The Apprentice II

Tears

***
"Okay. The way I see it..." Beastboy walks out

In the operations center, he has donned a cap and long coat similar to those often worn by Sherlock Holmes, and he paces in front of Cyborg and Raven. After a couple of passes, he stops and turns to them, holding up the sort of pipe smoked by the great sleuth.

"...there are only two logical explanations. One..." He holds up a comic book, Weird Shock, whose cover depicts a colossal robot in Robin's very approximate likeness. It is destroying a city. Zoom in on this. "...Robin's been replaced by an evil robot double."

The book opens to its first page, showing a one panel-a spiky-haired silhouette, its back to us, facing a horde of undead corpses. On the next line, to the second panel; the figure has turned around to show itself as a Robin zombie.

"Two...he's another innocent victim of zombie mind control." The background changes to a black and white spiral, then restores itself before the book closes again. Cyborg and Raven, whose faces indicate just how far round the bend they think Beast Boy has gone.

"As logical as that sounds, if anything was controlling his mind, I would have sensed it." Raven suggests.

"And my scanners confirmed his biometrics. That was the real Robin-our Robin." Cyborg states checking forearm panel.

"Lies! That was not Robin! Your scanners are wrong! Robin is our friend, and nothing could ever make him betray us!" Starfire yelled sadly. "Nothing."

"But something did." Raven clears her throat.

The would-be gumshoe with the overactive imagination pops up. He has blanked out the pupils and irises of his eyes, and his head looks as if the top of it has been torn away. "Three words-disgruntled radioactive clone." Beastboy points his hand out as Cyborg yanks him away. "Ow!"

Only the top half of his body is attached to the head, and it looks something like an old store-window dummy. Raven delivers a spin kick that sends him flying toward the kitchen; a crash of glass is heard from that direction.

"No matter what the reason, no matter how much we wish it wasn't true, Robin's a criminal now. And just like any other criminal-" Raven was cut off to finish her sentence.

"-The Teen Titans have to bring him down." Cyborg complete her sentence.

Starfire stifles a sob and turns away, clapping her hands to her face. An alarm blares out before she can do anything else; Beast Boy at a computer console. He is back to normal.

"It's him!" Beastboy widens his eyes.