I suppose that it's time to get back to this again. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Nah, I love writing this stuff.

So, most of this chapter (or the big part that is italicized) is written in flashback.

Alright, I'm pretty pissed, to put it simply. I recently got a rather rude review on another story where the author threatened to stop reading this if I didn't update this in the next month. And by recently, I mean like three weeks ago. I was going to wait for a month, but I decided…I didn't really care about that review. The person is lame and a complete idiot if they think that will honestly get me to write this faster. News flash: I have my own life to live. I do have a life outside of writing friggin fanfiction all day long. I'm having problems with my dad, a crap load of school work, winter guard, band, friggin grades to get up, etc, etc. I'm busy. I can't write all day, no matter how much I want to. So suck it up, oh-so-mysterious and ever-annoying "L."

Recently the news was broken to me that Young Justice doesn't really belong to me, so…disclaimed. How lame, right?

Insincerely,

~LJ

Lygophobia—the fear of darkness and lacking of light.

"So this is the lil' witch that got my puddin' shoved back intah thah slammer!" she snarls, her rough accent scraping my eardrums. "Ya don't look that special tah me.' Something hard and powerful slams at full force into the side of my body, tossing me aside like a forgotten rag doll. Pain reverberates through my person, but, unlike its intended effect, it clears my head.

Red tinges my vision as I face my attacker, and the rest is all instinct. All I feel is the hatred, the pain in my side, the anger, and the betrayal from my childhood that still plagues me in my nightmares as I claw and swing and kick. Someone grabs me, someone too strong, too inhumanly strong, and there's a rag over my mouth, stinking a sickly sweet smell. My animalistic scream is too muffled to be heard; too dampened to be noticed by Robin.

And then my captive is whisked away by some unseen force, and my legs no longer support me.

Before my head can crack against the cold tile floor, something grabs my shoulders and lifts me back up until my feet are flat on the ground. Though the force, possibly the same force as the one who saved her from the captor, doesn't let me go. In my hazy stupor, I flinch as I'm forced to look into a blur of freckles and red and yellow and a fierce green. Fear pulses through my veins. I push and kick, desperately fighting to get away from the familiar, piercing green color.

"Stop…struggling!" a voice slices through my mind, and I freeze. The voice was male, and not at all the mysterious tone that I'm expecting. "Jeeze, I'm only trying to help."

Finally recognizing who it is, I nod and blearily fall into unconsciousness.

"No! Artemis, you leave your left side open to your opponent! Do it again!" Father barks, and the black-haired girl swings her saber at me once more. I dodge, somersaulting to the ground and bounce back up in time to parry the next blow. The girl and I stand, both of us leaning into the blades and trying to overpower the other. Sweat trickles down my forehead, running into my eye, but I do not let up.

Suddenly the girl steps back, allowing my weight to fall forward and slices my right side. Immediately my hand flies to the injury, gauging the severity, but a heavy boot connects with the wounded area before a conclusion could be reached. I gasp as the pain gives my vision a red, throbbing tinge. "Little girl," Father sneers above me, "you are a failure. I trained you better than this. Do not disappoint me again." He snatches my arm roughly and yanks me to my feet, almost dislocating my shoulder in the process. The saber is shoved back into my bloodied, blistered hands and the girl charges me.

Before the spar can begin, however, the scene changes. I'm in a dark room with two beds and a poster of a blond girl and a smiling cat. There's a slight tug on my right side, below my ribcage, and it turns out to be the black-haired girl. She has concentration written all over her face as she threads a needle into my side. After doing this several times, she cuts the string and ties it, leaving an even row of stitches. "Jade…" I hear my own voice say.

The girl looks up with remorse plaguing her eyes. "I'm sorry, Artemis. I couldn't do anything. Dad—he would have made it worse. Just so I would have to watch." Her voice cracks, but she doesn't shed one tear. "I'm sorry."

I don't say anything, only laying my head in her lap. "Tell me a story, Cheshire."

Jade gives me a weak smile and begins without a book, "There once was a little girl named Alice…"

Once again the scene changes, and this time there's a woman sitting in a wheelchair, yelling at Father. "What have you done to her?" she demands, slamming her fists down on her mobile chair. "Where is my daughter?"

Father's face is red with rage and I start to fear for the woman. She wouldn't stand a chance against his anger. "Why would I tell you, even if I knew? She's finally following in our footsteps, just like Artemis will be."

"Get out," the woman growls, causing me to wonder just how lethal she is, even while bound to a chair. "GET OUT!" Her shriek is followed by a slamming door.

Minutes tick by slowly, marked by the clicking of a traditional clock hanging on the wall. The clock that Jade broke the day before she left and the clock that Father forced me to fix without help and the clock that stops periodically because I was only thirteen years old with no idea how to fix it. Finally, the woman sighs, hanging her head low. "Artemis, I know you're there. You can come out now."

I take a tentative step out of my hiding place from the hallway. "M-Mom…?" I ask, because it's almost surreal. It's too good to be true. Jade told me that Mom wasn't coming back. That it was just Father and us here, forever.

"Yes, dear, I'm home."

That was all that was needed for me to hear, because in the next instant the woman was enveloped by my hug. Then we were both sobbing, because we never could for the last five years.

The scene changes one last time, and it's not as nice as the last time. I can't see anything, but I can hear voices. "You can't take her away from me! How is this legal? Stop! No! ARTEMIS!"

That was Mom's voice, screaming for me. I try to call out to her, only to find that I cannot even open my mouth. When I try to touch my face, to see if I can pull off whatever is clamping my lips together, I can't move my arms. Panicking as the darkness seems to expand, I flail the best I can.

Screeching through my clench-shut jaw, I slam all of my weight – which, at this point, isn't close to what it should be – to the right, relishing in the feel of my shoulder shrieking in protest. There was a wall, most likely metal, but there was a wall. It didn't go on forever.

My relief is short lived as my mind flashes to a different time against my will. I remember the small, damp, enclosed space that smelled of mold and cleaning products. I swear that I can feel the rough, calloused hands of Father as he shoves me by the throat into the closet and locks the door with me inside. The darkness that held me for the hours, sometimes even days, which would tick by slowly. Even the small crack under the door or around it offered my small form no light. I clearly hear in my mind the beating of my bound hands on the metal door and my feet on each wall as I struggle to make my living space a little larger, to keep the darkness at bay and the sides from crushing me.

Back in the reality that gives no comfort, my ears are flooded by the sound of my mother's pathetic wails, of which I try to join but fail. I can't take it. I'm starving, I'm voiceless, and I'm frightened. No—I'm terrified. Because I am enveloped in darkness, a black veil that has plagued me since my early childhood. Because I was never safe, not even when I couldn't be seen. Because I am alone in the dark. Again.

"If you can see them, they can see you, little girl," I hear Father sneer from the back of my mind. "But, even if you cannot, they probably can anyway."

He was probably watching me now. He was always watching me. Always tempting me to leave and continue my training. So I'm not safe. Not when I can't see them. Not now.

Not ever.

Gasping, I sit up, one hand over my beating heart and the other supporting my shaking body.

The room attacks me with a bright white light and the smell of disinfectants. For a moment, I fear that I'm back in one of those hospitals, but gradually my memory feeds me information on what has just occurred. I blink the brightness away a few times, trying to control my breathing as I relish in the fact that I was never truly in the dark.

As soon as my eyes are adjusted to the light, I notice a familiar form lying on a cot and realize exactly where I am. "Robin!" I cry, overjoyed at the sight of him, but the black-haired boy does not open his eyes. Sensing my mistake, I study his sleeping form. The steady rise-and-fall of his thin chest comforts me, knowing that he was okay.

Robin…he wasn't like the others, the other teenagers, here. He was different, intriguing. He was younger with a slighter, more graceful build, but I could practically feel the power radiating off of him. Sure, he was human and only human, not a Meta, yet he kept up with them. From my viewpoint I can see his lean muscles, so I know he isn't weak. But the differences don't stop at physical appearances. He had a calming voice—so much unlike that of the boy with the confusing colors. He practically radiated understanding. He knew just how to catch my attention and stop me from doing something that I may or may not regret later. He took a knife for me.

He took a poisoned knife for me.

It was this instant that I realize that I would do the same for him. Looking down at him as he lies on the cot, unconscious—sleeping, whatever—he seems so…vulnerable. It is wrong. He should not look like this, and it's my fault in the first place. I'm going to make it up to him—I will not be in his debt. I will protect him until he can himself.

So when the doors slid open behind me to reveal that damn harlequin in that damn costume, all of hell broke loose.

And I mean all of it.

Ha! Done! Chapter friggin three is friggin done! Frig! Heh, that last "frig" is for dramatic effect. Did it work? No? Well, frig.

I have had abso-friggin-lutely no time to type. That is why I'm uploading this at what…ten after midnight? Frig.

Okay, I have a couple of questions for my dear reviewers: do I sound too formal in this? I'm going for a bit formal, but I just want to make sure it's not too much, you know?

…yeah. This chapter was pretty much backstory stuff. Provide reason, motive, whatever. And cause I've hit block-hell. I'm not sure what to do. I know the key points that are going to happen, its just…getting there. It hurts me.

~Le Jokerette, aka 20 minutes