JADE (young justice/robin)

13. nightmare

North Pole
October 16, 17:29

jade.

Artemis and I were on perimeter while the others attached the alien ship's canon to the Bioship.

"We'll need to decamouflage for a few minutes."

I spotted two ships coming in from my end, while another two came from Artemis's. Stopping the first ship must've sent some sort of distress signal, making more of them show up. "May not have a few minutes," I warned.

"Miss Martian, open fire."

"Can't. Weapon systems are offline to incorporate the new cannon, and that's not fully integrated yet, either."

"Got you covered! "Get inside. I'm almost there."

Artemis and I sprinted out from our hideouts, as the ships began to close in. I extended my staff out, launching it into the eye of the ship like a javelin. It erupted in flame that spread to the ship next to it, before they both crashed down to the floor.

"Artemis!" M'gann screamed.

"Artemis!"

A hundred sympathetic thoughts ran through my mind. How could I tell Jade? I can't imagine the heartache of realizing your little sister is dead. Oh, god. Bubs. I hope she's still alive. I hope she's huddled in that little Batcave, hiding for dear life.

"Get inside, all of you."

Kaldur handled the ships at the front, while the two, despite their new places on the floor, were still functional enough to rain fire. I sprinted, zigzagging quickly across the ground as blasts narrowly missed me.

I leapt onto one of the ships, while the other adjacent turned its canon towards me. As it let out a blast of light, I flipped off the ship, letting it take the impact and it fizzled into nothing but dust. With one more ship still on my tail, I began zigzagging through the snow again, trying to get back to the Bioship. I kept stealing glances over my shoulder, watching the canon turn confusedly trying to catch me, but then I saw it select a new target. It pointed directly at Birdie who was stood on the Bioship with everyone else.

I pivoted immediately, making a sharp turn to get to Birdie as fast as possible. Kaldur impaled the ship in massive shards of ice, but not in time to stop the final beam that erupted from the canon. My feet launched up from the ground, and I shoved Birdie hard.

I heard someone scream my name as I watched Birdie fall into the snow, reaching out for me. I'm so sorry, Bubs.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was back in the mission room. My eyes adjusted slowly to the light as I turned my head side to side to look around. Everyone else was here, looking quite frazzled. I was just as confused. Didn't I... die?

I tried to sit up, low groans escaping my mouth from the discomfort all around my ribs. The Bat was at my side in seconds, supporting my weight as I tried to sit up. He's had me out of commission for weeks now. When we first got back, I knocked out for three days while they handled tending to a lot of fractures, bruises, a blood transfusion, and flushing out all of the Joker Venom. After I woke up, I was put off duty until I could make a full recovery.

It seemed the reason I was out of the medlab today was because of an exercise. That's all it was: an exercise. But if felt so real...

I guess it didn't go so well for everyone else either. According to Manhunter, after Artemis died, we all became convinced the sim was real. Then I died right after her. Apparently, we were so convinced we had died that we didn't bother to wake up; just spent the rest of the exercise in comas. M'gann didn't take the news so well — partially because it was kinda her fault, not that any of us blamed her. I think everyone just felt a little weird about experiencing their friends die, or experiencing their own deaths.