"Star, I am so sorry- if only I had known..." Robin said bitterly, shaking his head, arms crossed.
"Please Robin, do not be upset- there is nothing you could have done," Starfire replied, green eyes wide with emotion.
"Yea.. I know, it's just that.. for a while there, talking to that other team almost made me think I was the bad one and that he, well, he was the good clean-nosed one." Robin said going over everything they had told him about this 'Other Robin' and comparing it mentally to the image the team had created of him. Before he would have thought that other Robin was essentially flawless; he followed orders and though he was a bit quirky was a good team player.. what the titans were telling him though didn't match up with that image. The titans were describing a boy who was naive, foolish and blind to how his actions affect others. Most of the time Robin liked to think that he had a pretty good understanding of people, but right now he wasn't sure. Who was this other Robin? What was he really like? And how did he manage to use up ALL of the titans emergency band-aids? He had more cutesy cartoon characters up his arms and everywhere else than he could count.
"Dude, Robin, you may be rough around the edges and stuff but you're one of the awesomest guys ever. And I mean ever! Like, like even Tron isn't even as awesome as you!" Beast Boy finally said, beaming widely at Robin. Tron? Robin wondered dumbfounded, what the heck is a Tron?
"Tron isn't a real person." Raven said flatly, ignoring Beastboy's mutter of "He's a real program" before continuing,
"And besides, you're not back. Not for real anyways." What? What does she mean I'm 'not back' I've gotta be back! There's no way I'm going there again... or letting Star get hurt again.
"What'dya mean he's not back?" Cyborg demanded, practically leaping across the table, "Cause I am not having that two-faced little brat back! He can stay in his weird-o alternate universe or whatever"
"Yea!" Beastboy agreed wholeheartedly, jumping about wildly by Cyborg's shoulder. Raven sat there glaring ominously from beneath the hood of her cape.
"Other Robin isn't bad" She growled, "He's just inexperienced."
The other titans sat in awkward silence after that. Inexperienced? Robin wondered to himself, sure the guy was younger and weaker than him but was that really an excuse? He thought back to how he was before he'd left Batman. Had I been naive? Probably. He couldn't pull together words though, not that it was his place, he never met the guy. It was Cyborg who finally gave in,
"All right fine, maybe we were a little harsh on the guy- but that doesn't change the fact that he tricked Starfire. And wrecked the T-Car."
"You're more worried about the car...?" Beastboy wondered aloud absentmindedly, until Robin got to the point: "Good or bad, it doesn't matter. Raven, what did you mean when you said I'm not really back?"
"What I mean is.." She paused, considering her words, "What I mean is that the conditions that switched you two were too complex for you to just switch back like that, it's too easy."
"What do you mean, it's too easy?" Starfire asked timidly, and it was then that Robin realized how quiet she'd been the whole time. What does she think of other Robin? He wondered to himself.
"The event that switched the two of you was so rare that it's more likely that Beastboy would clean his room than that event ever occurring even once." Raven explained, "Such an event is so powerful that it would take an enormous amount of magic to return you two to your proper bodies, and even then only temporarily."
"What!" Robin gasped trying to comprehend that, "So what you're saying is that someone else put us back on purpose? That we didn't just switch back on our own?"
"Exactly." Raven said firmly.
"Wait, wait, wait. Now hold on a second, why is it only temporary? Robin's here isn't he? Why isn't he here for good?" Cyborg questioned.
"And how long is he gonna be here?" Beastboy added.
"It's temporary because the only way to generate enough magic to switch him back forever is to duplicate the event that got him in this mess in the first place." Raven replied, "Which of course is almost impossible."
"And the time?" Starfire asked.
Raven sighed, "I don't know." She admitted, "It could be anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 years, the point is that it isn't forever." Robin's heart sank then. Anytime. He could disappear back into that world at anytime.
"Then I have to ask you one thing," Robin said grimly, "What are the chances of anyone else knowing it's only temporary?"
"Anyone with basic magical knowledge would know that it's only temporary, magic distribution has to be equal- give on one side, and it has to be the same on the other," Raven replied, "Why?"
"Because there's a guy on the other side named Doctor Fate who wants us Robin's dead."
"Doctor Fate? What? Is that the mirror universe's Doctor Who?" Beastboy asked scratching his head with confusion.
"What?" Robin gawked before continuing, "As far as I know, Doctor Fate is some sort of all powerful being, and he thinks that by switching bodies, other Robin and I-"
"Broke the universe," Raven finished.
"How did you know what I was going to say..?" Robin asked raising a brow, it never ceased to amaze him how much Raven seemed to know about well, everything. Well, everything magical anyways. Ask her to cook and you're getting a breakfast of burnt pancakes and dark-magicked orange juice.
"Because. It's like pulling a camel through the eye of a needle. You'll either squish the camel or break the needle. And unfortunately it's more likely that you'll break the needle" Raven replied coldly.
"But, why would this Doctor Fate want to kill Robin and Robin? If they have already broken the needle then surely the damage is already done?" Starfire asked.
"It's a bit more complicated than that. Think of it like they're inside the needle and trying to force their way through," Raven replied.
"Then is that why they body switched? Cause their bodies were too big to fit through the needle but their brains were small enough?" Beastboy asked speculatively in a manner that made Robin fear that he'd start blurting out mad theories spawned from tv-shows.
"Exactly."
"Ah come on now! This doesn't make ANY sense. If the universe was breaking, wouldn't we know? Wouldn't there be de-ja-vu everywhere or cracks floating around and stuff?" Cyborg questioned sensibly.
"He makes a pretty fair point," Robin said thoughtfully, "Raven is there any way you can-"
"Meet me on the roof in ten minutes." Raven said sharply, "And don't be late."
Up on the roof of the T-tower, exactly fourteen minutes had gone by without any sign of Raven.
"'And don't be late' Beastboy complained in a rude mimic of Raven's voice, "Man, what's taking her so long?"
"She probably has to get some magic stuff together, you know, spellbooks and crystal balls and things" Cyborg replied yawning, it was still pretty early in the morning despite everything that had happened.
"I wish she'd be a little faster," Beastboy whined, "I was planning on playing that new zombie video game today and..."
Robin tuned him out, the fact of the matter was that he wished Raven would hurry too. The thought that he could just switch bodies again at any moment unnerved him, and as scraped up as his body was from it's trial with other Robin, he didn't want to be back in that other body. Sixteen minutes had gone by now. Where was Raven? Ugh! I could be back in the short thirteen year old kids body any minute from now!
"Raven! You have returned!" His thought's were broken as he heard Starfire hurrying to greet the other girl. Robin glanced up to see Raven carrying a book so large it was comical in its proportions. This couldn't be good.
"Raven, what took you so long?" Robin demanded, getting to his feet, crossing his arms gruffly.
"Have you seen the size of this book?" She asked, "I had to carry it up the stairs on my own."
"Couldn't you have just used magic?" Cyborg asked, turning from where he had been arm wrestling with Beastboy, who was transfigured into a gorilla.
"Idiot. You don't carry a highly reactive spellbook like this with magic. That makes bad things happen."
"Oh." Cyborg replied, getting to his feet as well, followed by a now-human Beastboy.
"So what did you want to show us? What is it?" Robin demanded, convinced that at any second he was going to have considerably less cool hair.
"This," Raven opened the book to a seemingly random page. All of the rest of the Titans leaned over to look at it.
"Dude, it's blank." Beastboy commented at a loss. Robin had to concur with that statement.
"That's because it's not for reading. Now stand back!" Lifting her hands high up into the air she chanted dramatically, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Then, with a wave of her glowing hands she commanded a spiral to rise out of the blank page of the book. At the very top of the spiral was a single luminescent orb, suspended in a glow above the magical spiral.
"Dude!" "So pretty!" "Whoa!" "Humpth."
Raven's eyes stopped glowing then, and reaching out she took the orb from the top of the spiral, which immediately receded back into the book.
"So it's some sort of magical closet?" Beastboy remarked, "Have you got something in there that-"
"No."
"You didn't even hear what I was going to say!"
"No."
"Raven, please, what is it?" Starfire asked, floating down close so as to get a better look at the white orb.
"It's a pearl of wisdom. It'll let us see things that we can't normally see," Raven replied.
"Like what?" Robin asked, reaching out to touch the pearl, but not before Raven threw it to the ground, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
"Raven! What was that! What did you just-" Robin exclaimed.
"Hush." Raven muttered, pointing as the white shards floated up from the ground and began to create a grid like pattern above them. White glowing lines filled in between each piece of pearl until the entire roof of the T-tower was wrapped in a magical pearl blanket. Then all of the white lines merged into one; and revealed what was truly there.
It was the sky. Only something was terribly wrong with it. There were cracks all through it like a broken window and where the cracks were the sky didn't line up properly. Parts of clouds appeared in some segments while in others there were none. To make matters worse there were two suns on opposite ends of the sky, mirroring eachother.
"What in the world," Cyborg gawked, magic not exactly his forte.
"Oh no." Raven gasped.
"What?" Robin demanded, surprised to see his usually so cool friend worried.
"This is far worse than I thought- the sky.. the sky shouldn't be so broken," She replied, nearly falling down from the shock, Beastboy catching her.
"What do you mean Raven? Why shouldn't it be so broken?" Starfire asked fearfully, eyes reflecting the two suns.
"The Robin's switch back and forth should have cracked the sky.. but not that much. No.. something far worse is going on here. Someone is intentionally making it worse." Raven explained quickly, clearly trying to keep a grasp on her emotions, and her powers.
"Meaning..?" Robin asked, though he knew the answer. Someone was trying to destroy both worlds. The question was, why? And who were they?
"Meaning everything you know and love is about to come to an end my little toy," A childish voice piped up from behind them. The titans all spun about rapidly to face the speaker and were horrified, for, standing there, stroking a cat that was uglier than a bad burrito, was Klarion. "The question is, what are you gonna do about it?"
"So let me get this straight, you guys thought that other Robin was a second mole, tried to capture him, failed, Batman caught him instead," Robin was saying thoughtfully as he went over everything the others had told him, "But then he wasn't the mole and so you guys made up and caught Clayface?"
"Well a bit more happened in between, but basically, yea," KF said with a shrug as they made their way through Wayne Manor to the Batcave.
"Sounds like you guys kept to the aster better than I did," Robin murmured darkly. Ugh! He'd never get the chance to apologize to Starfire... or to explain himself properly. Would Raven do it for him? He doubted it.
"Did you miss the part where he kicked all our butts and seriously upset Zatanna?" His yellow-clad friend pointed out, "Supie got thrown off a roof by the guy."
"Wait, he beat up Superboy?" Robin gawked, how is THAT even possible? I'm less than half Superboy's size!
"With a broom." Wally added.
"A broom." Robin shook his head with disbelief, so far as he could tell other Robin was more 'super' than he'd ever be.
"Dude. Stop being such a downer. Look, just tell me what happened, I'm all ears," Wally insisted as they entered the office.
"Later." Robin said, not wanting to tell his friend about his failings. He flipped up the head of the statue on Bruce's desk and pushed the big red batbutton. The fireplace gave way to reveal the familiar batpoles, complete with name-tags. Did other Robin and his Batman have these? He wondered to himself.
"Dude. Name tags? Seriously? How is that supposed to help with the whole secret identity thing if any badguys get in?"
"We're in Wayne Manor. I think they'd know already." Robin said chuckling slightly as he reached for his own pole, "Now, are you coming?"
"Course. How often do I get to ride down a fire-station pole in my best friend's fireplace?"
"Batpole." Robin corrected.
"Seriously?" Kid questioned, earning a glare from Robin that was intended to relay only one thing: yes, seriously.
"All right, last one down's a rotten egg!"
"So what'd he say to Zatanna?" Robin asked once he was dressed in his totally greenless costume, hurrying over to KF so that they could Zeta-Tube to the watchtower. Apparently half the league was assembled there to keep Doctor Fate from killing him. Can't believe Mr. Perfect hurt Zatanna.. there's no way it was as bad as what I said to Starfire. Can't have been. I really messed up then..
"Well, she kinda kissed him.."
"What!" Robin demanded stopping in his tracks.
"Well you can't blame her! She thought he was you!" KF hastily explained, "And it was only on the cheek anyway,"
"So, what did he do then?" Robin asked tensely while KF distractedly typed commands into the Zeta-Tube console.
"He kinda freaked out and called her Houdini. I guess he didn't expect to have a girlfriend."
"Houdini?"
"Yea. And then later Zatanna threatened to kill him with a giant rock." KF continued to explain, "Hey, uh, what's Batman's password for this thing?" He hastily added after, clearly trying to avoid something. What aren't you telling me?
"KF." Robin growled, crossing his arms, "Why did Zatanna try to kill other Robin with a giant rock?"
"Well, um, not entirely sure about the specifics- but uh, this guy named Slade told her too."
"Slade!?" Robin demanded, flashing through his memory of what little the Titans had told him about the individual. Mostly just that he was seriously bad news. And the mere mention of his name sent other Robin over the edge.
"Ah man, not you too. What is it with you Robin's and freaking out at the drop of a name?" KF moaned, checking under the Batkeyboard for the password to the Zeta-tubes, "Gotcha!" He said grinning as he pulled a yellow bat-shaped sticky note out from under the Batkeyboard.
"KF from what I've heard, Slade is really, really bad news." Robin said rapidly typing into his computer glove, running a search on 'Slade' and turning up nothing. There was a mention of a Slade Wilson, some mercenary guy, in the database but no one just plain named Slade.
"Dude, I know. Apparently he got a girl named Terra killed, and he nearly killed the rest of the Titans." Wally said seriously, typing the ridiculously long Batpassword into the Zeta-tube console.
"Murder?" Robin tried out the word. It wasn't often that they ran into a villain who would go so far as taking a life. But this Slade guy... murdered a Titan? Despite everything that had happened between him and the titans he couldn't help but feel like one of them...
"Yea." Wally said with a nod, "Now come on."
IDENTIFIED KID FLASH B-03. ROBIN B-01.
Moments later they were stepping out of the Zeta-Tube and into the Watchtower.
RECOGNIZED KID FLASH B-03. ROBIN B-01.
Chaos reigned. As the boys stepped out Green Lantern Hal Jordan was sent flying past them, followed by a wave of pink energy. Debris was everywhere; potted plants had been uprooted, chairs spun about in pieces and a table had gotten caught on the entrance to the Zeta-Tube.
"What in the..?" Robin wondered stepping forward to have a small gold robot nearly collide with his face, Kid Flash thankfully saw Skeets coming and pulled Robin out of the way just in time.
"What's going on?" Wally demanded as they ducked down behind the table for safety, the rest of the Watchtower flying around above their heads like it was caught in the Twister and about to be sent off to Oz.
"Beats me!" Robin yelled above the noise, "Let's check it out!"
"What if it's Doctor Fate?" KF shouted as they peered nervously up from the table, Black Canary flew past them at speeds way to fast for even a metahuman like her to be healthy.
"Why would Doctor Fate wreck the Watchtower? He doesn't like destruction or chaos! It's probably someone else! Like Klarion!" Robin replied, ducking as one of Red Tornados robot arms bounced off the walls.
"Good point. Let's go!" KF agreed, pushing down his goggles. Robin fired a grappling hook at a nearby door. Both boys grabbed hold of the line and used it to pull themselves across the hall. They went on like this for a ways, firing the hook and creeping across the Watchtower. Outside the window, things didn't look much better. It looked like the Green Lanterns had set up a giant construct shield around the Tower to keep Doctor Fate out, which was being powered primarily by a shiny new looking ship, but that shield was clearly failing. Cracks had appeared all throughout it though there was no clear source of an attacker except perhaps bad luck. Finally the boys reached the main conference room, outside of which Captain Marvel was hanging on for dear life to the door. The wind was particularly bad here.
"Captain Marvel! What's going on?" Robin yelled over the wind.
"Huh? Oh hey guys! You made it! I was wondering if you could what with all of the stuff going on here," The naive hero said beaming at the two of them.
"Yea. We made it." Robin just heard KF muttering behind him. "What's going on Cap?" He shouted considerably louder.
"That!" Captain pointed into the conference room, through which Robin could barely see in before, but now saw the cause of chaos. The conference room was barely recognizable; all of the furniture was gone or smashed to bits and a 6 foot tall swirling vortex of terror filled up most of the room now, though standing directly in front of it was a pointy haired figure emanating pure energy.
It wasn't Klarion. It was Jinx.
"How did this happen?" KF asked Captain Marvel, trying to keep a grip on the rope.
"Well, late yesterday afternoon this uh, crack opened up and ate all the furniture in the conference room. Oh and maybe the Atom too. But it was ok cause Hal Jordan put up a field of that green stuff around it, only now this chick happened." Captain explained.
"It ate the Atom?" Robin gawked, stay whelmed Robin, stay whelmed...
"Well either that or he's unconscious and shrunk in there, no one's really sure." Captain said thoughtfully.
"Well whos this chick?" Kid Flash demanded. Robin answered for him.
"Her name is Jinx. She works for a creep named Brother Blood in other Robin's world."
"Wait, so she's from the other side?" Kid gawked, "I mean, not the dead people other side, but other Robin's other side?"
"Exactly. I fought her there."
"Well what's she doing here then? Or is it 'other' her? Like how there's other you and other Aqualad?"
"I don't know. But I know how I can find out," Robin said, directing his grappling hook towards her, "And the sooner I do so, the sooner we get back to the aster."
Authors note:
HOLY LEGITIMATE END OF THE WORLD SITUATION BATMAN
Took longer to update than I liked, but hey, it's here :o
AND HEY, SKEETS AND AYA EVERYONES FAVORITE ROBOTS.
Anyways, be sure to check out the slow moving comic version on dA where I'm Swiftstart :o
and, as always
TUNE IN NEXT TIME, SAME BATSITE, SAME BATAUTHOR.
FOR THE WORST IS YET TO COME