A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
Lucien doesn't pull the trigger for the time being~
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It’s tempting. It’s so, so tempting. He has the resources here in his apartment to start messing around with what he just learned from touching Raven practically immediately.
… But he knows it’s a bad idea. As gorgeous as Raven’s physiology was, as much as he could spend hours just studying her DNA and how her body functioned… he couldn’t afford to go off half-cocked. Incorporating Raven’s half-demon nature into his own current fucked up biology might have given him natural empath abilities as well as access to whatever parts of her magic she was born with instead of trained in, but it also could potentially open him up to demonic influence.
What if by making himself like Raven, he wound up somehow making himself at least partially a child of Trigon? What if he gave the Demon Lord some form of influence over him? It was entirely possible that with enough time and research he could avoid such pitfalls… but if he went for it right now and dove right into the deep end, he risked everything.
No. He needed to be more careful than that. And frankly, he needed to keep himself to one mess at a time. Seeing how he was currently juggling Starfire and Bckfire’s incredibly twisted retionship, it was probably best that Lucien avoid doing anything that would further complicate his life.
“Mrow.”
Just as he’s making that decision, a pair of paws, already rger than when he first got Spot, pnt themselves on his leg. The Snow Leopard Cub looks up at him with seemingly knowing eyes and for a moment Lucien stares back down at his pet… only for Spot to lick his chops and meow again.
“Mrow.”
Ah, right. The cub isn’t trying to comfort him. He’s asking for more food. Laughing, Lucien shakes his head as he turns back to the refrigerator and pulls out an extra couple pieces of meat.
“You’re going to become a glutton at this rate, Spot. Still, you’re a growing boy, aren’t you?”
Spot responds by rubbing up against him as he heats up the meat in the microwave. The young Snow Leopard even starts to purr, a rumbling noise that fills the otherwise silent apartment. Once Spot is fully grown, that purr is going to be even louder, heh…
“Yeah, I know buddy. Sorry that I have to leave you again after this, but I’ve got a pair of alien princesses that will be quite cross with me if they wake up to find I’m gone. Pretty sure neither Starfire nor Bckfire are quite ready to find out they spent the night sleeping in each other’s arms instead of mine just yet…”
“Mrow.”
Spot perks up when Lucien tosses both pieces of meat into the air. Leaping, the Snow Leopard Cub catches them both in his growing jaws, his mouth stuffed as he takes them back under the table. After making sure Spot has access to enough water as well, Lucien heads back out, turning off the spoofer while he’s at it and flying off into the night sky to get back to Titans Tower.
… Yeah, as much as he really wanted to mess with what he’d just gotten from Raven right then and there, it would have to wait just a little while longer…
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“YOU WILL PRODUCE ALL RECORDS OF MY SISTER’S IMPRISONMENT IMMEDIATELY!”
“I-I’ve already told you… we never had a Tamaranean here! I don’t know what else to say!”
A week ter and Lucien as Remedy finds himself watching Starfire hold up a scientist by his b coat, her eyes glowing with green energy and rage. She snarls as the scientist whimpers, right up until Raven pces a hand on Starfire’s shoulder.
“Star. He’s telling the truth.”
Scowling, the Tamaranean Princess lets down the scientist, who promptly colpses onto his ass, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. At least there’s no acrid stench to go with it… this scientist in particur seems to be made of tougher stuff than some of his peers.
This is, after all, the sixth of these hidden, cndestine research facilities that they’ve raided in the past week. And all of them were secreted away in Jump City. It was kind of crazy to think about. If there were half a dozen illegal research bs in Jump City alone, how many of them were there in the entirety of the country? How many in the world?
… Then again, given just how many heroes and vilins got their powers as the result of experimentation done against their will, Lucien supposed it made a sort of sense. And he’d always been tangentially aware that his father had plenty of secret bs dotted around the pce. Hell, Lex Luthor had entire organizations established that he was only ‘slightly’ connected to in order to have them run the illegal research so that he could keep his ‘good’ name and his company’s reputation clean.
Lucien was aware that Cadmus was one of those organizations, but that was pretty much all he was aware of. Still, he would have preferred to avoid raiding any Cadmus Facilities if possible… but as, here they were. After raiding five bs that had no connections to Lex Luthor (so far as Lucien was aware of anyways) they had finally arrived at the sixth b… a Cadmus Lab.
Of course, just like all the other bs, this b had nothing to do with Bckfire’s supposed kidnapping and subsequent amnesia. Mostly because there was no kidnapping and the amnesia was caused by Lucien himself. That hadn’t stopped them from finding illegal experimentation at every b they’d raided though, this one included. Like the previous five, what they’d uncovered here in this Cadmus Lab would be handed over to the proper authorities and the research facility would be shut down post-haste.
Hopefully his father had yet to make any connection between him and his Remedy identity. But he wouldn’t put it past Lex Luthor to eventually figure it out in spite of all of Lucien’s precautions. Either way… best to focus on the present.
Starfire looks over to Bckfire, the green glow dimming as she watches her amnesiac older sister look around with a scowl on her face.
“Sister? Does any of this seem familiar to you, perhaps?”
Huffing, Bckfire crosses her arms over her chest.
“As much as the other facilities did…”
Which was entirely fair, seeing as she’d never actually been in any of them… and yet, they would all seem slightly familiar to her. That was because Lucien had taken from his own memories when forging Bckfire’s amnesiac state. For much of his early life, and ter on every birthday, Lucien found himself in facilities just like this one. Sterile metal tables, b equipment of indiscriminate usage, cold, lifeless walls.
If you’ve seen one illegal, hidden research b, you’ve seen them all. As such, it was no wonder that all six of the facilities that they’d raided with Bckfire at their side had proven to be both familiar and not to her. Of course, all six had also been retively undamaged before they’d gotten there… and none had records of her being held within them.
Lucien couldn’t help wondering how that was going to ultimately be reconciled. He could have perhaps pnted some things, but that would have made it easier to see through the deception, he felt. In the end, the complete absence of evidence seemed like a better idea than faking evidence that could then be debunked, disproven… or worst of all, traced back to Lucien himself.
As if to confirm this thought, Robin suddenly walks up from where he and the rest of the Titans were finishing securing the facility. There’s a scowl on the Titan Team Leader’s face… but it’s not directed at any of them as he crosses his arms over his chest and huffs.
“At this point, it’s likely that we’ve either already hit the facility were Bckfire was kept… or it was decommissioned after her escape and colpsed before we could find any trace of it.”
Oh? Lucien can’t help but be curious.
“If we’d already found the pce where Starfire’s sister was confined, wouldn’t we know it?”
Robin’s gre makes it clear he hasn’t completely gotten over Lucien, or rather Remedy’s presence just yet. Though at least the hero’s efforts to find out who the fuck Remedy really is have yet to bear fruit. Surprising as that might be. He probably hasn’t asked for help from his mentor just yet, perhaps out of a sense of professional pride. Because if Batman had been on the case, Lucien has no doubt that his true identity would have been unveiled by now.
Regardless, while Robin clearly doesn’t like him, he DOES answer his question.
“These types of private bck sites have practically unlimited funding. Fixing up the rampage of an escaped experiment would take days, possibly hours depending on just what sort of resources they had access to. Moving all information about that escaped experiment off-site and wiping the data from the b in question is just common practices from there.”
Robin then shakes his head.
“But even then, there would still be traces. More likely, Bckfire was held at none of these six facilities. Instead, the b where she was experimented on was likely completely destroyed after her escape. We’ll have to start looking into gas leak explosions and any seemingly natural sink holes from the st week to try and find out for sure I suppose…”
Lucien is grateful for the self-control that his powers give him, because in that moment he can’t help but be both amazed and amused that Robin of all people has reasoned out a proper expnation for what happened to Bckfire. Yes, the facility must be gone. That would expin it. And fuck… if they managed to find six operational illegal boratories in Jump City alone in under a week, how many defunct and buried research facilities might be out there? Dozens? Hundreds?
Starfire turns to Bckfire at Robin’s words and Lucien pulls himself back into the present, watching the interaction between the sisters closely.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find more information, sister. I promise, we won’t stop trying…”
Even though Lucien can hear conviction in Starfire’s voice, he also hears a tinge of reluctance. While the alien princess has not hesitated to lead the charge in trying to find answers regarding Bckfire’s condition this past week, she’s also very much enjoyed the fruits of Lucien’s bor. Put simply, Starfire has spent the past week bonding with Bckfire in a manner that was most definitely not ptonic… but nevertheless filled with love.
With Bckfire suffering from amnesia, Starfire had been able to worm her way into her older sister’s good graces by not just submitting to Bckfire’s every whim and sharing her lover with the other Tamaranean, but also mbasting their people and parents every chance she got for the treatment Bckfire had experienced all her life through no fault of her own.
Huffing at her younger sister’s words, Bckfire just shrugs.
“It’s fine. I know you’re doing your best. And besides… my memories might return on their own still, yes?”
Fortunately, Bckfire looks to Raven for an answer to that question and thus misses the stricken expression that spreads across Starfire’s face. The very thought of Bckfire’s memories returning clearly terrifies Starfire. She doesn’t want to go back to being at odds with her older sister, not after the week they’ve spent together.
Lucien doesn’t think Bckfire would necessarily revert to old form immediately after he returned her memories, but then to be fair he has additional information that Starfire isn’t privy to. Still, he’s also decided not to return Bckfire’s memories immediately. A few more days at least, maybe another week… he wants this time period to really settle in to the Amnesiac Tamaranean’s mind beforehand. Just a little while longer.
“I’m not sure.”
Raven’s blunt, monotone answer makes Bckfire’s eyes narrow and her lips curl into a frown. With a shrug, the half-demon continues on.
“I’m not a doctor. And even among medical professionals, amnesia is not fully understood. Your memories might come back tomorrow, or they might not come back at all. You might start to remember things slowly over time in small bursts, or you might wake up one day and remember everything all at once.”
Bckfire scowls a bit at that but can’t really find fault with Raven’s words. The heroine is right… she’s not a doctor. And even a doctor would have likely said the same thing. Only Lucien knew the truth… only he knew that Bckfire’s memories would only return when HE decided they would return.
“B-But… even if her lost memories do return, she’ll still remember this time period as well, r-right?”
Starfire’s worried voice fills the air, causing Raven’s gaze to sweep over to her teammate and soften up a fair bit. After a long moment of silence, Raven sighs.
“I don’t know, Star.”
She doesn’t want to give her friend hope, but she also doesn’t want to hurt her. It’s clear that despite Raven’s intentions, Starfire is as stricken by that new terrible thought as she is by the thought of Bckfire’s memories coming back at all. Bckfire, meanwhile, just growls a bit.
“No matter. I am still me, no matter what. That has not changed. And even if these raids all turned out to be dead ends… we have still put a stop to the machinations of people who might have had a hand in my imprisonment, yes? Or at the very least, people who are like those who did this to me. That is something to be proud of.”
There’s a pause at that as everyone shares a gnce. Because there’s something to be said about Bckfire saying she was still herself in one breath… and then in the next, extolling the virtues of their heroics and ciming they should take pride in the fact that they’d stopped illegal experimentation and likely saved lives with these raids and facility shutdowns.
Everyone on the Titans knows that the Bckfire they all knew would never have really cared about all of that very much. Oh sure, taking revenge on anyone who did her harm was one thing, but going out of her way to fight against injustice and monstrous acts like the ones they’d uncovered in these facilities was another entirely.
Of course, out of everybody, Lucien was the only one who wasn’t supposed to have prior experience with Bckfire from before her amnesia. So it makes sense to him to step forward and give Bckfire a smile and a nod.
“You’re exactly right, Bckfire. We’ve done good here today, and over the past week. We can’t let our disappointment discount that fact.”
Bckfire smirks easily in response and then gnces from him to Starfire.
“Then shall we retire for the day? I am famished… in more ways than one.”
Lucien lets his smile become a little strained, while Starfire blushes profusely. But with no reason to refuse her, they all begin heading out all the same…
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