Chapter 8

"He took my fucking memories, Kaldur!" I snarled, my voice hoarse with rage but my body still, not struggling against his grip. I could have broken free. Hell, I could've done it a dozen different ways. But I didn't. Because I didn't want to fight my team twice in one goddamn day.

"They're all I've got, okay? The first real memory I have is Wonder Woman standing over me, her lasso wrapped around my body, asking me if I wanted to be a tool or a person." I took a breath, chest heaving. "I picked my name out of a phone book, Kaldur. A fucking phone book. And that asshole earned everything he got when he tore out the one thing that lets me pretend to be human."

Miss Martian was still retching in the background, dry heaving now that she had nothing left to puke, clutching my knife in her bloodstained hands as she finally yanked it out of her chest.

"You won't get any arguments from me," Superboy grunted as he rose to his feet, rubbing the bruised side of his face. "Though I really wish you hadn't tried to gouge out my eye. This hurts."

"Wha... you just killed everything here!" Wally shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief. He swayed slightly, hand pressed over the gash in his upper arm. The blood loss was clearly catching up to him. "This is beyond fucked up! Look what you did to Robin!"

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about your ribs, and your arm, and your eye," I lied, my tone just soft enough to sound plausible. Deep down, I knew I would have done the same thing again under the same conditions. I hadn't known who the hell they were when I woke up mid-mission, memory wiped and feral. Even if they had somehow told me we were allies, I wouldn't have believed them. In that mindset? M'gann could have implanted fake memories. It wasn't impossible. But the team's reactions—wounded, shocked, furious—those were real.

"Let's... let's just figure out what the scientists were doing here and get out," M'gann said shakily, moving over to help Wally as he leaned heavily against her.

"...Yes. Realis, come with me," Aqualad ordered, his voice steady but his eyes sharp, his grip loosening. He was clearly prepared for another outburst. I gave a nod and followed him into the main tent, past the shredded remains of the flap.

Inside was a sealed lab space, crammed with high-end equipment, blinking diagnostic monitors, and power conduits snaking across the sand-strewn floor. All of it was centered around a large metallic sphere, about shoulder height, with an odd sheen and an iridescent "eye" that shimmered with faint orange light shaped like a distorted Omega symbol. Purple lights blinked along its surface like a heartbeat.

"I'll see if I can pull anything from the terminals," I offered. Robin was our usual tech guy, but considering he was currently laid out in the BioShip's infirmary, that duty fell to me.

I slid into the nearby seat and scanned through the open system. Passwords were useless against someone like me. It didn't take long to find what I needed.

"Definitely alien," I said. "Looks like Queen Bee had them trying to reverse-engineer it. They didn't get far—whatever this thing's made of, it plays by rules physics hasn't even heard of. But... they did have some smart ideas on materials science. Impressive stuff, even if most of it is theoretical."

That's when Superboy strolled in, covered in dust and blood—and casually walked over to the unknown object and petted it.

"You heard me say it was alien, right?" I asked dryly.

The sphere warbled—a cheerful, chirpy sound—and its lights flickered.

"I'm going to call you Sphere," Superboy declared, nodding with childlike certainty. "You wanna come with us?"

Sphere bounced. The damn thing bounced.

I didn't say anything. Not out loud. But mentally? I was already calculating how long before the floating death orb turned on us. Still... I had to admit. It was kind of cute.

"That is... acceptable," Aqualad sighed. The heat had worn him down. Twenty-four hours in the desert wasn't doing wonders for our Atlantean.

"I've extracted what I could from the hard drives," I said, then drew my pistol and put three rounds into each hard drive, the rapid crack-crack-crack making Aqualad jump.

"What in Poseidon—"

"Covering our tracks. No intel left behind," I replied smoothly. "Have Miss Martian summon the BioShip. I've got one more thing to do."

I left the tent. It didn't take long to find the stash of explosives. The guards had been using a mix of military-grade fuel and field demolitions. Crude, but effective. I wired them up, added a little personal flair, and by the time I rejoined the others, they were already aboard.

"What were you doing?" Superboy asked as I ascended the ramp.

"Finishing the job." I thumbed the detonator.

******

We landed to a tense welcome.

Batman and Black Canary were waiting at the zeta platform. Batman's jaw was clenched, his cape fluttering lightly as he rushed Robin to the medbay—being careful not to jostle the boy's shattered ribs. If it wouldn't have made things worse, I think he would've carried him.

Canary, wordless, handed Wally an entire box of protein bars. He tore into them like an animal. M'gann had managed to close his wound mid-flight, and the speedster's enhanced metabolism was already beginning to clot the worst of it. Super speed had its perks.

"What the hell happened out there?" Black Canary asked as she knelt to check Superboy's bruised eye. He didn't swat her off. Probably a sign of how drained he really was.

"There was a telepath. Psimon," M'gann answered quietly. "He wiped our memories. I… I eventually got them back."

Canary turned to me—and her eyes hardened.

"How did that turn into… this?" she asked, already putting the pieces together.

"I… regressed," I admitted, my voice low. Shame didn't come naturally to me, but something adjacent to it gnawed at my ribs. "I didn't recognize anyone. And Psimon removed the only thing that kept me… stable."

"Oh shit," she muttered, eyes going wide. "Then you're the one who—"

"HE'S THE ONE WHO TOOK US APART!" Wally roared, pointing at me with a shaking hand. "He butchered everyone! Those were scientists, not soldiers! He almost killed me. He shattered Robin's ribs, tried to blind Superboy, and he stabbed M'gann!"

"What part of 'lost my memories' didn't you understand, Wallace?" I snarled, stepping toward him. "You think I just woke up one morning knowing how to re-align my skeletal structure by force? That I just decided to shove a magical spike through my brain one day for fun?"

I jabbed a finger at my temple.

"I was made, Wally. Not by the League of Shadows. Not by Cadmus. I was engineered. You want to know what I am? I'm a smart bomb, pretending to be a human being."

I could hear my breath—ragged, uneven—as the cave rang with silence.

"I heard you all talking on the way back. And yet no one's pissed at Superboy for losing control when Psimon wiped him."

"That's because Superboy didn't try to kill us!" Wally shouted.

"Wally, stop." M'gann's voice cut through the tension, sharp but quiet. "Yelling at Ryan isn't going to help. I know you're scared for Robin. We all are. But please… come with me. Let's check on him."

He hesitated, trembling with rage and confusion… then nodded and followed her.

Superboy left shortly after, muttering something about sleep. Sphere trailed behind him, humming softly.

That left me alone. With Black Canary.

She didn't speak. Just… looked at me.

"So," she said finally, a simple prompt.

"I think the worst part is that I don't feel bad," I admitted. I slid down against the cave wall and stared at my bloodstained hands, the dried flakes crusted beneath my fingernails. "They're my team. I should feel something. But I don't. Psimon just… peeled off the act I wear. And this is what's underneath."

Canary sat down beside me. Not close, but not far either.

"Then how do you really feel?" she asked softly.

"Annoyed," I said. "Frustrated I didn't kill Psimon before he hit us. I hesitated. Tried nonlethal options. And in the end, everyone died anyway. So what's the point?"

I turned to her, genuinely curious. "Why bother playing nice if it gets everyone killed?"

Canary inhaled slowly. "Because the point isn't convenience or results. It's restraint. We don't kill because we choose not to. Because once we decide that we're above the law, we stop being heroes. We start being tyrants."

She looked at me, gaze unwavering. "And most of us? We just don't want to kill. That has to mean something."

"So… killing is bad?" I asked dryly.

"No," she replied. "The line is important. It keeps us grounded. And it keeps people like him," she tilted her head toward the Watchtower's image of Superman, "from thinking they're the answer to every problem."

"Uh huh."

I stood up. I didn't believe a word of it. But I didn't argue either.

As I walked toward the zeta tubes, I paused just long enough to say:

"…Thanks, Canary."

With my luck, Diana already had the entire mission report on her desk—and would be waiting for me with crossed arms and that unreadable stare in the Ambassador's residence.

Author's Note:The Prototype x Worm fanfic is officially out! 🖤You can check it out on my profile: Saber_Athena_9494If you enjoy it, don't forget to drop a Power Stone and show some love! <3