Disclaimer: I don't own.
──⇌•...chapter twelve...•⇋──
In the seven minutes it took for the generator to turn back on, the world seemed to move impossibly fast and, yet, impossibly slow.
Aang came to with a start, his eyes flying open and a strangled breath caught in his lungs. He faintly heard the sound of lightening, thunder, and then something shattering through what felt like cotton balls in his ears. With his mind remembering the pure whiteness of Raven's spiritual strength, it took his eyes a second to adjust to the shadowed dimness. He ignored the cacophony of sound behind him in favor of feeling the tile under his hands, looking up—
"Ah!" he yelped suddenly, a face inches away, the eyes swallowed whole by an opaque-white mask. He quickly scootched backwards on his butt until he hit the edge of the couch, throwing his hands out in a loose bending form before his brain finally caught up and he realized, "Oh, haha, Robin! You scared me!"
Why the Titan's leader had been across from him, nose-to-nose, was anyone's guess.
"Um," he hedged, a sheepish blush warming his face. Before he could say anything else, he heard Raven groan. She collapsed into a clumsy heap on the floor, her mouth mumbling something unintelligible. Aang pulled himself up with a gust of air and rushed over to her, hovering, "Raven! Are you okay?"
"Aang," Robin hissed from nearby, sounding hurried as he backed around the couch to be next to them, "You need to get out of here. Raven will be fine, but you need to go."
Raven groaned again, a hand cradling her head.
"Aang," Robin shouted.
Aang felt his mind sputter and spin, confused by the unexpected assault and overwhelmed by the clattering, violent noise somewhere behind him that he couldn't understand. He looked around, trying to find Robin. But the sound... it hadn't been the boy next to him that had yelled. Another— another Robin with uncanny twinship was standing a foot away, and between his fingers, two birdarangs flashed, reflecting the muted light from outside.
The rainy weather had cast the entire world into a dimmed, colorless monotone. For a fleeting second, Aang wondered if he had hit his head and was seeing double-vision.
"Aang," the Robin next to him said, panic in his voice. He pulled a staff free from his belt and held it out, his grip tight.
"Aang," the other one warned. "Get away from him."
Never before had Aang felt the blood-curdling terror he did in this moment, his eyes blown wide as he shot a look between the identical heroes. Or, the dark spirit and the hero. Only, he had no idea who was who. He backed away, holding his hands above his head as he tried, desperate, speaking to the both of them, "Why are you doing this? I— I, the Avatar has no qualms with the spirits, I don't understand—"
"Hey, over here!"
"Aang! Stop talking and run!"
That... was that Toph and Zuko? Without needing to be told twice, Aang did what was asked and spun around, his emotions twisting into a messy ball of confusion, worry, and relief that he wasn't yet able to untangle. His firebending master was crouched behind an overturned table, so he went there. Toph was next to him, and she flashed him a wild smile when he skittered down to be by their side, ducking below the makeshift barrier.
Overhead, a misty-grey bubble went flying right at a screeching, diving hawk, swallowing the bird with squelching burp. Immediately, the animal crashed into the floor, and a now-humanoid Beast Boy spun his hands to regain his balance. Within seconds, he was throwing fist after fist into the squishy casing, but it remained disappointingly intact.
"What is happening?" Aang cried, his voice cracking. Wait— where were Katara and Sokka? With a burst of uncontainable fear, he poked his head back up again, then inched down with just a second to spare as a pale eye-shaped ball soared over him. He felt goosebumps roll over his skin.
Still in the middle of the room, Beast Boy was shifting into various shapes of mutated animals, each one as useless as the next. To the right, the two Robins were using the overturned couch to duel each other, Bo staffs extended as they mirrored each other in some sort of disturbing dance. He couldn't see Raven anymore, not through the dark shadows nor the chaotic, unending battle. When another ball went flying, this time shooting to the left and just above the kitchen table, Aang finally saw the perpetrator. He was a dark-skinned boy dressed in a pale costume, and there was one very large eye designed on his helmet; the single eye glowed green in the darkness, switching between colors like the boy was blink-blink-blinking as different shaped eyeballs went flying free, gobbling up chairs or crashing into tables. He looked... panicked, Aang thought.
"Aang," someone said softly, "are you okay?"
The airbender turned back to Zuko and Toph. He tried to read the ex-prince's face in the near-darkness and failed. He squinted between the two of them, torn between the overwhelming sense of completeness and the half-hearted wariness dragging him down. "How do I know you're— you?"
He saw Zuko nod, like that was a reasonable question. At the same time, Aang didn't know how he would be able to prove it. Could the dark spirit make more than one doppelganger? He wished Koh had been more helpful about all of this.
Toph interrupted them with a hard expression, "We can figure the specifics out later, Twinkletoes. Right now, I need you to trust me when I say that this Zuko is our friend. He's been with me the entire time. We spent days looking for you all."
Aang wondered if he should be paranoid about Toph too.
"Hey," Toph snapped, smacking his shoulder with a bruising palm, "Calm down, you're going to give yourself a heart attack or something."
Bending. Toph was bending. The Zuko-from-the-mall hadn't firebent at all, nor had he seemed to appreciate Aang's own attempt with fire. Without wasting another second, the Avatar crafted a candle-lit flame in his palms, illuminated Toph's dirt-smudged cheeks and Zuko's red-puckered scar, the firebender's golden eyes alight like a predator's. "Take this," he directed, then added, "please?"
Without hesitation, Zuko placed his hands over Aang's, accepting the flickering energy. Aang almost thought the tip of the embers now looked ghosted with purple, blue, and greens.
"Zuko!" he cried happily, and threw his arms out wide. The other boy flinched back, surprised, and the fire disappeared in a puff of smoke. Aang was too caught up with the knowledge that he'd finally found his friends again to feel apologetic about startling him.
"Aang," Toph said, and Aang turned to her, engulfing her in the tight, warm hug he had been intending for Zuko. He felt warm tears track down his face but couldn't find it in himself to care. "Zuko, get over here," he prompted pitifully, a hand fluttering around without much success. "I'm so glad you're both okay."
"...Same here," Toph squeezed out dramatically, like she wasn't gripping Aang just as tightly, "Only we get to give you a hard time, you hear?"
Aang felt Zuko rest a warm hand on his shoulder. He was unsuccessful at holding back a sniffle, and when he looked over Toph's shoulder, peering back at Zuko, the firebender looked leagues out of place, crouching stiffly and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else but here right now. Aang chuckled at the disgruntled look. "I'm glad you found me again."
"What's the plan?" Toph asked as she let go of him, tilting her head in the general direction of the eye-ball guy and the two Robins.
"Can you tell who is who?" Aang questioned curiously, his gaze now intent on the agile twins fighting each other, kicking and punching and dodging. One of the Robins fell to the floor from a roundhouse kick, and Aang winced in sympathy. That looked like it hurt.
She shook her head, "They're moving too fast, it's like keeping track of two airbenders who also have the exact same build."
"We need to help him," Zuko said, also tracking the fight. The sharp tip of a birdarang flashed, and one of the boys made a pained, grunting noise.
"How? We don't even know which one to help."
"I don't know," Zuko answered, feeling antsy just sitting here and doing nothing, "but we can figure it out later."
Toph grabbed his arm before he could throw himself into the fight. Aang's voice was somewhat bemused when he asked, "Is this how you were when you were trying to capture me?"
"Hey, I did capture you, multiple times!"
"I don't know about that," Aang returned with a small, disbelieving smile. "I remember you losing a lot."
Zuko spluttered. "I did not— What about in the North Pole? Or..."
The three didn't get the chance to enact their (nonexistent) gameplan, because the other team of heroes had made the choice for them. On the other side of the living room, Katara raced across the littered space, water encased over her hands like glowing, liquid gloves, Starfire hot on her heels. Cyborg and Sokka were suddenly circling around eye-ball guy to give them a fighting chance. And Robin— he had bleary-eyed Raven in choke-hold, an unconscious, bleeding twin lying at his feet.
Aang gasped. Toph cursed. Zuko leapt over the table.
The plan had been simple. Stop See-More. Heal Raven. Figure out what to do with the Robins once their empath was back on her feet. (And then worry about Aang and the other two at the very end. If it all went well.)
Only, things did not go well. Seconds after Sokka and Cyborg had finished hashing out a rough strategy, one of the two Robins dodged a gutting blade a second too slow, the blade missing its mark but slicing through skin and kevlar anyway.
Was it faithless of Sokka to assume that the losing hero was their friend and teammate instead of the other way around? Either way, Katara needed to get over there now: Raven was slumped over herself, looking more like a darkly cloaked lump than a person, and one of the twins had a black smear sluggishly dripping down the side of his face, a quiver in his steps.
"I'm ready," Katara told her brother, her nerves like prickles of ice in her veins. She wished she could see, but the faint, stormy light was useless in helping her distinguish between the delicate degrees of lethality from so far away. "We need to move now or it might be too late."
"Okay," he answered tightly, and assessed Starfire and Cyborg. They nodded back, steely-eyed. He repeated, "Okay," and looked out towards the battle.
In front of them, with reckless abandon, See-More's one eye was shooting off eye-themed bubbles and balls; a blue-lighted blink meant the gelatinous bubble and a orange-lighted glow meant projectiles that exploded on contact. Beast Boy's voice was muffled, but he was yelling something through the blue-grey sheen, staring over See-More's shoulder. The H.I.V.E. villain didn't look like he was listening, his single eye darting towards exit-ways before reverting back to another volley of attacks. And in the right corner, Robin— he had lunged for Raven, pulling her up by the end of her hood, wrapping an elbow around her neck. Raven's mouth moved, wordlessly. There was an unmoving body at his feet.
Katara didn't waste a single second: she shot across the living room, her heart rabbiting as she popped open her water skin and prepared to heal whatever grisly wounds she could. Next to her, Starfire's green glow kept pace with her, flying over debris and blasting like a comet towards the wounded Titans.
Sokka had moved at the same time. With Cyborg at his back, the two fanned out, circling See-More with a voltaic blaster and a whale-ivory boomerang pointed towards the teenager. See-More's eye flashed towards the girls, but then Sokka was shouting, "Hey, keep your cyclops eye on me!"
"You don't need to do this, See-More," Cyborg added, his blaster making a dangerous whirring sound, as white as the lightening outside. "Surrender, and no one gets hurt."
"I don't want to be here," See-More rushed out, and like a cornered animal, he dialed the helmet into an unwelcoming orange. Sokka yelped, spinning out of the way. While the villain was occupied with the other-worlder, Cyborg took a shot. Only, his electric blast met one of the explosive balls, and like a magnified, explosive balloon, the pop created a disorienting shockwave, flipping furniture over, smoke erupting.
Thrown to the floor, Cyborg's eyes widened as an armchair went hurling at his head. But then, a blast of air slammed into the side, sending the piece careening off to the side. "You need some help?" Aang asked, his voice breathless. Toph had stretched the metal of the floor into a warped dome-like barrier, batting debris and dangerous projectiles away. She yelled over it, "Hey, See-Less, calm down! We can help you!"
With Aang and Toph back in the fight, Sokka booked it for the changeling, meandering around broken and overturned appliances. Farther behind them all now, Beast Boy shouted something again, pounding at his slippery prison. He had rolled into the far wall, his hair askew. When he was close enough, Sokka could more clearly hear him shouting, "Raven! Raven, wake up!" as he shifted between animals with claws or beasts with fangs. Determined, Sokka slashed through the bubble with the sharp tip of his boomerang. As a bear, Beast Boy roared with freedom, throwing Sokka an unreadable look in his animalistic form. Beast Boy raced towards his team on all four hairy legs, growling freely.
Sokka was right behind him, shouting, "We need to defeat See-More first," knowing he had to trust Katara and Starfire to be able to stand their ground until the rest could join back in. With a grunt, Beast Boy joined the other four in seamlessly making a ring around See-More, circling him warily.
"Why don't we talk this out?" Aang tried, ever the peaceful monk.
See-More shook his head, the dial spinning through a rainbow of colors.
"That's okay," Toph told him, the exact opposite of her friend, "We'll just beat the stupid out of you instead."
Cyborg snorted, but also threw Beast Boy a look. With a sharp nod, the changeling shifted back into a bear. They moved closer, tightening the circle, still trying to talk to the H.I.V.E. villain. Then, suddenly, See-More didn't seem to pay them any more thought. In a heartbeat-filled second, his eye widened at something behind them, the light from outside illuminating his shaken expression as he stared towards the windows.
Toph turned, expression startled and then worried, "Zuko, what are you—?!"
The eye blinked blue, but it wasn't aimed at any of them.
Katara needed to focus. From somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew Starfire was trying to surgically throw green bursts of energy, yelling for Robin to stop or explain himself, but Katara couldn't pay her any mind. Evil Robin had kept hold of Raven, using her to fight off the hero, which left only one broken body on the floor for Katara to heal. Which she needed to do, but only if she could focus.
"Katara," Zuko said, suddenly appearing from thin air, his dragon eyes wide and burning. He had two swords in his hands. "How can I help? What can I do?"
Robin and Raven were defeated and bleeding. Katara needed to focus. Zuko was here, but he wasn't attacking her. She needed to focus.
"Help Starfire," she ordered, the water under her palms shining silver like the half-moon in the dead of winter. Go away, she didn't say, but she thought he might have understood her anyway.
She could feel Robin's heartbeat, quick and erratic, and the blood on his costume was wet and dark. She thought Raven's eyes looked hazy and lost, the lids dropping just like her body, slack like a puppet in the villain's grasp. But she also didn't look scraped up and drowning like the boy under her hands. Robin first, Katara decided, then she could help Starfire fight back.
Focus.
She put her soul into the water, coaxing the torn, ruptured skin to move towards health instead of destruction, like it had a mind of its own. She didn't know, maybe it did. Healer— no, Master Yagoda had only given her so many lessons before they'd had to fight an armada and then take off; combat had taken priority, and it always would. She didn't regret it, but at times like this, she did mourn it.
Hunched over, she lost track of how long she bent her days-old water around and over the boy's wounds, but when he groaned, distantly, and reached a hand up towards his face, Katara felt an explosion of relief crack her concentration.
"You're alright," she said, more for herself than him.
It was at this time that an actual explosion rocked the room, sending an eruption of smoke through the air. She coughed, peering through the dust, only to see a green haloed Starfire yelp as Raven was limply thrown at her. The Tamaranean disappeared her green-lighted fists to open her arms wide for her friend, curling around her in a makeshift hug as they were both thrown to the ground. When Katara looked back, instead of a Robin fighting Zuko, there were two Fire Nation princes circling each with swords raised and identical looks of fury on their faces.
On the floor, Robin blinked, dazed.
Unhesitatingly, Katara stood up, taking her water with her. "Starfire," she shouted without waiting for confirmation, "Get Robin out of here," and then she moved like a riptide, blasting into their twinning currents with her own unique style of waterbending as she disrupted the flow and threw them both off balance.
This wasn't like the fight at the mall. Then, Zuko had acted uncaring and different, flaunting his power like an evil prince is wont to do. Now, the boys duplicated each other too well: rage in their glares, questions on their lips, dangerousness in their stances. Despite the darkness, Katara thought she saw only one of them with a jagged scar down the side of his face, a thin, spidery crack against the rest of his face. But he moved with the deadly grace of a polar bear-dog, which the other Zuko had no issue reflecting, so Katara considered it a trick of the light and ultimately inconsequential. Both were dirty and scruffy anyway; superficial appearances weren't going to help her here.
She knew she needed to find out which Zuko was Aang's actual (and maybe not betraying) firebending teacher. She didn't know how she was going to be do that without really knowing anything about him in the first place.
"Katara," one of them said, his flame-gold eyes and puckered scar the exact same as from her nightmares.
"Leave her alone," the other hissed, lunging forward with one sword slashing downwards.
The other Zuko blocked him, his own dual blades held in front of him. They seemed evenly matched, and Katara didn't understand how this was even possible in the first place, her confused heartbeat loud in her ears. The Zuko on her left slipped back a half fraction, pushed back, but before the other one could swipe an attack of opportunity, she threw a wave between them, the two jerking a step back, splitting apart.
"In the catacombs," she hurried to say, swapping a look between the two, trying to read their micro-expressions in the dimness, "what did you tell me?"
The Zuko on her left looked surprised, opening his mouth.
The other one beat him to it, "I'm sorry, Katara," he said, a genuine look of contrition on his face. "I know now that I made the wrong choice. I'm trying to be better, I swear to you."
When left-Zuko scoffed in angry disbelief, Katara threw him a narrow-eyed look. He only had eyes for his duplicate. "How can you— stop pretending to be me!"
They both looked so sure and confident, but then, hadn't Zuko also looked like that when he had talked about losing his mom, saying that it was something they both shared, like it wasn't the Fire Nation's fault in the first place. He had used her mother's death like they were one in the same, when it was likely the Fire Lady's passing was probably peaceful and honored, not agonizing and hidden away like a dark, dirty secret. Katara's rage sloshed just below the surface, as deathly freezing as a trip into the south sea during the polar nights when the sun would be gone for weeks on end.
"Well?" she hissed to the left-Zuko.
He must have seen something in her glare because his lips thinned. He lowered his swords, fumbling for something to say, "Wait, wait, I can make some fire. That'll prove that I'm me, Aang said that the other-Zuko couldn't firebend, so lemme just..."
"Do this?" the right-Zuko finished with a snarl, holding up a palmful of raging fire in front of his face, his expression obscured behind the flames. It sparked and hissed like an angry beast.
Left-Zuko blinked his wide eyes. With the bloody-red light outlining him, he looked even more Fire Nation prince-like than ever, despite the dirty scuff marks over his cheeks and under his chin. "Um. What. But I thought—?"
Katara stepped back. She couldn't do this. Everything was too close to home and she didn't know. Behind her, she heard Starfire asking who they needed to take down, the green bolts she was now holding sending long shadows across the room. She hoped that meant that Raven and Robin were far away from here and somewhere safe.
She set her shoulders. This wasn't working, so they'd just have to defeat both of the Fire Nation princes and then go from there.
"I can prove I'm me," right-Zuko said, his eyes flickering between the two girls, and he used one hand to dig around a pocket. With the other hand still holding both swords, he held up what maybe looked like a White Lotus tile from a Pai Sho set. "See?"
"Give that back," left-Zuko roared, lunging, Katara and Starfire now entirely forgotten. Maybe-real-Zuko-? threw the tile to her, dodging his twin with grace, a confident glint in his eyes. The maybe-evil-Zuko-? was still shouting, "Uncle gave that to me! It's mine!"
Katara ran a fingernail across the petaled design, so similar to the one Piandao had given Sokka, mumbling to herself, "It's real."
Starfire nodded, her voice gentleness wrapped in a warrior's armor, "Then I think we have our answer."
Unfathomably, Katara still wasn't so sure. But she couldn't spend forever dithering. They needed to incapacitate the villains, even if that meant knocking out Aang's firebending teacher in the process; she still needed to check over Raven and make sure the superhero was okay, and she couldn't do that locked in a never-ending battle.
"Alright," she said, and pulled her water up to her fingertips.
With a grunt, Starfire sent a volley of molten-green blasts, swooping across the room like a naturally-born airbender. The Zukos broke apart, the maybe-wrong-Zuko fumbling backwards a step, backing up towards the windows. With the light behind him, his expression was fully shadowed, entirely impossible to read.
"Give up," Katara told him, knowing that Starfire was keeping track of the other one. Despite everything, she didn't want to hurt him. Not here, not like this.
"I... okay," he finally ground out, like it pained him. Katara wasn't able to hide her shocked expression: that had to do it, because the Prince Zuko she knew would never give up like this; he'd braved a white-out blizzard and almost died, multiple times, trying to get Aang. He had hunted her family across the world for months and haunted her nightmares for even longer, never-ending.
"Okay?" she repeated back and wasn't surprised to find her voice sounding just as uncertain and flabbergasted as she felt. Was this some sort of trap?
"No, I mean, yeah," he said, which didn't help his case at all, "I, er, surrender. For now... I don't, I don't want to fight you, Katara."
Except, some part of Katara wanted a fight. She wanted to know she was making the right choice. Her voice was flat, "Then you're not the Zuko I know."
He gaped back at her. "What—? Of all the things to prove I'm me— Hold on, just wait—"
She whipped her water towards his right side. He dodged backwards, and then had to spin his arms to catch his balance. His boots had made a high-pitched squeal as he fought to regain his footing on the glassy, slippery tile. The broken window was behind him, the wind blowing coolly against the back of his Fire Nation robes, rain puddling over the small patch of the room.
Maybe-real-Zuko smiled at her, proud. He moved closer to his twin. Katara felt something inside her twist and she hated herself for still doubting who was who. Starfire drifted into a soft landing, her eyes tired but relaxed when she caught the waterbender's gaze. Ashamed, Katara approached on the firebender's left side, watching the probably-evil-Zuko carefully.
"It's over," Zuko said, stopping a step away from the twin.
Evil-Zuko looked pleadingly back at Katara. The rain was getting the top of his head and his shoulders wet, the wind blowing the wetness inside with forceful gusts.
Katara's doubt came back full force. She made an uncertain noise in the back of her throat, stepping closer, angling Zuko just slightly out of the way so that she could be closer to their freshly-surrendered prisoner.
And that slight move was probably what saved both of their lives, because the boy she had thought was maybe-real-Zuko was, in fact, not. With a hateful growl, he kicked out, throwing his twin into a slipping fall. Katara yelped, caught up in his flailing limbs, her breath knocked out from under her as she landed in a tangled mess next to him. Zuko was stumbling to his feet faster than Katara could blink, left looking up at him from her spot on the floor.
"Bye," definitely-evil-Zuko said, and slashed his blade down for the kill, before wind was at his back, making him step back an inch—
—only for the blue ball to swallow real-Zuko in a protective bubble. Katara yelped, skittering out of the way as the momentum threw Zuko closer towards the broken window.
A couple things happened at once: Starfire erupted, burning green, and Evil-Zuko was thrown into the opposite wall; within seconds, he stepped out of the human-shaped indent with a low, guttural growl. By the windows, the ball stopped at the opening, and Katara met Zuko's wide, petrified eyes just as the jagged, broken edges of the glass burst the encasing with a deafening pop! Zuko dropped out of the Tower. Gone in an instant.
Katara didn't waste a moment, throwing herself to the floor and stretching her hands as she prayed to Tui and La and even Agni that she was fast enough. Her desperate grip snagged one of his outstretched hands, but he was slipping and so was she, pulled down from his weight, the floor under stomach her slick and unstable. She felt his fingers dip, and everything inside her burned. She blinked away hot, terrified tears.
"Help me!" she screamed.
She was sliding dangerously close to a freefall, the wind icy on her face. Her grip was bone-crushingly tight. Zuko looked up at her helplessly, no blame in his wide, panicked eyes. Katara screamed again, her tears layered with salty rainwater. Before she could be pulled into the depths, she felt hands around her waist and catching her ankles. Except, "Zuko," she yelled, his fingers dipping lower and lower and then, she choked, no nononono—
Robin yelled someone's name, and—
—A midnight-blue blur shot past her, Raven's eyes glowing white, so reminiscent of Aang's Avatar State that for a split second, Katara's jumbled, petrified mind thought Aang had suddenly re-connected with all of his chakras to save them. But, no, it was just Raven, black wings at her back, feathery and outlined in white. With a pained scowl, her eyebrows scrunched, she had an arm extended, his fist glowing with soul magic. Zuko was caught mid-air, suspended in a veil of inky-black.
"Zuko," Katara gasped, letting the hands around her pull her to her feet. She swiped the back of her hand over her eyes, shuffling away from the window so Raven could gently drop Zuko back into the Tower. Aang, Sokka, and Toph were at her back, murmuring something soft and calming and reassuring. She broke into a sob, and then Sokka was hugging her tight, warm and familiar and safe. Aang was there, then, too, and so was Toph, and wasn't that a nice surprise, she was okay, she was here, she was okay, they were okay—
Zuko, wet like a drowned turtleduck, stared back at the sobbing huddle with wide eyes. Katara sobbed louder, sniffling, "Get over here, Zuko, please. Please."
For the second time today, he cautiously approached the hugging group. Aang wrapped an arm around him, pulling him fully into the group. Katara thought she might not be the only one sobbing her heart out.
"Raven!" Beast Boy whooped, clamoring over to his teammate.
Raven sighed, a hand on her forehead. "Hi, Beast Boy," she answered in a whisper.
Without needing to be told twice, Beast Boy lowered his voice to match her soft tone, "I'm glad you're okay," he told her, smiling brightly, his hair wild and windblown.
She breathed out and smiled back. Robin, scratched up but otherwise looking alright, approached her side. He gave her a weary, tired smile that Cyborg matched on her other side. Starfire was in the air, gasping, "Raven, you have returned to us! You are okay!"
"Headache," Raven said in return, and Starfire cringed sorrowfully. She whispered, "My apologies," but still picked her up in a heartfelt hug before softly setting her back down on the ground.
"What happened here?" Raven asked, throwing a glance around. The lights had turned on some minutes ago, which helped illuminate overturned, broken furniture. It looked like a tornado had blown through the room. She turned to her leader, assessing him quietly.
He nodded. "I'm glad you're okay," he started by saying, before also looking out at the mess they had made. At least the Avatar's group seemed alright, finally reunited and clinging to each other like their survival depended on it. Robin passed a look at all of them, ending with Starfire, "I'm glad you're all okay."
"And for us, the same," Starfire offered easily.
Robin expression hardened. They waited for him to find his words. "We're dealing with an unknown shapeshifter. Unknown motives, but they're working with Slade, and by extension, the H.I.V.E."
"They got the sword," Cyborg told him.
Robin nodded, unsurprised.
"I am unsure the villain is a shapeshifter," Starfire said, biting her lip. "But they did still get away."
When they all looked to her, she held a mask into the light. The left side of the eyehole was clouded with a red, textured scar, and a thin, fractured crack made of branching spiderwebs split the design into halves. She shuddered when she looked down at it in her hands.
"Like Koh," Raven recognized, numbly. "The dark spirit."
"Like who?" Beast Boy asked.
Robin shook his head. His gaze landed on the war-torn teens in the middle of their living room. He didn't seem inclined to take the mask from Starfire. "We can catch up later. With everyone."
Beast Boy nodded, following his gaze. His eyes softened. "I can set up the guest room for them."
Following his logic, Cyborg added, "I'll quadruple our grocery list."
No one seemed to mind that, in the chaos, See-More had disappeared. He deserved to get back to his own friends, who were surely worried sick about it him. The H.I.V.E. weren't their enemies right now, not really. That honor remained with Slade and the other masked villain, the completed sword a nebulous threat in the background.
──⇌•...•⇋──
Author's Note: Thanks for reading. (I bet Zuko is seriously regretting scorning flying right about now lol.)