Memory after memory sped past his eyes like a movie someone had pushed the fast forward button on. The memories crowded in his vision blocking out everything else. Him and Jessie talking, having fun, sparing, or just goofing off. Robin blushed as a memory of Jessie flipped him on his back and pinned him to the matt passed by. Then suddenly the memories slowed to closer to real time.

Robin was worried, Jessie was avoiding him since she had a migraine the day before. She had said it was nothing, but he knew the character she had been wearing could see the future. Now Jessie was avoiding him like the plague and wasn't speaking to him.

He walked up the steps to her home and knocked on the door. He heard her mother yell to come in. So he walked in and was about to yell hi when Alexandra came down the stairs. The look on her face was enough to confirm his suspicions.

"Where is she?"

Alexandra's face cleared as if she remembered she was supposed to keep a secret. She pressed her lips together and shrugged.

"She didn't tell me where she was going, just that she needed to stop something from happening."

Robin could feel his anger beginning to spike and couldn't his voice from being sharp when he spoke, "And you didn't go with her?"

Alexandra looked down at the floor. He supposed that wasn't fair of him to say, but he wasn't in the mood to be generous. She obviously had wanted to go with Jessie.

"She didn't want me to go with."

It was very telling to him that she had used word want instead of let. Meaning Alexandra might have been able to convince her sister to allow her to come along.

"What did she see?"

"I don't know-."

Robin growled, "Don't lie. I know she told you." It was stretching the truth, but he was sure that Jessie would have told her sister. They were too close for her not to. Not only that, but Alexandra could also become the character who saw the future too, though she tended to see less than her older sister.

Alexandra squared her shoulders and stood up a little straighter. She turned around and walked back up stairs. A few moments later their mother walked into the room smiling at him.

"Oh, Richard, I didn't realize you were coming over. Jessie left a few minutes ago."

That snapped him out of his daze. "Do you know where she went?" It was a slim chance their mother knew where Jessie had gone. She made a face as she thought about it and finally she shook her head no.

"She said she had to go check something out. She was walking towards the library. Knowing Jessie, she will probably be back in a few hours."

Robin nodded his thanks and ran out the door. Intuition told him Jessie wouldn't be back in a few hours. From what Jessie had explained about the way visions worked he knew the future was like a giant tree. Many different paths branch off in different directions. Little things can change the course, but usually there were two or three paths that were most likely. Sometimes telling someone could change their future, because by trying to avoid it, it became their own undoing. On the other hand withholding information could also cause a person to walk into trouble. Robin turned onto the main road towards the library and considered what he knew when he heard tires screech right next to him. He turned in time to see a big man jump out of a big black van and swing something at him. Pain exploded behind his eyes and then he knew no more.

When he jolted back to awareness it was to the sound of clinking chains. His head pounded like the time he had been in a nasty fight and got clipped across the temple. His arms and wrists throbbed even worse as the chains holding him up bit into his skin. Robin glanced around at the warehouse he was being kept in. There was nothing around him but an empty cell. He looked down at himself to discover that his shirt had been removed along with his shoes and anything resembling a weapon. They had even taken the ear piece out so he couldn't contact anyone for help. He was only just considering what this could mean when three men came in through the only door, all of them were wearing masks. This did not bode well for him.

Two of the newcomers carried a bundle between them. Robin's heart stopped when he saw Jessie's face. The ends of her hair had dried blood in it from where it had leaked out of her nose, and her nose looked swollen and slightly crooked. She had fought and fought hard if the limps the two men carrying her had were anything to go by. The leader walked over to the cell and opened the door. The other two men hurriedly threw their burden into the cell. The leader cursed at them his voice distorted.

"Be fucking careful you morons. I don't want her hurt anymore."

One of the men snorted in disgust as the leader adjusted Jessie's limp body so she would be more comfortable. Robin noticed Jessie's hands were bound in strange gloves that glowed an sickly green color. He then proceeded to clamp shackles around her wrist. The chain on them would allow Jessie to walk around her small prison when she woke, but not much else.

"What have you done with Jessie," Robin snarled pulling on the chains that bound him. The leader brushed Jessie's hair from her face. The man carefully positioned her arms so they weren't under her. After pulling her legs out so she lay straight and flat on her back he addressed Robin.

"I see you are finally awake. Good, I was going to be bored otherwise."

That seemed to be the other two's queue because they left, coming back a short time later with a rolling cart with knives, pliers, and other implements of torture, including a cattle prod. The leader waved the men off and they left room, but Robin doubted they had gone too far. The leader went the cart and looked over the different tools.

"What do you want?"

The man hummed to himself and picked up the cattle prod testing it. Sparks flew from the end and he waved it close to Robin's exposed chest, trying to elicit a response of fear from him. Robin refused to give the creep the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.

"I want you to suffer and then die." He jammed the weapon against Robin's flesh and sent the shock running through his body. Robin jerked this way and that gritting his teeth against the pain. After several more jabs with the cattle prod Robin's tormentor seemed to have gotten bored of it. He discarded the weapon on the ground and went for another. Bastard, Robin thought viciously.

"Why take Jessie," Robin huffed. The weight of his body being hung by his wrists was slowly crushing his lungs making it harder to breath. On top of that his chest was littered with welts from being electrocuted over and over.

The man didn't look up from his selection when he answered, "She is here because she is mine."

Robin's stomach did an odd flip. He could only imagine what this creep would do to her. He wouldn't let that happen, he would sooner die. The man came back over carrying a large knife. It glinted wickedly in the gloom of the warehouse. As the man approached Robin kicked up at his attacker's face and the hand that held the weapon.

"One shouldn't talk about a lady like that." His bare foot connected with the boney wrist that sent the knife flying from his hand and skittering across the floor until it clanged against the bars of Jessie's cage. Robin tried desperately to wrap his legs around the man's neck. But this one seemed to know his tricks. He kept an arm up to prevent Robin from strangling him and eventually broke away from Robin's hold gasping for breath. "She belongs to no one," Robin huffed. The other two men came in both wielding metal bats. Robin swore and tried dragging himself up the chain, but he was too tired to manage getting farther than a foot. The leader chuckled now his voice modulator was malfunctioning making his voice sound mechanical and wrapped.

"Planning on running and leaving her to me after all," he sneered.

Robin growled from where he was hanging.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you no means no-?" Robin gasped as the floor slid out from underneath him, the chain dropped him down, and he was dunked into a pool of icy water. He tried to swim up to the surface but the weight of the chains dragged him down. He struggle and thrashed against the weight, but he only succeeded in tiring himself further. No, he couldn't die here, Jessie was counting on him to survive, he thought. His lungs burned from lack of air and his body felt heavy. He couldn't hold out any longer a point his body proceeded to prove when he instinctively opened his mouth to breath. Water poured into his lungs choking him. Finally he was dragged into a peaceful unconsciousness.

When he awoke again he was in the same room only now he smelled something that made his nose twitch. He opened his right eye, his left seemed swollen shut. Looking down he found he was now sporting dozens of bruises the size of baseballs and larger. It also looked like someone had tried to dissect him. Knife wounds covered his skin until he looked like a cut of meat rather than a human being. Blood coated every inch of exposed skin and had dried. Something else was sliding down his blood stained body, it smelt strangely like oil and stung when it oozed into his cuts and in his one working eye.

"You're awake, good, I was thinking we killed you already." The was a clicking sound as the man opened a Zippo lighter. "But I think now we can clip your wings permanently."

Robin's blood went cold. That threat sounded familiar, his brain was so fuzzy he couldn't think of who. His tormentor flicked the lighter open again. Robin however noticed something his tormentor had not, Jessie was awake. She was struggling to her feet like a drunk, her eyes fixed on Robin. She staggered to the cell bars and slumped into them. Had they drugged her? His tormentor lit the lighter and tossed it to Robin.

Pain exploded as his whole body went up in flames. His tormentor laughed as Robin withered and scream. Another scream joined his. Jessie was sobbing as she banged her arms against the bars with enough force to break her bones.

"No! Stop it!" Jessie threw her whole body at the door. Suddenly the pain was pushed aside and Robin noticed Jessie was no longer Jessie. "Please, I'll give you anything."

Robin saw a look of triumph in the leader's eyes under his mask. One of the other two guards approached Jessie with what looked like a gun. He raised it and fired at her. A dart stuck her in the neck and she dropped to the floor. Flames licked up Robin, but he could no longer feel any pain instead he felt as if he were drifting far from his body. A hand stopped him from going too far.

Robin now stood in a vast place, far from warehouse. It was a place the pain couldn't follow him to, he was safe. A starry night sky stretched above him as far as the eye could see and was also reflected in the surface of the water, which he was standing on. Was this death? He remembered Jessie's tale with Anna. This was the threshold of death; soon he would find eternal rest. He looked into the eyes of the woman who had magically appeared in front of him. Anna was the spitting image of Jessie only slight differences could be seen. For one her hair was white as snow instead of coppery blond, for another she was a few inches taller than Jessie.

"What are you doing Anna?"

She held his hand tightly as if she was afraid he would disappear if she let go. Looking down at his burnt flesh he wondered how close to the truth that was.

"I cannot let you go on."

"You have no choice."

A sad smile spread across her face. No, not sad, she looked regretfully at him like Jessie did after she had had the vision that had landed them here.

"Actually I do." She yanked him to her and kissed him. Robin tried to pull away but Anna was surprisingly stronger. When she let him stumble away she said, "A life for a life, I gladly pay the price."

Robin watched as a line of purple connected him to Anna like an umbilical cord. He could only watch as Anna wasted away, his wounds transferring to her body. Tugging on the cord did no good, as it was made of death magic and only Anna could wield that kind of magic.

"I won't let you do this. Jessie will-."

Her color drained from her then her skin had long fissures formed over it. Purple light glowed from inside the wounds. Then her fingers crumbled into dust and the cracks spread to cover her whole body.

"She will survive. Have faith in her." Anna smiled at him just as she turned to dust. When Robin woke he lay on the floor in a warehouse and had no idea how on earth he had gotten there. Then the memories faded.