Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know that they existed at all. They weighed on a person slowly, suffocating them but never revealing why. Harper has been feeling this way a lot lately. She still had no regrets about her previous decision to turn Victor into A.R.G.U.S, nor about later breaking him out, but she wished that they could resolve the tension still lingering between them. He absolutely refused to speak with her...hell, he wouldn't even look at her anymore.

That was why she had ventured to Titans tower. Victor had decided to remain there until the Justice League meeting in an effort to avoid Harper as much as possible. Clearly, this was an overreaction. Sure she had betrayed his trust and crushed their admittedly rocky friendship, but she had thought that all would be forgiven once she released him. Apparently they both had vastly different mindsets.

After gaining access through a rather clueless and excitable Starfire, Harper started her search for the Cyborg. Every titan she asked was either unwilling to reveal his current location, or simply had no clue where he had disappeared to. It was a big tower after all, and Harper had come without any of her mechs as a show of good faith.

Harper has asked almost everyone that she could find, and so she turned to those that she couldn't. Namely the mysterious hooded figure that looked like she had walked straight out of a Marilyn Manson music video; Raven. She always had such an impressively dark aura surrounding her, and was unlikely to answer any questions that Harper posed, but she was still determined to crack that outer shell.

It wasn't difficult to locate Raven's room. It was the only one with a symbol painstakingly carved into the door. Harper wasn't even remotely knowledgeable on magic, but even she recognised this image. It was a pentagram; a pointed star entrapped within a circle. It was passed down to modern Witches through the tradition of ceremonial magick. Wiccans and Pagans wore it as symbol of faith, but it was also used as a protective glyph.

Harper tried to ignore the possibility that she might burst into flames if she touched it, and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Harper furrowed her brow and pressed her ear against the cold metal. She could hear something...a constant chanting of "Azarath Metrion Zinthos."

The brunette's eyes narrowed. Raven was definitely in there, and she was in no mood to be disregarded. Harper tried again, this time banging harshly against the entrance. Still Raven refused to acknowledge her.

With a sour expression, Harper pressed a rectangular, green lit button right beside the door. To her surprise, the entrance opened...as if Raven had forgotten to lock it; or perhaps she felt no need to. She was, after all, feared by many in her own team. Harper doubted that anyone but Beast Boy and Starfire would be willing to disturb her...and she could now add herself to that list of insane individuals.

The chanting was now consuming the very air around her. It seemed to shake the ground and steal the life from her veins. In the middle of the room sat Raven...only she was levitating four feet in the air and appeared unaware of Harper's sudden intrusion.

Harper stepped further into the room, ensuring that her doorstep echoed off each wall, but she received no reaction. "Uh...hey. It's Harper. We met, like, once I think. I was just wondering if you knew where Victor was?"

The silence almost buried Harper beneath it, but she had never been the type to know when to quit.

"Look, I understand that no one here trusts me anymore. You probably didn't ever trust me...but I need to speak with him. I won't leave until I do."

This time the complete lack of response sent Harper on edge. Cautiously, she shuffled closer and shifted herself until Raven's back was no longer facing her. From under the cloak, Harper could see the woman's face clearly. She was so bereft of colour that she almost looked grey, and her eyes were to voids of endless darkness; there was no pupil, nor iris. It was completely black.

Harper stumbled backward, only for her elbow to knock against something. She turned just in time to see a skull unlike anything she had seen before floating in front of her, surrounded by a dark purple aura. That magic faltered at the sudden physical contact, and as if it had been ripped away from its connection with Raven, the skull fell.

Harper managed to catch it before the skull could shatter against the floor, and as she held the quaking object in her palms, she heard a pair of familiar clunky footsteps halt near the open door.

"What the hell are you doing in Raven's room?" Victor hissed with an obvious mix of anger and concern. His eye wandered down to the skull just as it started to spark with dark magic. He cursed. "...shit."

There was an explosion...or, that was the only way that Harper knew to explain it. One minute the skull was trembling and the next it erupted into a black hole that sucked anything within range inside.

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Harper awoke on a searing road, rocks digging into her ribs. She felt her abdomen for any injuries but found nothing but her own, intact flesh. The sky above was blackened as if a night storm was imminent and the world about her was silent other than the soft whispering of the tall black trees either side of the path. They grew so thickly together that squeezing between them would be impossible. There was only the road to follow, which seemed to stretch to infinity in either direction, perfectly flat.

Harper got to her feet and held her head in her hands. It was pounding and stinging, and straining to comprehend her current location. The horrid smell of smoke engulfed her, and as Harper glanced into the horizon, she saw the distant remnants of fire. She took a step forward but felt her legs shake at the effort it took to walk. Her eyes dared to look down, and there she saw just how skinny she had become; like she was starved, sickly, and near death.

She had hoped to never feel this way again, or at least not so soon. It was like a nightmare. One that had forced her condition to suddenly worsen. She searched her immediate surroundings once more but still saw no other pathways or doorways back to Titans tower. Then something eclipsed a distant flame; a figure that was running towards her. Upon closer inspection she saw that it was a teenager, no older than eighteen, and with the general height and build of a pro-athlete.

"Finally found someone." The man huffed when he reached her. There was a slight sweat glistening on his face. "You know what's going on 'round here, lady?"

Harper exhaled shakily. She felt sick. Like she might throw up...but she managed to hold it in for long enough to form a reply. "No. Do you?"

"Nah, man." The teenager replied with very little regard for her current state. "I was in the middle of practice, then suddenly I was here. Freaked me the hell out. Thought I'd never find anyone."

Harper nodded because that was all she could do. Then, without much warning, she doubled over and felt her empty stomach retch. There was nothing to vomit up, but her body still craved the release.

She heard the teenager scoff. "What are you, some kind of cancer patient or somethin'?"

"That's none of your business." Harper coughed, then fell to her knees. Her feet could no longer support her. The teenager instinctively grabbed onto Harper's arm in a failed attempt to soften her landing, then frowned.

"Yeah...whatever. Sorry, I guess."

Harper frowned and shot a particularly harsh glare at the man, then she was met with the most oddly familiar pair of brown eyes...the color of the earth after torrential rains. But there was something else in them, something glistening. Glistening like an old copper penny. Harper recognised it, but only barely. "Victor?..."

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. No longer was he consumed by technology. He had both eyes, and both ears, and his entire body was nothing but muscle and bone wound together by smooth skin. He was human.

The man let go of her arm and stepped back with a raised eyebrow. He crossed his arms, and Harper saw that the bulk of them almost matched up to his cyborg counterpart. He looked confused above all else, perhaps even a little sceptical. "Do I know you?"

Her heart stopped. "It's me... Harper."

Victor's lips tightened and his jaw clenched. Despite her words, there was no hint of recognition on his face. "I don't know any Harper's."

If there were wind in that place, it would have been deafening next to the silence that followed. This place, whatever it was, had not only rewound time for Victor, it had fast forwarded it for Harper...a time dilation effect. Either that, or some kind of weird magic that Harper couldn't even begin to understand. Whatever it was she knew one thing for certain. They needed to get the hell out of there.