Robin's cry for me to get down barely registered in my mind as my knees buckled under my own weight. My palms and knees broke my fall as a flash of flames washed past me, hitting the wall in between the Zeta tubes.

I stifled a breath trying to make its way into my lungs as I shot up and toward my two teammates, who were firing into the void. Robin's batterangs hit something metal as the sound reverberated in the debris-ridden room.

The smoke clouded my vision as my backpack fell off my shoulder and the strap found its place in my hand. I unzipped it and took out the old utility belt that had been placed at the very bottom, wrapping it around my waist.

My mind's going a mile a minute, I don't remember anyone but Failsafe having fire powers on this Team. Was this a Leaguer, a villain? It had to be the latter, why would the league attack us?

I tried to let air enter my lungs as Artemis held her bow out, looking for a clear shot. I wanted to think as Robin threw two more batterangs to cover for us, but I couldn't. My mind was muddled and fuzzy, I felt the gargling of wordlessness and hopelessness sputter in my mind, knocking thoughts out of the way and making room for the overwhelming emptiness.

Failsafe was gone. Gone. Just, gone. I couldn't feel her at all. And the thought of that alone terrified the living hell outta me. My best friend was nowhere to be found. The super to our superhero and she wasn't present at all.

Even in Bialya, I felt her presence, it comforted me, kept me going. Failsafe talked to me, she was there and helped. She was there.

Now, it felt like Failsafe had never been there at all. Was she just a dream? A hallucination I made up to cope? No. Of course not, the aching from that damned crystal was still firm in my chest. But at the moment the entire world seemed to have spun off its axis and the scene in front of me was swirling together, becoming foggy and blurry at the same time. It felt hard to breathe.

Bolts of fire hit close to our group, my line of sight following them as they hit the floor in front and back of us, but were never close enough to hit us. The smoke must've been blocking our opponent's line of sight too. That, or the fuckers weren't actually trying to kill us. But then why would they go to such an extreme as infiltrating Mount fucking Justice if they weren't here for something?

I suppose I should be glad, that Klarion couldn't be the person attacking us. Psychotic fuck would've been laughing by now. But then, who? Who? Someone recent, had to be, Amazo? No, he was decommissioned at STAR labs. The League of Assassins was definitely out, and so were Cobra and Bane. The Bialyans didn't even make the list. So, who? A League villain maybe? No, they would've talked at least, by now.

"Who are we fighting?" Artemis exclaimed in panic, firing an arrow into the room. Hoping to hit something. As she does I see the outline of two figures in the fumes. They look human, but something's off. I don't see the outlines of clothes or hair, and when they took a step it sounded like hollow metal.

They don't appear to be wearing anything heavy on them, at least, which knocks out the theory of enhanced equipment we can unarm them off. Their powers must be natural, or at least they have machinery that's smaller than I can see from behind the smoke. Nanotech? Something else?

"Don't know, but we're sitting ducks by these tubes. Head for the exit," Robin threw two more batterangs into the fray before we all made a break for the hallway, the path immediately being blocked by water.

"Or not."

The water rushed toward us and Robin and Artemis started running a lot quicker than I did, taking a split second longer than them to comprehend the attack, but it caught up to us all the same. I was dragged underneath the strong current, any air in my lungs knocked out of me as we were all knocked into a wall.

The impact of the wall had me gasping in pain at the sudden speed, but with the water still enveloping me, it made its way into my mouth down the wrong pipe, and into my lungs.

I coughed as the water receded, trying to catch my breath. Even as the pain from being dropped to the floor rushed under my skin and the burn crept up my throat from the thrown-up water.

Fire shot down to where we landed on the floor. Artemis lifted me up by my upper arm and pulled me away from the massive puddle before a blast of fire could barbeque me. The air once again left my lungs as I watched the spot I was just at sizzle and become boiling, the vaporized water rising into the air. Still stunned, I let the archer guide us as fire rained from above, she picked up her fallen bow, and I looked behind me to see a tornado of fire headed straight at us.

It reminded me of the Amazo mission, and of the one to protect the sun the night the boys broke into Cadmus. And so many more. All missions I did with Failsafe.

Where the hell was she?!

My heart called out for my best friend. The other half of our duo. I thought we were in this together. What about our promise? Did she leave? Was it just, over? Did all that time together mean absolutely nothing?

I couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. But with every passing second she was gone, it started to look that way. I blinked back the tears and swallowed the lump in my throat. Not the time, (Y/n), not the time.

"Robin to team. Come in, Aqualad," Robin tried to comms as we ran into the gym, doors shutting behind us automatically.

Artemis put a hand to her head, I think she might've been trying to contact Megan, either that or she had a headache. Really not the time to be focusing on one if it is. But hey, who am I to judge? I thought to myself bitterly, hoping to hear Failsafe's voice, a monotonous reflection of my own, telling me to focus, to stop joking around. Nothing.

Fire spewed out from the doors we'd just entered, exploding and causing us all to fall to the ground. Artemis fell in between me and Robin, on her front, I landed on my side, using my arms to protect my face. Taking a shaky breath before hauling myself up.

Get it together, (Y/n). Get it together.

Yeah, easier thought than done.

Fire spewed out of the gym doors, spilling into the room as the temperature rose. The excess water and sweat on me was coming off as the heat dried me. It left me feeling uncomfortably sticky, but I had to ignore it. If I wanted to live.

Robin and Artemis bounced up and I followed as we kept running away. Really all we can do at the moment until we get our bearings. Try to understand what was going on. We ran into the shower room, Robin taking the right wall and cranking up the faucets. Artemis followed his lead on the left so I took the back wall.

"Robin to Batcave. Override R-G-4. Cave calling Justice League, H-O-J-Slash-Watchtower. B- Zero-One. Priority Red," Robin spoke into his comm as I looked back toward the still firenado. It couldn't enter the shower room.

"Comm is down, blocked," Robin informed both of us. "At least the water's helping."

That's when a thought occurred.

"Hey, doesn't the other one control–" I didn't get to finish my sentence before the plumbing exploded and water sprayed out from the newly made holes. The room started to steadily fill up with water and all three of us backed up to the middle. Artemis spooked me as we backed into each other. The water seemed contained only to this room as it didn't spill out into the large, open doorway.

"Water."

"I think so," The light and airy tone of the Boy Wonder contrasted with the rising water. Lifting him and me up before taking Artemis in its steady wave as well. Rising just a few seconds later than us. The water confined itself to the room, the entrance being blocked by the firenado. Were they trying to drown us? What about that bad aim from earlier? Were they just a bad shot, then?

What's going on?!

I held my breath as Robin blew up the wall with a batterang, the current pushed us out of the room. I coughed and stood up, following the other two who were booking it down the hall, trying my hardest to collect myself and my breath.

"We need to get lost," Robin stated, looking around the room. Artemis and I did the same.

"The air vent!" Artemis exclaimed, putting her bow away and rushing toward it. Robin plugged a cord from his hologlove into the wall.

"What're you doing?" I questioned him in a hushed tone, placing a hand on his shoulder as Artemis removed the grate from the human-sized vent. "We gotta go. Now."

"Downloading blueprints," He shrugged my hand off him as he pushed a cable into one of the opening plugs, "Could come in handy. Go."

A smirk was plastered on his face, which made me feel slightly better, and not like we were going to fucking die.

"Why don't you already have that? It's been what, three months of coming here already." I sassed him as I moved to the vent cover, Artemis had pulled herself up but I was too short and didn't have enough upper body strength to get me all the way up, so I stuck out my hand and grounded my sopping shoe to the wall behind me, intending to try my best to climb up.

"Well, I don't suppose you have it either, Little Miss Sass." Robin shot back as he removed his cord from the wall. Behind us, the sound of footsteps on heavy metal rang out. Artemis pulled me up while behind me Robin catapulted himself with only one leg. Wow, that's some gymnastics.

Just in time too, the clacking of the intruders' footsteps echoed on the plates of the floor. Scary. "Go, go." Robin urged us quietly through the vent.

"I'm not the one with the dad that owns the goddamn mountain, am I?" I shot back, looking behind me as he fired up his hologlove again. We climbed through the air vent and I held my breath, with every movement the vents clunked and made twice the sound.

"Go left." Robin directed Artemis, the leader of our line, and she did what he said. Behind me I smelled it before I heard it, it was the smell of burning metal and the sound of rapid air movement.

Robin tackled me into the left duct as a wave of fire passed us. I looked at him and then back to the fire, chuckling nervously, "That was close, huh?"

"Yeah," he breathed out, "Let's hope it doesn't get any closer."

With a belated nod, I readjusted myself back into crawling position and continued, behind me, I heard the hum of the dark-haired boy's hologlove come to life again. Robin kept calm, as opposed to myself, I tried to stop the nervous shaking, knowing it was making my grip weak. The vents were slippery and covered in dust. I felt like at any moment I'd lose my balance and fall over. And if the intruders were in the vents with us– that's not something I wanted to think about...

(Y/n) kabob? Maybe they'd make sushi outta me. Or... What goes with Robin? People don't serve robins they serve quail. What goes with quail because they'd definitely turn me into that.

"Take the first right," There was a pause before he tacked on, "There should be a vent cover right in front of you."

Artemis removed the vent and dropped down feet first. She removed the vent cover and jumped down, sliding out and kicking out the cover at the bottom. I looked down and saw her land on a metal platform. It looked like below us was the boiler room.

At my hesitation, Robin put a hand on my shoulder, I looked at him, straining my neck to look behind me, and smiled, though lopsided. "I'm going, don't worry."

I took a breath before sliding down, it was fun actually, like a slide. I was half tempted to put my arms up and exclaim, "weeee!"

The blonde caught me when I hit the bottom, and instinctively I grabbed onto her arms as she did, breathing a sigh of relief that nothing had happened when I dropped before bursting into a fit of giggles. That was fun, later, when we're not facing impending doom, I'm coming back here and making a slide out of the vents.

Robin came down after I cleared the way from the opening. He opened his hologlove and with a quick glance popped his head off, screen shutting off.

"This way," He ordered before hopping down the stairs to our right, Artemis running down them, me following. We ran down into a metal walkway, concealed by the dozens of very large machines in front of it. Behind me, our attacker dropped down in a veil of fire from the vent and my breath hitched as they started looking around for us, raising the temperature in the room.

So they were in there with us. That's a bit more than mildly concerning.

The figure raised its arms, erupting fire all over the boiler room.

"Well, that's certainly not good," I murmured, staring up at it before Artemis grabbed my arm, pulling me along before we had to jump off the path near one of the machines below.

The machines started beeping, the monitors displaying their temperature going from red to green and literally cracking. Smoke piled from the room in an attempt to keep the machines at a stable temperature and pressure, we kept running, trying to avoid the many dangers our pursuers were taking advantage of.

Fire rained from above as the person above shot at us. Persistent fuck. All three of us hid behind a larger machine as Robin looked at his glove.

"I know that other access tunnel is here somewhere," He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the schematics on his hologlove. Artemis squinted her eyes, her almond-shaped optics becoming barely visible as she ran forward and picked at the floor. There was a trap door there.

"You mean this one?" She asked, almost sarcastically as she pried the rusted metal open with her nails, lifting it open for us.

"That's the one." Square on my back, Robin pushed me forward. Setting a batterang on the machine covering us as we ran toward the vent. Behind us the batterang went off in our chaser's face, the telltale beeping followed by the sounds of detonation brought a certain comfort to my ears.

Robin dropped down behind me, making sure I was before him as we jumped down, slamming the vent cover shut behind him.

After crawling a considerable distance, he brought out a longer, sharper batterang. This one, instead of sharing his color scheme, seemed to be one of Batman's more intimidating ones.

Hold on, does that mean he's been throwing Robinrangs' this whole time?

"Hold on," he pried open a control panel and connected his hologlove to it using a cord. "Locking cave's motion and heat sensors to prevent the enemy from tracking us." He said, smugly, still with that neutral workplace attitude plastered on his face. Failsafe would be proud.

"And I ask again, who is the enemy?" Artemis inquired, pushy. I leaned against the vent wall, trying to catch my breath as he pulled up the footage.

"Let's find out."

I took a second to think, cool down, and assess the situation based on the knowledge and evidence I already possessed. Failsafe would do the same in this situation, I know she would.

Things weren't adding up, I decided, as I played with Robin's belt. Out-of-place facts I didn't think about earlier were now starting to fit into the jigsaw, like forgotten pieces that were lost under the couch.

Like how come Failsafe made sure I had Robin's belt? Or all the weird shit she was talking about this morning? Did she plan this? Plan to leave?

She said she was healthy, conserving energy. It couldn't have been the crystal, could it? My hand found its way to my chest. She couldn't have lied, she doesn't lie, and even if she did, we share thoughts, I'd be able to tell, wouldn't I?

She couldn't have just up and disappeared. Vanished. Died without me knowing.

No, no, it has to be connected. It can't just be a coincidence. Coincidence doesn't exist. Unfortunately.

I swallowed the lump in my throat again, wincing as it carried down my dry esophagus. Streaks of tears fell down my red, hot cheeks. And I swiped them away. Not the time. I needed to think, get a hold of myself.

Failsafe wasn't here. Period. End of story. I needed to accept that. If I didn't want to die, I needed to move on for right now.

The security footage finished downloading, and I leaned over Artemis and tried to gather information from it.

Wally, Kid Flash, was working on a bike, I'm assuming Superboy's but that didn't make much sense. But Kid had no need for a bike...

Aqualad, Kaldur, walked over to stand by Superboy and Megan. The big sentient souvenir from Bialya was there too. Beeping and moving around in small circles before stopping.

"Torque wrench." Megan used her telekinesis to effortlessly fulfill Wally's request. He thanked her, "Thank you, Green-Cheeks."

"I have been meaning to ask," Kaldur began, speaking in part with his hands. "Any problem juggling school work with your responsibilities here?"

"No." My Shrek buddy replied almost instantly. Right, they started school already, didn't they? He'd picked a name for himself. Connor. I'd almost forgotten over my own first-day jitters.

"Juggling's just one of my many talents," Wally sang, bragging in order to impress the alien female. "Socket wrench." He waved his hand until it flew into his glove. He was going to start getting spoiled if Megan continued to do that for him.

"Cheerleading practice has presented a challenge." Megan smiled, lowering her hand as she finished lowering the wrench into Wally's hand. After a second she seemed to jump in place before adding, "Oh, but my first loyalty is always to the team."

It took her half a second to correct this time, "This team, not the Bumblebees."

"Artemis starts school today." Kaldur hummed, "Do you think she will have trouble maintaining her loyalties?"

Artemis narrowed her gaze and gritted her teeth, I placed a hand on her shoulder but kept my attention mostly on the video.

"Eh, she'll manage all right." Wally stood up, motioning vaguely with his arms. Before adding on assholishly, "I mean, how much more hostile and annoying can—"

Not even halfway through his insult, from their right, the cave exploded. Taking them all, even Superboy, by surprise. They were blown back and the feed cut out, giving us no more to observe.

"What happened?!" Artemis exclaimed, upset. Understandably so, we just saw our friends get blown up like extras in an action movie.

"Explosion. I'll find another angle." Robin typed a few things in before slumping back, defeated. The only footage he was able to get was two quick shots of fire and water overpowering our super-powered companions. "That's it. All four are dead."

Artemis glared at him, and I stared at him incredulously. "I know we fight for truth and justice, but just fucking lie to us if you have to man. That's dark."

Robin stared at me for a moment, taking in my comment before throwing his hands down, "The cameras! I meant the cameras."

I sighed in relief, "Next time, even if you think it. Don't share, kk Wonder boy?"

"You're the one who misinterpreted." He snapped before adding awkwardly, "Uh, I'm sure the others are okay."

A moment of stale silence passed, causing Robin to shake his head, huffing.

"Give me a sec to find the fastest route to the hangar." Robin started tapping on his hologlove again, pulling up an app and swiping through tabs.

"We need a plan," I stated, opening up the old pouches and looking for supplies. Not much to help me. Mostly just full of the survival equipment Failsafe put in the duplicate Bialya. Plus some Robin extras, like throwing knives and three batterangs, –robinrangs?-- that I hoped worked.

"Yeah. They're fine. They've all got superpowers. They can handle anything." Artemis curled into herself, breathing in heavily.

"Speaking of superpowers, where's Failsafe? As much as I love your peachy personality and cleaver quips, we could really use her right now, (Y/n)." Robin butt in with clenched teeth as he had to type in a password, "As much of a ball as these last couple of minutes have been, I'd rather get to the fairy tale ending where we all get saved."

I shook my head, my dry throat making it hard to speak as my exhaustion set in. "She's just, not here. I don't know where she went, but we're out tough luck right now. You pulled Florida trash variety on the gacha it seems." I tried to joke, though it was weak. Despite that, Robin gave me a pity noise signifying his light amusement.

He narrowed his eyes, smiling. "Gotcha." He turned to us, and Artemis sucked in a breath. I exhaled. "C'mon. I found a way."

With a nod, we started crawling in a different direction. Like ants in an ant farm. Or hamsters in plastic tunnels. That is to say, animals stuck in a cage.

He kicked open a panel after a while, and all three of us dropped down into the library. "There's a secret passage behind one of these."

"Seriously?" I asked in amazement.

"Cliché much?" Artemis commented, utterly unimpressed. Robin chuckled lowly, "You should see the Batcave."

"Love to, sometime." I mumbled as we ran down the metal stairs, rounding right around them and racing toward the back wall.

The door opened, and our pursuers came walking into the library. Slowly taking their time trying to hunt us down, like predators and prey, the former playing with their food.

The metal footsteps echoed across the large room, reminding me of the hollow clinking of Red Tornados.

"Artemis. Robin. Failsafe." His voice called to us. My chest heaved in relief. The chess machine was here to save us.

In the back of my mind, something niggled. Telling me something wasn't quite right. Why didn't he sound rushed, or worried? I know he was a robot, but he wouldn't sound so dead, so formal, would he? His walk was much too slow, unnerving, not the walk of someone searching, on the lookout for danger and who'd have or would have to be fighting.

Artemis didn't seem to think the same though, she lowered her guard. Relaxing the taunt bowstring and smiling, racing out to meet our den mother. "It's Red Tornado."

The imposter made a grab at her. A machine with the same paint job as Red's, only the yellow accents made a pointer arrow going down on his instead of the regular yellow circle with a T.

I wasn't fast enough to grab her, but Robin did, pulling her out of the way to safety. "Yes on the Red, no on the Tornado."

The robot tried to catch me, but I slammed a batterang straight into its hand and ducked. It exploded and I had enough time to sidestep it and run away with my friends, trying not to look behind me and mourn the loss of good books.

Your sacrifice will not be in vain, I promised them. Blowing a kiss in their memory.

Another one showed up, this one being more feminine in form, before starting to shoot fire from her hands.

Artemis helped me up onto the bookshelves as we ran on top of them, trying to ignore the burning wood and paper underneath. The fire extinguishers went off around us, soaking us and giving the male machine more ammo.

"Who...? What are they?" She grasped at straws to figure out.

I looked behind me, careful as I jumped to another shelf. "Cleary people you don't wanna piss off during a family reunion."

I'm pretty sure politics is a no go zone with them. Especially. Though I'm sure you could say the same for every family.

Robin dropped down and pulled a book, Artemis fired an arrow at the male robot and I used one of my two remaining batterangs to fire at the lightning-striped female, jumping down and following Robin into the passageway. Bookshelves dropped behind us, giving much-needed cover.

"Unh, did you know Tornado had siblings?"

"No."

"Didn't even know robots could," how would that even work? What oil had to mix with what socket?

Artemis stopped dead in the center of a four-way split as Robin raced left, me following after him having to stop as she pulled on his arm. My sneakers squeaked against the hard stone floor.

"So now what? Red Tornado is one of the powerhouses of the league. How are we supposed to take down two of him?" She panicked.

"They do seem pretty user-un-friendly," Robin commented.

I shot him a look, eyebrows shooting up, "You think? God, out of all the times machines ask for a captcha..." I mumbled under my breath, "the one time it doesn't we get stuck with terminator and a chopping mall reject."

"Don't joke! They..." Artemis exclaimed full of hostility before inhaling, preparing to go on a rant. She was cut off as the robot's voice filtered in through the cave's speakers.

"Attention, Robin. Attention, Artemis. Attention, Failsafe." The presumably male voice addressed us, "You have exactly 10 minutes to surrender... Or the lives of your teammates will be extinguished."

"...Maybe if we ask nicely they'll turn into Robocop?"

"Have you seen Robocop?"

"...No..."

"Then I wouldn't recommend it."

"Nine minutes and 45 seconds." The voice sounded out again, I felt my heart rate spike. Anxiety crippling me right there. I swallowed again. No, I can't let this get to me. I had to ask myself, what would Mom do? Dad? Failsafe? What is Robin doing? Batman, even?

The answer I came to is to keep going.

We all looked at each other, meeting gazes. I wiped my face with my hands, we're truly getting fucked up the ass right now, aren't we?

Robin pointed us in the direction we needed to go to get access to the hanger. We ended up coming out of a secret door in the kitchen wall. A complete circle from where we started, huh?

As we ran down the hall, the robotic voice called out, "Eight minutes."

Trying to ignore it, Robin persisted. "We can access the hangar from here." He pointed up ahead, cape dragging behind his slim form.

Hearing something flowing behind us, I turned, causing the other two to do the same. "Or not."

"Will you please stop saying that?" Artemis yelped as we started running again, the reason for our distress being the giant tsunami flooding the hall, consuming us.

As the wave engulfed me, I exclaimed in distress at the sheer force of it as it knocked me down. Floating in the water I tried to remember the proper underwater technique, butterfly kicking, and holding my breath.

Robin brought our breathing devices for him and Artemis, and I remembered from when I checked my belt earlier that I had one too. I quickly rustled through my soggy pouch and took a breath as my teeth clamped down on the metal, lips filling the gaps.

The male robot came from beyond the hallway and made a grab for Artemis, the archer's arrows circled the hallway, having floated out of her quiver. Robin, who'd lost his cape, made a grab too. But since I was closer, Artemis let go of her breathing device, losing air fast, grabbed an arrow, and stuck it in the robot's face. It exploded, freeing her.

Grabbing Artemis, Robin brought out his grappling hook. I interlocked hands with the blonde as he pulled us away from the river of water.

Behind us, explosions rang out as batterangs filtered out of Robin's belt and we catapulted to the other end of his rope.

We broke to the surface and the blonde and black-haired teens took deep, choking breaths. I spit out the breathing device, pocketing it for later. Just in case.

"C'mon." I rushed them, motioning to the half-water-covered stairs. They nodded and we swam over, or tried.

"Look out!" Wally yelled from a distance as fire shot at me, Artemis pulled me out of the way at the last second. I looked at her, wide-eyed. I knew making friends with her would pay off. She's the coolest and the best, and...

Another bolt of fire splashed the deep water and I decided mental compliments could wait until we weren't playing reality tv's next biggest hit, 'Who's gonna be barbecue?'

I dove underwater, Robin and Artemis following after me as we tried to avoid the dangerous blows from above, having no effect inside the opposite element besides heating it up.

Breaking water, Robin was the first to act again, "You guys okay?" He asked, trying to be quick to avoid the fire user's wrath.

"Forget us. Help M'gann." Connor requested.

"Little hard there, buddy. But I'm sure it's on the list." I sassed, swimming over and nicking the alien's restraints with my knife. It barely flicked off and I had to dodge the fire headed straight to my head to get it, but I pocketed it in my belt, hoping it'd be useful to identify what it is and how to break it.

Connor shot me a look, clearly not liking my comment. Touchy, I suppose. Though I guess that comes with the clear boyfriend territory.

"Aqualad. Is she...?" Artemis ignored my comment as she checked, trailing off, too nervous to say it.

"She is unconscious." He rasped over the fire and his own weakness, "I fear she... We cannot survive much longer."

We had to dive under again as a particularly big blast came down, just barely missing the captives but would've roasted us alive and boiled us for good measure.

Diving under, I held my breath as we swam for the stairs like before. Seeing no point in digging through my pockets for the breathing device for only a few feet.

I pulled myself out of the water, Artemis trailing behind me and Robin already in the middle of the stairs. The male robot with the yellow 'H' on its chest and exploded face cornered us at the bottom, the female flame wielder at the top.

"Shit." I cursed, "Dunno 'bout you, but I'm down to my throwing knives and one batterang." I admitted, knowing how my aim is usually mediocre, at the best of times being almost useful.

"And I'm almost out of arrows," Artemis said, putting her second to last into the bow's notch.

"Distract her. Now." Robin ordered, throwing a batterang at the male. Artemis fired on the female, and out of sheer panic and only one sense of direction, I threw my batterang at the female robot as well. The result being an explosion twice as big.

"Whoa!"

It didn't do much though. She walked right through it, unscathed, and fired at us. The male doing the same and they met in the middle as I watched in slow motion, the attacks filtering through my brain and my first instinct being to dive into the water.

Robin led the way as we navigated the ocean in our docking bay, prying open a crate and letting Artemis and I swim up and try to make our way out of the vents and to air.

I gasped as it entered my lungs, moving out of the way to let Artemis and Robin pull themselves up before doing the same, happy they made room for me in the vent. Robin hacked up water and Artemis shut her eyes and tried to collect herself, slumping against the wall.

Me? I felt unnaturally calm all of a sudden. I'd stopped shaking and everything felt clear.

"Six minutes."

"What do we do now?!" Artemis cried, distressed.

"We save them. That's how it works." Robin addressed her calmly.

"Maybe that's how it's supposed to work..." Artemis started, "But those robots already took out our four superpowered friends!" She exclaimed.

"You seem distraught."

"Distraught? M'gann is dying. We have no powers. And I'm down to my last arrow. Of course, I'm distraught." She hissed, taking out her arrow and holding it up for us. I placed a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye.

"Artemis, like it or not this is the situation. We have no powers and no one's coming to help us, not even Failsafe." I told her, "So you need to, what does Robin say?" I mumbled, "Get traught. Get fucking traught right now because we need a clear plan and clear heads to get ourselves and our friends out of this situation." I told her.

"Or we die, simple as that." I shrugged. "And personally? I don't feel like doing that today. I have lunch plans with my locker buddy and his hot friend tomorrow." Behind me, Robin stifled a chuckle and scoffed at the same time.

"How can you be so calm?" She croaked, looking at both of us. And honestly, I didn't have an answer.

"Practice. Been doing this since I was 9." I looked at Robin as he said that, coming back to meet the blonde's eye when he was done, shrugging. I didn't really have an answer.

Robin started crawling, and I followed him. Artemis trailed behind, slower. "What good is that now? What chance do we have against unrelenting machines?"

I stopped, and she bumped into me. Unrelenting machines. Unrelenting? Machines... Something flashed back to me, a lesson from my Mom after Dad and I finished binge-watching a show.

"Emp..." I muttered, "Most countries don't protect against them, I bet the sucker that made these hunks of junk didn't either." My voice picked up in excitement at the end as I said it aloud. Turning to Robin who I'm sure had the same sparkle dancing around in his eye.

He met my gaze and smiled, through the mask I could almost imagine those blue eyes shimmering like fish under a frozen lake.

"Duh." He breathed, "One electromagnetic pulse will shut down any machine within range."

"Great. Except you better have an EMP emitter in your utility belt— or yours—" The archer crashed our parade, "Because I know I don't have one in my quiver."

"Sorry sunshine, I don't carry country-crippling devices on me. But feel free to ask Failsafe when she gets back."

"...I'm fresh out too. But, I'm betting we can make one." Robin tapped his comm, and I'm surprised the little piece of metal still worked with all the water we'd been in. "What do you say, KF? Doable?"

"Totally doable." Wally's voice, which was usually annoying but oddly comforting today, chimed in.

Of course, the robots had to add in their two cents too, "Five minutes."

"You know, if you had more time." He exhaled shakily, there was silence for a few moments before he added, "Med lab. X-ray machine. Find a small vacuum tube called a vircator that converts high-energy pulses."

I forgot he could be genuinely smart sometimes. Robin crawled in the direction of the medical lab. We had to take three rights, go up, slide down, and take another left just to get there.

"Reprogram the unit's microwave conversion from x-rays to EMPs...with a cascading energy vector directed outward." Robin located the machine with ease, checking the stars before softly taking it from its case.

"A ripple effect. Like dropping a stone in a pond." He whispered.

"A stone with 10 to the 12th power wattage, yeah." Wally sassed.

"So I need to hook it up to the generator." Robin followed him.

"Which is where?" Artemis asked, bending down.

I thought for a moment, snapping my fingers. "Oh, isn't it in the bay? They keep it up high and out of the way so no one will accidentally fly into it."

"Four minutes."

We all looked at each other, "You mean near the scary robots?" Artemis pushed.

I nodded, "Yeah, and we better hurry too. That's not much time to set off an enemy crippling device."

We stood up, Robin having a firm grip on the catalyst as we ran down the halls. Ordering Kid to distract the robots for us as we ran.

"Hey, Red Tomato, who's your girlfriend? Red Onion?" The two yelled as Connor joined in.

"Yeah, and by the way, worst death trap ever. We can escape any time we want!"

"I can vibrate my molecules out of here before your binary brains could count to two."

We turned the corner, sliding up against the wall. Robin turned to us. "Cover me."

I nodded, and we slid down to the generator from the corner of the opening. I watched the robots as Robin worked, preparing myself in case I had to warn him they'd caught on.

"And you can't drown a Kryptonian, dumb bots. We don't breathe air." I stifled a giggle at that, any other situation and I'd laugh, but now, it didn't seem appropriate.

Wally laughed though, and I liked to pretend it was for both of us. "And Miss Martian? I can't believe you're buying her act."

"Rerouting power now." Robin directed us as he hooked himself up to the generator with his fancy high-tech glove.

"Yeah. Do you know how hot it gets in the caves of Mars?"

Robin hissed, and I looked over, leaning over him to see what the problem was. "It's not working."

"That cage is just making her homesick!"

"Duh! Ha, ha!"

The generator showed an image of the circuit and a red x by the last checkpoint, Robin spelled it out, "The circuit's incomplete. I need something conductible, a piece of metal..." As he was talking, I went to retrieve the knife from my pouch, focusing on retrieving that.

"Robin, (Y/n)! Look out!" Artemis cried. I only had enough time to look toward her before I noticed the boy's distraction had failed and the robot's attention was solely on us. The water splashed up and completely engulfed us. I gripped the knife in my grasp tighter as the current pulled me down, shoving it into the floor to stop myself from getting washed away.

Robin was washed away while I hung off the edge of the generator, having to pull myself up. Artemis tan from the edge of the wall to me and grabbed my hand, helping.

She fired her last arrow, but with one attack from the flame empress over by our friends, the ceiling caved and she missed her shot.

"Thanks," I huffed as we pulled ourselves up and had to run, I gave one last look down below, trying to spot Robin, who I couldn't see at this angle.

I ripped over a vent cover and let Artemis climb inside, jumping in after her.

From an opening in the wall, I could see the male robot lifting Robin up in a backward spiral of some kinda murder waterfall. He was drowning him!

Beside me, Artemis collapsed under the pressure of it all. "No. No, no, no." She whimpered.

"Artemis." I tried shaking her, but she buried her head into her knees and struggled to breathe.

Behind me, Robin was slowly being made to suffer. If I didn't act now, would those be his final moments? "Artemis?"

No one deserves that. Especially not Robin. He's amazing, he's done so much good for the world and for me. I look up to him, he's a hero, my hero.

I had to save him. Had to do something.

If Failsafe wasn't here to be the hero. If there was no one else, no Batman, no Artemis, no Robin, or anyone else. Why couldn't I? I'd been right there beside her this whole time these last two years. I could do it.

I could be a hero.

I started crawling down the vent. Artemis grabbed my wrist. With teary eyes, she asked, "What're you doing?!"

I smiled, prying her hand from my wrist, "Well, I can't just leave him to drown, can I?"

She was silent, and I got her to remove her shaky hand. Moving back I grabbed the last knife from my belt and crawled down the vent, sliding until I was right over the platform. I kicked open the vent covering, and threw myself out of the vent, jabbing the male one in the shoulder and trying to rip off its head.

"Raaaah!" I struggled with it, growling. Trying to get it to loosen its grip as I saw the last of Robin's air leave his lungs, bubbles floating up in the tower of water they kept him in. I'm surprised he kept his breath for so long.

A cold, metal hand pulled me off. The male choked me as it held me apathetically by the throat.

I clawed at it, wheezing as it crushed my trachea. Its grip only increased at my resistance. But it was natural, I couldn't help but fight back.

Around me, my hearing disappeared until all that was left was ringing. My vision blurred until all I could see was my own tears and the cold metal about to end my life. I tried to wheeze, but not even that could escape up my lungs and out my throat.

Something, another cool metal, warmer than the other, came in contact with my leg. On my calf right over my sock. I kicked at it, desperate to fight back, to gain any momentum or advantage as the world slowly faded away.

Searing pain encapsulated my leg, and I didn't realize what was happening as my senses dulled. I tried crying out, only for my cries to go unheard and unuttered.

To go from mild warmth to the mind-numbing shock of such burning high temperatures on my skin was, ironically, chilling.

The scent of burnt skin met my nose and my eyes squeezed shut. My throat closed, and my leg burnt to a crisp.

The last thing I heard was the male call out to my remaining ally, "Two minutes."

The last thing I thought, was a memory. The memory of Failsafe's promise to me.

_____________
𝙼𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎
𝚂𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟸𝚗𝚍, 𝟸𝟶:𝟺𝟼 𝙴𝙳𝚃

"(Y/n)? (Y/n)?" A soft voice called out to me, it sounded sweet and comforting. But also anxious, too anxious. Clearly, they were worried about me and unsure of my well-being.

For a moment, my brain tricked me into believing it was my mother before reality came crashing down and set in. I groaned, moaning at the pain I was in. It was numb right now, but it was slowly coming back.

I opened my eyes to stare at the team's archer. Smiling at her, "So—" I coughed, more like hacked due to the previous choking, before continuing very slowly. She helped me as I tried to sit up, but didn't force me, letting me take my own pace.

My leg was in excruciating pain, "I guess you got traught? Robin would be proud." I gasped, "is he okay?" I wheezed again, trying to breathe. Artemis rubbed at my back, teary-eyed, "Yeah, yeah, he's okay."

My leg looked like roast steak, a large blotch of burned skin that looked as if it had fat, or in this case, skin, peeling off of it in air bubbles. Smaller, more sporadic bubbles were around it. It definitely looked like a fire. Clearly, the hand had moved away at some point and I hadn't realized, maybe it was after I blacked out. But then that wouldn't explain how there's no handprint whatsoever.

It was bubbled and fresh, still numb too, adrenaline was keeping me from feeling the full brunt of it as my heart sped up just by looking at it. My chest began to ache, the pain from the crystal shoving itself into my overworked muscle.

Artemis helped me up at my request, and I limped using her as a crutch to the edge of the platform. Sighing in relief as I saw my teammates trying, and failing, to free Wally and Connor.

They were all okay, healthy, and uninjured. Thank goodness. I sighed in relief, even Sphere, which was still stuck in the wall, seemed to be unscathed.

I looked down at my leg, well, almost everyone's unscathed.

"Figured my only shot was to surrender... Pretend to drown before I actually did. Blacked out though." Robin finished up.

The blonde helped me hobble down the stairs, to which Megan started fawning over me like a worried mother. Kaldur looked uneased as well. Wally grimaced and Connor looked away. Robin stared straight at my leg. Way to be unsubtle, everyone, I wanted to say, but didn't want it to be more awkward.

"So I guess my Prince Charming moment was for nothing then, huh?" I joked, trying not to put pressure on it.

"(Y/n)..."

I shrugged, "could be worse, could be dead."

"That's true." Wally chimed in.

"Wally!"

"What! She said it, not me!"

Kaldur walked up, examining me and ignoring the old married couple behind him. "(Y/n), what happened? Failsafe should've taken charge, that was reckless."

I shrugged again, avoiding eye contact, "your guess is as good as mine, fish man."

He sighed, "We have to get you treated immediately."

I nodded, "Sounds like a plan. I think I need a nap." I chuckled, though instead of light and airy like I wanted it to sound, it sounded gargled and broken, like a radio switching between channels. I coughed, rubbing my throat.

The sound of blowing wind perpetually in motion caused me to snap my head to the source of the noise, this time being the real Red Tornado. "All machines present at the time. What has occurred?" The machine landed. He looked very, very confused for a robot who couldn't convert facial expressions.

"Had a little visit from your family." Robin motioned to behind him, where the perpetrators lie dormant. I wanted to go over there and kick the hunks of junk metal, but considering my condition at the moment, that's probably not my smartest idea.

Could still imagine it though. And no one can take that from me.

"Your extremely nasty family," Artemis added on, her voice becoming an octave higher.

"I was not aware I had relations." Red Tornado walked closer to them, for the time being ignoring my injury which I knew he saw.

"Where have you been?"

"Monitor duty on the Watchtower." Red explained, "When it became clear cave communications were down. I attempted to investigate. But your zeta tubes were also non-functional. I transported to Providence and proceeded here."

"Must've taken a while." I hummed, not sure how long I was knocked out. I hope I didn't have brain damage.

The machine in Artemis' grip, now that she'd picked it up, whirled to life. Sphere floated down from off the wall, "Hey, boy."

"The pulse has worn off!" Robin, Wally, and I exclaimed at once, watching as Artemis cut free Wally and Connor. My attention went to the unconscious death robots Tornado was near, they were gonna turn back on any second!

"Get away from them, Red!" Is what I was going to yell at Tornado, to warn him before he gets fire to the face, but instead I got my own warning.

'Don't breathe.'

I took in a breath just as Red Tornado spun around, fast as lightning, and started sucking up all the air in the room. Around me, my teammates dropped like flies, caught off guard or still trapped in their restraints.

I hobbled closer, only making it about three steps with my injured leg before I, too, had my breath stolen. My fist dropped and my body crashed to the ground, falling and clutching onto the wet stone as I had the air stolen from my lungs for the second time today.