"Hello, Father."

She lay awake, yet her thoughts were wrapped in gauze and the bed was so soft she thought she might sink right through it to the floor. Her body was warm, but her limbs felt like lead. The girl smiled dreamily at her great metal daddy, unchanged through time. His armor shone like bronze fresh from a daydream. His drill glistened. A warm golden glow spilled from his helmet's porthole. He didn't move to open the glass barrier separating them. She wondered why, but her thoughts were sluggish. The girl frowned.

"Why don't you come in?"

"He can't Eleanor, you know that." Moving her head was a titanic effort, but she turned just enough to see the speaker.

"Mother?" Sofia Lamb sat on the side of the bed, eyeing Father. Instead of the usual distaste, disdain and disappointment, something else filled Dr. Lamb's gaze. Gone was the perfect poise and impeccable dress, Sofia's shoulders slumped with melancholy and her clothes were stained with the grime that inevitably covered everything in Rapture. When her mother turned her eyes on Eleanor, the girl saw only... sadness. Fear took root in her heart and before she knew it it had sprouted and grown throughout her. "Mother, I'm scared." She didn't try to keep the tremble from her voice.

"Fear is only a chemical, primitive self preservation." Mother said. Father was banging on the transparent surface with his fists desperately now, to no avail.

"This is your own doing." A pillow was pressed to her face. Eleanor gasped, or tried to. Her lungs burned. She couldn't breath. Her limbs felt like lead, she could not lift them. She couldn't breath.

"Aah!" Eleanor gasped into consciousness, straining at the bindings that kept her tied down. Opening her eyes sent a painful jolt through her head. There was a blinding light positioned directly above her head. She shook and thrashed in vain to get free, succeeding only in rattling the gurney she was bound to. The former Little Sister couldn't help it. She cried out, a pitiable anguished sound. "No! No no no NO!"

"Shh! Be quiet Siren!" It was shock more than recognition that stilled her writhing at the sound of the voice. Someone grabbed her shoulders, and for the first time she noticed they were covered only by a stained hospital gown. My armor! What happened!? When his head blocked the light, she finally recognized him.

"R-Robin?" Relief flooded her voice. "Oh thank God. Please get me out of this! Where are we? What's going on and-" She squinted. "What are you wearing?" The boy wonder appeared to have exchanged his usual colorful outfit for a suit of black and bronze body armor, Slade's colors. A disguise, probably. Robin released her shoulders and began working on the restraint on her left arm.

"This is Slade's hideout. It looks like Apex has moved in. He's been drawing blood from you." Eleanor shuddered involuntarily at the thought, but tried to focus. Concentrating was difficult. That sedative must still be in my system.

"What's the plan? Where are the others?"

"The plan is: you get out of here before Slade sees me helping you." Her restraint fell away and she was able to raise her arm. Robin moved to her other side. She blinked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean? What about you? What happened to the others, Robin?" A hysterical edge entered her voice as panic took hold. She grabbed his arm with her newly free hand. "What happened?!"

"The chronoton detonator was a decoy." Robin looked her in the eye. His expression hardened. "The others found it while I was distracted fighting Cinderblock. Slade used it to implant them with nanomachines that will tear them apart from the inside unless I do everything he says." He shook his head and returned his attention to the restraint. "I should have known it was a trap."

"Maybe..." Siren looked away from him. Her mind was on their friends: Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy and Raven... "Maybe we both should have." She muttered. Maybe I could have made a difference if I hadn't gotten myself captured, but I saved Raven...

"You need to get to the tower, tell them about the nanoprobes so they can remove them…" Eleanor hardly heard him. She fell inward, considering how her actions may have simply made things worse. She almost didn't notice the red haze in time to shout a warning.

"Rob-!"

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SPECIMEN, BOY!" Ryan Lutwidge, wild eyed and snarling, slammed his fist into the side of the boy wonder's head. The force of the blow knocked Robin off his feet and out of Eleanor's sight. A scream of guttural rage ripped from the spliced scientist's throat as he pounced after Robin with a fistful of fire. Eleanor cried out, yanking desperately at her restraints. She heard a grunt and Lutwidge stumbled back into view, holding his jaw.

"I need to teleport…" She mumbled to herself but focus eluded her. Each time she tried to concentrate on a point in space to move to she lost it. A blind teleport would likely land her in a wall. Eleanor saw Robin leap into view and land a spinning kick that sent Lutwidge flying before he exploded in a red haze. Fire, lightning, frost, anything! She flexed her fingers. Come on, come on! The boy wonder leapt and did a handspring to avoid two balls of fire. Lutwidge charged towards him with another snarl. Robin pushed off to meet him with a boot to the face.

"ENOUGH." Suddenly, Slade was between the two combatants. He caught Robin by the ankle and flipped him over his head, slamming him into the ground with a cry of pain. Lutwidge found the wind knocked out of him by Slade's knee and collapsed, clutching his gut and gasping for breath. "Robin…" Slade shook his head and spoke in that smooth dangerous tone of his. "I'm disappointed. Despite everything I have to offer, everything we can achieve together, you go behind my back like this. I'm beginning to wonder about your loyalty…" His visible eye narrowed behind his mask at the Titan. "Is that what you want?" Robin was on all fours, glaring up at Slade and grinding his teeth with rage. At Slade's words, his limbs went slack. All the rage drained from the boy wonder's face and he bowed his head in defeat.

"I… I'll do as you say." The edge in Robin's voice faded as he spoke the words. Come on! Eleanor felt a tingling in her fingers, then a crackling between her fingers like static electricity. Yes!

"And you, Doctor," Slade turned to the gasping splicer. He had managed to get to his feet, shaking and holding on to Eleanor's gurney for support. With a movement almost too fast for Eleanor to follow, Slade backhanded Lutwidge hard enough to send him sprawling. The masked man stood over the groaning splicer. "You will leave disciplining my apprentice to me. Tend to your subject."

"No, no!" Eleanor could feel the electrical charge surging through her arm like a hot needle. Lightning crackled between her fingertips. She jerked her palm in Slade's direction, pulling at her restraints. A cloud of red vapor materialized in the corner of her eye. She gasped as a sharp cold pain entered her neck. No... That same cloying fog wrapped itself around her thoughts, she felt the hot hum of electricity dissipate from her hand. No...

"I should get an IV drip for this, better to keep her still while I work," Lutwidge voiced his thoughts to the air, rubbing his jaw where Slade had struck him. Eleanor hardly heard him. She was crying.

"Robin? Robin, where are you? Robin, please respond!" Starfire pleaded into her commlink as she drifted above the downtown skyscrapers. Ever since the detonator had turned out to be a decoy and Robin had disappeared fighting Cinderblock, the Tamaranian hadn't rested for even a moment. She was frantic, and her teammates weren't much better off. Raven had returned to the tower disheveled and simmering somewhere between rage and desperation. Errant pulses of dark energy shattered two glasses and a window as she related what had happened in the sewer.

"Starfire, enough. You've been calling for forty five minutes." Raven's voice grumbled through the comm.

"Perhaps if I call one more time..."

"If he was going to pick up he would have done it by now... Besides, you're kinda giving me a headache." Beast Boy chimed in.

"But why does he not respond?!" Starfire stopped in mid flight to hold her communicator in front of her face with both hands. "Where could he be?"

"Well, Robin and Cinderblock definitely went a few rounds," Cyborg reported. He had returned to the rubble strewn sewers were the team had last seen Robin. He had ordered them to go after the detonator while he fought Slade's henchmen. "But I can't tell who won, or where they went. I did a pass where Raven last saw Siren too, nothing there but rubble."

"No sign of them here either." Raven spoke evenly. Her part in the search was played in front of the T-Tower's main computer, looking for any sign of their missing friends' locators. It gave her the opportunity to try and center her emotions, as much as that was possible at the moment. In truth what she needed was a few hours of uninterrupted meditation, but that was not an option. The sorceress had doubts as to how successful the attempt would be anyway. It was all she could do not to dwell on the look on Eleanor's face before...

Blue eyes, filled with concern, worried but bright, knowing, loving. Pain, contorting her flesh. The smell of ozone and singed hair. Blue eyes squeezed shut. Then she was gone for her sake, her fault, her-

Raven set her jaw and clamped down hard on the emotion. It was too much, more than she could permit under any circumstances let alone now. Her power getting out of control was the last thing the Titans needed, let alone rash decision making. The others had certainly given her an earful about that.

"All this time, you've been mad at Siren for running off on her own, and then you turn around and do the same thing! What gives!?" Beast Boy accused. Raven sat silently on the couch, staring down at her lap. "We're supposed to be a team aren't we?!"

"I know," She ground out. "I wasn't thinking about the team, I-"

"Oh, NOW you decide to get in touch with your emotions..." Beast Boy grumbled and started pacing back and forth in front of the couch. "So it's 'I feel something so now I'll go get my butt kicked by Slade alone, sayonara'?!" Raven's fists clenched. A crack and a crash thundered through the room as a screen shattered.

"I know,"

"Hey BB, head out and help Starfire, she's already started searching." Cyborg walked in with heavy footfalls. The shapeshifter stuck his nose in the air and marched past him.

"Fine! Whatever..."

"He's angry," Cyborg said once the doors closed behind Beast Boy. "But he's not wrong, you're lucky Slade only knocked you out and left you behind."

"Why would he do that?" Raven asked, finally looking up to meet his gaze. "It makes no sense."

"I don't know, but the sooner we find Siren and Robin, the better. Slade tricked us." A note of anger entered the metal man's voice. "And we fell for it, hard."

"Their locators are still offline. I've been monitoring all the frequencies, but Robin still hasn't checked in."

"Oh, we are bad friends! We should never have left Robin to do battle alone." Starfire quailed.

"Yeah, especially since Slade's big doodad turned out to be a dud." The shapeshifter added.

"The Chronoton detonator wasn't a dud," Raven tapped a key and pulled up a schematic of the weapon the other Titans had tracked down in the sewers. When Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy had finally tracked it down, it had sparked and smoked before losing power completely. Upon closer examination, it was clear that it was never intended to work. "It was a decoy, they were trying to distract us, to keep us from going after Siren and lure us away from Robin." There was a crash and a groan of frustration from the speakers. Raven guessed Cyborg had just punched a wall.

"I should have known that thing was a fake!"

"But why?" Starfire asked. "Why did Slade wish to separate us from Robin? What does Apex want with Siren?"

"And if the detonator was a decoy…" Beast Boy began.

"...What was Slade's real plan?" Raven finished. Ruminating on that point would have to wait on that point would have to wait however, as an alarm started blaring through the speakers.

"Titans, Trouble!" Cyborg announced.

Robin did his best to stay focused. He had always been good at that, focusing on a mission, planning out his next move. Stealing into the facility wasn't so hard. Avoiding the cameras, heat sensors, and guards to get into the ventilation system had been a challenge, but nothing hadn't done dozens of times before. It was his true mission, and the knowledge that Slade was monitoring his every move, that weighed heavily on his thoughts: how to save the Titans from Slade and Apex. Cyborg probably had the technology to purge the nanomachines from their systems, but that wouldn't help unless the Titans knew Slade was holding them hostage.

Siren was the more immediate problem though. Robin didn't know what Apex had planned for her, but it wouldn't be good. He'd been surprised to find her in Slade's hideout, but he hoped that by breaking her out before Slade caught on he could solve both problems. That didn't seem to be an option anymore.

"Stay focused, Robin, you're slowing down." The boy wonder grit his teeth and refused to answer the voice in his ear. When he reached his destination, he stopped and made short work of the panel beneath him. It fell into the room below, Robin followed, smoothly drawing an S-shaped device out of his new utility belt. He let it fly even as he landed and watched it strike his target, the armored lock of a transparent cylinder filling the center of the room. There was a metallic Tnng as it struck home and a beeping countdown. Robin closed his eyes for the flash and bang of the detonation. The alarms started blaring almost immediately.

"He's stolen the thermal blaster!" A guard called. The sound of many pounding boots reached his ears. He had to move fast. Robin snatched up the device and turned as the security force entered the room.

"Stop him!" They opened fire through the smoky remains of the explosion as Robin somersaulted towards the window, crashing out onto the observation deck. Bullets followed. The security team charged out onto the deck overlooking the skyline of Jump City.

To find nothing.

"Where'd he go?" One guard asked. Robin watched them walk off in search of him from the overhang. The fewer people he had to hurt, the better. So far Slade hadn't objected his avoiding rather than confronting the guards. Small mercies… He lowered himself down to the observation deck and made a break for it. Now I just have to- Two familiar faces came around the corner: one with green skin, the other flying with red hair streaming in the wind.

No, no, NO!

"Freeze!" Cyborg shouted from behind him. Peering over his shoulder, Robin saw Raven hovering next to him, cloak flapping in the wind. The boy wonder bolted toward the edge of the deck. The Titans raced after him. He couldn't outpace them and it was a hundred story drop to the street. I have no choice… Robin spun at the edge and finally let the Titans get a look at his face, a mask of dispassion. The stopped and stared, dumbfounded as they took in the black and copper of his uniform..

"That's not Slade…" Best Boy's jaw dropped. "That's-"

"Robin." Starfire finished, drifting closer. This isn't good.

"Whoa," "No Way!" Cyborg and Beast Boy exclaimed. I need to keep them away from this until I figure something out. Starfire reached a hand towards him as she drew near. Her eyes were filled with confusion.

"Robin, why are you-" No hesitation. Robin drew the disk from his belt and flung it at the Tamaranian in one smooth motion. He's watching. It exploded in a flash of fire and energy before it hit the alien girl, but it still sent her sprawling.

"Yo!" Cyborg reached towards Starfire.

"What's your deal?!" The shapeshifter shouted.

"Not a word, Robin, they aren't your friends anymore." Just like the last time he had Slade's voice in his ear, Robin grit his teeth. Right now he had to be what Slade wanted him to be, stone cold. The Titans recovered and started to close the distance. He leveled the Thermal Blaster at the walkway between them. A pulsing red beam tore into the concrete, the roaring explosion ripped the walkway apart and sent a pillar of smoke billowing into the sky. Robin heard the Titans cry out before he leapt. The smoke hid his retreat. His grapple gun carried him away from the fire, but within him rage only grew. I will save Starfire and the others. I will defeat Slade. He could only hope that the madman didn't force him to do anything unforgivable before then.

You must learn to play poker, Eleanor. Like anyone, I am flawed, and have a fierce genetic bias towards competition. But each Saturday, I read the other players... and I pick a man who will benefit the most from victory. By the final hand, I ensure that he takes home my entire stake, and that of the others. I win nothing but the feeling of conquest over myself, and the wealth of my competitors is slowly reshuffled according to their needs.

-Sofia Lamb, to her daughter

Eleanor was trapped in a fog. Her limbs would do little more than twitch without immense effort and trying to concentrate on her surroundings was a challenge unto itself. She needed to focus now, not on the horror of her situation or how exposed she felt wearing nothing but a hospital gown, but on the threat in front of her. Lutwidge was here. The periodic jab of a needle in her arm told her that, not mention he was humming. The madman is humming. Anything that had Lutwidge pleased couldn't be good for her. She strained at her bonds with the arm not being stuck with needles, hoping the spliced scientist wouldn't notice. To her own surprise, she found that it was loose. It's the same arm Robin freed, Apex must have been sloppy…

"Ah, you're awake Miss Lamb." Damnit… Eleanor turned her gaze to the deranged doctor. He smiled at her. His teeth had an unhealthy grey cast to them. "I was just extracting ADAM from your bloodstream, it's less than grandfather's journals led me to believe. Is that because of your age? Does the slug produce ADAM differently when its host reaches puberty?" The foaming rage seemed to have subsided for the moment. "Or is the ADAM simply incorporated into your own system? Is that the source of your abilities?" But perhaps she could use this, get him talking, keep him distracted while she worked on freeing her wrist.

"You know about the ADAM slug." She stated, schooling her face into an unreadable mask.

"I know about the Little Sisters, you mean." Lutwidge nodded emphatically, grinning like a man terribly pleased with himself. "Not until recently, actually. I had wondered just what made you so different from the average splicer, what allowed you to possess such potent abilities without suffering from degradation…" Eleanor suppressed a wince as the doctor withdrew the needle from her arm. He held the syringe up for a moment to stare at its crimson contents. "Now I know. I just need to work out a way to replicate your immunity without the presence of a slug. Even if I had more of them, it wouldn't be efficient for mass implementation."

"Widespread?" Eleanor's stomach dropped. "What, are you trying to build an army?"

"Tsk," The smile vanished from Lutwidge's face and he scowled down at her. "What do you take me for, some kind of megalomaniacal sociopath?" Something like that… She had managed to get the binding just a little looser, now she could begin trying to squeeze her hand out. Lutwidge let out a barking laugh and turned away from the Titan. "No! I'm not doing this for my benefit, Miss Lamb, though a little fame and fortune wouldn't go amiss." He walked to a desk against the wall and began fiddling with a piece of equipment. "Do you remember the night you and your 'sisters' arrived in Jump City?"

"What of it?" It felt like the skin was being peeled off her hand, but she was making progress. Just a little further.

"Aliens threatened the city with a giant particle weapon, in pursuit of an alien teenage girl that single handedly caused thousands in property damage with her hands bound." Just a little longer… "Your lifeboat may have provided the means, but that was my motivation." Eleanor allowed herself to give Lutwidge and incredulous stare.

"In case you don't remember, we stopped those aliens, with Starfire's help."

"Bah!" The madman whirled towards her with a dismissive snort. "That's my point, you fool. Your friend and the other aliens are only the latest example of humans being protected only because some powerful alien deigns to protect us. And that goes for the other costumed 'heroes' as well, yourself included." Now he advanced towards her. "Humanity shouldn't be dependent on the whims of a few freelancing 'heroes'." Almost...

"And it doesn't matter how many people you sacrifice in your experiments? How many subjects die in acts of petty theft or just to see what happens? Like Theta? Like me?" Now Lutwidge loomed over her. He placed a hand on the metal slab next to her head and leaned in.

"Great scientific advancement requires sacri-GAH!" Lutwidge recoiled as Eleanor's fist slammed into his jaw. She grabbed him by the collar to keep him from stumbling out of range.

"Hah!" She pulled him closer and headbutt him right on the nose. There was a wet crunch and Eleanor saw stars. She felt something warm and wet on her face before Lutwidge collapsed, a bloody senseless mess. She located the IV dripping whatever drug was clouding her senses into her bloodstream and pulled it out of her wrist. The wound closed itself in moments. The former Little Sister put a hand to her aching head. If I can get my bearings and figure out where I am before this stuff wears off, I'll be able to teleport out of here. With that in mind, she began working in the bindings holding her other arm and feet. When she had freed herself, Eleanor tried standing and almost immediately had to catch herself on the slab as her knees gave way.

"Ugh..." Lutwidge groaned and twitched. Eleanor grit her teeth and tried again, this time she managed to start walking, though her vision swam and she had to grab the wall to stop her swaying. She thought about giving the mad scientist a strong kick for good measure, but it wasn't worth the risk of falling over again. By the time she reached the door, she could almost walk in a straight line. She heard something like heavy machinery down the hall and followed it. I just need to find out where I am, I just-

"Excellent Robin, I'm pleased. You're already proving to be the perfect apprentice." A familiar menacing voice from around the corner made Eleanor stop dead.

"This deal can't last forever." Robin.

"It can, and it will." Eleanor realized she had stopped breathing and forced herself to start again. She crept forward, hoping that the roaring grind of the many giant gears and machines in the room would hide her entrance. Fortunately it seemed the villain wasn't a fan of interior lighting, there was no shortage of shadows to hide in. Slade and Robin stood at the far end of the room. As she watched, a wall of screen lit up behind them. The Chronoton detonator appeared on the screen and the masked villain stepped toward it. "The Titans still have no idea that my chronoton detonator was more than a decoy. Now that my probes are inside their bodies, they could remain undetected for years, decades."

As Slade spoke, the detonator onscreen shorted out and collapsed in on itself. The viewpoint shifted, Eleanor glimpsed Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg before each was blasted by a ray red light from a device that deployed from detonator. The screen shifted, Eleanor's breath caught in her throat. Now it showed Raven in the sewers, levitating with an angry expression before she too was hit by a red beam. Once again, the screen shifted and this time it displayed a view of four... bloodstreams? Red blood cells floated along with minuscule metal probes on screen. Each one had one of the Titans' names below them. Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy... Raven. Eleanor's stomach dropped and the screens turned white.

"Unless, of course, you disobey me," The masked villain approached Robin and raised his hand, a detonator clutched in his fist. "And I decide to destroy your former friends with the push of a button."

"Sooner or later, you'll let your guard down." Robin ground his teeth. "I will get that controller, and the instant they're out of danger, you will pay." Slade took a step closer. They stood silhouetted against the blank white screens.

"That sounds like a threat, young man." For a moment, he met Robin's stare with cold unflinching malice. Then the villain snatched some sort of device out of Robin's hands. "Quite a good threat, actually. Betrayal, destruction, revenge. We really do think alike." Eleanor heard a snarl building behind Robin's teeth and suddenly the boy wonder lunged at his self-proclaimed master. It went bad quickly. Slade had clearly been expecting the move and seized Robin's wrist. In an instant, he had forced the limb behind the Titan leader's back and Robin was gasping in pain. "I monitored your vital signs during the mission. Elevated heart rate, adrenaline, endorphins. You won't admit it, but at some level you enjoyed stealing for me. It was a thrill, wasn't it?" He released the Titan and Robin stumbled forward, rubbing his arm. Slade turned away from him and began dismantling whatever he had taken from the boy wonder.

"You're going to keep stealing, Robin, and you're going to keep getting that sooner or later you will see things my way." Slade turned back and walked toward his unwilling apprentice. He had reassembled the device in a new configuration, some sort of small cannon.

"Who knows? I might even become like a father to you." He taunted as he latched the cannon onto Robin's wrist.

"I already have a father." Robin said quietly after Slade had turned away.

"Hmph," The villain didn't think much of his reply. "We shall see. Your next assignment starts immediately."

"What do you want me to steal now?" Robin's voice was dripping with bitterness. In response, Slade's hand drifted to his utility belt then in one swift movement a bladed disk was slicing through the air.

Maybe it was the drug in her system or maybe Eleanor was just so absorbed in their dialogue, but it took her a moment to realize that she was the target.

"Ah!" The former Little Sister let out an involuntary yelp as she threw herself to the ground and the projectile sliced through the air where her head used to be. She heard a great Clang as it struck the wall behind her. Robin was staring at her wide eyed when she looked up.

"No, Robin. You're going to recapture your former friend for me."

"Okay, the way I see it, there are only two logical explanations…" Beast Boy paced back and forth in front of the couch the other Titans were sitting on.

"One, Robin's been replaced by an evil robot double!" The shapeshifter brandished a comic book featuring a robot wearing a mask and tights, not unlike the boy wonder. He turned the page to an illustration of a spiky haired figure surrounded by the shambling dead. "Two… he's another innocent victim of zombie mind control!" Cyborg and Raven gave him blank looks that told him just how far around the bend he'd gone.

"Oookay," Cyborg said slowly, "But my scanners confirmed his biometrics. That was really him." He glanced at the sorceress. "Raven?"

""Oh," She shook her head, distracted. "If anything was controlling his mind, I would have sensed it. That was Robin, in mind and body."

"Lies!" The three Titans jumped and looked to Starfire, standing by the kitchen area with a distraught look on her face. "That was not Robin! Your scanners are wrong! Robin is our friend, and nothing could ever make him betray us!" She added more quietly, "Nothing…"

"Three words," Beast Boy cut in after a moment. "Disgruntled radioactive clone-ach!" Cyborg seized the shapeshifter and shoved him into the couch with a grunt. Raven stood and walked towards the window.

"There's a another possibility though." She turned to face her fellow Titans. "Siren. Slade and Apex have her. They might be holding her hostage, using her to make Robin do what they want." This possibility had been gnawing at Raven ever since she saw Robin wearing Slade's colors. If Slade is using her as a hostage, he might not let Apex harm her. An odd thing to hope for, but the alternative was something she didn't want to contemplate.

"Are you sure?" Beast Boy spoke. "Because Siren's been kinda obsessed with this Apex guy, not that she's ever told us why..." He muttered the last part bitterly.

"And he did kidnap Dr. Tenenbaum." Cyborg added. "Kidnapping Siren might have nothing to do with Robin." Of course he was right. Raven considered telling the Titans everything she knew, but it wouldn't make a difference right now. And telling them is something Eleanor needs to do herself. Still, the sorceress kept hoping that Eleanor was just a hostage, it held off that pit of dread in her stomach. She sighed to herself. Cyborg stood to face the team.

"Look, whatever's happened to Siren, it doesn't change what we have to do. No matter why or how much we wish he wasn't, Robin's a criminal now, so it's the Teen Titan's job to take him down. When we do, we can ask him why and about Siren." Silence met his words. Beast Boy bowed his head. Starfire turned away with her hands on her face and stifled a sob. Raven realized she had balled her hands into fists and forced herself to let go, schooling her features into a stoic mask. I can't help but feel we're running out of time.

As if in response to her thoughts, the lights began pulsing red and an alarm blared through the speakers. The tower computer shifted to a map of the city and highlighted a location in the urban center.

"Its him." Beast Boy said grimly.

Eleanor greeted Delta's glowing porthole with a an excited smile. She held out her doll, the result of much scrounging for bits and pieces, with pride. "Look Daddy, it's you!" Delta didn't respond with words. He reached for her tiny form and gently plucked her from the duct she had crawled from before setting her on the ground. Eleanor relished that moment before her feet touched the ground, when her father's strong armored hands held her aloft. She felt safe, secure and cared for. So she smiled all the more broadly as she tugged Delta behind her. "Come on!"

"Ah!" Cutting, a clean sharp edge in her flesh, blood flowing, sewn up, then sliced again.

"Your healing factor is most impressive Miss Lamb!" Lutwidge was giddy as a schoolboy. "The ADAM produced by your slug fills your bloodstream! The stem cells replace damaged tissue almost instantaneously. Remarkable! I knew your slug prevented genetic degradation, but I hadn't fully realized the other benefits!" The doctor rambled on, but Eleanor was slipping away. Rather, she was doing her best to slip away. Find another memory. "-How will your body respond to burns, I wonder?"

"Eleanor?" She looked away from the sunrise at the sound of her name and smiled at Cindy. They sat together at the edge of the escape craft, feet dangling over the water.

"What's the matter?" The little girl looked uncertain. Eleanor placed her arm around her shoulders. The girls had been so excited to see the sun again, some for the first time in years, for Eleanor, the first time in her entire life. Nothing had ever been so beautiful: the pastel stained sky, the sparkling sea and the brilliant sun setting Rapture's lighthouse in silhouette, a scene Eleanor would carry with her for the rest of her life. But now Cindy was frowning.

"Is Mr. Bubble- I mean, is Delta gone?" The Big Daddy's armored form still lay on deck. Eleanor had decided to consign her father's remains to the depths the following evening. She didn't want to bring more of Rapture than she needed to the surface. Besides...

"No," Eleanor hugged Cindy close. "He's here, in me. I took in his memories, his thoughts, his drive to help and protect us..." Cindy furrowed her brow.

"With the ADAM? Why?"

"So he can be my conscience," Eleanor brought her gaze back to the horizon. "And so I can be what he was, a guardian."

"-Doctor." Searing skin blistering, shedding, new flesh beneath. A new voice, deeper, cutting through the haze. "We must speak about your subject."

"What is it now?" Lutwidge groaned. Eleanor heard a clatter of metal instruments as someone moved a gurney. "I've only completed a handful of the experiments I have planned."

"You won't be performing any more experiments." Slade said firmly. "Siren has already escaped once and she's proving a distraction to my apprentice. Get rid of her." The cascading crash of metal instruments tumbling to the ground filled the room.

"What?!" Lutwidge screeched before the cacophony had faded. "She is the answer! Don't you see?! Her blood provides me with far more ADAM than my original source and I've already deduced that her implanted slug is what keeps the degradation at bay! I can't just cast her away now! I've only just begun my experiments-"

"If the slug is what you need, then take it." Slade turned away. Eleanor heard footsteps receding. "You haven't been the ally I hoped you'd be, doctor. You have until tomorrow. If she is still breathing by dawn, your experiments will end permanently." The door hissed shut and Lutwidge turned away, mumbling to himself. The Titan took stock of her bonds. Her hands were now encased in solid steel 'mittens'

"He's going to kill you." Eleanor spoke almost without realizing it. The spliced scientist turned and scowled. He reached for a syringe on the table and turned towards her.

"Not if I give him what he wants, Miss Lamb. He's not an unreasonable man, he won't toss away a useful asset." The sight of the syringe put the former Little Sister on alert. Her mind cleared somewhat. Mother was right about learning to read people. She started talking as fast as she could.

"Slade doesn't need your research, your splicers, or your ADAM, you're just a convenience!" She stared up at Apex as he came to a stop beside her and lifted the syringe

"That's what I just said," He rolled his eyes. "I understand my situation perfectly well. I understood it the moment I looked to him for help"

"No, you don't." Eleanor eyed the syringe he held poised by the IV. "He won't just kill you for failure. Once you produce what he wants, you become inconvenient. Look how hard he worked to control Robin. Do you think he'll let anyone but himself hold the leash for your creations?" Lutwidge frowned at that.

"My research-"

"He'll have your notes," He appeared to be in one of his more stable moods for the moment, she had to make this count. "And if you think he hasn't been recording everything you do here..." She shook her head. "He'll find someone else, someone with enough knowledge to reproduce your work, but not enough to control it." Eleanor watched emotions flicker across Lutwidge's face, the specter of doubt. Then the syringe lowered.

"You... make a good point, Miss Lamb. It might be I made a mistake coming to him. But Slade is a ruthless and suspicious man, not to mention a skilled and experienced killer. What do you propose I do about it?"

"You need to end your deal with Slade." Eleanor swallowed. "He'll come after you if you just leave, so use his enemies against him."

"The Titans," Apex smiled condescendingly. "I suppose this is the part where you ask me to release you?"

"Let me go and tell me the way out," She watched him raise the syringe again. "I'll bring the Titans back and we'll take care of Slade! You can make your escape in the meantime,"

"Tempting," Eleanor's eyes went wide as the needle pierced her arm and she began thrashing against her bonds. A familiar fog began rolling over her thoughts. Her limbs grew slack.

"No! Please, please, STOP!"

"-But, I think I'll make my own arrangements."

Robin scrambled through the ventilation system he had so narrowly escaped into, mentally cursing the Titans' swift reaction time. The best way to keep his friends safe was to stay as far away from them as possible until he could figure a way out of this. That was hard when they very nearly beat him to Slade's next target and forced him to make another hasty escape to avoid fighting them. The unwilling apprentice reached a vertical shaft and quickly ascended, kicking the grate out and exiting onto the rooftop. He glanced at the giant Wayne lettering on the roof as he passed by, yet another betrayal whether his self proclaimed master knew it or not. Slade wouldn't be happy, in fact Robin was expecting him to chime in right about…

"Not so fast, Robin. You have yet to achieve your objective." His taunting tone carried just enough of an edge to let the boy wonder know that Slade realized what he was trying to do. There was no harm in trying though.

"The device was too heavily guarded," He started. "I'll have to steal it another-"

"No!" The fury in Slade's voice surprised Robin enough to make him stop in his tracks. His voice returned to a more measured cadence but retained a firm edge of command. "Go back. Unless you want me to destroy them, go back and fight."

"Robin!" Robin froze at the sound of Cyborg's shout. Slade had him cornered. He turned to face his friends. The others had come to stand beside Cyborg, minus Siren. He felt a pang at her absence. The metal man stepped out in front of him with his hands raised in front of him in a placating gesture. "Look, I don't know what's going on but we don't want to fight. We just want to talk." Robin took the only action he could. In a moment he was soaring through the air to hit his friend with a roundhouse kick that sent him sprawling. The other Titans stepped back in surprise. They recovered quickly. Beast Boy attacked him first, taking the form of a massive guerrilla. Robin dodged and weaved around his massive swipes, only to entangle the shapeshifted in his grappling hook and pull him into the massive A. The boy wonder landed in a crouch and looked up to see… Starfire. She hesitated, reached out.

"Please..." He didn't hesitate. Robin ran right past her and launched himself at Raven. The empath weaved shields of darkness in the air in the paths of his blows.

"Robin!" Raven shouted out between strikes. "Where is Siren?!" Again, Robin felt a pang. She aimed a kick at his knees, he spun away. Abruptly a wave of dark energy lifted him off his feet. He hit the base of the luminescent Y with a crash and Raven was in his face, her eyes filled with a desperate glow. "What happened to her!?"

"She's… alive." He ground out and hoped Slade wouldn't care. His response mollified her, her guard dropped ever so slightly. He took advantage. Raven's head snapped back as Robin's palm struck her jaw. She fell back with a grunt and the boy wonder dropped to the ground, Cyborg's fist struck the signage where he had been standing. No sooner had he rolled to his feet than something green slammed into his side. The rooftop rushed to meet him and Robin found himself rolling end over end, stopping just short of the edge.

"Dude, are you okay?!" Beast Boy called out, shaken by the sight of his friend so close to a deadly plummet. He reached towards the boy wonder. That was a mistake, one Robin hated himself for taking advantage of. He seized the shapeshifter's hand and pulled. Beast Boy stumbled forward right into the path of a kick that sent him sprawling across the rooftop.

"Fight to win, Robin. Use the Thermal Blaster." The villain's instruction in his ear drew his face into a grimace again. Thanks to that distraction he didn't notice the dark energy creeping over his torso until he was being yanked in the air.

"What did Slade do to Eleanor!?" Raven flew closer. Robin suddenly realized he wasn't hanging over the roof anymore. The street lay below, a tiny ribbon of late night traffic at this distance. He grit his teeth. Slade wouldn't take kindly to him revealing any more, there was no telling how that would end for his friends. The sorceress' eyes flashed red for a moment. "Where did he take her?!" Raven flew close, hand outstretched. Robin reached for his utility belt. When the empath's fingertips brushed his head, it felt like someone had set a fire inside his skull. He couldn't stop the shriek that ripped through his chest. He could feel a foreign presence in his mind, sifting through him. It was invasive, wrong in a way deeper than words. His mind rebelled instinctively against the presence. Her fingers pressed tight against his skull. "Let Me In."

"Raven, please, stop this!" Suddenly, the presence was gone. Starfire hovered in the air next to her friend, holding the arm she had yanked away from Robin's face. A look of horror passed over the sorceress' face.

"Robin, I…" She started. Robin snatched a disk from his belt and flung it past the Titans. He closed his eyes as it exploded against the sign into a blinding flare that shattered the sorceress' concentration. Robin just barely caught the edge of the building.

"Shake it off Robin, get back in the fight. Now." The unwilling apprentice pushed what he'd just experienced to the back of his mind. He couldn't think about it now. When he pulled himself up onto the roof, he became a whirlwind of punches and kicks. He fought Cyborg hand to hand, the metal man tried to bring his sonic cannon to bare. Robin tripped him up and the cannon discharged into the roof beneath his feet. The apprentice let the shockwave propel him up to the company letters, where he landed in a crouch. Then he ran, away from the Titans he'd laid out on the ground. I need to get out before I do any more damage. That was the thought anyway.

"Stop!" Starfire rose directly in his path, a brilliant green starbolt around her raised hand, her eyes narrowed in determination. "Don't move."

"I thought I told you, Use. That. Blaster. Attack!" Robin clenched his fist, but kept his emotions off his face. "Now!" Slowly, Robin raised the arm with the Thermal Blaster attached to his wrist and leveled it at Starfire. It let out a high pitched whine as a red glow began to build up in the barrel. The starbolt glowed more intensely as Starfire clenched her fist. The stared into each other's eyes for a minute, each resolute and unreadable. Then Starfire's expression broke.

"Robin, you are my best friend. I cannot be in a world where we must fight." The Tamaranian bowed her head and the starbolt began to fade. "If you are truly evil, then go ahead." She closed her eyes and let her arm fall to her side. "Do what you must." This was too much. The sight of Starfire like this struck him deeper than anything else he'd done tonight. For a moment he forgot about the deadly nanoprobes in his fiends' blood, he forgot about Eleanor's capture, and he forgot about the villain's voice in his ear. The glow of the Thermal Blaster faded.

"Starfire, no- Ach!" A loud screech of static in his ears cut him off.

"Robin!" Slade roared over the headset. "I gave you an order, if you won't attack, my probes will." All at once Starfire doubled over with an agonized scream. Robin caught her reflexively.

"Starfire!" Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg crumpled below him, each groaning as every cell in their body sent messages of red hot agony to the brain. "Stop! Please, stop!" Robin cradled Starfire in his arms.

"Attack, Robin, it's the only way to save them. Attack with everything you've got." And Robin knew he was right. Once more his face slipped into a stoic mask. He gingerly set Starfire down at his feet. She reached out for him feebly as he rose.

"Robin…" He leveled the Thermal Blaster at her.

"I'm sorry." He fired. The blast rocked Starfire back against the ground, blacked out. The other Titans slumped too, Slade had stopped his nanoprobe assault. They wouldn't be unconscious for long.

"Don't go anywhere, Robin." Slade cooed. "You're not done here yet." He meant to punish the boy wonder for his hesitation.

"I know." Robin grit his teeth and braced himself to fight his friends again.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," Raven breathed slowly and evenly. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," She had been meditating in her room ever since they had returned from the fight with Robin. Cyborg had dragged Beast Boy into the living room and started attaching scanners to him to find out what had affected the Titans on the roof. That had been disturbing in its own way, but her own actions were bothering her more, like a serpent coiling and uncoiling in her chest. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."

"Raven?" Starfire interrupted her thoughts timidly. The sorceress sighed and opened her eyes.

"Yeah?" At her word, Starfire stepped into her room and approached Raven where she sat on the bed.

"I…" The Tamaranian bit her lip and started again. "What happened tonight…"

"I lost control." She said it quietly, but the words seem to hang heavily in the air. Starfire sat down on the edge of the bed.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." Raven fixed her eyes on the ground. "I saw Robin wearing that armor, those colors, and all I could think about was Slade in that sewer, taking Eleanor away." Raven leaned back and allowed herself to fall flat on the bed. "And what Apex could be doing to her now..." Her voice broke on the last word and Raven did her best to control the tumultuous emotion such thoughts brought to her even now. When she felt more secure, the sorceress continued, "I just… felt angry and… terrified."

"You were afraid of losing someone dear to you," Starfire supplied. "That's normal, Raven."

"But it's not okay!" Raven sat up quickly and gave Starfire a frustrated look. "You know how dangerous it is for me to lose control!" Starfire touched her friend's shoulder.

"I know," She held onto the sorceress' shoulder more firmly. "I know you care about Siren, but..." Starfire stopped, conflicted. It dawned on Raven why: Starfire understood that Raven needed to control her feelings, how dangerous it was for her to be so emotionally invested. Even so, Raven had been expecting her to argue that she could still be close to Siren and her friends anyway.

...Then she had attacked Robin.

"You don't know what to tell me, do you." She turned away from Starfire and the Tamaranean let her. The strength seemed to have drained from her fingers.

"I just want all my friends to be safe," Starfire gave her a torn earnest look. "And… I don't know the best way to do that."

"Join the club," Raven massaged her temples. The sorceress sighed. "Look, let's just try to figure out what's going on. We'll figure things out as we go along. And I promise to hold myself in check as best I can."

"I suppose that's all we can do." Starfire sulked. "Do you-" She was interrupted by a pounding fist on the door. Before either female Titan could react, the door opened to reveal Cyborg's bulk.

"I know why Robin's doing this!" He blurted out. The girls started to their feet. "He's being blackmailed."

"With what?" Raven asked.

"That's what I found when I examined Beast Boy when we got back," Cyborg explained. "Its us."

"So, what's your favorite food?" Raven gave Eleanor an odd look at the question. "What?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Well," The former Little Sister rubbed the back of her head and offered a sheepish grin. They were sitting by the pier while the other four newly dubbed 'Titans' introduced Starfire to a variety of foods whose chief ingredient was sugar. For a brief moment, it was just the two of them. "It's been a very long time since I made any new friends my age, so it seemed like a good place to start."

"Um… From this dimension?"

"Yeah."

"So far… pocky."

"What?"

"It's a chocolate covered treat I found in a supermarket, but generally I prefer drinking herbal tea." The sorceress added that second part quickly. Eleanor smiled.

"That sounds nice, mind if I try some next time?"

"Uh," Raven looked unsure how to respond. "Sure."

"You don't know much more about making friends than I do, do you?" Eleanor guessed. Raven's uncomfortable expression gave her the answer. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll figure it out."

"Damnit, why can't I figure this out!" Lutwidge roared. Pain, Flesh sliced again and again, knit back together again and again. "No matter what I try, your flesh just knits back together before I can make any progress!" The pain stopped and Eleanor heard something metal clatter against the wall. "Nothing slows it down!" She didn't have the energy to do anything more than let her head loll to the side. Several distant booms and crashes echoed from the direction of the door. "Oh, now what?!"

Robin grit his teeth as he glared at Slade. He had enough. He could not keep doing the villain's dirty work, though his attempts to attack the masked villain so far had proven less than successful. Slade turned away from him to face the monitors. The four screens still showed his friends' blood streams, a reminder of the danger they were in. If Slade thought that sight would cow him, he was wrong. Robin launched himself at the villain with a feral roar, but Slade was fast. Suddenly he found his arm painfully twisted behind his back and his tormentor's voice in his ear.

"I made you my apprentice. All my knowledge, all my power, all for you." He grabbed Robin's hair and yanked his head back. A spark of genuine rage entered the villain's voice. "But the only thing you care about is your worthless little friends!" He released the boy wonder and stepped back toward the screens. "If the Titans are so distracting, maybe I should just get rid of them." The trigger appeared in his hand and his finger hovered over the button that would kill Robin's friends. The boy wonder tensed, ready to pounce on Slade again… but he knew he couldn't. He deflated quickly. It was no use.

"Don't. I'll do whatever you say."

"Good boy." Robin could hear his smug smile. "And, from now on, I'd like you to call me Master." His victory was short lived, as a blazing emerald starbolt shot across the room and struck the villain in the chest, knocking him in the air to land in front of the monitors. Robin whirled to see Raven, Beast Boy, Cyborg and Starfire arrayed on the other side of the room. The Tamaranean had both fists raised and covered with shining energy. Her eyes blazed with determination

"Leave. Him. Alone!"

They were able to track the items Robin had stolen to Slade's lair. From the moment they arrived, Raven began casting her awareness out to find Siren. While the Titans fought Slade, she felt faint stirrings at the edge of her mind. When Slade initiated the destruction of his lair to cover his escape, Raven experienced a surge of urgency and suddenly she felt her, the panic and fear of someone close to her in pain. She made a beeline for the far end of the hideout and phased through a wall. Suddenly she saw her.

"Eleanor," She breathed at the site of the former Little Sister, bound to a gurney and thrashing as the whole room began to shake. Then Raven saw Apex, or rather the man behind the mask, hurriedly stuffing notes and samples into a metal briefcase. "Dr. Lutwidge?" The man slammed the briefcase shut at the sound of his own name.

"No! No! No! This isn't how it was meant to go," He turned to glare at her. "I had-" That was as far as he got before a tray of instruments wrapped in dark energy slammed into the side of his head and knocked him flat. Raven advanced on the villain, livid with rage.

"R-Raven? Is that really you? Am I dreaming again?" Eleanor's voice turned Raven's head, so uncharacteristically weak and fragile. A flash of red out of the corner of her eye told her that Lutwidge had escaped, but she had something more important to worry about. With a gesture, Eleanor's restraints were broken. Raven unclasped her cloak and cast it around the shaking girl's shoulders.

"It's okay," She said soothingly as the other Titans appeared at the door and she prepared to wrap them all in dark energy to take them out of this place. "You're going to be okay, Eleanor."

"That's it, y'all. The Teen Titans are officially probe-free." Cyborg pronounced. Beast Boy, who had been practically buried in medical equipment, leapt with a whoop of joy, shedding all the expensive technology in the process.

"Go, Beast Boy! You're probe-less! No probes now! Go, Beast Boy! Go, Beast Boy! Get fun-kay! Uh! Yeah! Uh, uh, that's right." The green shapeshifter moonwalked his way across the living room to everyone's amusement. Eleanor smiled. She had taken a shower and changed into her familiar diving suit, but Raven, who now sat next to her on the couch, had not taken back the cloak. It was still wrapped around her shoulders. The former Little Sister was still recovering, but it did her a world of good to be back home among friends. Home. She really liked that word. There was something she needed to do.

"Could everyone gather around please? There's something I want to tell all of you." She said in a quiet voice. Most of the Titans took seats on the couch. Beast Boy sat cross legged on the floor. Eleanor took the hands of Raven and Starfire, who sat on either side of her, in her own. "I have only had a few people in my life that really cared about me for me, and…" She began to choke up, but recovered. "I really want you all to know how grateful I am for all of you."

"Hey, you're our friend," Cyborg said. "Of course we care."

"So I'm going to tell you everything there is to know," Eleanor continued. "About me, where I came from, and how Apex is connected." She closed her eyes and took a breath to gather her thoughts. "It all started at the end of World War II and an industrialist named Andrew Ryan. He saw the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an abuse of power: That the intellect of great men had been harnessed by the "Parasites" to give them the power to destroy what they could not take. So he decided to create a place where people could strive for their own benefit without interference from any government or authority. So he built a city beneath the ocean called Rapture…"

"I think they took it very well," Raven said from behind Eleanor as she looked out over the bay. The former Little Sister had gone up to the roof after telling her story. The night was chilly but clear. She could even make out a few stars despite the light pollution of the city. Her friends had asked her many questions, but they had been more understanding and supportive than she had dared to hope.

"It's a relief," Eleanor closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the feeling of the wind on her face. "No more secrets."

"Good," The sorceress said as she stood beside her fellow Titan. They were silent for a time. Eleanor watched Raven out off the corner of her eye, watched how the faint light lit her pallid features and the wind disturbed her violet hair. She turned to her friend and took her hands in her own.

"Raven, I need to thank you."

"Um," Raven glanced down at their joined hands and grew red in the face. "You already thanked all of us Eleanor…"

"I need to thank you specifically," The former Little Sister pressed. "It was because of you that I was able to beat Theta, and remembering you was one of the things that kept me sane while Lutwidge had me."

"I…" Raven faltered and looked at her feet. "You're very important to me too, Eleanor. I couldn't stand it when you were taken. You're amazing, beautiful, understanding. I-" The sorceress was unsure where exactly she was going with this, but it didn't matter. Spurred by pure impulse, Eleanor had leaned in and planted a kiss on her lips. The effect was electric. Raven stiffened, stunned by what was happening. Then she found herself kissing back. They remained lip locked for what felt like a long time but was really only a handful of seconds. Then they both pulled back and looked at one another apprehensively.

"Well," Eleanor was as lost for words as she was. "That happened." She offered a flustered laugh that lapsed into silence. "What does this mean?" She said more seriously.

"You started it."

"Raven…"

"Eleanor…" Raven looked into the other girl's bright blue eyes for a moment before dropping her gaze. "I'm not sure this can work. You know my powers are tied to my abilities. When I lost you, I nearly lost myself."

"Hey," Eleanor touched the sorceress' face. "We don't have to decide our entire future right now. Let's just keep living our lives, day by day, and see how it goes."

"...Okay." Raven breathed as they turned to face the horizon. "Planning to stay until sunrise?"

"Yeah, its not far off now."

"Then I guess I'll stay too."

Author's Note:

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the net
Not a story was stirring, not even Titan of Rapture;
The readers were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of feel-good fluff and ultra-violence danced in their heads;
Down the chimney A Mountain Sage came with a bound.
With a bundle of chapters he had flung on his back,
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And updated all the stories; then turned back whence he came,
But you heard him exclaim, ere he fell out of sight—
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Way I see it, Christmas is about giving, not receiving. So even if you don't celebrate Christmas, I can still give you a Christmas present. As fun as it is to rip off classic Christmas poetry, I do have some words for my readers. I rushed the last part of this chapter, especially the rescue. I wanted to get something out before the end of the year. The good news is that I have not given up on this story. The bad news is that I am entering into the last semester of my college career and I need to both finish my major requirements and look for a job. Strange to think I will likely be moving out of my parent's house within a year. The point is, my life will be busy and fanfiction is going to be taking a back seat. I'll work on it in bits and pieces when I have the chance.

But by all means, leave a review and tell me what you think. I love to hear from readers and it might help me get my inspiration back down the line!