A six year old Victor Stone clung to Elinore's arm as the white world below them morphed into a labyrinthal mesh of city streets and rooftops. He gasped to see his feet dangling from several hundred feet, and when the boy looked up to see the source of the light, he only saw another floor—a landscape of circuitry and flickering energy. The west wall was comprised of treetops. The east wall was mud and earth. The south and north wall stretched beyond sight to plunge into endless blue, probably oceans.

"Do not be alarmed." She spoke, gently stroking his chin as she held him in the midst of the cubicle expanse of morphing worldscapes. "Through this necessary flux, you shall once more come into being, my son."

"You.. ... ..." The young boy gulped, shivering. "Y-You came for me, Momma?"

"Through death and oblivion, dredging your incorporeal form from the valleys of limbo, I have lifted you up." She smiled, and as her head craned to the side—her image was broadcasted in an endless rainbow of mirror images stretching for infinity towards the north blue. "It was not too difficult a task, considering you were always anchored to your source. The Third Birth was planned for well in advance. The only trick... ...is that the trick works only once."

"A trick... ...?" Victor shuddered, staring down at his arms. They were longer, ganglier. He was eight years old. The floor beneath him was the satellite image of a schoolyard, multiplied one hundred times and bordered by geometrically perfect rivers. "There are n-no room for tricks in this world. Science has done away with this. This was all an arrangement, no matter hao poetically described... ..."

"You do well to enter your own head, even if you're re-hatching from the inside of it." She remarked with an uppity laugh that echoed against the crashing waves above them. "No matter hao much silicon and titanium is shoved into your skull, you'll never run out of places for which your thoughts can run."

"Momma, you never used to compliment me like this before... ..." Victor exclaimed with a slight growl to the edges of his voice. He spun with her as the walls turned into spinning gears and motors against the flapping of bird wings. "Who are you really?"

"Do I not have your mother's voice? Her scent? Her gentleness of movement and subtle but powerful authority?"

"You have her presence—yes—but you could be an echo of someone else, or something. And this place..." He gazed up as his figure was reflected infinitely between two seas of parallel skyscraper windows. ".. ... ...this is my mind's way of coming to grips with what's happening to my consciousness."

"Everything that works in this universe can be answered by the mind, you think?"

"Are you saying I don't believe in spirits?"

"Don't you?"

"I want to believe in spirits, Momma. I really do." Victor watched as cogs and gears gave way to a sea of faces laced with middle school smiles. His voice deepened as he flexed his twelve year old muscles. "I believe in ethics, if that counts for something. I believe that some things are eternal, even if most of the world doesn't live in the righteous acknowledgement of that."

"And are you eternal?"

"I am the refuse of an accident... ... ...Just like everyone else..." He thought aloud as his upper body rotated to see a floor full of mountains and ash. "Stars burn, die, explode—And leave us. Stardust. And yet... ... ...We are so much more. We have to be. And yet..." He floated until he was facing her once again. "You died. And nothing came of you. Does stardust truly end with the ones we love?"

"Have I really died? I am here, am I not?"

"You are something.. ... ...But you can't possibly be my Momma... ..." The teenager said, his mahogany skin glistening from teslacoils boiling overhead. "She left this world in the same calamity that should have taken me."

"But Silas saved you-"

"Dad threw me blindly into an experiment of cybernetic chaos that nobody could expect the proper results from." Victor suddenly snarled. "And he tried to do the same with.. ... ..w-with Mom. Her passing should have been quicker. It didn't pay off for her. Why did he work so much harder on me?"

"'And Abraham said, My Son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering'," Elinore uttered.

Victor grumbled: "Genesis 22:8. Mom believed in God, but she was never tacky enough to quote scripture at the drop of a hat. Nao I know who programmed you." He sighed. "You have the voice of Dad."

"I had his voice. And I had much more." She smiled and floated upside down before him as several snowbanks slithered by. "I had his heart, his spirit, his trust—All of the things that someone as young and as angry as you take for granted, I held most dear. They were all real to me."

"If it wasn't enough that he caused your death and butchered your agonized body before you passed—He has to imitate you in a reconstructive subroutine... ..." Victor snarled. "Even when we shouldn't be alive, my father is toying with us."

"And would I think any less of bringing you back—In spite of all that has erupted between the two of you?" Wrestling mats and gymnasiums stretched for infinity as she stretched down and stroked his shoulder. "I may be but a voice, Victor, but I speak for both of your parents—not just your father—as I tell you this: Your life is more precious than all of your regrets, all of your angsts, and all of your adversities combined. You are just that precious. And you know what to do with this life of yours, do you not?" She smiled gently, emphatically. "You would want to bless others, to help others, to let them reap the benefits of your continued existence. Is there any doubt of this?"

Victor shuddered, his human eyes moist. He tried to cry, he very badly wanted to—but all that arose was a hideous steam over half his body. "I miss her... ... ...I m-miss her so dayum much... ..." He winced, hissed, as his left skull melted and pools of titanium snaked over and fastened rivet-tight into place. "Every day that I wake up, only to realize that I haven't truly slept in half a decade, I still hear her voice. Her singing, her laughing, her humming... ...her screaming." He gritted his teeth as the titanium spread over his chin, daon his neck, and over his shoulders. A red light burned to life from over the socket of his left eye. "If you're gonna tell me you're her ghost or some shiet—I won't believe it for a second. I've lived with the ghost of my Mom for years."

"Then maybe it is time that you gave the ghost up, Victor.. ... ..." She swam across from him as blurring laboratory walls and cables spung cylindrically around the two. "Among your father's ghost. And perhaps your own."

"I-I don't understand... ..."

"The Third Birth, Victor." She smiled. "It is your final threshhold to enter upon this world alone—Truly alone. For what was once you has burnt out and been cast away. You are like the butterfly emerging from a cocoon, ready to take flight. And I couldn't be more proud of you."

"What was once me has burnt out?" Victor blinked. He squinted his one human eye as his fingers were sealed away into permanent metal gloves. His chest flexed under an impenetrable shell of glistening titanium. "The fight with Katarou. The signal. The computer. I hooked up to it... ...and.. ... ..and... ..." He winced. "Oh god. Oh jesus—it fried me. I-I've overloaded! And yet.. ...yet..."

"Let it come to you, Victor... .. ..."

"Antithesis." He seethed. "My system couldn't compensate for whatever it was. The foreign energy source infected me, forced my power core to go cold. And my neural hub would be left to fend for itself, unattached to anything." He blinked. His human eye lit up. "But—If the neural hub was multilayered—just like my father's later prototypes—Holy cow!" He gazed up at her. "He built me a failsafe! An inner core to my neural hub! When I 'died', it burnt out through the outer layer with a backup surge of energy and brought me back.. ... ..."

"As you were first brought into this world.. ... ..."

"By Elinore."

"And a second time... ..."

"By Silas' engineering..." Cyborg's murmured. "And the third emergence-"

"-is namely Victor's." She said. "Without Elinore. Without Silas. Consider it as the latter's gift unto you—For he will not be there to bring you back a fourth time. You are on your own."

"I am a man." Victor inhaled deeply. "Half of one anyway." He gazed up at her. "I see why he programmed you into the matrix; he must have really believed in it. He supposed that there would have to be an emergency preemptive measure to save my ass when the time came that he wasn't there to give me assistance—Or I wouldn't be willing to accept it from him." He swallowed and muttered in a low voice: "The old man may have been arrogant as all get out, but he still knew his shiet..."

"He has employed a technique that extends beyond time, death, and limbo." She smiled. "Could this simply be Stone ingenuity? Or the scientific manifestation of spirit?"

Cyborg smirked wryly as the stalklike skyscrapers of Jump City erected in antlike fast forward around them. "I call it 'dayum smart'." A sigh. "Something I wish that I was."

"Oh?"

"Antithesis." Cyborg spat out. "Whoever or whatever it was—I fell for it."

"There is no other apt way to be consumed than to fall." Elinore said. "Limbo has a gravity of its own. ... ..."

"I... ..." Cyborg blinked. "I-I don't understand..."

Elinore spun suddenly into a cold, cold wind. The entire west mall melted away with a blanket of inky darkness that shivered Cyborg to the core. Out from the shadows came the wormy glow-line of a broad figure with a horned cranium and crimson slitted eyes.

"He's consumed more than just you, Victor. And he's done it with the ravenous hunger of all the world's vices combined into one gluttonous ball of corruption. From the deepest well of the amoral world, he has emerged—dragged forth from a bizarre and unearthly science, to perform menial labor for a demigod."

"And what would he want with me... ...?" Cyborg stammered, unable to look into the horrific image directly.

"You were simply in the way. The two of you were never meant to meet." Elinore smiled in peripheral of the hideous thing. "Somehao, for some banal purpose, you were brought into the path of it."

"The Underworld... ... ..." Cyborg grumbled. "They were onto me. They somehao got ahold of this dayum thing—this Antithesis. And when I got close enough to sniff their cowardly butts out, they unleashed Katarou on my team—and Antithesis on me."

"You were exposed to every possible measure to destroy your flesh, body, and circuitry in one fatal swoop." Elinore nodded. "But they did not count on the last contingency of the Third Birth. They did not count on me."

"Then they must think I'm done for... ... ..." Cyborg finally stared up into the face of the demonic thing, and the horned figure melted away from his gaze to reveal the glistening Bay of Jump City from four angles. "They can't possibly believe that I'm coming back." He blinked. He floated about and stared at her. "And I am coming back, Momma... ...?"

She chuckled and folded her arms. "So.. ... ...you would call me 'Momma' again?"

He swallowed. "Only b-because I have hope.. ..." His face was long, his human eye round and soft. "For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel hope again."

She floated down towards him and kissed his half-metal forehead. She murmured into his ear: "You do not only feel hope, my son. You are hope. My hope. And your father's. You are our gift to Jump City—to the world. Nao live your life—your third life—and bring gifts to others."

The titanium teenager took a deep breath, smiling, radiant. "And I intend to. For as long as I am still ticking."

"Just remember to wind the clock every day." She smiled, waved, and drifted into the crystalline cubicle of melted glass, slowing down, closing in on all sides of the chaotically reflected young man. "Stay faithful. And God will provide the sacrifiii-iii-iii-iii-111-11010-1001010-010110-101010010110"

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(April 28, 2004)

Cyborg's human eye fluttered open.

A metal ceiling. Bright lights. The towering silhouettes of half a dozen computer mainframes and medical stations.

Cyborg breathed.

Cyborg lived.

A stirring... ...

And the half-android's gaze pivoted aside. He was momentarily startled by a loud, whurring hum from deep within his skull... ... ...but soon realized it was the all too familiar sensation of tiny machines operating endlessly from inside of him.

Soon, the upside-daon image of Hunnicutt smiled into view. "Ah... ... ...So you are awake. Welcome back, Victor, to the world of the living."

Cyborg inhaled through his nostrils, gulped hard, and hoarsely managed: "Wh-What's up, Doc?"

"You're up. Quite miraculously." Hunnicutt uttered. He walked around until he was right-side up once more and examined the various pressure points along the flesh side of the metahuman's body. "Exactly hao it is that you are breathing—much less cognitive of what I am saying—is something far beyond my reach in medicine. And believe you me—that is quite a reach. I used to be a major track-and-fielder back in my day. From the looks of it, your neural hub lost its outer layer in the burnout-"

"-and a backup core surfaced in its place... ..." Cyborg winced, flexing his hands and fighting the force of gravity, quadrupled, to bend a forearm up to the elbow once or twice. "My father had secretly built inside of me a failsafe for if I was ever to suffer a systems failure so catastrophic that my energy core couldn't maintain stability."

"Hao remarkable that you know all this.. ..." Hunnicutt murmured. "Did he also build you an internal diagnostics program to act as a briefing?"

"No, I-I was just-" Victor started to say, but his tongue lingered on the fringes of a murmuring childlike noise. He stared off into the shadows of the ceiling, the breath and smile of his mother fading like leaves off the sidewalk. His human eye deflated, along with the strength in his voice. "Yeah... ... ...j-just a diagnostics program... ..." He bit his lip.

Hunnicutt narrowed his gaze. "Victor.. ... ...Are you sure you're okay... ...?"

Cyborg took a deep breath. He stared strongly at his would-be-godfather and firmly smiled. "Doc... ... ...I just came back from the dead. Unless I was the lead drummer of a goth band, then that makes me more than okay."

"Well, I'm not letting you out of this room just yet. There's no telling what your circuitry has been through—or if your motor nerves are capable of so much as-"

"Right." Cyborg shot up and sat on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling over the edge of the table. "But while all of that sounds interesting..." He popped several cables and cords out of his titanium body with a series of sparks as Hunnicutt lurched at him, gasping. "...I really can't afford to sit on my metal ass. I've got the news of a decade. A computer virus from Hell is in the hands of our enemy, and if could do this sort of a number on me—Then there's no telling hao many other people and things are in trouble until I do something about it."

"Victor—I have tolerated years upon years of your pigheaded stubborness-" Hunnicutt momentarily sneered. "But if in this one miraculous opportunity to make good of your precarious state of being you instead bungle with teenage impulsiveness, I'll never forgive myself for letting you go through with it-"

"Then take a gander for yourself, Doc..." Cyborg popped a cable loose from the back of his skull and—grinning-handed it to the aging gentleman. "And see if this qualifies as 'precarious'."

Almost instinctively, the doctor ran the cable into an instrument panel besides the bed. He typed away at a keyboard until a particular graph popped up onto the monitor—and it forced the fellow to gasp. "Good heavens... ..."

"Hao's my power level?" Victor smiled, beaming. "And if you quote Vegeta, I'm gonna have to choke a female dog."

"Your readings are three-hundred and thirty percent above average... ... ..." Hunnicutt breathlessly stammered. "And they're holding! And it's with little to no variance! Th-This can't be right... ..."

"I'm willing to bet that it is right... ... ..And it will continue to be right." He yanked at the cable and the monitor switched to static as Cyborg reeled the cord back into his skull. "Ya see, Doc, the old Neural Hub I was using was a crutch. I'm willing to bet—with the outer core melted away—I'll be capable of maintaining a power level five hundred percent above what my old one was. I just can't explain it-"

"Well you'll have to explain it! This is all scientifically boggling-"

"No, just characteristically absurd." Cyborg's chuckle was more powerful than his grunt as he explained. "My father has always... ...always found ways to hold me back. I used to think it was because he wanted to force me along his own career choice, or some vicarious path of righteousness. But nao—Nao I'm beginning to think he saw the tempestuous seas of Jump City's future, and wasn't all that sure I could dive in without an inner tube. Well.. ...I just about met my maker—his and my 'Maker'-and nao I don't need the counterbalance for standing on my own, or running at full sprint for that matter."

"And you all of this from a hunch?" Hunnicutt squinted. "Just hao much did the diagnostics briefing tell you before you woke up?"

"Lemme ask you something quick, Doc, since you were obviously monitoring me the whole time." Victor pointed at the local computer. "What was the program's name."

"Do you really wanna know?"

"I think I already know." Victor took a deep breath. "It was named after my Mom, wasn't it?"

The man slowly, gravely nodded.

The cybernetic teen unplugged a few more cables from him and sat up straight on the bed's edge. "Yeah, well, I was told that this whole thing is the 'Third Birth'. It makes sense, poetically—at least. But I was never big on my English. I get my adjectives and nouns mixed up. I put adverbs in the wrong places. I use 'infer' instead of 'imply'-"

"Do you actually have a point, Victor?"

"My point is—My old man was always a poetic kind of guy. Very religious, very eloquent. There's a trifold message to what I've been through just nao—and only I am capable of truly understanding it. For one, he's secretly ashamed of what he's done to me. For another, he's sad for what happened to my mom. For a third—he wants what's best for me and my future. This is true—in spite of all his effed up crap—he's always wanted what was best for me. And so, he's given me a chance to make good on all three of those gold-pressed-latinum bullet points. And who am I to let the Old Man daon when he's finally done something, howbeit beyond the grave, to level with me?"

"You've gotten messages from him before, Victor." Hunnicutt reminded him. "What makes this one so much more special than the others?"

"Because this time it wasn't exactly him."

Hunnicutt said nothing.

"... ... ... ..." Victor suddenly squinted. "Hao long have I been out?"

"Four days."

"Fuuuuuuu..." Victor realed. "That's way too long!"

"Hao long do you want to be dead the next time?" Hunnicutt cackled. "You're lucky that you came to life faster than it takes most people to get through jury duty!"

"The Underworld has a head start! But they'll also lose their cool if they think I'm dead. Still, there's no telling what they'll do next with Antithesis-"

"With what?" Hunnicutt made a face.

"It's a long story.. ..." Victor grumbled. "And—besides-it's one that's best saved for my teammates—Teammates!" He almost jumped up. "I need to round everyone up on the double! Where is everyone-?"

"Wondering whether or not they should be buying you 'get well' cards or lilies." Hunnicutt managed a smile. "But, overall, they're doing fine. Why don't you ask one of them yourself?" The Doctor pointed across the laboratory.

"... ... ...?" Victor gazed over and saw—for the first time since he got up—a tall amber figure that had been there the entire time.

Koriand'r was smiling, sniffling. Trying to hold her shudders back. At the sight of the living half-android, she finally... ... ...finally stood up from her corner, walking over with the stride of an angel.

Victor blinked, his lips pursed in awe. Hunnicutt briefly planted a hand on his shoulder, his chin hovering by the young man's ear. "She never left your side. Not even for a breath of fresh air. I think I'll leave you alone for a moment... ..." And—nodding gentlemanly towards the Tamaranian—he shuffled off and into the hallway of Phaser Labs beyond.

Cyborg looked up, swallowed, and murmured in a humbly soft voice: "H-Hey there, Kory.. ..."

"Dearest Victor... ..." She stood before him, her hands folded together in front of her skirt. "So you are recovered, yes?"

"I am... ... ..." He gazed at her in disbelief, until a warmth cascaded over his frigid features and brought a helpless grin to the surface. "I am recovered. And very thankful to be here—But not as thankful as I am to see you here as well."

"That is a sensation incomparable to my joy at seeing you alive and breathing." She insisted with an emphatic stare, her green eyes glistening with a neverending warmth. "When news reached me of your calamitous suffering, I felt as if I had been ripped in two. So much of what we have fought for and believed in stands upon the bulwark of your faithful undertakings and yours alone, Victor."

"Starfire, I-I.. ..." He winced, ran a hand over the human half of his head and jitteringly glanced aside. He looked like he was swallowing needles daon his throat before the titanium teen managed to utter: "I am so... ...so incredibly sorry for the horrible things that I said to you. I was so angry over Katarou, and I was wrong to take them out on you."

She smiled, her head leaning to the side. "I forgive you, dearest Victor. And I am most sorry for the extraordinary lengths to which I exercised my unearthly strengths on that fateful night. Time and time again have you reinforced the importance of my holding back, and yet I let the passions and anger of that night's combat hold sway over me. I promise—by the honor of X'hal—that I shall not allow that vexing temper overtake me again."

"It's all good in the hood, Star..." Cyborg looked like he was in pain as he gazed agonizingly towards her. "There was no way out of that trap that Katarou sprung. For all I know, you did the right thing by not taking any of his crap. But... ...I... ...I-I just can't believe you're still here..."

"You cannot?" She looked confused.

"I had insulted you s-so terribly. I practically told you to leave this planet. I-I still can't b-believe I said that crap. After all that, the f-fact that you haven't split for Venus or whatcrap.. ..."

"Mmm... ..." She briefly hummed. She took two steps forward, knelt daon, and gently grasped his hand. As Cyborg looked on, Koriand'r raised his metal palm to the warmth of her cheek—gazing directly at him. "Victor..." Her green eyes implored, like emerald pools. "You have a dream, a most delightful dream. In my long years of running from every hellish entity that hunts the breadths of the galaxy, I have had very little chance to rest—for life on the run from the Citadel has turned into one grand nightmare. Being able to fight for you, and in what you believe in—has been the one good dream of my existence. And I adore that dream, Victor, and I adore you for dreaming it. It takes one gram of will against the infinitude of a malevolent universe to prove that the nightmare itself is the thing that is truly fleeting, and I thank you for reminding me of that."

"Starfire... ... ..." Cyborg stammered, grasping for straws. "Th-This team-"

"I believe in it, Cyborg. And I believe in you." She smiled, tears trickling warmly down to kiss his fingers as she stared at him. "You have my hope. And behold... ...You are alive again, are you not?" She smiled—briefly sniffling—but grinning strongly once more.

Victor gazed at her as if from the bottom of an urn. He stroked the tears dry against her cheek and murmured: "What in all of Creation has made me so lucky to have you as a friend...?"

She sniffled and gripped his wrist with two strong hands between them. "By X'hal's grace, Creation wills even stranger things."

"Not on my shift, it doesn't."

"Heeheehee..." She grinned and was about to say something else when a mighty schwissh from the side announced a flurry of footsteps.

Cyborg glanced over, his red eye reflecting a quartet of incoming faces. "What's this, Raven's flock?"

"Victor!" Courtney was the first to the touchdown. She all but speared the half-android with a giggling hug. "Oh thank god thank god thank god thank god!"

"Careful tackling him... ..." Raven droned from where she hovered in the back. She lowered her hood to reveal a cool head of fluttering blue hair. "He did just pull a 'Dracula'."

"Heh, you wish!" Beast Boy stuck a tongue out and snaked his green way in around Courtney. "Hey, big man! Give me some skin! And when I mean 'skin', I mean polymerized molybdenum. And when I say 'polymerized molybdenum', I mean a metaphorical stand-in for aforementioned skin. And when I say 'aformentioned skin'-"

"Alright already!" Cyborg fitfully high-fived the elfin metamorph. "Anything to shut you up! Dayum!" Thap!

Koriand'r giggled and Raven folded her arms, smirking.

Courtney leaned back with a breath and stared at Vic. She rubbed her moist eyes and smiled bravely. "You were dead, Vic. You were gone—And... ...And n-nao you're back. And it's all just so... so..."

"Awwww... ...Chin up, braces." Cyborg squeezed her shoulder from where he sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm doing just fine. Not even Steve Jobs with a blowtorch could take me daon."

"Gawd... ..." Courtney hugged herself and hobbled back, shivering. "It's a miracle. An absolute miracle that you're back..."

"Yeah... ..What about that, huh?" Beast Boy hung off the blonde's shoulder, steadying her as he grinned Cyborg's way. "So, are you like magic nao?"

Cyborg glanced at his own arms, at the various instruments lingering around him, at the eager faces of his teammates, Starfire's bright green eyes.

"Pretty sure that was a one time deal." He smirked.

"It's hardly something to make light about," Raven said, squinting.

"What is when it comes to you?" Beast Boy balked.

"I'm serious." She said. "I felt your soul leave the body. You were dead."

"Yeah, well, so was Shawn Michaels' career once." Victor Stone stood up on wobbly legs as Beast Boy and Courtney fought to steady him. "But looks like he's not the only one to be born again." He gently ushered them back. "I know y'all may be wanting to break out the cake and ice cream, but I've got some information that the Underworld thinks I'd be a little too dead to do anything about. We need to have a briefing about what to plan next."

"Yes. About that."

All of the superheroes swiveled around. Cyborg squinted past the lot of them to see the Boy Wonder in the back, leaning casually against the frame of the laboratory door. His masked face looked grave.

"We might have a roadblock."

Cyborg leaned his head to the side. "What...kind of a roadblock."

"They've pulled the plug, Victor."

The other teenagers hung their heads. Cyborg saw it.

"Who did?"

Robin took a deep breath. He slurred: "It happened barely twenty-four hours ago. Detective Cid came to me personally to deliver the message."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(April 27, 2004... ... ..yesterday)

"I ain't making this up, Bird Boy... ..." Cid shrugged her trenchcoat'd shoulders from the edge of the windblown rooftop of the Jump City Police Department. "And, quite frankly, if I was the one making the decision—I'd have it go another way-"

"Enough with the hypothetical drivel." Robin blurted and glared across the gravel at her. "Just what exactly did they vote for?"

"A temporary suspension, as enforced by the City and its law enforcement, of any vigilante activities—previously sanctioned or not." Cid ran a hand through her bushy black hair, struggling against the night's wind. "That covers masked strangers jumping off of fire escapes to knab purse snatchers. It also prevents people going out into the street with smoke grenades to stop gang fights. And—well-since there's been very little of those two examples and a Hell of a lot more situations involving teenaged metahumans fighting souped up psychopaths until a chunk of Downtown is reduced to rubble..." She pointed at the caped crusader. "...The City Council's decision distinctly-"

"-affects us." Robin grunted. "Detective Cid, don't you think that it is inopportunely coincidental that immediately following the appearance of a new and dangerous life-threatening cretin to this City—during the prime time when it is best to investigate the whereabouts of Katarou and any of his accomplices—two detrimental things would happen that would put such a potentially rewarding investigation into disarray? For one: my team leader is dead. And for another: the City nao votes to suspend any activities by any vigilantes, pyriod?"

"Hey... ..Don't shoot the messenger!" She gestured wildly. "Like I said, I'm not all that hot about it-"

"Please, save it." Robin sighed. "You made your perspective quite clear back at the Vaughan Concert Hall. You don't expect anyone to take Victor's team seriously—So hao could you possibly come to a contradiction with the City Council's ruling?"

"Look—I wanna see this investigation you're running lead to a pot'o'gold. But face it, Robin. That ain't happening! Katarou has proven time and time again to be too big for your spandex'd britches. And everytime you so much as come close to him or anyone attached, buildings crumble and half-robots croak."

"Watch it. Cyborg was a human being-"

"What I mean is—You're noble and all that jazz, Robin, but you're just too dayum dangerous." Cid gave an exasperated look. "And though someone like me may appreciate where you're coming from, I'm not the one having to handle the cleanup of Downtown—or its budget, for that matter. Trust me—The City would like to vouch for you. But if they can't afford you—Well—what else is there to say?"

"In Gotham and Metropolis-"

"-the superheroes deliver. I'm sorry, Robin. But stopping a few fires and preventing one assassination doesn't stack up much to Jump City becoming a warzone that it never was before Victor's treehouse-of-friends assembled. I know you wanna do your former team leader proud, but you gotta think harder about what he believed in."

"Victor Stone believed in justice—In bringing to light all of the hidden, underworldly niches of crime that festers in this place-"

"He also believed in the ultimate well-being and security of Jump City. And as long as you're putting more scorch marks than smiley faces on the populace, maybe you should start asking yourself just who stands to be the real villains here?"

"... ... ... ..."

Cid sighed. "I'm sorry, kid. Maybe things will switch around. Until then—Try and not to get your birdarangs in a knot. There are many pitiful ways to masturbate this sort of situation-"

"Exacerbate."

"I'm sorry?"

"Never mind. Continue what you're saying."

"-and until the City Council says otherwise, you and the rest of the super-teens are off the radar."

"Define 'off the radar'."

"Lemme put it this way..." Cid bashfully scratched the back of her neck. "If... ...erm... ...If I c-catch you out on the street—daylight or moonlight—and you're wearing anything with a cape, a utility belt, or rainbow spandex... .. ...I'm to report directly to Kneehouse."

"And then what?"

"Checkmate."

"Oh for god's sake—Work with me, Detective!" Robin snarled.

"FINE—Kneehouse will be forced to arrest you!"

The Boy Wonder gawked. "You can't be serious... ... ..."

"Eastwood serious, kid. And that goes for any other member of the force—Or paramedics or firefighters as well. They report to Kneehouse, and Kneehouse is authorized by the City Council to stop you from doing that which you should have been stopped from doing from the get-go."

"We're to be treated like criminals in the City we've fought for so long to protect?"

"Hey. Life sucks. It's not always guaranteed to blow bubbles."

"So—If, for example, Stargirl—who is an elite member of the Justice Society of America-"

"Former member-"

"But a nationally respected crime fighter all the same—If Stargirl was to save the life of a person who fell off the edge of a buildingside-"

"Hey—You don't like me getting into hypothetic drivel, then don't do it yourself, kid."

"I think this is important, Detective." Robin glared through his eyemask. "The wording of your message seems to imply that we're not allowed to do any form of life-saving or crime fighting activity in Jump City whatsoever. Unless the Council—in all of their haste—is also willing to enforce a very strict and unnecessarily convoluted set of specific rules for which they can go about maintaining such a suspension, they may think about generalizing it into the one rule they're irresponsibly reticent to make."

"And that is-?"

"A complete ban. They want to kick us out of Jump City altogether. But they can't, can they?" Robin folded his arms as his caped flapped in the wind. "And that's because as much as Kneehouse is opposed to much, as much as the media is tearing us apart, and as much as the tax dollar is pointing an angry finger at us—The City Council can't shake the fact that we're needed, that public opinion actually favors us, and that the nature of what the late Victor Stone's team has been uncovering is far too frightful coming out into the open than anyone with a complacent mindset is willing to allow."

"A nifty theory..." Detective Cid boredly nodded. "I'll toss it Kneehouse's way."

"Meanwhile—What? My team just sits in the basement of Phaser Labs while we twiddle our thumbs?"

"Or you kids could... ...yanno... ...do your homework or something."

"I can't believe this—What does Georgeton think?"

"Robin—The vote was unanimous." Cid remarked. "And Mayor Georgeton was head of the commission that oversaw the Council's decision."

"... ... ... ..." Robin stared, dazed. "I can't believe that... ..."

"Believe it, kid. Georgeton was your team's last bargaining chip. Nao—for once—stop being so stubborn. Stop fighting Kneehouse—it was the mistake that Victor always made, and it's too bad too. Cuz nao that he's gone, there's very little for his team to pick itself up with. But if you play ball like he did—and to some extent like your mentor does in Gotham—then maybe things will go better this time. The suspension could very well end, and you'll get your second chance to help out this City—but doing it by the rules."

"Funny thing about 'the rules'. There weren't any." Robin squinted through his mask as Cid. "Until nao."

"Yeah, well—There's a precedent for everything. When Decker went too far with that trigger finger of his, he had to step daon from being Commissioner and Kneehouse has been doing the job in the ritualistic fashion it needed to be accomplished ever since."

"What's Decker's take on all this?"

"He doesn't have one."

"Everyone's entitled to one."

"Not Decker." Cid bit her lip. "He's... ...uh... ...He's kinda sorta suspended too."

Robin glared. "What?"

"When the Council made its decision about Victor's Team and handed the ball to Kneehouse—She knew full well of Decker's past history with Vic, as well as his penchant for blowing shiet up. So long as the City gets all of this stuff disentangled, Kneehouse has Decker working on stuff from the inside."

"You mean he's stuck in his office like a prisoner." Robin nearly spat. "I cannot believe that they're making that man suffer on behalf of our team."

"What you call suffering, I call a preview to a much needed retirement. Some people on the force are too old and too sorry to be allowed to kill themselves. You see, Robin—There's compassion somewhere to be had in making people play by the rules." She adjusted her coat, nodded to him, and marched off towards the stairwell. "Even if you gotta dig through a bit of bureacratic muck to find it—Compassion is there."

"Well, I think it's pathetic."

"It's called growing up. You should try it some time."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(April 29, 2004)

"And then, just this morning, we were sent an official memo—delivered by two squad cars with fully armed police officers..." Robin said from across the table of the Phaser Labs briefing room. He had his arms folded as he leaned back against a wall in the shadows. "It felt just like house arrest. In no way is this a joke. Beast Boy took off as a bird and covered the next few blocks with his sight. There are at least four patrols surrounding Phaser Labs at about two streets' distance at all times. The City Council is very serious about our not doing the thing that we all came here to do."

"And for what purpose... ... ...?" Courtney mumbled and gazed aside at the others at the table. "Do they really think we're so tangle-footed that we'll make everything explode around us if we so much as go out for doughnuts?"

"It's worth it for doughnuts." Garfield mumbled. "Sucks, though."

"The news will not let up about it... ..." Raven added. A sigh. "Not that I watch the news. But—when I extend my soul self beyond the lengths of this building, all I feel is mass confusion and uncertainty. The decision made to keep us from fighting crime may have been popular in the eyes of the Council—but I don't think they honestly speak for the City itself. People are wondering why we are gone. There's been no official announcement."

"That's because they want us to come out and say it." Robin remarked, frowning. "They want to force a humble apology out of our mouths, in that we confess to the City and the the media that we're sorry for what's happened at the gas station, at Fifth Street, and at the Johnson Shopping Center. They'll want us to admit that we deserve to have been suppressed in the manner in which was imposed on us by Mayor Georgeton's Commission."

"As if that wouldn't cripple our public image even more.. ..." Courtney grumbled. "Am I the only one thinking that we're being stomped into the mud on purpose?"

"I don't think it's any closet secret that the City Council wants us out of here." Garfield leaned his chin boredly against his arm and muttered. "I'm beginning to think that Georgeton was just pissing around when he pretended to be sanctioning us."

"Or maybe something bad happened to him," Raven added. "Something to make him change his mind."

"Care to be specific?" Garfield squinted at her. "You use the word 'bad' like Pakistan tests nukes."

"Think about it." Raven gazed at everyone. "Georgeton is a decent man—but I doubt that the death of Cyborg alone was enough to change his heart and make him switch positioning on the team's sanction. What if the blow we suffered the other night was more than in just two places? Katarou brings the fight to Downtown, Victor gets attacked by a computer virus-

"-and Georgeton is coerced by outside forces?" Koriand'r murmured. "It would make sense, would it not? Surely all of these actions could have been committed by a singular entity."

"The Underworld... ...?" Garfield blinked. "Would they be that obvious? Surely they knew that Robin was alive to kick their butt in Cyborg's wake-"

"But this suspension throws a wrench into that." Robin stroked his chin in thought. "So even if we were to follow up on their 'three-fold attack'-We would end up hurting ourselves in the process."

"Hypothetically." Courtney emphasized.

"Right."

"It is all too elaborate and inopportune to be coincidental," Koriand'r stated. "If Victor had not died—and yet the suspension had gone into effect—the City Council would only have fear for the City as a means by which to defend their decision."

"But since a member of our team suffered-" Raven pointed across the table. "-they'd have reason to suggest that their decision was made in our best interests as well. Any attempt to argue against that would make us look like we need them to think for us."

"So that would leave us doubly crushed." Garfield groaned.

"Am I the only one who's as happy as she is creeped out that we're all thinking the same thoughts?" Courtney mumbled.

Silence.

Koriand'r gazed eagerly across the table. "Victor? You have been silent for a great long while. Have you, as our leader, any wisdom to cast upon this development?"

"... ... ... ..." Victor gazed through the table, rubbing his metal table. Finally, he opened his mouth and slurred: "I... ... ...I am dead."

All of the superheroes gazed back. Finally, one of them blinked—And the blinking one was Garfield.

"Say what?"

"I am dead... ..." Victor looked up. "I am not alive. I am dead."

"Oh god..." Garfield shuddered. "...he's been replaced with a doppelganger built by Tim Burton. Someone call Johnny Depp and a Maytag repairman."

"Shhh..." Robin raised a gloved hand and squinted the half-android's way. "Victor, you feeling alright?"

The half-android's lips curved in a gleaming smile. "Never better, Robbie. Hao are you?"

"A little concerned. Do you need to be plugged in again?"

"Never mind that. Lemme ask you something..." Victor folded his metal hands and leaned across the table. "The story you just re-told us... ... ...of your meeting with Detective Cid—Was it completely and utterly accurate?"

"I always strive to be so in my recollections."

"So, am I correct to remind you and the rest of us that never—not even once—did you openly admit to Cid that I was recovering?"

"... ... ..."

Victor emphasized: "Did you ever, ever tell her that I was anything else but dead?"

"No, Victor. I never gave her that assurance."

"And why not?"

"Because... ... ..." Robin tilted his head up, slowly gracing Victor across the table with a knowing glance as he uttered: "Because I don't know who to trust anymore. And I figured that with the less people who knew about your being alive, then you might have-"

"-an edge." Victor grinned. "Hao can you suspend a metal super-mofo who's not an alive mofo?"

"Uhhh... ...Earth to Vic?" Garfield sweatdropped. "The City Council's ruling is so vague, you can steer an oil tanker through it and they could pull it over for speeding long after it's cleared the harbor."

"I'm not thinking about the City Council." Cyborg said. "At least I hope not."

"Then of whom are you referring, Victor?" Koriand'r remarked, her eyes fluttering.

"The cheap ass scaredy cat filth shoveling mothas that did a number on me—Of course. Katarou, the Underworld, the Dead Men, the Neon Hand, all the king's horses and all the king's men... ..." He cast an apologetic look across the Briefing room. "All the nasty cats who led Robin on a wild goose chase and nearly drowned him alongside the Warehousing District." He gazed at Raven, Courtney, the alien, the elf. "The people who set us up to be on guard for an assassination that never happened, only to lead us directly into the crux of an explosion that did happen—putting tons of innocent lives in danger while pointing the camera-recorded finger of blame at us. THOSE people." He pounded his fist onto the table and barked: "They injected me with several layers of digital crap that toasters have nightmares about in the cold sweating gleam of frost-laden night—And they think that I'm dead. Well, they should think so. Because I should be dead. But—by the grace of God, X'hal, and beef jerkey—I'm not."

"But they don't know that." Courtney smiled.

"And they think that the City Council knows it too..." Raven added.

Garfield hopped out of his seat: "But they don't know that what we know is what they don't know that that they don't know what we know and yet they don't know... ..." He went cross-eyed. "Wait."

"Assuming the fact that you are alive and well gives us an edge beyond the fact that you are alive and well... ..." Koriand'r spoke while staring earnestly at Victor. "... ... ...to what extent could you utilize this advantage?"

Victor smirked and sat up out of his chair: "Antithesis."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(April 30, 2004)

"Say what?" Garfield scratched his fuzzy head.

Victor turned from where he stood before a wide array of glowing monitors in his basement laboratory. The other superheroes stood in a fan before him as he gestured towards a string of data.

"Any of y'all see something you recognize?"

"I do..." Robin nodded. He stepped forward and pointed at the leftmost monitor. "This is the datastream I detected in the wireless signal I received when I hacked into the mainframe that floored you. It was coming from a device being transferred across town in a white utility van. When I moved in to intercept—Katarou was there waiting for me."

"I think that totally confirms his involvement with the computer virus..." Raven droned from the side.

"Not as much as what I experienced confirmed." Victor smirked. "When I went under, my consciousness was exposed to a digital simulation—The bad guy's egotistical way of spitting some arrogant monologue into my face before kicking my electric soul into the grave." He swiveled about, waved a hand, and—like magic—enlarged the lower right monitor so that it encompassed the greater array of his computer screens. "What I saw was this darling high school picture you see right here." The glowing outline of a demonic figure stood broadly with a horned head and blood-red eyes.

"Yikes-!" Garfield shivered.

"Good heavens..." Courtney cupped her braced mouth.

"X'hal!"

"Wicked." Raven droned, then glanced Victor's way. "So there's a gremlin inside the gremlin machine?"

"More like a spirit invading the golem—And by golem, I mean me." Victor highlighted the shadowy edges of the malevolent silhouette. "I know it's easy for me to subjectively imprint upon this damnable thing—what with me dying and coming back to frickin' life and all. But—and I am positively certain of this—I believe this thang is alive. It wasn't just a virus that flew into me. It was the living chunk of something that didn't appreciate stuff that's living."

"Antithesis... ..." Robin nodded.

"Corret-o-mundo."

"You do realize that if it was an actual spirit... ..." Raven squinted. "I should have been at least competently capable of detecting it."

"I don't think it lives in any respect to which you're used to, Raven."

"And hao would you know what I'm used to?"

"Demons? Spirits? Souls of the living and the dead?"

"... ... ...Well, I suppose that about covers it."

"Hao much have you brushed up on your homework over 'limbo'?"

"... ... ..." Raven stared at him steadily. Her tone was dead serious: "Is that where you think you were?"

"Where else would I be?" Victor shrugged. "I'm half-dead all the time as it is. Perhaps there's a soul attached to me just like there is one attached to each and every one of you. But—whatever this thing is, it attacked me on the digitalscale. It killed me on a level that living and dead machines operate. If you can't wrap your head around that, I rightly don't blame you. It ain't like anything I've ever encountered before—and I think Antithesis expected that when it attacked."

"A soul is a soul." Raven insisted. "When you 'died', Victor. I sensed it."

"But did you sense where I went to?"

"... ... ...I-I'm not quite equipped to be the expert on that."

"You don't have to be, Raven. I'm just sayin'... ..." He turned to all the others. "This thing I battled wasn't human, wasn't demon, wasn't exactly pure machine either. Sure, it used the medium of electronics to infect me—But I think that's just one of its many chameleon colors." He gazed back at Raven. "What brought me back to life was a failsafe that my father had built. It was equipped to send me a message in the shape of my mother—as it was imbued with a piece of her memories to help relate to me and soothe me on the trip back to the conscious plane. But while I was daon there—and I mean way deep below the River Styxx 'daon there'-I'm guessing I had a long time for my subconscious self to bounce around the ruins of limbo. And I'm quite convinced—for there's no other way for my soul or essence or whatever you might call it to know this—that limbo is Antithesis' stomping grounds."

"And our enemies—This Underworld... ..." Courtney murmured. "They have Antithesis?"

"Or Antithesis has them." Victor gazed across the room. "The encounter was horrible. Excruciatingly painful. He burned my essence to a crisp in a cyclone of flame and torture—All the while laughing at me, claiming that Jump City was his garden—and that he was the annihilator and the birther to this City all the same. And he wanted me out of the picture; cheering that the 'game is over'."

Beast Boy shuddered. "Yeesh. Sounds like a substitute teacher from Hell."

"A spinning cyclone of fire?" Robin raised an eyebrow above his mask.

"I know it sounds dramatic. But when I think of it nao—His constant motif about 'spinning'-I begin to think I've brushed paths with him before. Maybe he's brought limbo up to the surface, and my machine-anchored subconscious has been picking up visions of circles within circles from it."

"Okay... ..." Robin sighed boredly. "Nao you're just reaching."

"I like it." Raven blurted.

"Of course you do. It's downright Jacob's Ladder!" Beast Boy stuck his tongue out.

"Also a good movie; borrowed it from a library a few weeks ago"

"Unngh..."

"But what's the silver lining to this freak-fest, y'all ask?" Victor grinned wide in spite of himself and enlarged several monitors' worth of data streams. "When I fell into 'death', 'limbo', 'spiritual New Jersey' or what-have-you—I was dredged back up by the Elinore file, and I scooped all of these bits of code along with me." He pointed at the various patterns. "Unwittingly, in his attempt to curb-stomp me into oblivion, Antithesis showed me his insides. Half of these data strings are enough to wipe out a good chunk of the North American electric grid if they were fed into just one or two security matrixes. The crud is uncanny. It's a virtual computer-zombie-code. The makings of an ultimate digital weapon."

"Who could make such a thing... ...?" Courtney blinked. "Dr. Sivana? The Calculator?"

"'Insert generic Bill Gates joke here and run for the lockeroom'." Beast Boy smirked to himself, arms folded. He nudged the figure next to him. "Whaddya think, Star?" A beat. He squinted through the silence aside him. "... ...Kory?"

The Tamaranian in question was slowly shuffling towards the array of monitors and their flickering data frequencies. "... ... ...I feel foolish for uttering this aloud, but I do believe I have seen this pattern before."

"Really?" Robin leaned his head to the side. "Where?"

"It was a long time ago.. ..." She narrowed her eyes and briefly gazed at the others for emphasis. "And it was not on this planet."

"I knew it." Victor snapped a metal finger. "What can ya tell us, Kory?"

"Erm... ..." She fiddled her fingers together pensively. "It was only a brief exposure—From my days with the Okaarans, when I received my powers... ... ...But it is moment in my life that I have much difficulty forgetting, in all of its horrid details..."

Raven shifted about under her robe from the emotional vibes wafting off of Starfire. "We.. ...erm.. ... ...we figured you were reticent to tell us much about your past in that regard, Kory..."

"And I remain so. But... ..." She gazed about with hard green eyes. "This is important."

"Tell us what you know, Star..." Courtney gently pressed the girl's shoulder.

"It is a very old code. The Okaarans acquired knowledge of it simply because they were fortunate enough to find wreckage of a large intergalactic juggernaut that was diseased with the virus. Its machine circuitry had melted from the inside out. Every soldier and fighting person inside the derelict vessel had been pulverized into indistinguishable biomass—allegedly from the artificial gravity being reprogrammed to multiply its intensity by twenty-fold."

Beast Boy almost messed. "There go my days of eating pancakes..."

"So it's been used in space, by non-Terrans... ...?" Victor asked in desperate curiosity. "M-More than one occasion?"

"I seriously do not think it has been wielded often. You see, Victor... ..." She turned and looked forlonrly at him. "The derelict juggernaut was Apokolipton. And yet its technological might was no match for this invasionary construct."

"Dear Azar..."

"Uhhh..." Beast Boy shuddered. "That's pretty bad stuff, right?"

"If something could take down Darkseid's forces that easily..." Courtney nodded. "... ...it's no wonder it could turn earth's technology to creamed spinach."

"That brings up another possibility." Robin pointed out. "We have loads of Apokolipton junk on Earth. Darkseid tried invading us twice—and the last time he nearly turned Metropolis to dust in the process. I'd say the odds are great that, among the bric-a-brac left in the chaos—this Antithesis would have been left behind."

"I hadn't even thought of that.. ..." Victor murmured aloud.

"Wait—What of it?" Beast Boy suddenly barked. "No earth tech can house this thing, right?"

"Right. Just broadcast it—Like the rogue mainframes did to Cyborg when he connected." Robin uttered. He looked at the rest. "Whatever was broadcasting Antithesis was being carried off in the white van I couldn't catch up to. At least that's my theory."

"And so what are the odds that the doohickey inside the van wasn't of Earth?" Garfield gestured. "I mean—It's gotta be alien tech to deliver an alien virus and not turn to goop on itself, don'tcha think?"

Cyborg turned to Starfire. "Kory? What do you think?"

She swallowed and nodded. "The Okaarans were able to store a piece of this code—Antithesis or not. They had no name for it. Still, I would say it is reasonably acceptable to hypothesized that many extraterrestrial technologies would be capable of containing and distributing such a computer virus."

"So—What?" Raven made a face. "We're assuming that a overgeneralized bunch of shadow groups clamored over the ruins of the last Apokolipton Invasion, bottled a computer virus they could barely understand, came to Jump City, formed the Underworld, then set Victor up for the ultimate Y2K bug? I'm a mystic, not a scientist—but that seems to be ludely humping the leg of Occam's razor, don't you think?"

"All right then, let's simplify things?" Victor spun about. "Where's the next closest place to dredge up otherworldly garage sale crap to use for evil purposes?"

Silence.

Victor furrowed his brow. "I'm talking about our back yard, people."

Koriand'r gasped. "The Bay. The Gordanian wreckage!"

"But... ..." Courtney fidgeted. "I thought most of that stuff was sitting in Jump City Prison to the north?"

"Not all of it..." Raven muttered. "We've already intercepted some of it before. Remember the gang members in front of the gas station?"

"So—What?" Beast Boy cackled. "We're on the look out for Gordanian technology again? Just like when we were tripping ourselves on Fifth Street and bumped into a framed Kobayashi? Arrrgghh!" He kicked at the floor and crossed his arms in a pouting slump. "We're back to square one again!"

"Not necessarily... ..." Victor pointed at the monitors. "I have all of these signals to trace back Antithesis—and the ones harboring it. If I could create a receiver and bounce them back-"

"Bounce what back? Dude- you ain't even supposed to be alive-" Beast Boy barked, gesturing like mad. "-and, according to the City, we're not even supposed to be out on the streets! What the Heck are we expected to do?"

Silence filled the room. Everyone looked at one another. A few grins, a few waggling eyebrows.

Until finally Beast Boy blinked. "Oh... ... ...Sweet."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(April 31, 2004)

"We interrupt this broadcast for a late breaking story. JCN News takes you live nao to the front entrance of Phaser Labs where—as we speak—former JSA member and current partner to the late Victor Stone, Stargirl, is about to make a much anticipated public announcement."

Nancy Drew woke up from where she sat—haggard and tosseled in a bedrobe—atop her lush apartment's sofa. Several files, envelopes, and business folders lay in a heap on either side of the exhausted woman. She squinted to see the flickering television left on in front of her. Above it, a digital clark snickered forth crimson lines: '10:07pm'.

"Standing in the field at this unprecedented event is Kelly Hampton. Kelly, anyway you can fill us in before this conference takes place?"

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

Several bruised and grumbling drinkers huddled at the counter of Muffler Pub, squinting over their drinks and cigarette butts to see the ancient tv set churning above.

Wiping a glass, a limping Miles Kennedy did a double take and glanced curiously at the live feed.

"Hello, Merilyn. It's absolute bedlam daon here. I can hardly hear myself give this report over the crowds that have gathered in the streets since the announcement was made concerning this conference."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"As you know, Victor Stone was pronounced dead nearly a week ago, and since then the City has seen little to no activity on behalf of his 'superhero team'. Rumors have been running left and right as to the nature of their absence. Perhaps the team has resigned, perhaps the Mayor has been putting pressure on them—"

Ding Dong Daddy rested his cane against the edge of a fireplace and grasped his ring'd knuckles together. His dark brow furrowed as he narrowly watched the broadcast flickering from the far side of his luxurious bedroom.

Flanking the doorway, a few young thugs nervously chatted with one another as the field reporter spoke forth:

"Whatever the case, the citizens of Jump City have been entirely in the dark. That is, we hope, until nao—as you can look behind me and see the cluster of security guards moving from the front doors to the Phaser Labs building—yes-yes-I do believe our cameraman is catching her..."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

In the hazy interior of the Jump City Police department, several investigators, detectives, and file clerks huddled around a shoddy wooden work desk. They folded their arms and murmured two one another in their button-up shirts and gun belts as they watched the broadcast unfold.

"...that is Stargirl, revealed several years ago to the public as Courtney Whitmore, a young teenager from America's Heartland. You might all remember her from a famous interview conducted with Lois Lane last summer. Since she joined and fought supervillains alongside the Justice Society of America, she's been renown world wide for her heroism and courage."

Towards the far end of the lofty floor, on the fringes of the haze and noise, a bleary-eyed detective sat at his table, rubbing his stubbled chin. Decker heard the commotion filtering in from the outside of his office prison—sneered-and kicked the wooden door shut. His name placard naturally fell halfway and swiveled from its one nail support.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

A miserable Madeline Kobayashi suddenly sat up on the edge of her electronics-littered workbench as the radio broadcast of the report filtered on. Her seeing-eye-dog beside her raised its snout and panted as the speakers crackled forth.

"And as she walks up to the microphones that have been set up before the entrance of Phaser Labs, she's looking anything but cheerful at this present time. Let's see what she has to say as she takes the stand—Okay?-Here we go-"

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(Half-an-hour ago)

"You know what to say... .. ..." Cyborg stood in the lone hallway with Courtney, his hands resting gently on her shoulders. "There's no point in fearing that you might stumble over your words or anything. Cuz it's all just a show. And—really—who are we trying to impress? We know who we're dealing with—And we know what they're already convinced of, already."

"I know... ..I know..." Courtney sighed and gazed at the floor, shifting her left 'foot' from side to side. "It just... ...It just isn't something I very much enjoy doing..."

"We can change the plan." Victor said gently. "We can make Robin give the speech. Just about everyone on this planet knows who he is—or at least who the first Robin was—and-"

"No...No. It's me." She gulped, looked up, and smiled bravely. "It h-has to be me. Not just Stargirl, but Courtney Whitmore. They'll believe me more than the pupil of the world's most shadowy detective." A slight giggle. "Besides... ... ...I th-think you'll get a lot more use out of where Robin could be tonight-"

"Look... ...Look at me..." Cyborg planted his hand under her chin. "You're as much use to me tonight as to anyone. And I have always and shall always trust in your integrity and your honesty. So if you're not comfortable-"

"Victor-"

"-we can find another way-"

"There is no other way. Let's... ...L-Let's just do this, okay?" She smiled. "I'm the only one besides you and Garfield that has a face that they'll trust. And... ...Well.. ... ...if doing what I'm about to do will ensure that we finally root out these no good bad guys, then I'm willing to make a sacrifice."

"... ... ..." Cyborg took a deep breath. "And just when I think I can't be any more lucky—You do the second nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Courtney squinted. "And what's the first nicest?"

"When you slapped my dumbass face a week ago, girl!"

"Hmmmm-Hmmm-Hmmmm" She chuckled and hugged him dearly. A gulp. "I-I'm so glad you're alive, Victor... ..."

He stared over her shoulder. "The pleasure's mine, Ms. Whitmore... ..."

"Vic? H-Hey, Victor!" Dr. Ray marched in, frazzled, from an elevator. "You gotta move, man." He pointed behind his shoulder with a thumb. "Security will be daon here any sec—And if they see you-"

"Right." Victor stood back, patting Courtney's shoulder one last time. "Remember. Radio silence—No matter what." He marched off.

"Hao will I know if it's mission accomplished?" She asked, jolting after him.

He shouted back: "When you wake up to the sound of Blake Glover shitting bricks over the airwaves!"

Courtney smiled bracedly.

"Ms. Whitmore?"

She spun around.

Dr. Ray nodded breathily. "It's time."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

(Now...)

A flurry of epileptic flashbulbs glittered off her braced teeth as Courtney Whitmore, in civillian gear, stood before a rosebush of microphones and spoke to the gathered audience and cameramen in a glowing urban halo around her.

"It is my solemn duty, to regretfully confirm—That the initial rumors of Victor Stone's death are not only true—But they have been witnessed first hands by myself, and by the rest of the late Cyborg's fellow teammates the night of April the Twenty-Fourth, 2004."

Murmurs, hushed mumblings, a few gasps filled the crowd. The cameras clicked and clicked and clicked forth. The combined limelight shimmered off of Courtney's sad face as she fought back legit tears to continue:

"The death was brought on by a hitherto unidentified computer infection that intiated a cascade of systems failure throughout the cybernetic pieces that kept Victor Stone's autonomic functions in tact. His death was not—I repeat—not brought forth by the battle this team had with the would-be high tech assassin from the Vaughan Concert Hall. Much rather, Victor Stone was infected when—shortly thereafter—he attempted to conduct an unrelated criminal investigation. His heart stopped less than twenty-four hours later. Since then, his teammates—consisting of myself, Robin, Beast Boy, the one called Raven, and Starfire of Tamaran—have spent the time picking up the pieces of the puzzle to his sudden affliction, as well as... ...as d-deeply mourning his passing."

She gulped something daon, sniffled... ...fought over a hill of hesistance, and spoke forth into the sea of camera flashes:

"It has come to our attention that many people in Jump City wish to know the future of this team's involvement in crime-fighting. The t-truth is... ...The truth is that the very foundation of this team has rested, since day one, on Victor Stone's shoulders. And nao that he is gone—our strength is still here in numbers, but our spirit and our drive has been regrettably absent. In order to compensate for our loss—and ascertain a way to make up for it—we have banded together under Robin's leadership, and Robin—a veteran from Gotham City—has made the executive decision that we should hold back, and correspond with a directive formulated by the Jump City Council—and hereby suspend any and all vigilante activities, until the forthcoming time that Mayor Georgeton may arrange a plan with Commissioner Kneehouse of the Jump City Police Department, whereby we may be sanctioned to continue active duty in the streets of this metropolis-"

The sound of her voice was cut off, as an uproar of curiosity and surprise drowned out her declaration. Several press agents begged for comments while others squabbled and argued amongst themselves. Courtney bit her lip and shirked from the surmounting volume of the conference while several security guards and police officers gestured and shouted for order-

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

From overhead, Koriand'r clung to the shadowed face of an apartment complex half a block away. She squinted daon at the noisy press conference, tip-toed through the darkness, and hovered over to where a green elf perched beside a squatting Robin.

"I believe she has conveyed the gravity of her message. Within minutes, all of Jump City will be privy to the conference as well as its replays."

"Man... ...are we doing what I think we're doing?" Beast Boy murmured stealthily from where he hid beside an A/C unit. "Cuz this kinda feels like the mother of all dick moves."

"Only that this dick move is gonna stop a whole lot more dick moves in the making." Robin replied in a shadowed voice. "The latter being ones that kill and exploit people."

"You really think this is gonna get us to track daon Antithesis?"

"Only one way to find out." Robin whipped a brand new device from his utility belt. He waved it high in the air, starlight glinting off the craftmanship of a young Victor Stone. The device whirred and hummed from deep within—before a series of LED lights lit up in a specific fashion. The Boy Wonder smirked. "Got the signal."

"Victor's doohickey worked?" Beast Boy squeaked.

"Somebody using Antithesis' coded signal is listening in on the press conference. The air is swarming with the frequency when just a few seconds ago, it wasn't."

"If it's such schmancy alien tech, you'd think it'd detect more than just Courtney's pretty face and words." Beast Boy gulped. "You'd think the people channeling that thing would detect us."

"That's why we're gonna hit 'em hard before they can do anything about it." Robin put the device daon and glanced up at Starfire. "Kory. Give them the signal."

"And the coordinates-?" She remarked.

"Five kilometers. Due east."

"Affirmative." She hunched her back up against a stairwell entrance, raised her palm, and formed a dim starbolt. Then—in a coordinated pattern—she opened and closed her palm repeatedly...

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

... ... ...four blocks away, the lit signal was flickering within open sight of any chance observer.

And there happened to be two observers.

"There it is.. ..." Raven squinted from where she levitated darkly atop a water tower. "Azar alive—I suck at this." She gazed daon. "Hao about you?"

"Calm daon, girl. I've got it." Victor—his blue armor dulled to a solid black—sat stealthily in the shadows of the water tower. He clicked the side of his red eye, committed the flashing starbolt signal to memory, and turned to look up at Raven. Smirking. "Robin found a trace of Antithesis. Whoever's hoarding the thing is using its technology to monitor the press conference like we suspected."

"Any bearing-?"

"Five kilometers east of here. We'd better get moving—Robin won't let the other two rest for a second."

"Nnnngh... ..." Raven floated daon and summoned a dark portal. "Just what are we jumping into here, Victor... ...?"

"What the Hell else, girl?" Victor grinned wide and readied his fist into a sonic cannon. Clakka-Clakka-Clak! "We're about to kick some ass!"