Always and Forever

The Thing

She could tell Robin was somewhat excited when the attack happened. It had been weeks since a monster or anything had attacked Jump city which Robin seemed very paranoid about.
The thing fell from the sky, the impact was felt for miles. Robin jumped up when the tower shook. Calling the Titans to go.
The thing was large in all directions, but it showed no sign of being anything recognizable at all not even to Starfire who had spent half of her life in outer space. It was a black blob that oozed and morphed with every corner it turned. As it rolled over people and buildings, it incased them in its hold.
It disturbed Starfire to see the humans trying to claw out of the goo. She let this emotion launch her forward in the air, flying upwards above the creature. The sound that came out of its mouth wasn't a roar, more like a menacing gurgle. Hands reached out from the goop. Starfire swooped down tugging at two of the hands them at once. Even with her strength, the thing held the people hostage in its sludge tightly. Starfire felt herself get pulled closer and closer into the creature as the hands sunk deeper and deeper into the inky black surface.
She felt the tip of her fingers make contact with the thing. It was surprisingly cold, and the moment she touched it a sense of hopelessness washed through her. An unnatural sense of hopelessness that made her fight against the pull of the thing weaken. She didn't want to try anymore, she just felt empty all in an instant. She heard the distant call of her name from a deep, concerned voice but she couldn't care to listen to it. She had only felt that way once in her life, and she knew how easy it was to fall back into it. So she did.
"Starfire!" The voice called again, and again as she felt herself sink deeper into the thing. Into the hopelessness until she was consumed.

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Robin felt himself scream a sharp no as Starfire sunk deep into the thing. The horrible, squishy, miserable thing that made the air feel heavy. The feeling that radiated off of it didn't phase Robin, he had felt it many times. He had felt it, and it was real not some illusion. He had felt it, and it was ten time worse than anything the thing could make him feel.
Like the feeling he felt when he saw the bottom of her purple boots get tugged into the blackness. Cyborg , Raven and Beastboy were all around him, shooting all they had at the thing. Their laser beams, their dragon fire, their ninja stars, and their demon magic all seemed to just sink into the creature like the feeling of the thing drained their power along with it. Raven had turned her attention to blocking the streets up with debris to keep anyone else from entering the space of the thing. Their attacks did seem to slow it, but it wasn't enough. It inched towards their barrier, agonizingly slow, ready to consume everything in its path.
Robin was left standing there, shaking with anger and a deep panic. He knew he should've have cared about the city, he knew he should've stuck with the mission. Stuck with the plan, but he didn't. Instead he bolted for the thing, making a stupid irrational decision that he should've kept himself from making. He dove into the thing, letting the blackness embrace him.

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Starfire felt light as air, but her heart felt heavy. Almost like it was filled to the brim with wet cement. Her mind was clouded with a thickness too, but more sticky and all encompassing. Like quicksand. pulling you down and down and down until it was all you were.
She felt utter despair, and all light was snuffed. She was lost, she was alone, she was hopeless.
"Starfire, why do you keep fighting?" The combined voices of everyone she had every loved ringed out in her ears. She couldn't see them, couldn't reach other to them, she could only hear them. Every voice was almost squealing in fear. With all their voices scrambled together it felt less comforting to hear them and more like she was all hearing them scream in a strange symphony of terrible feelings.
"For you." She didn't feel her lips move, but somehow she knew she still said it.
"What's the point if it never ends Starfire?" Squeaked Beast boy with a shaky voice.
"One day it will end." Starfire tried to be optimistic, tried to fight it, tried to see some shining beacon of truth in the distorted voices of her friend.
"And what if it doesn't? What if you just keep fighting and fighting forever? What if we keep getting hurt, what if people keep dying, what if the world keeps trying to end? What if one day you fail?" A flat toned but fearful Raven called out.
Starfire had nothing to say to that, nothing at all because she has always feared everything Raven had just said. She loved being a hero, she loved saving people but it was never enough was it? She had felt happiness, relief the last couple of weeks because she could just live. There was no imminent death, no apocalypse scenarios, there was just her and her friends.
She had to keep fighting though, because if she didn't all those moments of happiness could be stripped away in only an instant. All the years she had spent with her friends, her family would crumble to dust with one wrong move. With one failure she could lose everything, so she had to keep fighting. She was stuck, she was stuck and in here it felt like there was no way out. She could never stop, even if she was exhausted. She said just as much to the screaming voices.
"Well if you stop, what's the worst that could happen?" Cyborg chimed.
"I could lose my friends, I could lose everything." Starfire said.
"But then it would stop." Robins voice was the one that did it. That broke her. She tried to cover her ears, tried to make it stop as they cried and taunted but her arms were heavy. She was heavy. She was lost, she was hopeless. She just wanted it to stop.
She saw something shine towards her in the darkness then, it was slow and straining against the blackness around them but determined it seemed to get whatever it needed to go. It was a small light and as it got closer, she saw the outline of someone familiar. She looked away, not wanting to face her friends as well as here them too. It didn't matter she thought, trying to hide from it was hopeless because these feelings would always find her.
She felt fingers touch her chin, bringing her voice towards the figure quickly but delicately.
It was Robin, and with the way his features twisted in familiar worry lines around his face she knew it was Robin. The real Robin.
Lights on his staff he held in his hands led his way, and the blackness around him seemed to move to get away from the brightness.
Starfire still didn't move, all of her still bleak. All of her wanting to stop.
He slid his fingers under her back, pulling her against him. He held his staff with his teeth, starting to kick hard against the murk of the thing.
Starfire clung to his neck, and with each moment in his presence started to break free. She was still dazed, and unable to think without the heaviness in her head telling her that this was useless. She wasn't even sure she fully grasped what was happening. His swimming started to become weaker and more labored. She noticed the slight air bubbles in his cheeks, he couldn't breathe in here. This place was suffocating him. As the last of his ability to breathe left him, his arms relaxed from his grip on Starfire. She started to float down aimless as he drifted away slowly towards where he had taken her.
Starfire woke up then, pushing through the murk she swam to Robin. She pulled him in, grabbing the staff that had began to float with him. The lights were slowly dimming, drowning to in the total darkness.
"Stop." Robins voice called out, but she knew it wasn't Robin. Robin would never tell her to quit, she just had to remember that. It wasn't Robin. The real Robin was in her arms dying because of her.
"I said stop Star. Please." The voice pleaded.
Starfire pushed harder against the thickness.
"Star, you are going to get yourself hurt. Stop ignoring me Star." The voice followed her no matter which direction she frantically turned.
"Let him die Star, then it will all stop. We can all stop."
Starfire felt a violent expression raise to her face, along with a sharp anger breaking through the fogginess left in her mind.
She started to shot bright green laser beams from one hand all around the bleakness, as the light sliced through she could get a clear view of all the hopeless bodies moving aimlessly through the thing. She was almost one of them until Robin saved her, she had to keep Robin alive. She needed Robin alive no matter what the voices said was best for her.
"Stop." Robin repeated, frustration rising up into his words.
Starfire just kept shooting, shooting into the darkness as she moved through the thing. She needed to keep Robin alive, she needed to find a way out.
"I said stop it star!" Robin screamed, making Starfire eardrums begin to ring in a flat tone.
The dark cavern around them began to shake, as if it was shrinking.
The voices became more and louder until everyone she had ever loved told her in shrill voices to stop. She couldn't escape it, she couldn't stop it, and it made her ears bleed.
She just had to keep Robin alive, she needed to get out. How could she get out? She couldn't thing in the noise, she could barely even manage to keep swimming through the tank of nightmares.
"Stop it star."
"Stop it."
"Stop it."
"Stop it!"
The last scream came from her as a warm, pounding feeling bubbled up in her chest. She spoke it this time, cutting through the tar in her throat. All her flushed a radiant shade of green as a show of laser beams shot out in all directions from her. She screamed again, but no words were able to form. She didn't know how she was doing it, but she was radiating pure power. It definitely was not a painless experience.
The next thing she knew she woke up on what felt like a rough sidewalk, her eyes barely parting to see Raven leaning over her chanting something under her breathe in deep concentration.
Starfire felt sticky. She was covered in something slimy but with a pet like Silkie it was the last thing she thought about. Instead all her senses went to the sharp pain she felt well everywhere. Mostly in her hands, and around her eyes which burned in the slight exposure to the sun.
"Robin?" She whispered faintly before her eyes closed, the darkness she felt this time reliving her of her pain.