so deathly…," she uttered. "So many more people would be dead now than there truly, sadly are…..if such was the case."
"What does it matter who is saved or who isn't?" Tempest muttered. "Death is death. It's taken its hold. It's showed its true colors." He gazed back at the waters. "It's shown its ownership over this City."
Lindsay bit her lip. "I….I believe a lot of the living matters."
"Yeah? Why??"
"I'm alive for one….," Lindsay said. "I'm alive because of you."
Tempest exhaled. "Haven't you already thanked me for that?"
"………I don't know."
"???" Tempest glanced at her.
She looked at him closely. "I don't know if I've thanked you, Tempest. A person who is truly thanked……doesn't live so hopelessly."
"………," he stared at her for a bit. He shuffled about with his crutches and hobbled off a few paces and came to a standstill. Facing away from her. His fingers clenched around the holds in the supports. "I was foolish."
"Foolish?" Lindsay leaned her head to the side. "How so?"
"To think that I could 'live' at all….," Tempest murmured. "To think that I could uphold her good will." A pause. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. "There were times….th-there were times that I almost blamed her. When I lay in the hospital, my leg born into its useless age……I almost blamed Tula. How could she be so short-sighted? How could she not see the utter failure I would be in a world where the seas vomit me out and the only sanctuary I would have is some blind, bleeding earth?? I shudder to think of Tula as a fool. But if she was a fool, then so was I. We were two foolish, broken hearts who raced towards death in some psychotic hope to preserve the existence of the other. Tula reached the fatal finishing line first. And here I am….suffering alive the Hades that both our juvenile passions earned. I should have done the selfish thing. I should have thrown myself into the jaws of Haetryd. At least…..At least then the purer half of our union would have survived. Golden and gleaming with the pride of Atlantis…even if that pride was a lonely and cold-hearted thing like that which I hold shivering to my own chest hour after hour."
He shuddered.
His shoulders sagged.
He stared at the floor.
Lindsay was silent.
The Atlantean gradually uttered: "I am tired of trying to please her. It's like making love to a gray memory that's fading with each passing second. What hurts the most….even more than the blade Dagger drove in me to end the aquatic horizons of my mind…..is that for a moment there, I must have imagined—however faintly—that I would once again hold tightly to the warmth and life that was Tula again. All the time I adapted to the Titans, it danced before me. Like a lantern fish's lure in the abyss. I swam towards it, ignorant of the pressure building up all around me. The weight of pressure squeezing my clamshell sanity to the breaking point. I shall never…..ever reach that solace I have once half-dreamed of. Tula is dead. And with her died the last pure part of me. And all that's left is the seed of a demon…..and the bitterness of a salt-laden bog chased away from the depths of a harbor."
The cold November air gusted over the waters and kicked at their hair.
Lindsay swallowed and took a step towards him.
"You…..truly….truly loved her….didn't you?"
"………," he slowly nodded. Facing away.
"Was all of that love something of pain?"
"……….."
"Does all the warmth you still feel from her bring only sadness?" she walked around him so that they faced. Her face was earnest. "Doesn't it at least fill you with hope?"
"Hope for what?" he grunted.
"That someday…somehow….you'll feel that warmth again?"
He frowned, exhaling.
"Can't you at least…..a-at least believe??"
"What is there left of belief?" Tempest muttered. His eyes fell closed. "What is there left in this City….in this world but the somber longing for a quick, cold tide?"
"Even that?? Even the coldest longing….," Lindsay touched his shoulder. "…don't you think that's….that's some sort of message?"
"Message of what?"
"That something is waiting for you!!" Lindsay emphasized. "Something or someone….truly purposeful!! That you need not be so full of dread!!"
His eyes opened. He looked at her. He gritted his teeth and shook her arm off. "I'm not like you!!"
She gaped at him.
"I don't have to believe in some invisible God to keep sane about things I know have already consumed my bleeding heart!!"
"I'm not saying you have to!" she exclaimed.
"But what is it that you believe?? That after all the torture my comrades and I have already gone through…all we are destined for is some afterlife of further punishment if we are not to reach a spiritual epiphany before the mortal Jester consumes us??"
"……….."
"Even when I was but a tadpole in my Idyllist's eyes….," Tempest hissed, "….I learned that Neptune had no saving graces for the suffering masses of the seas. And when Ivan, and Tram, and Tula all fell before the shadow and yet I lived, I realized that if there be gods still minding Poseidon's playgrounds……they are but deaf stoics to the cries of helpless souls. There is no Creator who fancies this world, no matter if It be loving or treacherous. The universe is like a whirlpool…a cosmic swirl of liquid accidents all surging together. And sometimes in the white foam we are blinded into believing in splashes of faint hope and faith. We long for invisible joys that are but the mere side effects of descending friction. Don't try and tempt me with your God. I may not have lived a long life….but I have lived long enough to know that death is even longer…and greater. And death's agents are the only forces that nail together the ever-crumbling structure of existence!!!"
"T-Tempest….please….," Lindsay pleaded with a sad face and tightened her grip on his shoulders. "J-Just listen…"
He snarled. "Let go of me!!" He pushed her arm back.
Lindsay stumbled.
But Tempest stumbled even more so. And he gasped. And his crutches gave way. And he fell over and collapsed on his back.
Lindsay gasped. "I-I'm sorry!! Shoot!! H-Hang on, lemme help you up—"
"NNNGH!! STAY BACK!!!"
Lindsay froze.
Tempest sat up. Panting. His teeth showing. His dark eyes were glowing a hot purple. "Don't you see what I am?!?!"
Lindsay couldn't help it. Her eyes widened.
A purple glow frothed around the Atlantean. His upper limbs heaved along his torso. The Bay seemed to boil around him.
"I am the spawn of Slizzath….the last in the cursed line of King Thar!! I am the vessel of a terrible, wrathful demon!! The absolute, most banal evil in the eyes of your religion and many others, assuredly!! I know death so well not so much because I have suffered it but because I EMBODY IT!!!"
"……….," Lindsay held her ground. Still.
Tempest struggled. On his own, he stood up. He sweated and toiled but finally leaned on his crutches. Hunched over, he panted. The purple light faded from his eyes and something cold and wet took its place like icy glass. "I am a demon…waiting to be born. Much like Raven is the vessel for something so bloody and red and destructive. Noir is a killing machine. Starfire and Beast Boy are fading bodies. And Cyborg is a growingly thicker stone of inhumanity."
A beat.
He swallowed. "All the Titans are….all that the Titans are aiming to be……is death….."
He turned and faced Lindsay.
Pitifully.
He breathed and said: "I'm sorry….that I ever….ever befriended you…."
"…………..," she stared back.
He shuddered. He said: "I first talked to you because that foolish part of me…..that foolish, lovesick part of me still dreamt of invisible things. But beliefs die for the very same reason that they are born. They are things of fancy. And all I've managed to do…..is drag you closer and closer into this depressed whirlpool that my life is. That all the Titans' lives are now." He lowered his eyes and gazed off. "It sucked Robin in. And it didn't spout so much as a carcass back. There's no need for more people to suffer the inevitable pull."
"T-Tempest??" Lindsay murmured. "You sound so….so defeated. So hopeless. It worries me. Please….tell me….are you—"
"I am not about to do anything stupid….," Tempest murmured. "Don't feel the need to try and save me. Fate has already swallowed me up. All I can do now…..is wait. Wait and see how further it can rip me asunder."
"You've waited long enough to see death take its toll…," Lindsay stepped bravely towards him. She sniffed back a tear and uttered: "Don't you think it is about time to wait for what life may bring? To awaken you? To convict you??"
He hobbled off. "You can wait around and practice whatever beliefs you wish to…," he muttered over his shoulder. "Just….do not practice them around me."
"…………….."
"For as little a time you have left….that we all have left……it is the least you can do for yourself……..by staying away."
"Tempest….."
"Don't ever visit me again…….ever…..," and he was gone.
Lindsay bit her lip. She wrung to hands close to her heart and looked down, shuddering. Her eyes were moist and….in the silence of the lapping waves.
She said a prayer.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
It is a very strange and haunting sensation, Diana. Lately I've found myself longing for the Wyldecarde days. Yeah. That's right. I look back and remember the days when I was intolerably alone and hated and ostracized. The days when the only caring thing I did for the Titans was attack them viciously on all fronts with the blade and the playing card. I was a villain. A turncoat. A 'third apprentice'. And yet……
And yet……I knew that the Titans were safe as long as I poured my all into the farce.
I don't have that assurance anymore. There is no evil entity to protect my friends from now. And even if there was—where Dagger is concerned—he has proven an undefeatable foe. And his villainous devices have already sank their fangs into companions and injected such a venom……
I feel hopeless, Diana. I cannot do a thing for my fellow friends. There is nothing that can save the Titans from their own despondency. It is a force stronger than any hypnotized army, squadron of combat helicopters, or carbonite explosives.
There is a queer feeling of optimism in the corner of my mute mouth, though. I look back at history and I try to tell myself that the Titans have been through this sort of thing before. When Slade ripped Terra's image asunder before them, the Titans had to have been left with an irrevocable sense of pain and loss and vulnerability. I almost wonder what Beast Boy was like long before I ever met him. Or the limits of Starfire's joy. Or the thickness of Raven's emotional shields. For the longest time, I was a hapless observer to the recovering emotions of the wounded and reeling Titans. It was their unspeakable grief and pain that branded me as a traitor when Slade and Jinx pulled their brutal pranks. And it was their same scars that held me and didn't let go after I loss my arm to somehow equalize the tragedy of our trust.
It was but a whisper……It was a but a whisper……
For the cloud we all live in now.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"A little further, Mister Beast Boy!!"
"You've got it!!"
"Keep pushing!!"
"Nnnnghhh……," a large, green triceratops strained. Its nostrils flared. With a crown of leather horns, it shoved and shoved against a mountain of debris. Slowly—while workers haloed the changeling around the site—the morphing Titan pushed the rubble away. His thick dinosaur feet stomped and shifted as the dusty pile was removed from the site, revealing a gaping hole in the pavement that opened up into a basement car park. Workers shouted to each other and quickly descended into the hole, searching with flashlights for survivors or bodies.
Whichever would come first.
Beast Boy pushed the debris to a stop besides a dumptruck with a mechanical arm. The changeling morphed back into a panting, sweating elf. He stumbled back, wiping his brow. A worker or two passed by him, patting him on the shoulder. He nodded breathily at them, found a railing along a sidewalk somewhere, and leaned against it.
Panting.
"………………," he gazed at the fresh hole where the workers were digging.
Silence.
Shuffling footsteps.
"N-Need some water, Mr. Logan?"
"????" Beast Boy turned and looked over his shoulder.
A petite….petite girl with blonde hair stood with a plastic cup of water. She was one of the volunteers…providing refreshments and first aid for the workers on the sidelines. She gazed nervously at Beast Boy. Nervously.
Beast Boy blinked. "How'd you know my last name?"
The girl seemed to wince. "Oh…um………well. It's not like it's a real secret. The papers. The Internet—"
"I'd like some."
"Huh?"
"Some water…that'd be cool."
"Oh. Of c-course. Here you go…," she handed him the cup.
He took it. He sipped thirstily. He swallowed. He exhaled.
"…….."
"……."
"…….did you need something?"
"Oh…uhm….," she shifted where she stood. "I was just gonna….give you more water if you were interested."
"That's kind of you….," Beast Boy muttered. He looked at her sideways. He blinked.
She stared back.
"………," his eyes thinned. "You're a fan, aren't you?"
She bit her lip.
"What's your name?"
She fidgeted. "H-Hope. And…uhm….yes. I am a fan."
"I get this fleeting sense like I've seen you before."
"Well, you fly over this City an awful lot, Mr. Logan."
Beast Boy pointed: "The one-eyed chick. The one that took care of Noir….and the one who was at Phaser Labs when Slug and Reload bought it." He blinked. "You were with her at the funeral."
"Yeah. We're all……really close friends."
"Heh….small City," Beast Boy sipped the last drops of water and gazed off towards the hole being salvaged. "Very….small City…."
"…….."
"Sorry…uhm…..," Beast Boy mumbled, turning the plastic cup over. "I'd normally be all giddy and stuff to find myself talking to an actual 'fan' for once……..it's just…."
"Want more water, Mr. Logan?"
"Hmmm? Oh….yes. That'd be nice. Thanks…uhm….Hope," he offered the cup.
She blushed. She took the cup and walked away.
When she came back, it was refilled.
He sipped slowly this time. Still gazing at the recovery efforts.
She stood behind him, arms folded in the chill of November.
Silence………….
…….
"I….uhm……I couldn't stop crying…..," Hope spoke.
"…….??" Beast Boy glanced over his shoulder.
She sniffed, but put on a strong face. "When I saw them talking about his death on the news."
"……..," Beast Boy looked forward.
"Even the anchorperson was choking. I didn't lose any of my friends or family on November Fourth, but when Robin died….I just didn't know what to do. I was numb. Nobody on my message board posted anything for a good two days either. It's like both the physical and the digital world stopped altogether. I got together with Lisa, Janice, and Tiffany just to cry….it would seem. You must understand, Mr. Logan……almost everyone in this City identify themselves with the Titans. When Robin died….it was like…….like….."
"…………"
Hope took a shuddering breath, a hand clasped over her heart. "I suppose we all suffer from self-insertion sometimes. None of us can really know what it's like for you and the other heroes. But please know…..," she walked around and gazed intently at the side of his face. "It doesn't mean we can't mourn with you or be glad with you if ever you were to just……ask for help."
"………….," he gazed back.
She swallowed and added: "The Titans may have dwindled by one. But in this City….they are over a million strong. You are not alone, Mr. Logan. None of you are. None of you are….."
A beat.
Beast Boy smiled somewhat. Painfully.
"Funny…..," he whispered. "….a year ago, I would have given an arm and a leg to have a loyal fan kneeling before me."
Hope swallowed. "Actually….I'm standing up straight."
Beast Boy bit his lip.
She simpered.
He smiled.
She giggled.
He chuckled.
And then from the excavation—"Hey!! Over here!! Over here!! A body!!"
Beast Boy gasped.
Hope jerked.
The changeling jumped up, dropping the plastic cup.
Water went splashing.
Workers were gathering around a corner of the debris-laded hole in the building and concrete.
Beast Boy jogged over.
Hope watched nervously from the sidelines.
The changeling ran over a ring of debris and knelt besides the worker who had called out. With fervent glances, even more fervent words were hurriedly exchanged. Beast Boy said something. The workers said more things. The changeling pointed. The men nodded. The Titan pushed them aside. A ring of workers stood back.
Hope shuffled up to the crater. She stared down. "……."
Beast Boy took a deep breath. He morphed into a snake. He slithered down through the cracks in the wrecked urban earth. He disappeared from view.
The workers watched. The workers breathed mist into the cold, nippy air. The workers wrung their gloved hands.
Hope bit her lip. She clasped to hands before her chin.
Silence……..
The rock started to shift from below.
The workers stirred.
Beast Boy's voice growled muffledly from underneath the layers. It transformed into something larger and darker.
And then….
The rocks unearthed.
The workers gasped and stepped back.
A huge, green gorilla stood, lifting concrete blocks up high with meaty arms.
Hope gasped.
The gorilla tossed the blocks safely aside. Snarling, he picked up more and more concrete slabs with his animalistic strength. Something wilted and soft was gradually being exposed beneath his burly pose.
The workers closed in.
Hope craned her neck.
Beast Boy let loose one last snarl before shrinking down into elf form. He knelt down besides the crumple form of a blonde, teenage girl underneath the rubble. She lay on her back, a terrible purple bruise on her forehead. Her lips were parted. Her right eye was ever so slightly open, a hint of dried blue. She held a bundle of cloth in her grasp.
The workers crowded around.
Hope watched.
Beast Boy slipped his glove off and felt the girl's neck with naked fingers.
"…………."
His eyes slowly closed. He gazed up at Hope. When his eyes reopened, they were glistening.
The girl above bit her lip.
Beast Boy gazed at the bundle in the dead body's grasp. It was moving.
"……" He leaned his head to the side. He leaned over and opened the bundle.
The others watched.
Beast Boy stood up, and when he did….he had a tiny, shivering kitten in his arms. He cradled the scrawny feline, shuddering. He petted its wet head once or twice before walking up the crater and handing it to a pair of workers. They had painful smiles on their faces as they bundled the tiny cat up in towels and petted it warm. They carried it across the site and towards the circle of ambulances.
Beast Boy stood alone, his torso heaving. He gazed down at the body.
Workers were already gathering around the deceased girl. With a stretcher and blankets. And long faces.
Beast Boy kept staring.
But Hope had turned away.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Later that afternoon, I stumbled back into my cellar bedroom.
My body was cold and wet from the seaside work in the cold November air.
I shuddered.
I wandered over to the mantle and put Myrkblade up.
I swiveled around.
There was an e-mail alert on the laptop atop my bed.
"……."
I took my shades off.
Black eyes blinking in the dim light of lanterns, I wandered over.
I sat sideways on the bed.
I fingered the laptop.
I opened the e-mail.
I exhaled.
Kara……
I scrolled to the body of the text.
'Dear Jordan'
'I'm sorry that I couldn't be there for his funeral. I wanted to. I truly did. But you must understand. I had to—'
I jammed my finger over the 'delete' button.
The e-mail disappeared.
Snarling, I flung my shades across the darklit room.
Clack!!
I ran gnarled fingers through my black head of hair.
Seething……panting…….breathing…..
"…………"
I shuddered.
I swallowed a painful lump down my throat.
I concentrated.
"……….," I gazed with thin eyes at the computer screen again.
Sighing, I scrolled over across the desktop, opened the delete folder, and 'restored' Kara's e-mail.
And then I simply…..put it aside.
For 'later'.
"…………," I lingered.
Sitting on my bed.
Gazing up at the dark shadows.
The emptiness of everything.
The lonely flicker of a blinding lantern.
"……….."
I stripped my boots off.
I placed them on the floor.
I swiveled up till I sat squarely on the bed.
I cracked my flesh and metal knuckles.
I opened a new e-mail addressed to the Watchtower.
I paused……………then typed.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The Titans' Tower is a big, big place. How it measures up to the Bat Cave or the Fortress of Solitude or the Watchtower, I have no earthly clue. I imagine that after your visit, surely you could estimate, Diana.
Essentially, it isn't an awkward thing to wander around the Tower all day and get a fleeting sense that everyone is missing everyone else in the multi-level labyrinth. I'm a superhero graced—on occasion—with spatial sense. And even still I've gotten lost numerous times within this structure.
These last few days, I truly do feel alone in these halls. Ever before, I had the idea in the back of my head that all the Titans I weren't seeing were doing things with each other in their own respect. But now I know that what I see is what I get……and what we all get.
We shudder to see each other. And I think that's a sad thing. With Robin gone, you would imagine us desiring the warmth and companionship of each other all the more. But we seem to be pushing away at each other. Crumbling at the mere sight of each other. The fact that we've managed to work together so much on various excavation projects throughout the City is amazing in and of itself. But then what?
Even if this City is rebuilt……what will it take to keep us all together? Another evil? Another game of cat and mouse with Dagger? A kick in the rear from the Messenger?
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I paused in the middle of writing.
A chill ran up from my metal limb.
I hugged myself.
A beat.
Inhaling.
Exhaling.
Teeth clenched…
I resumed typing….
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The Messenger……
He was once the only hope I had in this world. When Wyldecarde emerged from me, it was his words that pushed me forward to do the impossible. I owed him the sanity I desperately needed to win back my friends from potential oblivion.
Yet still are his words endlessly encouraging and optimistic. But no longer do they give me any sense of warmth or hope. All the Messenger is now is pain. Deception. A brutal laugh and kick in the face.
He told me that things would come full circle in the way that I would most desire it. And now Robin is dead. And all strong words have become hallow shells for some kind of pathetic poison pellets. I never imagined—even for a moment—the Messenger being identically a snickering prophet of doom as he once was a beacon of salvation. But it happened.
And if I were to see him now……well.
Maybe Tempest is right in his latest ramblings. Faith dies for the very same reason that it is born. For it is built on things invisible……fanciful……
And fleeting.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Schwiish!!
Dust flew.
Beast Boy shuffled into the room.
His green eyes dry and empty.
He gazed through the upper room in Titan's Tower.
The purple and brown colors of the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Painting the desert theme.
The bed with the lonely, heart-shaped container of silver resting alone.
A pair of leather goggles hanging off a rack in the corner.
A circular couch facing a wide stretch of windows and a gray city beyond in the even grayer evening fall….
He shuffled over.
He stood before the bed.
He stared at the heart-shaped box.
"…….."
He slowly sat down.
He caressed it with a gentle, green hand.
Breathing slowly.
Silence…….
……..
A floating figure.
Starfire gazed into the room.
"C-Cyborg? Cyborg—Beast Boy!"
"Cyborg isn't here….," Beast Boy grumbled. "He's still in the City. At Phaser Labs….I think…"
"Oh….," Starfire gazed down at the purple carpeted floor. She had an envelope in her hands. Freshly sealed. "I do apologize for the intrusion. I saw the light in here and I only assumed that perhaps he was in here and….." She blinked. She gazed up at Beast Boy. "What are you here for, Beast Boy?"
"No reason…," he grunted.
She swallowed. "But….this is Terra's—"
"Some of the workers were worried about you, Star…," Beast Boy mumbled without looking at her.
She leaned her head to the side.
He trailed his finger around the silver heart. "They said that you suddenly screamed in the middle of taking a nap."
She bit her lip.
"They said you looked stressed and preoccupied the entire time you were moving stuff around and helping the excavation in downtown."
"Truly…," the alien girl nodded. "I was preoccupied. And now I must find Cyborg to—"
"Was it because you lost all hope, Star?"
"……B-Beast Boy??"
"Did you scream because you realized….that more than just Robin is gone?" he shuddered. His brow was furrowed. His lips tight. "That something so much larger has been ripped from all of us and the entire City as well?? One by one?"
She gazed at him.
He shut his eyes.
He exhaled….
"That there is nothing we can do. Nothing we can do at all. For all that was once good is dead…"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
They carried the girl's shrouded body away.
On a stretchered.
Workers bowed their heads.
Men and women were silent.
Hope watched with a teary face.
She glanced over.
Beast Boy was walking over towards the ambulances.
His back to the body.
He saw two paramedics gathered over a table.
He craned his neck.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"You think you've done all the crying you ever could….,"
The Changeling said.
"…..you think you've shed all the tears there is to shed. And when even the most extreme corners of your heart and mind beg for an end….and for an answer…."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Beast Boy walked to a stop.
His lips parted.
The paramedics stopped trying to revive the kitten.
The tiny thing lay still atop the table.
Its tiny jaws stretched open.
Eyes shut.
Whiskers deflated……
"…………," Beast Boy blinked.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"….you wake up."
He swallowed.
He frowned.
He hissed: "And suddenly….the red sky is something too real and too heavy for even stone arms to hold at bay."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The dead girl.
Her blonde hair.
Her blue eyes.
Almost a perfect imitation.
Beast Boy was blinking a mental slideshow away just as one paramedic walked past him.
With a furred thing bundled up in damp towels.
Wrapped and wrapped and wrapped…
And tossed into a metal dumpster a few feet away with the rest of the wreckage.
CLANG!!!!!
The tiny body echoed louder than thunder against the shell.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Cl-Clink!!!
The heart-shaped box fell off the bed and rolled to an upside down position on the carpeted floor.
Beast Boy was sprawled across the bed.
Digging his face into the comforter.
Wetting it with leaking emeralds.
"Th-There is no hope for Terra anymore…..," he sobbed quietly. Loud sniffs. Tiny voice. "There is no use to have faith in anything anymore…….it's all so cold….so cold and dead……I almost wish I never joined this team to begin with. I wish I'd never met her…….I wish I'd found better ways to grow up….for the Beast Boy to perish….."
"Beast Boy….," Starfire tearfully murmured. She floated towards him with a hand oustretched. "P-Please—"
"GO AWAY!!!" he shrieked, muffled.
She recoiled. Shuddering.
He quivered and sobbed into the bed by himself.
Starfire bit her lip.
She shook all over.
With hot tears of her own, she gritted her teeth and ripped the envelope and the contents within to shreds.
She clamped a hand over her lips and flew down the hallways.
Not to the exit of the Tower.
But to her room….
The changeling was alone in a ghost's desert domain.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Raven walked slowly down the abandoned, collapsed corridor of Phaser Labs.
Her robe rustled around her.
She craned her neck and stared into a dimly lit linterior.
Cyborg sat on his knees.
Before a computer console, barely surviving.
Wires and keypads and motherboards and drives rested all around him.
Like loose entrails.
Humming.
Bleeping.
Blinking.
Cyborg typed on anything he could.
Panting.
Eyeing the flickering monitor in a frenzy.
He murmured something to himself.
Like a desperate field surgeon in the middle of a battle.
Trying to bring a wounded comrade to life.
"Come on…….C-Come on…."
Raven watched. Her lips pursing.
Cyborg gritted his teeth.
He sweat.
And….
The monitor flickered.
The speakers crackled.
"Snkkkt……V……V-Victor?"
Cyborg gasped…..smiling.
"V-Victor??"
"Old man?"
"……………what happened, Victor?"
Cyborg swallowed hard. He uttered: "A lot of things, Uncle. But it's good to have you back. Hang tight. I gotta transfer you outta here."
"Why? What for?? What happened to Phaser Labs? I can't access any of the holographic pedestals."
"……you mean…..y-you don't remember a thing?"
"What am I supposed to remember?"
"……..," Cyborg leaned forward. "Simon…..tell me….."
"…………"
"What day is it?"
"Why……November Third, isn't it my boy?"
Cyborg shuddered.
He brought a hand to his face.
"………..," Raven swallowed.
"Am I………in error??"
Cyborg sniffed. When he looked up, his human eye was moist. "No, Uncle. You're right. It's November Third."
"But am I in error?"
"You're alive, old man….," Cyborg shuddered. "That's enough. Dear God…..it's enough." His gaze fell off. "Otherwise….I wouldn't know where to begin…."
Raven closed her eyes.
"I……..just……d-don't know where to begin……….."
"Victor?"
"……….."
"Victor??"
Raven left the scene.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
At some point in the middle of crying, Beast Boy looked over at the open doorway to the Terra's old bedroom.
Shreds of an envelope and a letter lay on the carpet.
He sniffed.
He wiped his wet cheek with a sleeve.
He swung his feet of the bed.
He dropped down, small and elfin as ever.
Wobbling, he marched over.
He knelt before the scraps.
He lifted the envelope and letter pieces in shaking, green hands.
His wet eyes narrowed.
His puffy lips parted.
The envelope was legibly addressed to 'Cyborg, Leader of the Titans'.
Beast Boy pulled the ripped pieces of the letter out.
And though he couldn't read the entirety of the ornate writings, he made out a few words in Starfire's decent English.
'……apologize……'
'……return……'
'……Tamaran……'
'……resignation……'
A breath escaped his sore throat.
He gazed through the cracked door and hugged the shreds of the forsaken letter to his chest.
And all he saw in the hallway was darkness.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Starfire sat on her round, plush bed.
Half-curled up.
She hugged something to her chest and chin.
Something black and golden.
Her eyes were moist.
And she shuddered into the shadows.
And she sighed.
But she stayed put.
She stayed put…..
With her slow tears.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
As night fell, Raven floated over the building tops.
Hugging herself.
Alone.
Cold, freezing winds blew at her blue hair.
She took a deep breath.
Gazing down at the haloed excavation sites and health stations beneath her feet.
And she breathed gently.
And she gazed up into the darkness.
And—for a time—let herself be swallowed.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Tempest sat in the indoor pool of the Titan's gym.
Drenched in his casual jeans and t-shirt.
The crutches lying off to the side.
He waded still and dead in the warm, lapping waters.
Numb to their healing fingers.
And he glared across the surface.
Stuck somewhere between fury and futility.
His white specks even tinier in enormous, dark eyes.
His face long.
"…………."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Cyborg stood outside Phaser Labs.
His arms folded.
Watching workers forklift the last of precious motherboards and computer instruments out of the laboratory structure.
Watching other workers prepare for demolition.
And he exhaled, long and hard.
He gazed up at the night sky.
The stars struggling to shimmer past the bright light of a floodlamp.
They tried….and tried.
But failed.
Cyborg closed his human eye and awaited the thunder.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I sat on my knees.
In my lantern-lit room.
Gazing past the laptop.
Hugging myself.
"………….."
I sighed.
I swallowed.
With shivering fingers, I typed…
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The Titans……
I don't know what to do anymore, Diana.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do……