p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire picked the triple-lock with her tongue, keeping the lantern hooded to conceal the red flame. Humans talked about fire being red, but it rarely was. Maybe the last dying embers might be red, but a healthy fire in earth's atmosphere tended to be yellow or orange with a blue center. She had needed to obtain strontium-infused wicks to produce a true red flame./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She hadn't Given any entrails for a while now. The Jump City correctional authorities had really stepped up their internal security in the wake of the recent disappearances, although thank Scath her team-mates hadn't taken too much of an interest. They were so busy dealing with the enemies still abroad they didn't have much time to think about people who were out of circulation. If an "escape" from prison wasn't followed by a rematch in the streets, it usually fell under their radar./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Probably, at least. She wasn't sure that Robin was entirely ignorant of the situation. He'd been trained by one of Earth's greatest detectives, after all, and he had an obsessive personality and a knack for tearing away at unexplained things, like a symbiotic slahrg prying parasites from a korlok's ridged joints./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire pressed the hybrid Mouse against the wall, just out of reach of the surveillance camera. The faraday lotion she'd rubbed on would stop her from registering on conventional film, but it wouldn't conceal an object that had left her person for more than a few moments. Robin kept careful track of all his signature items, but cyborg was more haphazard, up to the point of leaving an entire spare leg in the sink for a week. If he lost track of anything important, he'd just assume that Silky had eaten it. This would set up a convincing edit of footage loops and shut down the trickier security systems in place. As for the guards, she could figure out a way to avoid inconveniencing them on their routes. She'd thought about a more efficient way of breaking in and out, but she hated the idea of injuring innocent third parties. Anyway, she had enough trouble hiding leftovers as it was./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"So many of the films she watched with Raven, Cyborg, Robin and Beast Boy involved espionage agents and heroes penetrating a secure building through the ventilation shafts. Her own attempts at this venture had proved extremely disillusioning. The plumbing infrastructure, on the other hand, proved easy enough to penetrate of one was willing to break the equivalent of a human "hip" and "collar bone" and then fracture her subcutaneous exoskeleton in the right place. She washed down a handful if ibuprofen with an illicitly appropriated Mike's Hard Lemonade, took out the surgical implement, and tried not to listen to the sickening crack of her own tissue as she leaned over the toilet. The sound was the worst part./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The disorienting pain was still the second worst part, but the elastic suit she'd whipped up in her spare time kept her organs in nicely. Her friends generally thought she lacked a sense of humor, but it was just a bit different, and sometimes a touch morbid. She couldn't explain to them when she burst into laughter at random times that she was thinking about the Red Y suit she'd created, an in-joke that Robin probably wouldn't catch on to even if she shared it with him. Aside from the reference, nothing in her shadow identity linked her back to the titans, or to the Cult of Scath./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire plunged into the toilet when she felt the medication kicking in. It only hurt a little more. Greywater was an easy environment to navigate to somebody accustomed to flying through the edge of novas and tachyon storms. She didn't feel guilt about keeping this secret from her Earthling friends. Raven never explained why she flinched when Winter Prince made that statement, and Starfire hadn't even seen Robin without his mask./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire squeezed, shot, and wriggled through the pipes, like a kaltimite larva penetrating brain tissue. No, she didn't feel guilty about hiding the suit and alter ego from her friends, or even the Scath shrine. She didn't feel guilty about those things./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The security around the Plasmus chamber had increased ever since Slade broke him out. The Mouse shut down the electric grids, infrared sensors, and robotic taser drones. A delta bomb from her utility belt made sure that all seventeen guards in the area slipped into dreams about another ordinary day at work, but were still lucid enough to answer calls over the radio. If she could figure it out, then it was only a matter of time before Slade did. That was the point really. Once awake, Plasmus was nearly unstoppable./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He was also, in a way, completely innocent./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire melted the edges of the drain cover with her eye beams, then pushed it free with her tongue. It took six minutes of careful, agonizing wiggling to spill out of the container, and then another twelve minutes as she sucked in air to re-inflate her crushed body./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"This gave her time to think, unfortunately. Overthinking was never a helpful addition to covert operations. She thought about the indignant snarl of Jonny Rancid, the despairing moan of Doctor Light, or the impotent outrage of Gizmo as he moved from "snot-muncher" to intense and creative profanity that might make a slave-trader cover his ears./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Everyone keeps secrets. Power always comes with a price. These were core tenants of her faith, but she truly believed that she was using this power to make the world a better place. Goats, birds, and targs simply weren't enough for true communion and ultimate propitiation. As the humans said, there was "no such thing as a free lunch"./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The pain dulled as her keratin structures knitted themselves together. It spiked again as the isolated parts of her nervous system reconnected, but eased again. She brought in fresh air and breathed out, careful not to let any chunks of exoskeleton or genetically identifying information slip out onto the floor./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Communion with the Alpha Centauri hierophants had been… unfulfilling. There were many cosmic-level forces at work in this universe and beyond. Scath's great might was not unopposed, but he ruled before these imitators and challengers, and his uncompromising strength would reign again. One time, Poblano's Famous Pizza had been attended by some Abrahamic earthling cult, distributing leaflets and seeking to assimilate others into their own beliefs. At first she'd laughed out loud, amazed by the egocentric arrogance of the superstitious believing, not only that their god was the greatest, but that he was the only one in existence. She'd reined in her mirth and apologized when she found out that Cyborg and Beast Boy held some level of adherence to some sector of "monotheistic" faith, but it was still a strange concept. Who could be that presumptuous, and how much water did that hold when descriptions of their negative afterlife matched so closely with the suburbs of Scath's minor kingdoms?/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Now, around unconscious guards, basking in green light, as her Tamaranian body turned pain into recovery, she saw some unwelcome parallels between that evangelistic, narrow-minded dogma and her own faith. It wasn't in the theology, which was radically opposed, but in the platitudes and aphorisms, the quick and easy answers that holy members offered to keep their pack in line./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The Winter Prince had not faced Scath's evaluation. He'd managed to steer clear of any major god. He hadn't needed to make any pact, to swear allegiance to a higher power. He'd crafted his own godhead, soaked up the forces that had killed him, and spat them back in the face of the cosmos./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire knew that she could never do something like that. Whether it was arrogance or courage, she couldn't see herself apart from the rest of the world. She needed to be answerable to some kind of higher power to give meaning to her life, and strength in times of terror, and hope when all other lights go out. Even the brand of hellfire was better than the empty ice of an uncaring universe./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Plasmus's naked form drifted in the green fluid, orange hair drifting as if in in a gentle breeze, the bizarre reproductive organs swaying about like a malformed ovipositor, hand unclenched and face at peace. He looked younger than Cyborg, maybe even as young as Beast Boy, although it was difficult to read a sleeping human's face./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"That was the irony. When awake, he didn't look even remotely human. Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, all of them looked far more "inhuman" than her, but she was a Tamaranian. They were taxonomically closer to a mustard plant or the E. Coli disease than they were to her. Robin, Raven and Cyborg could all be considered "kissing cousins" to the birds and ungulates they ate. (Of course, she still didn't know if Terran/Human death rituals involved necrophagy, but she understood just enough about the culture to suspect the subject would be difficult to broach. She definitely didn't want to learn the origin of the phrase "kissing cousins". )/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Even though the 30th amendment granted any life form formerly human or sufficiently humanoid to pass for human in a swimsuit contest with the equivalent of human rights, the 32nd Amendment allowed for "any necessary unusual measures" to be employed for the containment of metahuman criminals with respect to their superpowers. For many people, this was as simple as a silver-lined cage, special handcuffs, or 24/7 exposure to a low-intensity infrared light. For entities like Plasmus, it wasn't that simple./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Technically speaking, Plasmus was being kept alive. As a sapient human being, he was cut off from all experiences, unable to speak, to taste, to hear, to see, to touch, to engage with his environment in any meaningful way. Maybe he dreamed, or maybe he was too deep in sedation for REM sleep./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Certain sects of the Scath Cult believed that innocent blood was more powerful, and had their own ways of moderating this principle, such as using volunteers or the pre-sapient larvae of sapient species. Starfire had never seen the need. If that meant taking more risks, going out for more people to give to her Lord, then so be it./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She took the malware Cyborg had created for her, as an academic exercise in teaching her about Earth's computers, and synched it up with the life support system. Cyborg was always eager to teach, to share, to help others learn. Beast Boy lacked the patience to really share information in a coherent manner and Raven preferred to keep all her occult wisdom to herself. (Probably for the best, as teaching sessions from Raven might cause Starfire to reveal a little too much knowledge of forces from the infernal planes.)/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The system would now display the same vital signs on a 42-second loop. Starfire disconnected the nutrient feeds and sensors./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She took her time, lighting the brazier, making an offering of spoiled meat with her left hand, drawing the figure with sticky, curdled paint. The smoke took on its usual strange shapes, spelling out arcane secrets and hinting at horrible shapes. The smell of Sulphur filled the room./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The cool copper handle of the ritual dagger gave Starfire the comfort of familiarity. She popped open the container./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The boy stirred. His eyes shot open./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I'm awake?" he gasped. "No, I should never be-"/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Peace," Starfire said, as she slid the knife into his femoral artery. The hints of pink slime at his fingertips receded into human flesh./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire caught the blood in a cup with one hand while she pried open the ribcage with her fingers and tongue. She tried to ignore the whimper./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""This shall end very quickly," she said, settling her fingers around the pulsing centralized circulatory organ. She brushed back his hair and planted a gentle human kiss on his forehead as she pulled it free./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Only when the gleam of awareness faded from his eyes did she cut out the digestive tubing. Some of the guards turned over and moaned, one of them mumbling about a smoke break. She said her prayers as quickly as she decently could and piled the organs on the brazier, watching them sizzle and blacken. The heart was hers, by rights of her faith. She took no pleasure in chewing the dense muscular tissue./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire pulled out the Slush Bag. She'd seen the movie with Raven and Robin about the evil haircutter who killed people and disposed of the bodies by chopping them up and serving them in pies. She'd argued with Robin about the logic of it afterwards, while he kept bringing up esoteric points about the origin of pulp villains. Flesh was the easiest part of a human being to dispose of. The calcium-rich endoskeleton was the most tenacious evidence of the deed./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The power of Lord Scath pulsed through her. In some ways, it resembled the joy of flight, the taste of Dijon mustard, or the enjoyment that could be had pressed up against the washing machine during the right cycle while looking at footage of sweaty boys wrestling. In other ways, it was incomparable. She'd only used it three times in battles against villains, and each time she'd made sure that her allies would attribute it to some other cause. The exercise of that power came second. The first was simply knowing it was there, ready for her use, if she really, truly needed it, knowing that a being older than the first atom of hydrogen would share some of his strength with her, that something to whom the collision of galaxies was a brief diversion still cared about her and spared her from suffering and would be there at the bitter end. No hurtful words from a frozen "zombie" could take that away from her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire tucked the rest of Plasmus into the bag. Remembering something she'd seen in an action film, she paused to press shut the boy's eyes. Then she started breaking her exoskeleton in strategic places, ready to dive into the drain again. She still planned to come back here, during visiting hours, as Starfire instead of Red Y, to share a game of Go and seek answers from the traveler that had returned from the undiscovered country./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Anyway, if she turned away from Scath, where could she look? To some absent father figure with theologically myopic toadies? To the mindless fornication of Shub Nigguroth and the distant fires of Cthugha?/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She shook hear head, embraced the pain, and dove in./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She hadn't Given any entrails for a while now. The Jump City correctional authorities had really stepped up their internal security in the wake of the recent disappearances, although thank Scath her team-mates hadn't taken too much of an interest. They were so busy dealing with the enemies still abroad they didn't have much time to think about people who were out of circulation. If an "escape" from prison wasn't followed by a rematch in the streets, it usually fell under their radar./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Probably, at least. She wasn't sure that Robin was entirely ignorant of the situation. He'd been trained by one of Earth's greatest detectives, after all, and he had an obsessive personality and a knack for tearing away at unexplained things, like a symbiotic slahrg prying parasites from a korlok's ridged joints./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire pressed the hybrid Mouse against the wall, just out of reach of the surveillance camera. The faraday lotion she'd rubbed on would stop her from registering on conventional film, but it wouldn't conceal an object that had left her person for more than a few moments. Robin kept careful track of all his signature items, but cyborg was more haphazard, up to the point of leaving an entire spare leg in the sink for a week. If he lost track of anything important, he'd just assume that Silky had eaten it. This would set up a convincing edit of footage loops and shut down the trickier security systems in place. As for the guards, she could figure out a way to avoid inconveniencing them on their routes. She'd thought about a more efficient way of breaking in and out, but she hated the idea of injuring innocent third parties. Anyway, she had enough trouble hiding leftovers as it was./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"So many of the films she watched with Raven, Cyborg, Robin and Beast Boy involved espionage agents and heroes penetrating a secure building through the ventilation shafts. Her own attempts at this venture had proved extremely disillusioning. The plumbing infrastructure, on the other hand, proved easy enough to penetrate of one was willing to break the equivalent of a human "hip" and "collar bone" and then fracture her subcutaneous exoskeleton in the right place. She washed down a handful if ibuprofen with an illicitly appropriated Mike's Hard Lemonade, took out the surgical implement, and tried not to listen to the sickening crack of her own tissue as she leaned over the toilet. The sound was the worst part./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The disorienting pain was still the second worst part, but the elastic suit she'd whipped up in her spare time kept her organs in nicely. Her friends generally thought she lacked a sense of humor, but it was just a bit different, and sometimes a touch morbid. She couldn't explain to them when she burst into laughter at random times that she was thinking about the Red Y suit she'd created, an in-joke that Robin probably wouldn't catch on to even if she shared it with him. Aside from the reference, nothing in her shadow identity linked her back to the titans, or to the Cult of Scath./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire plunged into the toilet when she felt the medication kicking in. It only hurt a little more. Greywater was an easy environment to navigate to somebody accustomed to flying through the edge of novas and tachyon storms. She didn't feel guilt about keeping this secret from her Earthling friends. Raven never explained why she flinched when Winter Prince made that statement, and Starfire hadn't even seen Robin without his mask./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire squeezed, shot, and wriggled through the pipes, like a kaltimite larva penetrating brain tissue. No, she didn't feel guilty about hiding the suit and alter ego from her friends, or even the Scath shrine. She didn't feel guilty about those things./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The security around the Plasmus chamber had increased ever since Slade broke him out. The Mouse shut down the electric grids, infrared sensors, and robotic taser drones. A delta bomb from her utility belt made sure that all seventeen guards in the area slipped into dreams about another ordinary day at work, but were still lucid enough to answer calls over the radio. If she could figure it out, then it was only a matter of time before Slade did. That was the point really. Once awake, Plasmus was nearly unstoppable./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He was also, in a way, completely innocent./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire melted the edges of the drain cover with her eye beams, then pushed it free with her tongue. It took six minutes of careful, agonizing wiggling to spill out of the container, and then another twelve minutes as she sucked in air to re-inflate her crushed body./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"This gave her time to think, unfortunately. Overthinking was never a helpful addition to covert operations. She thought about the indignant snarl of Jonny Rancid, the despairing moan of Doctor Light, or the impotent outrage of Gizmo as he moved from "snot-muncher" to intense and creative profanity that might make a slave-trader cover his ears./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Everyone keeps secrets. Power always comes with a price. These were core tenants of her faith, but she truly believed that she was using this power to make the world a better place. Goats, birds, and targs simply weren't enough for true communion and ultimate propitiation. As the humans said, there was "no such thing as a free lunch"./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The pain dulled as her keratin structures knitted themselves together. It spiked again as the isolated parts of her nervous system reconnected, but eased again. She brought in fresh air and breathed out, careful not to let any chunks of exoskeleton or genetically identifying information slip out onto the floor./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Communion with the Alpha Centauri hierophants had been… unfulfilling. There were many cosmic-level forces at work in this universe and beyond. Scath's great might was not unopposed, but he ruled before these imitators and challengers, and his uncompromising strength would reign again. One time, Poblano's Famous Pizza had been attended by some Abrahamic earthling cult, distributing leaflets and seeking to assimilate others into their own beliefs. At first she'd laughed out loud, amazed by the egocentric arrogance of the superstitious believing, not only that their god was the greatest, but that he was the only one in existence. She'd reined in her mirth and apologized when she found out that Cyborg and Beast Boy held some level of adherence to some sector of "monotheistic" faith, but it was still a strange concept. Who could be that presumptuous, and how much water did that hold when descriptions of their negative afterlife matched so closely with the suburbs of Scath's minor kingdoms?/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Now, around unconscious guards, basking in green light, as her Tamaranian body turned pain into recovery, she saw some unwelcome parallels between that evangelistic, narrow-minded dogma and her own faith. It wasn't in the theology, which was radically opposed, but in the platitudes and aphorisms, the quick and easy answers that holy members offered to keep their pack in line./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The Winter Prince had not faced Scath's evaluation. He'd managed to steer clear of any major god. He hadn't needed to make any pact, to swear allegiance to a higher power. He'd crafted his own godhead, soaked up the forces that had killed him, and spat them back in the face of the cosmos./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire knew that she could never do something like that. Whether it was arrogance or courage, she couldn't see herself apart from the rest of the world. She needed to be answerable to some kind of higher power to give meaning to her life, and strength in times of terror, and hope when all other lights go out. Even the brand of hellfire was better than the empty ice of an uncaring universe./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Plasmus's naked form drifted in the green fluid, orange hair drifting as if in in a gentle breeze, the bizarre reproductive organs swaying about like a malformed ovipositor, hand unclenched and face at peace. He looked younger than Cyborg, maybe even as young as Beast Boy, although it was difficult to read a sleeping human's face./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"That was the irony. When awake, he didn't look even remotely human. Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, all of them looked far more "inhuman" than her, but she was a Tamaranian. They were taxonomically closer to a mustard plant or the E. Coli disease than they were to her. Robin, Raven and Cyborg could all be considered "kissing cousins" to the birds and ungulates they ate. (Of course, she still didn't know if Terran/Human death rituals involved necrophagy, but she understood just enough about the culture to suspect the subject would be difficult to broach. She definitely didn't want to learn the origin of the phrase "kissing cousins". )/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Even though the 30th amendment granted any life form formerly human or sufficiently humanoid to pass for human in a swimsuit contest with the equivalent of human rights, the 32nd Amendment allowed for "any necessary unusual measures" to be employed for the containment of metahuman criminals with respect to their superpowers. For many people, this was as simple as a silver-lined cage, special handcuffs, or 24/7 exposure to a low-intensity infrared light. For entities like Plasmus, it wasn't that simple./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Technically speaking, Plasmus was being kept alive. As a sapient human being, he was cut off from all experiences, unable to speak, to taste, to hear, to see, to touch, to engage with his environment in any meaningful way. Maybe he dreamed, or maybe he was too deep in sedation for REM sleep./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Certain sects of the Scath Cult believed that innocent blood was more powerful, and had their own ways of moderating this principle, such as using volunteers or the pre-sapient larvae of sapient species. Starfire had never seen the need. If that meant taking more risks, going out for more people to give to her Lord, then so be it./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She took the malware Cyborg had created for her, as an academic exercise in teaching her about Earth's computers, and synched it up with the life support system. Cyborg was always eager to teach, to share, to help others learn. Beast Boy lacked the patience to really share information in a coherent manner and Raven preferred to keep all her occult wisdom to herself. (Probably for the best, as teaching sessions from Raven might cause Starfire to reveal a little too much knowledge of forces from the infernal planes.)/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The system would now display the same vital signs on a 42-second loop. Starfire disconnected the nutrient feeds and sensors./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She took her time, lighting the brazier, making an offering of spoiled meat with her left hand, drawing the figure with sticky, curdled paint. The smoke took on its usual strange shapes, spelling out arcane secrets and hinting at horrible shapes. The smell of Sulphur filled the room./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The cool copper handle of the ritual dagger gave Starfire the comfort of familiarity. She popped open the container./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The boy stirred. His eyes shot open./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I'm awake?" he gasped. "No, I should never be-"/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Peace," Starfire said, as she slid the knife into his femoral artery. The hints of pink slime at his fingertips receded into human flesh./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire caught the blood in a cup with one hand while she pried open the ribcage with her fingers and tongue. She tried to ignore the whimper./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""This shall end very quickly," she said, settling her fingers around the pulsing centralized circulatory organ. She brushed back his hair and planted a gentle human kiss on his forehead as she pulled it free./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Only when the gleam of awareness faded from his eyes did she cut out the digestive tubing. Some of the guards turned over and moaned, one of them mumbling about a smoke break. She said her prayers as quickly as she decently could and piled the organs on the brazier, watching them sizzle and blacken. The heart was hers, by rights of her faith. She took no pleasure in chewing the dense muscular tissue./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire pulled out the Slush Bag. She'd seen the movie with Raven and Robin about the evil haircutter who killed people and disposed of the bodies by chopping them up and serving them in pies. She'd argued with Robin about the logic of it afterwards, while he kept bringing up esoteric points about the origin of pulp villains. Flesh was the easiest part of a human being to dispose of. The calcium-rich endoskeleton was the most tenacious evidence of the deed./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The power of Lord Scath pulsed through her. In some ways, it resembled the joy of flight, the taste of Dijon mustard, or the enjoyment that could be had pressed up against the washing machine during the right cycle while looking at footage of sweaty boys wrestling. In other ways, it was incomparable. She'd only used it three times in battles against villains, and each time she'd made sure that her allies would attribute it to some other cause. The exercise of that power came second. The first was simply knowing it was there, ready for her use, if she really, truly needed it, knowing that a being older than the first atom of hydrogen would share some of his strength with her, that something to whom the collision of galaxies was a brief diversion still cared about her and spared her from suffering and would be there at the bitter end. No hurtful words from a frozen "zombie" could take that away from her./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Starfire tucked the rest of Plasmus into the bag. Remembering something she'd seen in an action film, she paused to press shut the boy's eyes. Then she started breaking her exoskeleton in strategic places, ready to dive into the drain again. She still planned to come back here, during visiting hours, as Starfire instead of Red Y, to share a game of Go and seek answers from the traveler that had returned from the undiscovered country./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Anyway, if she turned away from Scath, where could she look? To some absent father figure with theologically myopic toadies? To the mindless fornication of Shub Nigguroth and the distant fires of Cthugha?/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'GNU Unifont'; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She shook hear head, embraced the pain, and dove in./p