I like writing these before I write the chapter, and then occasionally add things as I go, so I don't actually know how long this chapter will take to write, but it may be awhile since I have my highschool final exams in like a month, but ill still try and write when i can. This chapter is when you'll see just how much this story is inspired by kill the justice league, especially since part of it is almost just straight up a scene from the game ,but this should be the only part that is too similar, story wise it should be very different. Last chapters cliffhanger was one of the first ideas i came up with when planning this fic. You should hopefully get some more answers this chapter. This has definitely been the most fun chapter to write so far.

Second update: it has been like 6 months, I hadn't worked on this in ages because i had to focus on my exams, take said exams, went away for a bit, had to make sure i got into university, then STARTED university, with like 3 mental breakdowns in between, and then this chapter needed a huge rewrite because i wasn't happy with a good chunk of it, so , uh, my bad. Hoping to make this one longer than planned to make up for it a little bit

Little warning: This Chapter may contain some foul language. I don't plan on using that kind of language regularly, but there is use of it in this chapter so if you have an issue with that sort of thing here's your warning.

As always please review if you have any notes or things to say, and I hope you enjoy the chapter :D

Jinx couldn't believe her eyes. She had to be dreaming, or seeing things. She couldn't have just seen what she thought she saw. Cyborg had just thrown the two civilians to the small crowd of those creature..soldier…things. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she willed her legs to move, to try and duck back around the corner and pray that they somehow hadn't seen her, but her body wasn't responding to her brains requests, paralyzed by fear and shock. Not that it mattered anyway; even if by some miracle they hadn't seen her when she first turned the corner, she had called out when she first saw Cyborg. They already knew; they just weren't in any hurry.

The two civilians were now being held by the creatures, and one of them, with some strange tech strapped to its body like a harness, stepped forward and put a hand on each persons shoulder. The others took a couple steps back as a deep magenta glow began to come from the device strapped to the creature, enveloping the creature and the two people it had hands on, until they were all fully obscured within the machines light. The light then faded almost instantaneously, with the two people and the creature wearing the harness having completely vanished.

Jinx's blood ran cold as Cyborg casually turned to face her. He approached with an easy smirk on his face.

"I wondered how long it would take for you to turn up" His smile grew wider. "Y'know, me and BB actually took bets on how long it would take for you to get yourself into trouble."

He stopped. She didn't know what was going on, but it was very clearly not good for her long term safety. She could turn and run right now, but she doubted she could escape all of them, especially when she knew they had eyes in the sky. She could fight, but she was outnumbered; not that she wasn't used to that, but with Cyborg it became a problem. She had fought Cyborg before, her odds of beating him weren't bad, but they weren't entirely good either. They had both been able to best the other in previous fights, so if she tried to beat him now, she would be taking a gamble. She noted that none of the other creatures wore that harness that was used to teleport one of them and the civilians. Sometimes the best thing to do was wait for the right time to strike. She could save her fight or flight ideas for later when that right time presented itself.

She dropped out of the defensive stance that she hadn't even realised she had taken.

Cyborg continued his approach. "You always were the smartest villain in your circle."

The soldiers behind him started towards her, but were stopped dead in their tracks by a raise of the teen hero's hand. He turned his head slightly to almost face them, but made sure not to let Jinx leave his sight.

"I'll handle this, continue your patrol"

He was now close enough for them to hold an actual conversation. Jinx tried to speak quietly. "Is this some sort of undercover scheme you're pulling?" she raised an eyebrow before muttering to herself "I know you Titans certainly aren't above that sort of thing".

"Nah, just keeping the city safe, like usual"

She almost laughed at him, until she realised that it wasn't sarcasm. Now that he was up close she was able to get a better look at the Titan. He had small green nodes on his mechanical half, similar to the ones on all of the tech belonging to those creatures, although his were a bright lime green colour. The cyan blue circuitry visible on his body was intact, save for an occasional green streak visibly interrupting the usual pattern. It was his human half that really didn't look so good. His skin looked sickly, and tiny greenish veins were visible on his face, branching out like a tree from his eye, almost glowing. At least she thought they looked like veins. His eye, where the little vein like structures seemed to converge, was the part she immediately noticed. The iris and pupil of his eye were both glowing the same lime green colour, though the iris was an ever so slightly darker shade, making it just barely possible to tell that the iris and pupil were separate. She began avoiding looking at his face.

Noticing Jinx's lack of response, Cyborg continued. "You seem like you have a couple of questions you wanna ask me, and that's great, since I have a few questions I'm gonna need to ask you" He slowly started towards an alley, indicating for her to follow. "C'mon, let's walk and talk". She noted to herself that it didn't sound like a request.

He waited for her to be alongside him before matching her pace. "Seeing as you look oh so confused, and since I only have a few small questions I wanna ask you, I'll let you go first"

Seeing as now wouldn't be the best time to try and make a break for it, Jinx saw no harm in getting a little information about the current situation.

"Alright, how about we start with what you just did back there"

Cyborg opened his mouth to answer before stopping when they made it out of the alley. "Hold that thought, I'll answer once we REALLY start moving" He smiled.

Jinx should've ran before. They were now stood on a different street, looking at the T-car, which was perfectly parallel parked between two abandoned cars. If she got in that car, she would lose any last morsel of control that she could've had over the situation. Cyborg walked up to his beloved car and opened the passenger door.

"After you"

Reluctantly, Jinx got into the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt as Cyborg closed the door on her. The interior of the car was lined with the same strange organic-metal tech that she had been seeing everywhere. She didn't get the impression that it was for decoration. Cyborg got into the drivers seat and started the car.

He started driving at a casual pace before shooting Jinx a small glance.

"So, where were we?" He began. "Oh right, what I did back there to those people"

He briefly closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling. "Some people just have no respect for martial law"

Jinx looked at him with a quizzical expression. "That doesn't actually answer my question."

"They shouldn't've just been out on the street, civilians are supposed to stay inside; part of the new rules"

"I don't seem to remember being told these 'rules' "

"Don't worry, they're pretty simple" He replied. "And easy enough to pick up; the whole city seems to have worked them out for the most part"

"And why are you involved in this?"

"Same reason I've always had; stopping crimes"

Jinx just responded with a dumbfounded expression. Something about the way he had said it had thrown her, he clearly recognized that what he was doing now was different somehow, but there was a sense of honesty to it, like it was the genuine reason he was doing this. Seeing as she was trapped in an enclosed space with him, a moving car no less, she decided to not try and pry into that any further.

"If those people being out on the street was the problem, then why have those things been going inside buildings?"

This seemed to interest Cyborg. "Which buildings?"

"I heard them breaking into some of the buildings near where I was hiding"

He frowned, looking mildly disappointed with her answer. After a moment he responded. "Just another unspoken detail of how things work now". He starting smiling again. "If they enter a building for any reason, then civilians are no longer allowed in that building, so they had better get out fast and pray that they aren't spotted doing it"

"That doesn't seem too fair to me"

"Life ain't fair"

Jinx squirmed in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable; Cyborg was talking in a much lower tone of voice now. Even when she was a criminal who would fight the Titans regularly, she had never actually felt all that unsafe while fighting them; they were the good guys, it wasn't like they would ever actually cause them any serious harm. Now was different; she did not feel at all safe sitting next to Cyborg in the T-car.

"Are there any other 'unspoken rules' I should know about?"

The half-machine hero's tone reverted back to normal. "Sure, like 'nobody gets in or out of the city but us' , of course these rules are less of a strict set of guidelines as much as they're a general idea of how things work now, I'm sure that you'll pick up on it soon enough".

They turned a corner onto a street with three of those creatures marching towards them. All three of them moved to the sidewalk to allow the T-car to pass through the street untouched. Jinx watched the creatures as they passed them.

"So what are those guys?"

Cyborg decided to slow the car down to a slow pace. "See those things on their backs?" he grinned. "They're called 'Scarabs', they're based on a piece of pretty advanced alien tech, though they're severely less impressive then the original. These versions that we've reverse engineered can attach to a persons back, then they form a kind of armor on their body, turning 'em into our soldiers; me, BB n' some others came up with calling them 'mandibles' ".

Jinx whirled to face the cybernetic Titan, eyes wide with shock and horror. "Those things are people?! "

Cyborg's smile only grew wider. "Were people, now they're our soldiers"

Jinx was too stunned to speak.

"Of course, I think the original one is much cooler" Cyborg continued. "But this was the best they could do to reverse engineer it, and even I have to admit that the way it instantaneously and fully reprograms the hosts mind is incredible. No memories of who they were, no trace of their old personality, just a good old fashioned soldier. They aren't geniuses, but as far as grunts go I've met dumber"

What. The. Fuck.

She was going to be sick.

"There's two presets: the standard ones, and the ones with the cannon arms, my idea by the way, although those are less common. We're working on other types but that's all that you'll need to know for now."

He turned to look at Jinx's horrified face. "Relax, I'm not going to turn you into one of those, we only do it to low priority targets and you're a priority two target, which is pretty high up."

Jinx finally found her voice. "Can it be reversed?"

He shrugged. "Don't know" He was still smiling. "But I certainly hope not".

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. The car finally sped up again, putting the three mandibles far behind them in a matter of seconds. She had nothing more she wanted to say, and even if she had, she wasn't fully sure she would be able to speak. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Cyborg broke the quiet.

"This little chat will have saved you some time later on, but now it's my turn to ask the questions" He stated grimly without taking his eyes off the road. "I've answered all of your questions, I'd say it's only fair you answer mine" He continued in a lighter tone.

"Life ain't fair" Jinx whispered spitefully .

Cyborg's grip on the steering wheel slightly strengthened. "We're friends Jinx, this doesn't have to be difficult." He sighed. "Just help me out here, it'll make things smoother for both of us"

Jinx glared. "What do you want to know?" She growled.

Cyborg began to softly smile again. "We can start simple, how about where you've been hiding out from us?"

Jinx raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. There was no harm in telling him, there was nobody else there, and she didn't plan on going back anytime soon; not to mention the fact that it couldn't hurt to send him on a wild goose chase. "A small food store, not too far west of here" She began. "I'd tell you the name, but I just can't remember". That should really waste some time, without a name they'd have to check every store in the nearby area, and they wouldn't even find anything to show for it.

"Were you hiding with anyone else?"

"No," She smiled. "But either way you're still going to check in case I'm lying"

Cyborgs smile slightly strained at this. "Let's move on to some slightly bigger questions," He began. "Have you had any contact with Robin?"

Jinx was taken aback by this. "No?"

"Do you have any idea where he might be?" He continued. "Have you even seen him?"

She raised her eyebrow inquisitively. "No," She replied. "on both accounts" Why would Cyborg want to know that? Robin was his friend not hers. If anyone would know it would be him.

Cyborg sat in silence momentarily. "What about Starfire? Do any of my previous questions apply with her?"

"No"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes"

"How about Raven?" He started grinning. "Even after you switched sides, you two never quite got along; if she was in your shoes and had any information on you, she'd probably tell me."

"No," She was starting to get a little irritated by the repetition of these questions. "I haven't seen or heard from any of your friends."

Cyborg had stopped smiling; and his face didn't betray any of his feelings. "What about your old HIVE buddies, seen or heard from any of them?"

"I haven't caught up with any of them in months" she uttered

The T-car slowly pulled to a stop on a street corner. "Do you have any information on anyone important?"

"Nope," Jinx replied lazily, "not that I'd be eager to share it if I did". She tried to ignore the sinking feeling she had felt when Cyborg hadn't asked about Kid Flash.

She squirmed in her seat uneasily. She didn't like how forthcoming Cyborg had been to her questions, she knew he wasn't stupid; he wouldn't just divulge helpful information like that for no reason, and she didn't buy for a second that it was to keep things fair.

Cyborg grimaced, before removing his seatbelt. "Y'know, there was another thing I should've mentioned to you before," he began, "nobody who is priority three or higher gets turned into a mandible. They get taken in and have something done to them that stings quite a lot more than the painless experience of being given a scarab." He began to smile again, but this time it was cruel and mocking. "Come to think of it, you're actually a priority two target, and one of the more significant ones at that." He opened the door. "We're at our stop" He went on coldly.

He got out of the car first, and waited for Jinx wordlessly. It was now or never, she doubted she was going to have much more time to try anything. Jinx slowly got out of the car and closed the door. Seemingly satisfied by this, Cyborg turned and began slowly walking toward the corner of the street, waiting for Jinx to catch up. He sighed, "It's a shame, if you had told me something useful I could've gone with you to make sure things went smoothly for ya, but now I'm gonna have to spend my day patrolling and looking for leads", Cyborg proclaimed. "Once you're with us, if I find out you were lying just now, you're gonna be on toilet sanitation duty for a whole day, I promise ya that", he remarked.

She hadn't moved from the car. Now or never. Her hand crackled with pink energy, as she raised her arm to take aim. "That's enough", Jinx yelled.

Cyborg whirled, his arm now in cannon mode and trained on her in an instant. He had clearly been expecting her to be planning on attacking him. He was mistaken. Jinx had her hand raised towards the T-car, ready to fire. Cyborg froze.

"You move, or try anything, and the car gets it" Jinx hissed.

He smiled in response, "You think I wouldn't have made my baby armoured enough to take one of your blasts?", he mocked.

She smirked back, raising an eyebrow. "I dunno, maybe I'll have to find out the hard way", she jeered, calling his bluff.

Cyborg was deathly still, and was glaring daggers at her, but after a moment he turned his arm back to normal and he raised both of his hands into the air. "Let's be reasonable here Jinx, no need to do anything too extreme".

She grinned. From around the corner several mandible soldiers came running, one of whom was wearing one of the teleporting harnesses she saw earlier. Cyborg indicated for them to stop, and they complied.

Jinx's smile grew. "You always were one of the smartest heroes in your group", she mocked.

"What's the plan here Jinx?", Cyborg fumed. "There's only so far you can back away before you aren't a threat to my baby, if you try and run we'll have drones following you, and if you think I'd rather risk you driving the T-car then running the risk of you blasting it then you're not as smart as I give you credit for"

She gritted her teeth. She couldn't have ran when he had his back turned, he would've noticed and then she would've taken a sonic blast to the back; even if she had shot first. Taking his car hostage was the best gambit she could come up with in the few seconds she had to think. "Let's start by getting those guys out of the mix", Jinx gestured to the mandibles behind Cyborg.

"Sure thing, whatever you say", Cyborg complied. With a wave of his hand, the mandibles nodded and went back around the corner. "See, no more mandibles, just us now"

She could only stall like this for so long, soon enough reinforcements would arrive who couldn't be incapacitated by the threat of a car being damaged. She needed to make her escape and she needed to do it now.

An idea came to her as she had her eyes trained on Cyborg. A well placed shot could knock him off his feet long enough for her to make a run for it to the nearest alleyway and stay out of sight from there, and as long as she stayed out of the open she could avoid being followed by the drones. When Cyborg had been walking away she couldn't be sure her shot would be perfect, but with him standing fixed in place for her like this, there was no way she could miss, even if he tried to dodge at the last second. She smiled, and was about to snap her arm towards Cyborg to take the shot when she noticed Cyborg had suddenly started looking a lot more relaxed, and was even smiling again. She didn't have time to realise what had happened before she felt hands restrain her arms from behind her. Right, one of those things had a teleporter. She turned her head to see the mandible that had grabbed her, and two more behind it, one of them wearing the teleporter harness.

"There, that's better", Cyborg gloated. "You're gonna regret bringing my car into this Jinx".

The mandible soldier with the harness began to approach her with a hand outreached, she tried to get loose but she couldn't escape the soldier's iron grip. She shot a final pleading look at Cyborg, only to see him watching it all unfold with his arms crossed.

The mandible was close enough to grab her, and was reaching out to do so when a flash of green filled Jinx's vision, before being replaced by the sight of the harness-wearing mandible flying to the right, knocked off of their feet. Jinx felt the pressure relieve from her arms as a similar fate befell the mandible that was restraining her. Looking up, she saw the source of the familiar green flashes.

"Starfire!", Cyborg called. "Please just come down here, I promise I just want to talk!"

Starfire was floating overhead, eyes and hands lit up by that oh-so-familiar green energy, with one of her arms outstretched, ready to fire again at a moments notice.

Cyborg raised his hands passively. "C'mon Star, I don't want to fight you"

The alien princess briefly wavered, but did not relent. "I do not wish to fight you either, friend Cyborg, but you are not right! Neither you or friend Beast Boy would do the things that you are doing!"

Jinx was briefly stunned by all of this, and was momentarily distracted by the sad, yet fiercely determined look in Starfire's eyes. But as entertaining as standing out in the open could surely be, Jinx decided that it wasn't for her. She dashed into the nearby alleyway, and trying to be stealthy about it too. Not that it mattered, since Cyborg and the mandibles had seemingly lost all interest in her, and were now fully focused on Starfire. Not great for Starfire, pretty good for Jinx. Unfortunately that was where Jinx's good luck ended, as the alley led to a dead end. She could still hear the conversation from the street.

"Listen Star, you've got this whole thing all wrong!" Cyborg called. "I promise everything will make a lot more sense after we get this whole thing sorted out, just come with me back to the ship and-"

"No!" Starfire roared. "You and Beast Boy were not like this until you were there, and I will not allow the same to happen to me!"

"Alright, no ships, got it" Cyborg lowered one of his hands and outstretched the other in a friendly manner. "But we cant just shoot at each other instead of talking normally, we're friends for Pete's sake, come on down here so we can talk properly.

Starfire slowly floated down until her feet were just about level with the roofs of the nearby cars. "I do not see how this has improved our ability to 'talk properly' ".

Cyborg lowered his outstretched hand when Starfire did not take it. "I know this is all confusing, but I promise that this is all just a big misunderstanding. We're both just trying to protect the city here! If you come with me we can get this whole mess sorted out, but you can't keep flying out and attacking our people like this, the last thing I want is to end up having to hurt you to stop you, Star"

The energy in Starfire's eyes grew brighter "I assure you, you do not have to worry about that"

A genuine look of sadness registered across Cyborgs features. "There's really nothing I can say that'll get you to come with me peacefully, is there?"

A sympathetic look grew on Starfire's face. "No my friend, but I promise to do all I can to make you right again, and if you surrender I can try and look for someone to help you"

Cyborg pointed to behind Starfire. "Look, Jinx is probably still hiding in one of those alleys over there, how about we both bring her in, and then you can see for yourself that everything I've said has been true."

Starfire turned to look where Cyborg had pointed. Starfire was a kind and trusting person. Some would even call her naive. But she was not stupid.

She whirled back prematurely to find Cyborg pointing a now charging up sonic cannon at her.

"Uh, I can promise you, this is not nearly as bad as it loo-"

He was cut off by an eye blast that sent him sprawling. Starfire dashed back higher into the air and darted away at breakneck speeds. Cyborg got back to his feet and made a break for the T-car, while barking orders at the nearby mandibles, demanding that they had eyes in the sky following her. The T-car zoomed off in the same direction as Starfire, and the mandibles shortly followed suit, leaving the street nicely empty for Jinx to make a clean escape.

Raven hadn't been home in weeks, she hadn't even been in the city in weeks. Back on that night that she and Starfire had visited the Titans East, they had split up after the Jump city had been attacked, while the Titans East tower had also been attacked the same night. Of course, by the time she had actually gotten there the Titans East themselves were now nowhere to be found. What she did find, however, was a small group of tall, humanoid things that seemed surprised to see her when she arrived. They attacked her, she beat them up, and one of them teleported the rest away. From that point, she would've tried to catch up with Starfire and fly home to help her friends, seeing as Robin was the detective, and she had no idea what could've happened to the Titans East. But one of those creatures got a lucky hit in, and she was in no condition to fly home that night, and she had already been too tired to teleport home before the fight. She spent the night in one of the Titans East's secret saferooms; she would've just taken their couch if she hadn't been concerned that more of those creatures were on their way.

Resting the night had allowed her powers to heal her, but when she awoke the next day the first thing on her mind was to check her communicator, only to find a single message from Robin to all Titans, official or honorary, warning to not use their communicators. She checked the news to see if she could get any information from there, just to find out that the city had been attacked and invaded, and now nobody could get in and, as far as they were aware, nobody had gotten out. She remembered how badly she had needed to resist the urge to teleport there, but the message from had only been a couple of hours old, so they must've been relatively unharmed, and without knowing what was going on, teleporting in became too risky a gambit, even to the tower. Besides, with the Titans East missing she realised that it fell to her to make sure steel city was secure before she went home. She had spent the next couple of days making sure no immediate threats were loose, and had discovered that, aside from the initial attack on the Titans East headquarters, Steel city was not facing the threat that Jump was. The only sign she encountered of anything similar was the small groups of the creatures that she occasionally found skulking the streets at night. They had been trying to keep a low profile, and seemed like they were looking for something or, more likely, someone. If things were going as they usually did, they were probably looking for her. Seeing as they weren't harming anyone, she decided to avoid them for the time being, she had been far more preoccupied with finding a safe way to get back to her friends.

Teleporting was a non starter, without knowing the state of the city and how much of threat there was, a blind jump wasn't the best option. Her next thought would be to fly there, but one of the few things that the news was actually able to find out was that the city perimeter was being heavily guarded, she could probably get through but would undoubtedly have her presence reported, losing her the element of left her with the unfortunate option of sneaking in. Raven usually wouldn't mind being sneaky, but for it to work in this scenario she couldn't give away her position in advance, which would surely happen if she flew there. She was going to have to walk all the way home.

She had risked flying the first half of the journey, which had taken her several hours, but then had to resign herself to walking the remaining half, which was going to inevitably take days at best, weeks if she was being extra careful. It had, in fact, taken weeks. Two and a half to be exact, putting it at three weeks total since the initial attack. Three whole weeks. Three weeks, where she hadn't been able to communicate with anyone, three weeks since she had last seen her friends. Three weeks where she hadn't known if they were even ok.

It had taken awhile but she had finally made it to the perimeter of the city, where she could now at least figure out a plan to get in. The perimeter was marked by watchtowers overseeing the border, with the clear message of: "nobody gets in or out" , some of the towers were just encampments on the roofs of buildings already on the edge of the city, while there were also a few notably out of place structures, which were clearly created by the invaders. Every couple of hours, the guards swapped, that would be her chance to get in. Robin had gone through drills with the team where they had to avoid using their powers and rely solely on skill to sneak around, though Raven was fairly certain she was the only one actually paying attention, since Beast boy had been staring off into space, Cyborg had been berating him for not paying attention, whilst not paying attention himself. Starfire, to her credit, had at least been looking at Robin, though from what Raven remembered of the dreamy look in her eyes, she wasn't all that convinced that Starfire was focusing on the drills.

When the time came, Raven slipped by the towers without a problem. She had finally made it. Raven was finally home .