Hi everyone! I hope you're all ready, because here's a new chapter! In this awesome new chapter, we find Starfire waking up in time to find herself held prisoner aboard Blackfire's brand-new personal luxury warship. And in the process, she proceeds, naturally, to have both an unpleasant reunion with her older sister as well as a similarly unpleasant reunion with Cometbolt (who she turns out to indeed have once known quite well before the Tamaran-Gordania war that ended with her being sold to the Gordanians). Sound worth a read? I certainly hope so! I also hope that you read, review, and enjoy!

A/N: But first, I'll just remind you once more that I do not own Teen Titans, or anything else DC-based. The only things in this chapter that I DO own are the Umbrosians, the 3 alien races introduced in this chapter that I made up myself, and the English translation 'Cometbolt'; a translation for a name that I shall finally allow you to know the Tamaranean words for from canon DC comics (assuming you don't already know from Cometbolt's physical appearance description and apparent history with Starfire). All that said, onward with the fic!

Chapter 12:

Family Remains

Starfire groaned as she woke up. She opened her eyes, groggy and bleary eyed as she tried her best to figure out what was happening. Then it all came back to her and she gasped in horror. She had been escorted outside the Gordanian palace by an apparent Tamaran royal guard who'd informed her that Galfore had reportedly needed her. Not too long after she'd reached the opposite side of the palace drawbridge, she'd suddenly felt a stinging sensation in her right shoulder near the base of her neck. She'd had just enough time to turn her head and see a suspicious dart stuck in her shoulder, and then weakly turn her head to face the guard behind her and try to ask what was happening before she'd lost consciousness.

Now that she was awake and could remember all that, her eyes widened in further horror as she realized that she was being carried down the hallway of an unfamiliar looking ship by what looked like a trio of Scooby Doo monsters. She could recognize the species of each of the three beings that were currently carrying her; and neither of them should have even been willing to work together, let alone alongside her sister.

The phantom shadow-like being currently clutching its clawed hands around her left arm was a native of the Polaris System planet Kialandi. She could recognize the zombie-like being clutching her right arm as a native of the Vega System moon Formora. Finally, she was able to instantly recognize the pterodactyl ghost-like being holding her by both feet as a native of Korugar's immediate neighboring planet Morzan.

The Formoran, however, was the one she was the most alarmed to see. She knew from her studies that this species was largely peaceful, and that the few criminals amongst the species, despite their large size and strength, were far too meek and cowardly to work alongside the chronically backstabbing Kialandians or savagely bloodthirsty Morzani.

She lifted her head, fighting not to panic. "What are you doing?! Where am I?! Why are you working with my sister?!"

The three figures stopped in their tracks and looked her in the eyes, their own suddenly glowing red while their bodies became encased in a shadowy aura. "Does this answer your questions?" said the Formoran in a very Umbrosian sounding voice.

The Morzani warrior scoffed. "I sure hope it does," it squawked. "The last thing we need is for her to turn out to be a brainless idiot."

"Now, now," said the Kialandian. "No need to throw around insults. This is strictly business for us to complete for Komand'r and her partner."

Starfire raised her eyebrow in half fear and half confusion. "Your voices; you sound like Umbrosians. Why?"

"Oh that," said the Kialandian as he briefly removed his left hand from her arm and examined it. "These forms in which you now see us? These are not our true bodies."

"Indeed not," the Formoran agreed, letting go with his right hand to examine it. "These are just temporary bodies we've borrowed."

"Yes," agreed the Morzani. "A real shame to. We don't look nearly as frightening when we have to keep our true forms hidden inside such paltry cloaks of flesh." He then directed a look at his body, seeming to think to himself. "Though I will admit, all things considered, I do like this vessel."

The Kialandian and Formoran rolled their eyes and returned their gaze to their captive. "Please ignore our comrade while he preens and pontificates," said the Formoran

"I heard that!"

Starfire winced as the Morzani's grip suddenly tightened around her ankles.

"Enough," said the Kialandian. "Let us keep moving, we can continue to explain ourselves while we're walking."

The trio resumed their walk, carrying Starfire along in the process. "As you have probably guessed by this point, we are indeed Umbrosians possessing the bodies of other species."

"Why we are doing so?" said the Formoran. "Simple. So that we may survive being aboard this ship." He gestured to the lights on the ceiling of he hall. "What little light is present on board our own ships is specifically designed with our physiology in mind so as to not cause us to disintegrate into ash upon contact. But to survive on board any other species' ship, either the lights on such a ship need to be left completely off at all times, or we must take possession of alternate bodies to use as shields. As you can see, the three of us, plus a sizable number of others of our kind, have chosen the latter option so as to serve as guards and personal soldiers on your sister's own brand-new personal luxury warship."

"Indeed," said the Morzani. "Of course, we are limited in that we can only take possession of beings that are already dead. Furthermore, the dead bodies have to be fresh, as any decomposition present in a vessel, no matter how small, would be a gaping hole in our defenses, and we can't have that."

"Fortunately," the Kialandian continued, "your sister's newest partner was nice enough to steal a sizable number of corpses from an intergalactic prison's morgue for us to use right on the day they were to be cremated, and here we are."

They reached a doorway, and the Formoran vessel pounded its left fist against the door. "We require entry," it said.

"Acknowledged," hissed a voice from the other side. "Just one second."

The sound of gongs went off from behind the door, followed by what sounded like discomforted hissing shrieks and bubbling liquid, causing Starfire to raise her eyebrows in confusion.

"It is safe now," hissed the voice behind the door.

The Kialandian drew out what looked like some sort of card and slid it through a slot in a machine next to the door, which then opened.

Starfire's eyes widened as she found herself being carried across a narrow catwalk bridge positioned above what looked like a giant metallic pit full of boiling lava. She also could have sworn she saw the silhouette of something large swimming through the lava at one point; but when she focused her attention on the area, the silhouette was gone. As they reached the center of this bridge, Starfire heard flapping wings and looked up in time to see a pair of Gordanians flying around in circles over the bridge and pit.

The Morzani vessel noticed Starfire gazing upwards. "Ah yes, you're wondering why representatives of your new allies are present on this ship. Fear not, your alliance hasn't ended. Rather, these two are members of the vocal minority amongst the species that chose to stick to the 'old ways' they felt comfortable with instead of allying themselves with you and your friends."

"Yes," said the Formoran. "It would appear that their leader, as much as he claimed to detest the idea of working alongside your kin and going against his personal ideals, he was still enough of a hypocrite to accept working with your sister and her new partner so as to save his own skin. He even made sure to inform your sister's new partner exactly where to find you last night."

Starfire's heart sank as she heard these words. There was only one Gordanian noble she knew out of the many she'd seen at the council meeting that fit the Formoran vessel's description. "Ulragor," she thought to herself. "He sold me out."

They reached the end of the bridge and exited the room with the pit, entering a large room that consisted of a large metallic spire surrounded with a spiral ramp. Starfire had little time to fully get an idea of how this area looked before her three handlers started carrying her up the ramp. She started struggling and squirming, willing herself to summon her star bolts or eye beams. But despite her effort, she could do nothing to halt her journey up the ramp. The same drug that had rendered her unconscious still seemed to be just active enough to keep her mind addled and make her unable to even conjure up her flight, let alone her energy blasts or superhuman strength.

The trio reached the top of the ramp, opened the door located there, and entered the room on the other side with Starfire in tow. Starfire once again did not make it easy for them as they made their way to the very center of the room. But with her powers still on the fritz from the lingering effects of the drug, she was helpless to stop them outside of futile struggling.

Her handlers placed her upon the plinth in the center of the room, at which point they placed her hands in two ceiling-based stationary cuffs that snapped over her wrists, while a third stationary cuff on the center of the plinth snapped over both her feet. Starfire had just enough time to struggle lightly against her newfound restraints after her handlers released her from their grip and snarl viciously at them before the Formoran drew a metallic headband-like object from the folds of his shirt and tightened it across her forehead. She howled in discomfort when she briefly felt an electrical shock go off inside her head, and gasped breathlessly once it had ended.

"There," said the Kialandian vessel once its associate had finished its work. "That should keep you from summoning those pesky eye beams once the drug's worn off; and these cuffs," he tapped on them, "shall keep those star bolts of yours under control, and keep you stuck even with your great strength." He turned to face his two cohorts. "Let us leave. Komand'r and her partner wished to speak to the prisoner alone."

The three vessels departed from the room, and Starfire growled in their direction. "Get back here you cowards!"

She heard a familiar voice chuckling from her left, and she glared in that direction in time to see a large occupied swivel chair with its back facing her. "I must admit," said the voice. "Despite all that's happened the last two times we interacted, it feels rather nice to see you again this time."

Starfire narrowed her eyes. "It is nice to see you to . . . sister."

The chair turned around to face Starfire. Sure enough, Blackfire was seated upon it, her fingers intertwined and a smug smile on her face. "Well sister," said the dark haired Tamaranean. "What do you think of my new ship? Truly worthy of a grand ruler, is it not?"

Starfire snorted. "Considering how big your pride is sister, I presumed you would choose a much larger ship."

"Very funny."

Blackfire rose from her seat and made her way towards her chained up sister. "Though I will admit, while I arguably shouldn't have been surprised in hindsight, your revealing that you, your friends, and our old caretaker had survived the attack against you earlier this week was rather humbling. Nevertheless, the experience taught me some valuable lessons I'd best remember for when my forces and I conquer Tamaran tomorrow."

She smiled at her sister's stunned face. "What? Did you think that just because my forces were forced to retreat from yesterday's battle I would automatically turn tail and flee into hiding? Come on sister, do you really think I'd ever be scared enough of you to behave in such fashion?"

"Well no," Starfire responded. "But still, so soon after your defeat at Gordania?"

"Exactly. The last thing you and your allies would be expecting, and it's not like I have a drastic shortage of soldiers. Umbrosians rarely stay dead very long, if ever, and the Black Entity allows for at least a thousand more Umbrosians to be newly born from the shadows of their home galaxy over the course of a single day. I have plenty of soldiers to spare." Her eyes narrowed. "Though I will not at all be heartbroken if the Entity takes his sweet time in letting that bumbling moron Phantrath reform after eating him for his failure to kill you and your friends the other day.

"But fear not. On my partner's insistence, I have chosen to soften the blow somewhat against Tamaran. I allowed my partner to have advance warning of tomorrow's attack on Tamaran passed on to Galfore, your friends, and the rest of your army in the note he chose to leave with them when he captured you. They all should be within Tamaran's vicinity tomorrow in time for the main event."

She clasped her hands together, an unnerving grin on her face. "While Galfore and the entirety of your precious united army of Tamaraneans and Gordanians are busy falling to the might of my own now substantially improved army, your weakling friends and that upstart consort of yours will likely be right here on my ship trying everything in their power to save you."

"And in doing so, whether they fall by my own hand, or by the hands of the various guards on duty, they'll have wandered right into my trap."

The two sisters turned their heads in the direction of this new voice just in time for another figure to step out of the shadows. Starfire's green eyes widened upon sight of this figure, recognizing him, despite his white hair, as the exact same Tamaranean who'd lead her away from Robin and tranquilized her back on Gordania.

Blackfire chuckled, and gestured her hands towards the boy as if to say 'ta-da'. "Allow me to introduce you to my new partner Cometbolt. Though from what he tells me, you've met before."

Starfire leaned her head forward, eyes dazzling with fury as she fought desperately against the combined power of the inhibiting headband and anesthetic drug to activate her eye beams. "YOU!" she yelled. "Why have you done this!? What did you do to Vrass'ad?!"

Cometbolt raised his eyebrow. "You mean that guard I disguised myself as to lead you away from that hideous troq you call consort? Fear not, he's resting peacefully in the Gordanian Palace gardens. Though I will admit, he may have forgotten to keep his head on straight for the occasion; literally."

Starfire snarled, her fists clenched inside their cuffs. "You'll pay for that! You'll pay for kidnapping me! You'll pay for both whatever trap you plan to subject my friends to and for daring to call my dear Robin by that insulting word!"

Cometbolt's eyes instantly narrowed in fury. "Does that thing really mean that much to you Kori?!" he snapped. "Huh? Does he? Or what about all those other pests that you've befriended alongside him? Do they really mean that much to you?! Especially compared to me?!"

"What are you talking about?!" Starfire growled, eyes fighting to start glowing. "What have my friends done to you?! What has my boyfriend Robin done to earn this unreasonable hatred that you choose to subject him to?!"

"Unreasonable hatred?"

The Tamaranean boy glowered, and placed his hands over his heart. "You wound me. Do you truly think so highly of that undeserving rat that you have lost even the tiniest memories of me?"

"Why should I have any memory of you?! I've never met you before in my life!"

"That's a lie!"

The white-haired boy jabbed his finger at her, his green eyes glowing, and blue sparks crackling on his fingers. "You of all Tamaraneans should have the most reason to remember me!"

"How?!" Starfire roared. "X'hal damn it, how?! Stop beating around the bush and tell me!"

Cometbolt growled. "You want to play games?! Fine! I'll play your little game!" He started walking angrily around Starfire, who turned her head as best as she could to keep him in her sight.

"You remember how when we were little," he began, "we used to always play with those specially made morflark skin balls?"

"That was something I did with my brother and sister!" Starfire yelled. "No one else!"

"Still want to make this difficult huh? How about how you allowed me to occasionally play fetch with Snarlong for you?"

Starfire narrowed her eyes angrily at the mention of her old pet dror from her childhood years. "I never trusted any child but myself to be around him," she snapped. "The only children allowed to interact with a royal's pet were myself and my siblings! Wildfire was too young to be safe around Snarlong, and the one time I trusted him with Blackfire, she tried to feed him to a glorg!"

Blackfire winced, placing her hand on her backside as she remembered the painful spanking she'd received after that incident. "Definitely not my proudest moment," she thought to herself.

Cometbolt gritted his teeth, and drew out a necklace with half of a white crystal amulet attached. "How about this? The night before you were announced as heir to the throne, we met under the moonlight on the balcony to your bedchamber, split this in half, and promised to hold onto our respective halves as a reminder to never forget each other? Or how we promised to piece it back together on our wedding day if we ever got married?"

Starfire's eyes widened, for now that Cometbolt mentioned this particular turn of events, she indeed did remember it. And bitterly enough, she also finally remembered the other events he'd brought up as well, among other things. She could even remember now how her own half of the amulet had been left on a chest of drawers in her bedchamber the day she'd been taken away from Tamaran by the Gordanians. "Ph . . . Ph'yzzon?"

Cometbolt raised his eyebrow upon finally hearing Starfire refer to him by his Tamaranean name. "So you remember me now, huh?"

Starfire gulped, now feeling guilty. "Yes," she whimpered. "I do remember you now. When we were young children, we had a mutual crush on each other."

"A crush?"

Ph'yzzon stepped forward. "A crush? You dismiss what we had as a mere crush?" He pointed at Starfire. "It was more than that Kori, and you know it!"

Starfire shook her head. "That's how it may have felt to you back then," she began. "But be the reasonable Ph'yzzon. We were kids. By X'hal, the last time we ever saw each other on Tamaran, you were 16, and I was 12." She lifted her head. "You may still believe that it's real love, but it was little more than a crush of the yard of schools. The love of a puppy. Nothing like the true and proper love I feel for Robin."

"DON'T MENTION THAT NAME!"

"I can, and I will."

Starfire stared directly at Cometbolt, still looking surprisingly calm despite how the boy had just now shouted at her. "I will admit, when I first met him, I didn't really know how to feel about him, or about anyone else on Earth. But after about a couple months, I started to feel a small infatuation. Five years after that, I had been able to get to know him so well, go through so much alongside him, and see the good, noble, and amazing person he is underneath all his walls and bristles to the point that this crush, unlike what I had with you, evolved into love. Real love. I'm sorry Ph'yzzon, but what I felt for you then and currently feel for Robin just simply are not the same."

Blackfire turned her head away from the conversation, a half disgusted, and half genuinely touched look on her face.

"No," said Cometbolt, now sounding almost heartbreakingly calm and quiet after how he'd earlier shouted. "I don't believe that. I can't believe that. I won't."

"Ph'yzzon, you have to."

"No. You're lying. You've just forgotten what it was like between us back then! What you think you have with that troq? That's what's fake! What was between us? Real on both sides, I swear to X'hal!"

"You are right about one thing," said Starfire. "I did forget about you. But one thing you don't know is that my forgetting was partially a consciously willed decision."

If a pin had dropped, the noise would have been deafening.

"I'll admit, losing my half of that promise amulet was unintentional. There were also some incidents before that moment where I legitimately forgot about you by accident. But now I remember that, by the time I'd settled on Earth and later come back to Tamaran for my almost wedding with Glgrdsklechhh, I had deliberately chosen to forget you entirely."

"But, why?" Ph'yzzon shook his head. "I spent two years searching for you after you were taken away from Tamaran! I willingly allowed myself to get drafted as a soldier in the war with the Gordanians so I could keep you and your family safe! Damn it Kori, I even resigned from my position as general so that I could search for you! Yet you choose to thank me like this? Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because at a point where I needed you, you weren't there."

Starfire hung her head. "Like you said, the day I was announced as heir came the very day after we split that amulet in half. But in the days that followed my being named heir, you seemed to just vanish from my life entirely and break your promise to never forget me."

"You'd just been announced as heir," said Ph'yzzon. "You said so yourself the night before that Komand'r was the one you'd thought would be the heir; and there were so many other changes and upheavals you ended up having to go through after you were named heir instead! I wanted to make sure I gave you adequate space and time to adapt to all the changes!"

"That would have only been necessary for a week, maybe two! Even with that in mind, it would still have been acceptable to allow me even a tiny amount of interaction between us! You gave me two whole months! Without any interaction! You even actively went the other way during the times I tried to approach you!"

"I was trying to preserve your reputation," said Ph'yzzon, clearly desperate to defend himself and his position. "You were a princess for X'hal's sake! I was only a low-ranking palace guard! Surely you're smart enough to know what our people would have said about such an open bond between us now that you were firmly in the public eye as the outright heir to the throne?!"

"Since when had I ever cared about my own royal reputation?! I didn't even want to be the empress! I only went through with all that stuff that followed my being named heir because I thought it would be the best for Tamaran! And even if that hadn't been the case, that still doesn't excuse how you never even interacted with me in private anymore for two whole months! Do you have any idea how much easier it would have been for me to handle the weight of being betrothed to Karras if you'd been around to help me vent and feel what I believed to be a more genuine form of love?! Karras at least had Taryia! All I had were Galfore and Ryand'r! And if you think that your continued absence from my life while you were fighting in the war was any easier to handle, then you are the sadly mistaken!"

"I wanted to be certain you'd be able to handle my not being in your life anymore if I died in the war!"

"If you really loved me, you would have kept the bond strong despite that risk!" She jerked her arms furiously against the cuffs holding her up. "You may have had the best intentions in mind, but it still doesn't change the fact that you practically abandoned me and chose your happiness over my own. Love is when you do the exact opposite of that!"

"Is that really you talking? Or is this just rubbish that your troq Earthling consort gave you?"

"It's the truth. Do you want to know how I learned that? From the very consort that you so flippantly dismiss right this very moment. Because only on the absolute rarest of occasions does he ever choose his duty over me. Whenever he does, he doesn't keep me waiting for needlessly long times like you did, but instead always makes sure to comfort me and help me feel better immediately after he's finished. He always comes back when I need him, and the one time I truly needed you most, you didn't. I'm sorry that all this causes you so much pain, but I am not the young and helpless girl you used to know. I am a brave, strong, and glorious warrior who has both made a hero out of herself and found real love. What we had just simply wasn't meant to be. Maybe if I hadn't been sold to the Gordanians, things could have potentially gotten worked out between us. But we can't change the past; and even if we could, enough good has come out of all that's happened that I simply don't want to change it. I've moved on Ph'yzzon; and as much as you may hate the idea, if you want to be happy, then you have to do the same."

There was a long pause after Starfire finished her little speech, and Ph'yzzon stared blankly at her the entire time. Then he sighed, and shook his head. "Well I'm sorry you feel that way." He directed a glare at her. "But I will thank you for both confirming my suspicions and allowing me to become aware of how your condition is in fact even worse then I thought. Fortunately, once tomorrow comes, I'll have this problem fixed in no time."

He turned and walked away from Starfire, who stared after him in half confusion and half fear. "Fixed? What do you mean?"

The white-haired Tamaranean drew a pair of ominous looking devices out of the shadows, and Starfire's eyes widened upon sight of them. "Ph'yzzon," she said. "Surely you cannot be serious?"

"Part of me didn't want to be," Ph'yzzon admitted. "But now, having been exposed to the full extent of how badly you've been affected by your time away from me on Earth, it is clear I have no other choice."

He pressed a button on the wall, causing a technological pillar to rise from the floor near where he stood. He placed the two devices on top of this pillar, opening up one of them and pressing some keys as if typing.

Starfire instantly tensed up in fear. "What are you doing?"

"No need to worry," Ph'yzzon spat. "I'm not going to use these yet. Right now, I'm just getting them ready for when I do."

"Ph'yzzon, you don't have to do this. You still have a chance. From what I hear, you fought honorably in the war against Gordania! Surely there are still members of our people who are aware of your deeds and would be willing to speak in your favor if you let me go and turned yourself in!"

"Turn myself in?" he asked incredulously. "Let you go? Let all of Tamaran continue to just stand back and allow you to throw your life away on Earth without a fight? You're only proving me right with every attempt to convince me otherwise Kori."

"I'm not throwing my life away! Have you not listened to a word I've said?! My life's never been better Ph'yzzon! I am free from the pressures of royalty! I have a new home that I love, and where I am even more of a hero then you! I have friends who love me!"

"Friends who don't deserve you! Not to mention one in particular who you share a love with that commits the crime of being stronger then what rightfully belongs between you and me!" He pressed a final series of keys on the Psion mind manipulator, and then shut it down. "But no matter. Once tomorrow comes and I've killed those four Earth vermin who dared to befriend you in my absence, I will use these machines to allow us to start over with a clean slate. From then on, we shall spend the rest of our lives together on Tamaran with your sister as the empress of the entire Vega System. And we'll be as happy together as we used to be before you were taken by the Gordanians!"

"I already am happy Ph'yzzon! I am happier even then I was on Tamaran as a child! Why can you not see that?!"

"You only think you're happy because you've forgotten the real happiness you had on Tamaran with me. But fear not, with these machines, I will be able to remind you of all that, and with the troq you replaced me with and those other three pests you befriended alongside him dead, the rest of Tamaran too busy under your sister's rule to do anything about it once her conquest is over, and the entirety of every other system in the universe enshrouded in darkness, neither of us will have any need to worry about you forgetting it ever again!"

"What about your honor!? X'hal damn it Ph'yzzon! What about all your heroics from the war?! What about the happy memories we had together before then that you could have been treasuring instead of pursuing all this insanity!? Does all that mean nothing to you?!"

"I could have all the heroism, glory, and privilege as the last living honorable male Kryptonian; and all of that would still be meaningless to me without you in my life to share it with!"

Ph'yzzon took a deep breath, and then glared furiously at Starfire. "I'm sorry you feel so unhappy about this, but I am not going to let you keep wasting your life under delusions of love with a bunch of troqs that couldn't be more beneath you. That is final." He turned his back to her. "But fear not. As I said, the moment in which I allow us both to start over and live our lives the correct way won't come till tomorrow when they arrive to rescue you and do battle with your sister."

He snapped his fingers, and glowed with an aura of blue light. When this aura faded away, two blue light constructs shaped exactly like him materialized beside him and took the form of two duplicates of himself. "For now," the three Ph'yzzons said in unison, "I shall leave to do my part for guard duty, and leave you and your sister to talk things out further. So for now, farewell Kori." Ph'yzon and his two binary clones flew out of the room, leaving the two Tamaranean royal sisters alone.

Blackfire sighed, and hung her head. "I never thought I'd say this, but I truly am sorry for what Cometbolt plans to do to you. I would have preferred to grant you a dignified and honorable death in combat. But, from a certain point of view, I've come to realize from Cometbolt's own explanation that such a fate could arguably be considered too kind."

Starfire directed her head towards her sister, half furious and half in tears. "Blackfire. Why do you hate me so much? I know that life wasn't easy for you back on Tamaran during our childhoods, but all that was beyond my control. Does all that stuff that happened to you without my direct involvement when we were younger truly justify the lengths you are currently willing to go to?"

There was an uncomfortably long pause as Blackfire considered her younger sister's question. Then she sighed, and looked straight at Starfire. "To be honest with you, I don't know." She hung her head. "I'll admit, there is a small part of me that genuinely loves you as a sister. There are even times where I truly wish that particular part of me was bigger and stronger. But every other part of me. . ."

She sighed. "Look, maybe in another life, we could have been proper loving sisters and been the best of familial friends the way siblings should be. But after all that's happened the last five years, and after all the stuff that was either denied to me or outright robbed from me during my childhood simply because you existed. . ." She shook her head, a small tear leaving her right eye. "I've come too far now. We both have. I tried to love you sister; and when that failed, I thrice tried to get rid of you through comparatively lowkey means. But with all those efforts having since failed, I have no other choice now. What's about to happen tomorrow, morally reprehensible though it may be, is simply the only available option left. As reluctant as I may feel to say this, it just simply must be done."

She looked at Starfire, who indeed looked quite saddened now, but also confused. "You said you tried to get rid of me three times before now, but I can only count two such times. When was the 3rd time?"

"You still haven't figured it out?

Starfire raised her eyebrow, and Blackfire sighed once more. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, with how well our people knew you before you were taken away, not to mention how much you still loved and trusted me even before I tried to frame you for stealing that Centauri Moon diamond, it would only make sense that none of them would have had the heart to tell you. And judging by what Cometbolt told me about his time on Gordania while working to capture you, it would appear the Gordanians are all too happy to wipe the whole unpleasant business under the rug now that the old alliance between them and our kind is officially reborn."

"What are you talking . . .?" Starfire's eyes widened in horror. "Blackfire? Surely you're not saying . . .?"

"Yes Starfire. I was the one who sold you to the Gordanians."

Starfire reacted instantly, jerking herself forward and straining furiously against the trio of cuffs holding her in place. "YOU MONSTER!" she yelled.

"Look Starfire, I know you're upset. . ."

"That is the understatement, and you know it!" Starfire snarled, her eyes straining to glow. "Beast Boy was right, you did kill our parents! You broke their hearts enough for them to die of grief!"

"I know, and I regret that. I truly do. All I wanted was for them and the rest of our people to treat me with the same amount of respect and love that they treated you with. To look at me as if I were a hero and a true worthy princess instead of a leper and abomination. To allow me to be granted the throne and other privileges that tradition demanded should have been mine but were given to you instead."

"But they didn't," Starfire hissed. "The Gordanians told them about how you were the one who sold me to them, didn't they? And our parents had you exiled for it! By X'hal, now I know what Greerak meant when he said you were twice exiled!"

"Indeed."

"Well what about Wildfire? Did you kill him to?"

Blackfire's eyes widened. "He's dead?"

Starfire's angry look became confused. "You mean you don't know where he is either?"

"No. I wish I did though." She hung her head. "Maybe if he hadn't vanished, maybe things would have ended so much happier for us." She turned her back to Starfire. "Who knows. Perhaps I'll find him some time after conquering Tamaran tomorrow. I'm sure the Umbrosians will spare him if I let them be aware of him and politely ask them to let me have him live on Tamaran with me once more. After how everything's gone down between us, and especially after what's going to be done tomorrow, it's probably the least I can do." She lifted her head. "I must go now. I have a lot of planning to do with the Umbrosian council and my army. It truly was nice to talk to you one more time before Ph'yzzon had your mind altered by those Psion machines. Farewell sister."

Blackfire departed, leaving Starfire alone where she stood.

And just like that, another chapter done! I hope you all enjoyed it and leave plenty of feedback (remember, I require an exact minimum of 2 reviews for this chapter before I will allow the next chapter to be posted). All that said, hooboy Starfire's in a fix. Not to mention she's finally learned exactly who was responsible for selling her to the Gordanians all those years ago. And on another note, she has finally come to remember her old crush from Tamaran before the war. That in mind, perhaps I should give some background on Ph'yzzon as he is known from the comics. You see, in the comics, Starfire and Dick Grayson very nearly married each other. Unfortunately, right as the priest that was hired was seconds away from saying the last words that would seal the deal, Raven ended up ruining everything. Now, to be fair, she was working unwillingly under Trigon's influence at the time, and she both apologized and resumed her usual heroic nature some time afterward. But by then, the damage had already been done, and Starfire eventually ended up temporarily leaving Earth and returning to Tamaran. During her time back on Tamaran, she ended up marrying for the 2nd time in her life (for you see, unlike in this fanfiction, she and Karras actually DID go through with the marriage; and Karras himself had ended up being killed in the time between the marriage and Starfire's eventual return to Tamaran). Her new husband in question? None other than Ph'yzzon. So yeah, with all that comic book information in mind, and the direction I plan to take the titans and whatnot in my fanfiction, I chose (half out of pragmatism and half out of personal shipping tastes) to give P'yzzon the 'adaptational villainy' treatment. So there. All that said, again, I hope you enjoyed this new chapter and leave plenty of feedback! Things are only going to get better and more awesome (I hope) from here! ^_^

Coming up Next: The titans, Tamaraneans, and Gordanians have arrived in the space not too far outside of Tamaran, ready to clash with Blackfire and the Umbrosians once more in the battle that will decide the fate of the universe. And as the Tamaraneans and Gordanians keep the larger army under Blackfire's control busy, the titans sneak aboard Blackfire's ship to rescue Starfire. Just what sort of experience will they undergo in the process? Find out next time ya'll!