[   EPISODE 7: DENIAL   ]

RUNOUT — When the distance between your protection (bolts or placed gear) is further than you might feel comfortable with, meaning a big fall would occur should you come off the rock at this point.

CHAPTER SIX

"INITIATE COMBAT TRAINING."

As the two boys in the ring lunged at each other, JJ slid down into her splits at the edge of the training simulation. The ground beneath them groaned each time Superboy launched himself into the air to attack and shook as he punched down with each impactful landing, and despite the sheer violence of the face-off between Superboy and Aqualad, M'gann, Artemis and JJ hung onto every second of it with hawk-like intent. There was something beautiful in the ferocity of combat, which JJ had come to appreciate lately, given all the time she'd spent training with Dinah and the Team. Now, she could read each calculated strike and blow Aqualad and Superboy exchanged, could see the physics of each counter-attack, the strategic advances and the weaknesses in their guard. Opportunity and advantage—that's what Dinah always said to look for.

Stretching her hands up above her head, JJ felt every excruciating sear of her stiff muscles straining against her will. Earlier, she'd gone a round with Artemis, who—despite her lack of powers, and was very much a regular human—had bested JJ at hand-to-hand combat and put her on her ass under thirty seconds flat. In her head, JJ was still running over their fight, replaying every minute detail and seeking out the critical errors in which she might be able to improve for the next time round. While JJ prided herself on being the best, winning wasn't something she cared about if it wasn't earned, and she of all people would know that clawing one's way to the top was a gruelling process that required sufficient counts of failure at first before the learning curve began to arc into the range of success. And JJ knew that she couldn't compare to these kids when it came down to it. They'd been born and bred in this game since they could remember, and she'd only just discovered that she had powers earlier this summer. While they had all the technicalities tucked under their belt, JJ was still learning the rules of the game. Patience wasn't a virtue that JJ built her foundations on, but she suffocated the flame of frustration threatening to blaze through her body, and let the failure roll off her shoulders, turned it into something more productive.

Whilst training with the Team for missions had increased in intensity, so had her climbing sessions. Considering she'd missed out on one or two from her involvement with the Team, Coach Wymack hadn't batted an eyelash, even though JJ's absence was unusual for someone who demanded supplementary training sessions and had always been the first to show up and the last to leave. Still, JJ didn't like the idea of slacking even for a brief moment. That much was clear when she'd had to douse her hands in antiseptic every evening, her hands scraped raw and bloodied over and over again. At the moment, she had them wrapped tight in bandages, and each time she flexed her fingers, she felt the sting of her blisters and the immediate warmth of blood rushing to the surface of her ravaged skin.

To her right, Artemis stood with her arms crossed over her chest, eyeing the contenders with a critical eye, assessing every move, whilst M'gann had her hands clasped together, perched on the balls of her feet in anticipation. Arching a brow, Artemis smirked at M'gann, who'd been eyeing Superboy with unabashed interest, her eyes glittering with admiration for something more than his combat skill and superhuman strength. In JJ's opinion, Superboy's titanic strength wasn't all that impressive, considering he'd been born with it rather than cultivated it over an extensive period of time, the latter of which JJ could appreciate far more. It was practically nepotism.

"Kaldur's nice... don't you think?" Artemis mused, her tone teasing as she leant toward M'gann. "Handsome... commanding... You should totally ask him out."

Though she didn't see herself wanting to partake in the conversation, nor had Artemis or M'gann thrown her a line to draw her into it, JJ cocked her head and studied the boys. There was Superboy, all defined lines and hard planes, sweat glistening on his skin. He'd cast off his shirt before the combat training had begun, which had made M'gann blush fifty shades of red, and for a moment JJ thought she'd been hallucinating as M'gann's shape begun to waver and morph, as if she'd found it difficult in the moment to assert control over her form. To be frank, JJ never understood attraction in this manner. She understood pleasing aesthetics—some people were objectively better looking than others—but she never understood what about someone could make another lose control over themselves. Some part of her was curious about that feeling, but no amount of skin could ever appeal to JJ in that way.

From the corner of her eye, JJ watched Aqualad, all rippling muscles and fluid movement, relentless as the tides and with the commanding force of the currents, and tried to understand what Artemis meant, why she'd insinuate Aqualad's romantic eligibility. While Superboy was brute force and raw power and head-on collisions, Aqualad was calculated grace and dexterity, a dance of balancing opposing forces. In that aspect, JJ could see why someone could consider Aqualad to be a romantic prospect. Who wouldn't want to have someone this capable and competent fighting at their side?

M'gann giggled. "He's like a big brother to me. But... you know who would make the cutest couple? You and Wally!"

At the same time, the three of them glance over at Wally, who gazed at the burrito in his hands with unchained fervour and adoration as he took a huge bite off the top.

"You're so full of passion and he's so full of..."

"It?"Artemis said, flatly, finishing M'gann's sentence.

Finishing up her stretches, JJ smirked privately as the two girls snickered between themselves. At that moment, Superboy pulled a manoeuvre that sent Kaldur flying halfway across the room, and slamming down on his back. The automated voice within the training simulator announced, "K.O. Aqualad."

Aqualad let out a defeated sigh as he took the helping hand that Superboy offered him and stood, shaking his head at the projected hologram message declaring his combat failure. Above them, a hole in the domed ceiling slid open and, in a whirlwind of red, Red Tornado descended into the pit of the training room with a mechanical whir. In a flash, Wally was by his side, stopping their guardian in their tracks, eyes lit with hope.

"Do you have a mission for us?" Wally asked, practically vibrating on his feet.

Automatically, the others gathered around the red android expectantly, but JJ hung back, on the periphery of the group, waiting to see what might come next. The rational part of her thought to excuse herself from the potential mission and head home to rest, should Red Tornado procure something, but there was a secret part of her that hoped for the same rush she'd felt on the past two missions, the combative cohesion she'd glimpsed then, and for the knowledge of what her hands could do. What she could do.

"Mission assignments are the Batman's responsibility," came Red Tornado's flat and robotic response.

"Yeah, well, the Batman's with the Robin, doing the dynamic-duo thing in Gotham," Wally pointed out, wagging his fingers at Red Tornado. "But you're headed somewhere, right? Hot date? Or a mission?"

"If we can be of help," Aqualad added, as if to salvage some of Wally's bold self-assertion and turn it into a favour.

Even though Red Tornado's perpetually flat expression betrayed no emotion, JJ could anthropomorphise the exasperation and crumbling resolve into Red Tornado's movements as he turned and called up a holographic keyboard and pulled up the usual mission briefing boards.

"This is Kent Nelson," Red Tornado said, as the image of an old man in a suit, grasping a sleek cane, appeared on the hologram. "A friend. He is one hundred and six years old."

Incredulous, JJ cocked a brow. In certain circles, aging past a hundred years old mean either death or looking like a shrivelled up bag of skin and bone and elderly grease. But Kent Nelson didn't look anything like that, considering the salt-and-pepper hair, the upright posture, and the fact that he still seemed sharp. Judging from everyone else's reactions, they, too seemed baffled, not so much about the dissonance between his age and appearance, but about the possible reasons why. In this new world JJ had her eyes opened to, some people could get away with being biologically ancient, yet still look and move like they could run a marathon without breaking a sweat.

"...And he has been missing for 23 days." Red Tornado hit something on the keyboard, and the image of the old man reconfigured into another picture of a man in a gold-plated suit, a gleaming cape flowing from his back, and most curious of them all, the helmet, which obscured his face, save for two holes carved out for his eyes. "Kent was a charter member of the Justice Society. The precursor to your mentors' Justice League."

"Of course," Aqualad said, realisation dawning on him then, "Nelson was Earth's sorcerer supreme. He was Doctor Fate."

Wally scoffed in disbelief and leant toward Artemis. "More like Doctor Fake. Guy knows a bit of advanced science and Dumbledores it up to scare bad guys and impress babes."

"Kent may simply be on one of his walkabouts," Red Tornado continued. "But he is caretaker to the Helmet of Fate, the source of the doctor's mystic might. And it is unwise to leave such power unguarded."

Even though a part of JJ knew, logically, that there was proof of phenomena that defied all laws of physics, the human part of her, the civilian part wherein life was oriented around grades and climbing and thinking about career options, couldn't seem to reconcile both realities. There was a certain degree of suspension that JJ could handle—experimental accidents that could change the fundamentals of a human being, sure, she could get behind the biochemical and psychological reasoning for those alterations, but magic was a different ballpark entirely. That, this world was much more complicated than organic matter and linear normativity, and there existed boys who could run at the speed of sound, Martians who came in contact with earth as peaceful settlers, boys with superhuman abilities, and people like JJ herself, who had the impossible coded in their DNA, just waiting to be awoken.

"I'm not religious or anything—and none of you judge me for asking—but," JJ said, frowning, "this guy seems a little too OP to be true. Is he a God or something?"

Artemis hummed in thought. "I wouldn't call him a god. More like... a conduit of balance. I'm guessing Kent is the vessel, and when he wears the helmet—which is what contains the power—he's able to direct its power. But without it, he's just any regular old man, and without a wearer, the helmet is just another helmet."

"So it's symbiotic," JJ started, attempting to rearrange her prior conceptions into something legible. "He's the personification of power. But the helmet... where did it even come from? Who put it here? And can just anyone wear it?"

Artemis shrugged. "Beats me. I'm just the girl with the arrows here."

Somehow, JJ doubted that.

"He's like the great sorcerer priests and priestesses of Mars," M'gann said, her voice tinged with awe. "I would be honoured to help find him."

"Me too!" Wally cut in, his tone unwavering, despite his sudden change of heart. "So honoured I can barely stand it. Magic rocks."

JJ glanced between M'gann and Wally as Artemis rolled her eyes. While she'd known for awhile that attraction was a spectrum, and while most would consider JJ romantically obtuse, JJ simply couldn't fathom how Wally could switch up his tune about believing in sorcery and magic just to get close to M'gann like that. It was an obvious ploy, but Wally seemed to think it his best strategy. Maybe it was a kind of super power, to have someone so infatuated with you that you throw all logic and personal belief out the window for a sliver of a chance that the other person might also reciprocate those feelings.

JJ found herself turning to her left, but realised, in the moment as she was about to relay her epiphany, that Robin wasn't there. She frowned, a sense of discomfort tugging at her gut. But, like always, she brushed off the disconcerting feeling, and focused her attention on the hologram detailing their spontaneous mission.

* * *

"So, Wally," Artemis drawled, sarcasm prickling her tone, "when did you first realise your honest affinity for sorcery?"

"Well, I don't like to brag, but before I became Kid Flash," Wally propped his hands behind his head, reclining in his seat and shooting a smug glance at M'gann, who was barely paying attention to what was going on between the Team as she navigated, "I seriously considered becoming a wizard myself."

Having tuned out of every conversation that her teammates had entertained, JJ faced the window and watched the night streak by. With Robin gone, Wally had been the one filling the void of silence within the team, and JJ wasn't too keen on listening to his ridiculous ramblings.

Outside, the sky was a flash of dark, studded with stars and misted by the clouds as they cut through the air in M'gann's bio-ship. Out of curiosity, JJ touched a finger to the window, wondering how organic matter—which was what M'gann had mentioned about her ship—could alter its composition to the point where it'd resemble glass. Maybe it was a form of magic in itself. Or maybe Wally—before he'd reformed his entire stance on magic—was right, and all magic was some sort of advanced science, in which the change in matter was merely an invisible reaction set into motion by something physical or chemical easily mistaken for the conjuring of a miracle. JJ sunk low in her seat, propping one leg up onto the edge of the seat, trying not to think too hard about the fact that what she was sitting on might feel like soft vinyl, but was really just the innards of the bio-ship.

"Are you alright, JJ? You've been very quiet," Aqualad said, his voice soft. He'd been seated behind her the entire ride, and blissfully enough, hadn't tried to include her in the conversations Wally had goaded the rest into. Granted, every now and then, she felt his storm grey eyes glancing toward her side profile while she stared into space and let her mind wander elsewhere. A small part of JJ wondered why everyone always seemed to worry about her—first Olivia, then Dinah, and now, Aqualad—and if she was the only one who genuinely felt as though there was nothing wrong.

Flicking her stony gaze away from the window, JJ met his concerned stare briefly. "I'm fine."

Unconvinced by her cool impassivity, Aqualad frowned and started to say something, but was fortunately cut off by M'gann announcing their arrival to the location Red Tornado had given them. JJ glanced out the window, expecting a palace of gold, or a dark fortress shrouded in bats and mystic smoke, but was instead met by a patch of empty grass in the midst of a couple ramshackle buildings. Lip curling in slight disappointment, she leant back against her seat, unimpressed. Whoever this Kent Nelson was—Doctor Fate, she thought, mockingly—had probably gone off-grid. As soon as they were grounded, with Bio-ship parked and camouflaged in a shadowy alleyway, Aqualad gave KF the  order to do some recon.

When he met them on the pavement, the look of confusion on his face instantly confirmed JJ's suspicions.

"Nothing." KF frowned. "This isn't simple camouflage."

"You sure you ran through every square inch of space?" JJ drawled, lifting a brow. "Could be a visual field manipulator. Di— Canary told me those exist. Maybe you just missed it, running through all the wrong spots? You should go back to double-check—see if you hit a wall or something."

"Funny. I know you just want to see me run through a wall like some sort of cartoon," KF said, sarcasm slighting his tone as he shot JJ a sardonic grin. "But, yes, I'm sure I've checked every square inch, and there's nothing."

"Could be adaptive micro-opto-electronics combined with phase shifting?" Artemis suggested, pinning Wally with an expectant look knowing he'd eat that sort of shit up.

"Absolutely—!" Wally started, but cut himself off as M'gann came up behind him— "not. Clearly mystic powers are at work here."

The glare that Artemis shot Wally could've scorched a hole through his centre.

Eventually, it was Aqualad who solved the puzzling conundrum, having procured a golden key from his pocket that looked like something out of a high fantasy novel, which Red Tornado had handed him for safe-keeping. After warning everyone to stand back—like some kind of hero, to which JJ couldn't help rolling her eyes at—Aqualad stuck the key into the space in front of him. At first, nothing happened, and JJ thought that they'd have to keep sticking the key into random pockets of empty space around the abandoned square of grass. Until she noticed that half of they key had simply disappeared. And when Aqualad turned the key, out of thin air, a door materialised, bleeding into brick, until a tower revealed itself, shedding its cloak of invisibility. A low hum chorused in JJ's ears as they stared up at the imposing tower, the silhouette of its head eclipsing the moon, in reverent, awe-struck silence.

"Told you you didn't run through enough of this field," JJ said, smirking at Kid Flash as they strode into the tower.

KF made a face at JJ.

"Uh," Superboy started, hackles raised, "where'd the door go?"

Where the door they'd entered through once stood, was a wall of brick. And as JJ glanced around the room, dread trickling into her gut from the loose faucet of primal instinct, paranoia began to set in.

A flash of light caught JJ's attention as a hologram of Kent Nelson appeared before them, like some kind of automated apparition. "Greetings. You have entered with a key, but the tower does not recognise you. Please state your purpose and intent."

Without missing a beat, KF stepped forward with a cheshire grin on his face. Instantly, JJ knew. He was going to royally screw this up.

"We are true believers, here to find Dr. Fate!" Kid Flash declared.

It happened so quickly JJ didn't know what to think.

One moment, Hologram-Nelson was frowning, and within a second, he vanished. The next, a loud rumble shook the room, and the floor beneath them groaned, as if it were made from wood rather than stone. Right where they stood, the ground opened into a gaping pit of molten lava, the heat searing her skin with ferocious intensity. JJ's stomach plummeted as she fell, the blood-curdling shrieks of her team echoing around her. Horror iced her veins, a blinding surge of fear shattering through her body as if she were made of glass. Everything that Canary had taught her—every contingency she'd practiced—went out the window as her muscles locked up. Chest heaving, JJ swallowed a scream of pure terror and clenched her jaw so tight, hoping, praying with every fervent bone in her body that she wouldn't die like this—not like this. As if by muscle memory, or some small mercy, a shield of pure energy exploded out from her center, a gleaming sheen of blue forming around her, muting the sounds of her team plunging to certain death.

Inside her energy shield, the world seemed to fall away, time slowing down. Suspended in mid-air, JJ cracked her eyes open, fear still gripping her chest as sweat beaded on her temples. Pursing her lips, expending every inch of her strength to hold onto the shield, to keep the protective bubble around her steady, JJ directed the shield toward the closest wall. Upon closer inspection, she found enough handholds to hold herself up. With her heart in her teeth, JJ let go of the shield and used the residual momentum to latch onto the wall. Her foot slipped fractionally, her combat boots rendering her feet too imprecise, but JJ tightened her grip on the crimp-like handholds she'd found, digging her fingers into the searing rock until she felt her skin screaming. Sweat drenched the back of her shirt as she looked down to check on the others.

Below, the team seemed to snap into action. Artemis pulled a grappling gun out of her back-pocket and fired at the wall. As she swung, she caught Aqualad by the arm. M'gann had managed to stabilise herself, gather her bearings and shot back into the air, snatching Kid Flash out of free-fall. Superboy slammed into the wall, clawed fingers staking into the rock, slowing his fall. Still, he'd stopped too late, his feet plunging ankle-deep into the molten lava, sulphuric steam hissing as he let out a scream of agony. When he pulled his feet out of the lava, his bones and flesh were intact, but his boots had been incinerated.

"Those were my favourite boots," Superboy growled, glaring at the pit of lava, "this Nelson guy better be worth it."

"Having trouble... maintaining... altitude," M'gann panted, looking distressingly weak, as she began to wobble mid-flight, lower and lower, her grip on Kid-Flash wavering. She drew in a ragged breath, trembling with effort. "I'm so hot."

"You sure are," said Kid Flash, practically swooning.

"Wally!" Artemis exclaimed, both exasperated and annoyed.

"Hey!" KF snapped. "Inches above sizzling death—I'm entitled to speak my mind!"

"My physiology and M'gann's are susceptible to extreme heat," Aqualad said, his voice breathless, as if the radiating heat from the lava beneath them were vaporising his lungs. "We must climb out quickly!"

"Hello, Megan!" M'gann exclaimed. "We never truly answered the question! Red Tornado sent us to see if Mr. Nelson and the helmet were safe."

Almost instantly, stone slabs slid over the lava, closing the pit effectively and allowing Superboy to slide down and land on firm ground. JJ waited, anticipating another agonised shriek, knowing that if those floorboards were the only things separating them from a pit of bubbling magma, stepping on that ground barefoot must feel like stepping on live coals. But when the others landed, Artemis' grappling cord hissing, KF letting out a quiet 'oof' as M'gann accidentally dropped him onto the ground, there seemed to be no indication that this was a trap. JJ shut her eyes and leapt, pulling on the threads at her core, the taut, potential energy held at the very seams of her being, until a shimmering ball of energy formed around her once more, letting her float down to the ground to rejoin the others. As soon as she let go, she dropped onto the ground, landing agilely on both feet.

"This platform,"Aqualad said, crouching low and touching a hand to the ground, "it should be red-hot, but it is cool to the touch."

"Don't worry, Megalicious," KF said, wrapping an arm around M'gann like some sort of saviour, "I gotcha."

The overwhelming urge to throw something at KF's head nearly took JJ, but Artemis beat her to the punchline.

"Enough!" Artemis snapped, livid, as she lunged at KF, shoving him in the chest until his back hit the wall. "Your little 'Impress-M'gann-at-all-costs' game nearly got us all barbecued!"

Indignation contorting his features, KF glowered back at Artemis. "When did this become my fault?"

"When you lied to that whatever-it-was and called yourself a true believer," Artemis snarled.

"Wally..." M'gann said, frowning, her tone tinged with something akin to betrayal. "You don't believe?"

"Fine, fine," KF relented, frustration digging its heels into his tone. He crossed his arms over his chest. "I lied about believing in magic. But magic is the real lie—a major load!"

"Wally, I studied for a year at the Conservatory of Sorcery in Atlantis," Aqualad added. "The mystic arts created the skin-icons that power my water-bearers."

For once, JJ found herself on Kid Flash's team. Magic, to her, seemed something too storybook-like, something that existed only in mythology. Practically everything could be explained away by science and logic. The laws of physics dictated that energy couldn't be created or destroyed, and the violation of that law seemed too frightening to think about. The implications of such a violation could lead to much bigger things, things that threatened to crush the perfectly assembled preconception JJ had of her world. Already, her own supernatural abilities were pushing the limits, but JJ had always known about this. Such genetic mutations were heritable—basic biology. Her parents were genetically gifted, and Olivia hadn't exactly kept her own powers a secret either, and so, JJ had grown up around this sort of thing—had already included it within the parameters of her own idea of normality. She'd watched enough documentaries and street magicians to know that magic was essentially a clever combination of sleight-of-hand and perception psychology.

Granted, JJ didn't think it was worth adding her opinion to the heated debate—not when it was still technically KF who might've triggered the trap and sent them all plunging to their near-deaths. As punishment, he could shoulder this alone.

"Dude, you ever hear of bio-electricity?" KF retorted. "Hey, in primitive cultures, fire was once considered magical too. Today, it's all a bunch of tricks."

"You're pretty close-minded for a guy who can break the sound barrier in his sneakers," Artemis challenged.

"That's science! I recreated Flash's laboratory experiment and here I am," KF said, exasperated. "Everything can be explained by science."

"Let us test that theory," Aqualad drawled, hunched over the handle to a trapdoor that JJ could swear wasn't there before.

More tricks, she reminded herself. Maybe you just didn't see it until now.

"Wait!" KF cried, alarm flashing across his expression as Aqualad reached for the handle. "The backdraft from the lava will roast us alive!"

Against KF's warning, Aqualad jerked the door open. Instinctively, JJ backed away, half-expecting to be blasted by hot air. But when a cold gust of wind brushed her face, instantly evaporating the sweat from her skin and tugging on the ends of her ponytail, she opened her eyes and let her jaw fall open in disbelief.

"It's snow," M'gann said, her tone filled with awe as she held a hand out, flecks of white snow falling into her palm.

"Do you ever get tired of being wrong?" Artemis snarked, smug as she shot KF a satisfied grin. All around them, snow fell as they dropped through the trapdoor. When JJ landed on her feet in the snow, the pain from her blistered fingers finally silenced as relief overtook her raw hands, she glanced back at the door, and struggled to wrap her head around the physics of what had just happened. From the angle of entry, they should've either fallen parallel to the ground, or at least have stepped through the door—but the world had somehow inverted when they'd come through the trapdoor, turning ninety degrees. Beside her, footsteps crunched in the snow as Artemis strode up to challenge KF. "Well?"

"Ever hear of string theory?" KF retaliated, refusing to be deterred. "We're in a pocket dimension—"

Artemis let out a sound of irritation, throwing her hands up as if she wanted to strangle the life out of KF.

"Dude, we just jumped into a hole in the ground that spat us out upright into a physical plane that was oriented perpendicular to it," JJ said, quietly. In truth, she was growing increasingly tired of how much bickering was going on, and wanted to go home so she could binge watch youtube streams of the latest international climbing competition until she passed out. One near-death experience was more than enough. "Just accept that... maybe... there's something else going on so we can wrap this mission up faster."

KF shot her a glare. "I don't need this shit from you, too."

JJ met his glare with a cool, impassive stare. Whatever, she thought to herself, as if feigning indifference was a balm that could soothe the fire raging beneath her skin, itching to bury KF under an avalanche of snow. He's not worth it.

"What's that?" M'gann asked, pointing at something sticking out of the snow. A cane with a golden handle. No, JJ thought, as she craned her neck to catch a better look. It was hovering over the ground. All by itself.

"Ooh, maybe it's Nelson's magic wand," KF mocked, and, surged forward to grab it. Artemis seemed to have the same idea, and at the same time, they both seized the cane.

"I got it," they said, in unison, glaring at each other, their distaste palpable even from a distance. Until the cane began to glow, power humming around it, and realisation seemed to dawn on them. "I can't let go!"

Before any of them had time to react, the cane shot up into the night sky, pulling Artemis and KF along with it. In a blink, the two of them had traversed so far that no one could see them, the glow of the cane just a bright point sparking amid the clouds, like the birth of a star. Then it disappeared, and along with it, Artemis and Kid Flash. JJ stared up into the sky, not quite sure what she was meant to do, or if they could possibly do anything at this point.

"Where the hell's our ride?" JJ sighed, kicking up a bunch of snow. The wind whipped around them, the chill biting, but strangely enough, not cold enough that it'd warrant frostbite, which—as JJ had seen enough documentaries of—an icy tundra like this would give. Though the wind was harsh, JJ's bomber jacket was enough to keep her warm, so much so the wind felt like a mere tickle.

"I'm with you on this one," Superboy grunted, glancing around. Now, the endless mounds of snow seemed only bleak, a vast expanse of nothing, and with no sense of direction. How were they meant to find the two under these conditions? "Where are we even meant to go? This Nelson guy's starting to get on my nerves."

"I guess we keep walking," Aqualad sighed, staring out into the vast nothingness.

Though there seemed to be nothing for miles, JJ couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to this place. Already, the sands of reality were shifting. Doors could disappear and appear at whim. A pit of lava could close up and the floor wouldn't burn with evidence that it was there at all. One could fall sideways into another realm and land on their feet. If Nelson was truly what Red Tornado said he was, and this mission hadn't just been a series of technical failures, a small, clandestine part of JJ held onto hope that there would be another doorway somewhere, somehow.

Even if she couldn't explain it in a way that made sense to herself.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
y'all best bet that if i ever finish anything on this account it will be this fic. and vengeful. but mainly this fic.

also. i am SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME ONE YEAR TO WRITE AND IT ISNT EVEN A WHOLE EPISODE. I CUT IT IN HALF SO IT WOULDN'T BE TOO LONG, AND YOU'D GET THE NEXT HALF SOON. I PROMISE....