Chapter Text
Katie took a deep breath, pausing as she sharpened the edge of her scythe. A gift, after the Second Giant War, from her mother. It would've helped more in the war, but the scythe was beautiful and, ultimately, Katie could not argue because her mother was finally giving gifts.
She’d been there too, for Miranda’s funeral.
And Katie saw her mother’s eyes turn to the soft, grassy green like Miranda’s. It hadn’t changed since, and somehow, whenever she saw her mother, all she saw was her dearest sister.
Katie had other siblings.
Steve, Hayden, Emeline, Carol, Bryce and Bruce (twins, youngest of the lot), and a couple of children of Ceres she knew, whom she considered familial. But Miranda and her had always been closest.
Picked up together.
Cabin counsellors together.
Nearly the exact same last name, give or take a letter.
They’d been born to be sisters, to be close, and somehow the gaping hole left by Miranda grew all the more prevalent as the months wore on.
Travis had tried—sweet, incredible, amazing Travis—to help, to be there, and yet the love of her fiance was not the same as her sister’s love. And she missed the warmth, the soft scent of daffodils, the brilliant grass green (almost as though the blades were swaying in her eyes).
Katie missed her sister.
And like most demigods—where fighting was ingrained in their very livelihood and retribution branded into their veins—Katie swore revenge. She swore to avenge her sister, no matter who was to be killed.
Which meant a mortal was dying tonight.
Sherman was probably going to help as well, Miranda’s boyfriend (who was going to propose; had Miranda not died, Katie would’ve been at a wedding instead of a funeral).
A son of Ares and a daughter of Demeter. What a pair they made.
Malcolm and Clarisse, along with Percy, had made the main attack forces.
Sherman and Katie were on the same squad, so naturally the three seemed quite prepared for what was bound to be a bloodbath, but Katie was glad for her family giving her this chance.
She would not lose it.
Continuing her sharpening, a shadow fell across her, and she looked up to see Travis (his stunning cheeky smirk, curly hair, freckles fading as winter drew closer (though not yet gone that Katie could not distinguish the cute array)) in all his armoured-glory.
He was alone.
That wasn’t unusual—the Stoll brothers weren’t glued together—but something about the empty space beside him felt… wrong. Wrong in a way Katie didn’t have the bandwidth to examine. Her grief had narrowed her world into a single point of painful purpose, and the absence barely registered beyond a flicker of awareness.
Though, Connor should be with Percy right now, and Lou. Travis was the one who wasn’t supposed to be here.
Except he was, and she wasn’t about to make him go to the correct place when she very much needed him.
Travis kneeled, hand brushing against her right arm, and she paused in her movements again, watching those sparkling eyes, full of life and mischief.
His hand snaked up her arm, soft and light, teasing almost. Distracting, naturally.
She felt it, the burning path it made across her skin.
And it continued, up and up.
Rested against her cheek, and Katie was powerless as she leaned in, the hand pressed into her cheek more, warmth and comfort and so much brilliance.
She allowed herself to smile, ignoring the mission ahead. They struck tonight, in an hour, but for now, she was just Katie and he was just Travis and they were just fine.
“So, ready for tonight, Sprout?”
Katie hummed, eyes still closed, certain her weapon was pointed away from Travis. “Naturally, Black Sheep.”
Travis laughed at the nickname, having been the one to introduce her to the series where she got the nickname. They’re own little comfort show, though Connor sometimes joined when they binge-watched it.
…And Miranda had too, sometimes.
Carmen Sandiego, the superthief, in her animated show with a fun intro and endless jokes. And now, it left a bitter taste in her mouth, because the last time they had watched the series, it had been only a week after Miranda’s death and all Katie could do was watch and ache, and ache, and ache.
Gods, this hurt more than she wanted it to.
Katie remained silent as Travis murmured about the latest prank his youngest sister pulled against the Hypnos cabin: she stole all of their bedding. Duvets, pillows, extra pillows, blankets, mattresses, screws to bed frames, and more in less than two hours.
He was raving about it, distracting Katie from what was to come, and Katie thanked every deity out there who blessed her with him. Him and his attentiveness and sweetness and need to be there.
Oh, how she loved Travis.
She felt her smile widen as the story continued, now about Travis’ other brother and his current one-sided prank war with Percy. The brother was about 10 and, having heard the rumours Percy could see through lies easily and was near-impossible to prank, took it upon himself to try. He was failing, but not giving up, and if Percy knew about the prank war, she would certainly allow the child to win.
Katie remembered how hers and Travis’ entire relationship was born from a prank gone awry.
Travis and his incessant need to get the last laugh…
She remembered it as though it was yesterday.
“I have had it with the Stolls!” Katie shouted, marching into Cabin 4 with flowers trailing her steps. Hayden followed giggling, and Katie growled, rounding on her younger brother. “Oh, you think this is funny, do you?!”
Hayden bit his lip, hardly muffling his snickers. “Well, Kate, you gotta admit that your vines constantly acting out like snakes is funny as hell.”
“No, I have had it with you as well. They shouldn’t even know that their chaos-dammed magic could work like that! They bribed—” Katie gasped, eyes boring into Hayden’s own forest green. “You did this,” she hissed, and he whistled innocently. “Fifty laps of Camp!”
“Nope, unfair punishment,” he retorted chirpily.
Katie’s eye twitched. “Then, tomorrow evening, you shall clean the entire cabin on your own, traitor.”
“What?! But tomorrow is campfire night! You can’t!” He sounded whiny, like a petulant child. Good, he should, her foolish little brother would never dare to cross her again.
Ultimately he had to and Katie went to Campfire Night with a pleased smile. If Hayden were fast, he would be able to clean and arrive for the final songs.
Unfortunately, she failed to remember one thing: Earlier, at dinner, Katie had eaten some oats. Nothing insane, just oats, but oats and alcohol (she was 18, leave her alone, Katie could drink what she wanted) did not bode well for a child of Demeter. Especially if there’s already magic messing with her powers.
And thus, vines sprouted from out her fingertips and she could not, for the life of her, stop it.
The moment Katie felt the vines pulse under her skin—too warm, too alive, too eager—she froze. Oh no.
“Oh, gods,” she whispered, looking down just as a thin green tendril flicked out from her index finger like an overeager snake sniffing the air. “No, no, no, not now—”
A second vine burst forth, thicker, curling lovingly around her wrist.
Katie swore, slapping her hands behind her back as if that could make the greenery behave. It did not. Instead, several more vines sprouted eagerly, wrapping themselves like affectionate constrictors around her elbows, waist, and even her ankles.
“Oh, for the love of Demeter’s compost heap—stop! I am not a trellis!” Katie hissed.
Campfire songs drifted across the hilltop—someone already started “This Is War,” wildly off-key. Katie groaned. Of course. Of course this would happen right when she was finally going to relax.
She staggered forward, trying to untangle herself with dignity, only to trip when a rogue vine lashed around her calf.
“Katie?” a voice called behind her, confused and far too amused for her liking.
Oh gods. No.
Not him.
Travis Stoll jogged over, a marshmallow stick in one hand, the fire behind him painting a halo of orange in his curls. His grin was immediate, wicked, delighted—
—and then it softened when he saw the panic flicker across her face.
“Oh. Um. That’s… new.” He blinked down at the vines creeping up her torso. “Are you… growing a second outfit? Because honestly? Fashion-forward.”
Katie shot him a withering glare as her vines proceeded to loop around her waist, squeeze her once (traitors), and pushed her forwards sharply.
She shrieked as she toppled straight toward Travis.
To his credit, he caught her.
Unfortunately, her vines caught him.
“Hey! Hey—NO—absolutely not!” Travis yelped as the greenery wrapped around his torso and yanked him flush against her. “Wow, okay. This is… intimate?”
Katie wanted to die. Preferably right now. A lightning strike. A hole in the earth. Anything.
“Don’t,” she seethed, struggling against her own vines, which seemed perfectly content to cocoon both of them together like a very embarrassing burrito. “Say. A. Word.”
Travis, eyes impossibly blue and shining with mischief, pressed his lips together.
He tried.
For half a second.
Then he burst out laughing.
“Katie, your powers are cuddling me.”
“They are NOT cuddling you!”
The vines, thrilled at the attention, curled around his arms and dragged them around her waist.
Katie screamed internally.
“Okay,” Travis wheezed between laughs, “so—so what caused this? Did Hayden prank you again? Did Connor prank Hayden into pranking you? Was it the magic from yesterday, because that was supposed to do something else entirely? Did someone insult your gardening? Did you see a cute guy? Did—?”
“I ate oats,” Katie spat.
Travis stopped laughing.
“You… ate oats.”
“And had a drink,” she muttered. “And there’s lingering magic from whatever the fuck you were trying to do yesterday. And apparently my vines are now—WHAT ARE THEY DOING—NO—TRAVIS DON’T MOVE—”
He had moved, trying to adjust his footing. The vines interpreted it as encouragement and began winding around both their legs.
“Oh gods,” she groaned.
“Oh gods,” he echoed, deadpan. “We’re a plant monster.”
“Stop enjoying this!”
“I’m not,” he lied cheerfully. “This is the worst day of my life. Absolutely terrible. I’m suffering immensely.”
Katie’s face burned. “This is not funny—Travis, I can’t control them.”
“Then let’s get you somewhere safe before you turn me into topiary.”
She would have rolled her eyes if vines weren’t threatening to crawl up her neck. “And how exactly do you propose we move? In sync? Like some kind of botanical three-legged race?”
Travis looked down at their entangled bodies, then back up at her. “Well, Sprout, looks like you’re gonna have to trust me.”
Katie opened her mouth to protest, but Travis shifted his weight, tightening his arms around her waist instinctively to keep her upright.
She froze.
He stilled too.
Something changed—something warm and careful and unbearably gentle between them. The teasing fell away just a bit, revealing something honest underneath.
“Hey,” he said quietly, “it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
Katie swallowed, suddenly aware of how close they were, how steady his heartbeat felt pressed to her vines, how he smelled like woodsmoke and sugar from the marshmallow he’d been roasting.
Gods. This was humiliating.
And also… not entirely terrible.
“Fine,” she muttered. “But if you tell anyone—”
“I won’t.” His grin softened. “Promise.”
She blinked. Travis Stoll, notorious trickster, was actually serious.
He nudged his forehead lightly against hers. “Okay. Step on three, yeah?”
The vines, agreeing enthusiastically, tugged them forward before she could respond.
They stumbled together—left foot, right foot—half walking, half being dragged by the plant life currently making decisions for them.
“Slow down!” Katie barked at the vines.
“I don’t think they speak English,” Travis said, trying not to trip.
“They speak intention—and right now their intention seems to be ‘humiliate Katie until she commits murder.’”
“That’s a long phrase for plant instincts.”
Katie growled as they lurched forward again. “Shut up.”
Eventually—miraculously—they made it into the forest clearing behind the Demeter cabin. The vines loosened the moment Katie’s boots hit familiar soil, sliding off Travis like lazy snakes.
She collapsed to her knees, palms pressing to the earth, breathing hard as she wrestled her power back into submission.
When she finally got the last vine to retreat, she sagged, exhausted.
Travis knelt beside her slowly—carefully—like one might approach a startled animal.
“You okay?” he asked.
She didn’t look at him. “No. That was mortifying.”
“It was adorable.”
She whipped her head around. “If you ever say that word again—”
“Katie.” He said her name gently, and something in her chest tripped. “Everyone loses control sometimes. Even me. Even Connor. Even Percy. It happens.”
“I wrapped you in vines.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “On a first date, usually people wait until dessert.”
Her jaw dropped. “That wasn’t—Travis—I wasn’t—!”
“I know,” he said, voice soft with laughter. “But hey… if it makes you feel better?”
He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“I liked it.”
And the rest was history. They got together because Travis’ stupid magic prank went badly. To be fair, wine and oats and lingering magic was also not a good combination considering how oats, depending on the child of Demeter, could boost their own mature magic.
Also, Katie could control vines to a degree not many children of Demeter, or Ceres, could, so she was lucky it even acted out like that.
And no matter how much she pretended to hate the story, she would always smile because of it.
Travis finished his story and then leaned closer, his hand dipping to her throat, feeling for a pulse. His head touched hers, and she closed her eyes, moving her scythe to the side, away from Travis.
“It’s going to be just fine, tonight, Katie. We’re going to be fine.”
“I know, Trav, I know.”
She opened her eyes to see Travis smiling softly, eyes warmer than the sun. “I mean, my darling Mistress of Nature is on a war path. If it didn’t go her way, I’d be shocked.”
Katie returned the smile despite herself. “And my dear Maker of Mischief is ready to cause as much chaos as well, isn’t he?”
“Oh, you know it,” and then he kissed her.
Soft. Sweet. Gentle.
For those few moments, they weren’t demigods at war. Adults forged in fires.
They were normal people in love and figuring it out.
Katie closed her eyes, savouring every last second.
Connor tapped the hologram. “We’re infiltrating the Mirror Maze, right? But we aren’t taking down Hugo? Why?”
“Because, Connor, as Percy explained ten times earlier, revenge is for Shawn and Katie,” Lou explained, irritation colouring her voice.
“I thought his name was Sherman, and he was Japanese or something,” Connor replied.
Percy sighed, and Connor smirked at the fond exasperation on her face. “He is Japanese. Yes, his name is Sherman. Yes, he and Katie are on a team together. Yes, we are infiltrating, but our mission is to locate Melinoe.”
“Isn’t that going to attract her attention?” Connor pointed out, noting Percy’s casual use of a god’s name, as she usually did.
Lou nodded. “It will, but it’s Percy.”
“That should not be a valid explanation, but yeah, true.”
Percy sighed for the umpteenth time, focusing on the hologram. “We’re meeting up with Blue and his team, three other people: Tigress, Red Robin, and Orphan.”
Lou leaned closer to Connor conspiratorially. “I heard from Amelia that Percy calls Nightwing Phōs when they’re alone.”
“‘Phōs’? Meaning ‘Light’? Damn, does he actually light her world up?” Connor rounded on Percy, eyes narrowed in mock anger. “And what are we? Nothing? Because a new, shiny pretty boy came along, our delightful company is no longer bright? Gods, Percy, talk about mean.”
Percy rolled her eyes, mask not on at the moment, and turned the hologram around. She zoomed in on the Mirror Maze right as the call connected and Travis entered. Nightwing was already grinning, and Connor knew that the Bat’s eldest son’s eyes were directed straight at Percy. He probably wasn’t even trying to hide it considering how Tigress rolled her eyes in what could only be annoyed affection (Wow, Percy and Nightwing were really loved among their respective hero groups, weren’t they? Ignore that, not even a question, because seriously, Connor would severely judge you if you didn’t like Percy).
“Blue,” Percy greeted, tipping her head.
“Percy,” he murmured, almost reverent.
(Geez, was this, like, one of those Young Adult romance things where the male lead worships the ground the female lead walks on? And the female lead is just a girl boss going ahead and using the male lead?
Well, it couldn’t be, considering Percy’s fatal flaw would never allow her to use someone for her own gain. Probably. Besides, Percy looked just as reverent, so it couldn’t be that cheesy of a YA Book. Maybe it just had the “I’d die for you” trope?)
Connor glanced at Travis. Travis was watching the screen like Nightwing had just personally insulted every Stoll generation back to Kronos.
Older brother mode: activated.
(Also, Connor wasn’t exactly sure if Percy and Nightwing were officially dating. The vibes said “yes.” The body language said “yes.” The staring said “holy shit, yes.”)
In response to Travis, Percy, of course, chose violence.
“Mischief,” she said casually, “done having a quickie with your girl?”
Travis made a noise Connor had never heard a human being make. “Motherf— Percy! I didn’t— You— Ugh, why are you like this? It was a kiss! Just a kiss!”
Percy nodded emphatically. “Indeed, that’s what they all say.” Connor didn’t miss the way she looked at Nightwing, who seemed all too pleased to resume blatantly watching her.
Oh gods, they were sickening.
Connor could see, physically, why Percy liked the guy. Sharp jawline, a wavy mess of black hair, an athletic body honed from acrobatics, and all that jazz. The inch height difference probably pissed her off, sometimes, if only because she was usually one of the tallest and now (if she was dating the dude), she was shorter than Red Hood, Batman, and Nightwing (Hah! She couldn’t bully Connor for being shorter than her anymore— Actually, she probably could, but he had a card up his sleeve now).
On the other hand, Percy was the daughter of a god. Sharp jawline? Well yeah, hers was definitely sharp. High cheekbones? She was Poseidon’s copy, just make it female. The woman had everything, though perhaps, a more lithe body.
Also, Percy didn't go for looks, so Nightwing’s physicality wasn’t much. She lived among gods; she’d seen beauty that made mortals cry. Percy didn't care about looks, though, so, as far as Connor could tell, Nightwing was definitely a good choice because Percy was great at figuring out people (except Annabeth, but that is a whole other can of worms).
Connor didn’t miss the way she then glanced sidelong at Nightwing, whose expression became the picture of pleased to be implicated.
Gods, they were disgusting.
…Oh gods, he’d been zoning out for ten minutes psychoanalyzing Percy’s taste in men.
Ridiculous.
Connor blinked back into the conversation just as Percy flicked her fingers through the hologram, splitting the Mirror Maze into three glowing layers.
“Oh, cool,” Connor said. He had no idea what he was looking at. “So which part is the ‘we die horribly’ section?”
“All of it,” Lou answered flatly.
“Great. Love that for us.”
Percy zoomed in again, tapping a cluster of red markers. “These are the only traps we know of in the maze”—Connor let out a low whistle; there were already a lot of known traps—“but we suspect there are more. This corridor in the maze that has the clusters is the closest to where we assume Hugo set up his base. However, we’re unsure if that is the exact area as there are two other points in the maze it could be.”
Percy flicked the hologram again, and the glowing layers shifted into a rotating wireframe of the entire Mirror Maze. It spun slowly above the abandoned bumper-car platform, reflecting in Lou’s armour, in Travis’ agitated pacing, and in the jagged pieces of shattered funhouse mirror scattered around their temporary hideout.
Connor whistled again, longer this time. “So, just to be clear, the goal is to go into the huge, magically rigged nightmare funhouse built by a psychopath illusionist, split up, and hope we don’t die?”
“Essentially,” Percy said.
“Cool.” Connor nodded solemnly. “Love that for us.”
“Stop saying that,” Lou muttered.
Travis folded his arms. “No, let him. At this point, ‘love that for us’ is the only thing keeping me emotionally stable.”
“Incorrect,” Lou deadpanned. “Your coping mechanism is denial.”
Travis gasped, dramatically placing a hand on his chest. “Rude! Accurate, but rude.”
Red Robin’s amused puff of laughter filtered through the speakers, warm and annoyingly fond. “Percy, your people are chaos.”
“Yeah,” Percy said lightly, but she was smiling at them fondly, and the twelve year old Percy Connor once knew was there again, bright-eyed and genuinely happy.
He wasn’t the only one that noticed the way her eyes were softer. No, Connor immediately saw the way Nightwing smiled at that, somehow looking softer as well… If Connor hadn’t already hated how sweet they were together, he would have started right then.
Percy cleared her throat. “Alright. Partner assignments. Each team gets paired with someone from the other side so one side is magical and the other knows the terrain better.”
“Ah yes,” Connor said, “the classic avoid-the-group-death manoeuvre.”
Percy ignored him expertly.
“Orphan and Mage,” Percy decided, gesturing between Orphan's calm, silent face on the hologram and Lou, who straightened like someone had just handed her a nuke and said ‘hold this.’
Lou blinked. “…Oh. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Totally. That’s not terrifying at all.”
Orphan dipped her head politely. Connor wondered if she was amused. It was hard to tell; she had a full face mask, so anything visible was, well, not visible because she was clad in black and grey all over. There was, in essence, nothing to read, except her body language.
But Connor knew body language. Except this girl’s, it seemed.
“Second pair,” Percy continued, “Mayhem and Red Robin.”
Red Robin perked up like someone had just handed him ten energy drinks. “Huh, Mayhem is a son of Hermes, the God of Mischief, right? Then that means you can see traps coming easily, I assume, which is helpful. It will definitely increase the chances of us getting through Death Hallway.”
Connor clutched his chest. “Oh my gods, that’s practically a love confession.”
Red Robin actually spluttered. “What? No—”
“Relax, Bird Boy.” Connor wiggled his eyebrows. “I accept your proposal.”
“Oh god,” Tigress muttered on the other side of the call. “Kill me now.”
Percy smothered a smile, then pressed on. “Third pair: Mischief and Tigress.”
Travis blinked. “Wait—me? With her?”
Percy turned to him, brow furrowed in false confusion and fake innocence. “Don’t tell me you were going to partner with Nightwing.”
Travis rolled his eyes. “Well, wouldn’t it be wiser to pair the acrobat with the thief?”
“Uh, no, Mischief. You’ve already been giving him the death glare all evening, no point giving you a chance to make good on your promise.” Percy turned back to the holoscreen.
Travis flicked Percy. “I won’t kill him.”
“I heard all about your stunt against him with Mage and Mayhem while I was with Aegis before. Believe me, I have no faith in your words,” Percy replied.
Lou, Travis, and Connor himself visibly deflated.
“But—”
“—we never meant—”
“—any harm,” Lou finished, as rehearsed, because Percy was weak to children and Lou was the youngest.
Percy raised an eyebrow judgmentally. “Okay, and I’m a papaya.”
Nightwing snorted, and it was an ugly snort, while Tigress had the gall to smirk and Red Robin turned his head away, as if to hide the big fat smile.
“You’re ruining our image, Perce!” Lou complained.
Percy nodded emphatically. “You do enough of that yourself, so don’t worry too much.”
Holding back proved to be too much and Nightwing snorted, loudly, because he was a heathen, clearly. Orphan, who Connor remembered was there, somehow conveyed amusement through her entire black get-up, incredibly well for a silent person.
Really, Connor respected her ability to show her emotion through basically nothing more than his annoyance at Percy dragging him and Lou through the mud. Travis was… well, Travis was Connor’s older brother, he had to take some pleasure in Percy ruining his image.
“We’ve lost the plot,” Tigress commented.
Ah, right, planning for a Maze Runner-type (Connor has never read the Maze Runner, so he was not actually sure if he used this correctly, but he was about to face a psychotic mortal doctor, so the Maze Runner was the least of his worries) war and, like, joking did not seem all that wise…
“Remeber that time Percy was reading the major prophecy she was the subject of and read ‘god’ as ‘dog’?” Connor asked.
Travis chuckled, also badly muffling the noise.
Lou, rounded on Percy, hands on hips. “The fuck? Why have I never heard this before?”
“I know, Mage, I know, I insulted dogs. I’m sorry. And Tigress is right, we lost the plot, so let’s focus on, y’know, the actual war we’re about to fight.” Again, she tapped the maze on the hologram. “Now, we have our pairs. We enter the same place, we each take a separate route. Mischief, you and Tigress are going down the right corridor. There’s probably some empousai running around the Maze, fucking up everything, so make sure to watch out for that. Also, provide Tigress with celestial bronze arrows, or even an enchanted bow, if necessary, clear?”
“Yes.”
“Next, Red and Mayhem, you two are going down the corridor with the worst traps, from what we know. As Red called it earlier, Death Hallway, I will request neither of you actually die, but that is of course, up to you and your decisions.” Percy tapped the cluster of red spots. “I have a feeling there won’t be as many monsters in this hallway as the rest, but with the Maze shifting, we need to check every path to try and find the centre. Before we leave, make sure to grab a staff from the armoury for Red, Mayhem.”
Connor nodded. “Roger, roger.”
Lou snickered. Ha, well, at least she appreciated his perfectly-timed references.
“Next, Mage and Orphan. The hallway you two are going down is the far left just after entering. This hallway, I believe, has the most turns…?” She looked at Nightwing questioningly, and he nodded.
Tapping his own hologram and spinning it, which spun the one Percy had up because they were connected (of course, naturally, that makes perfect sense), he zoomed in. “This hallway was the one that originally led to the centre of the Mirror Maze, but your side’s magic messed it up, so we’re not too sure where it leads. It also has a ceiling of mirrors and mirrors on the floor instead of lights like the other paths, so it's bound to be the most confusing, which is why the illusionist will be going with the stealth-specialist.
“Finally, me and Percy will take the hallway directly in front of the entrance. This hallway was the one Joker once removed the floor lights, changed the ground to have flesh-eating piranhas, added glass over it, and randomly dropped people into it. Since there is still water beneath, as that was his stunt before the stunt that closed down Amusement Mile, we have to assume that there still might be something beneath the water, which is too dirty to see into and no one wants to touch it with a ninety foot pole considering the amount of people who died, and the blood that had turned the water red for weeks—”
“Too much info, Blue. Way too much. You’ve got me wanting to pray to gods I don’t even like.” Red Robin managed a laugh at Percy’s poorly-timed joke. “Basically, I’m watergirl, that’s my turf. If there are piranhas, they won’t touch me.”
Connor nodded, unsure if he could say anything because of Nightwing’s overly-long and horrifying explanation. Jesus, he doesn’t even worship the guy, but he might start praying if only to ensure Joker never rises from the depths of hell again.
That was the most horrifying, petrifying, painful form of torture he had ever heard of.
“Plan clear? Grab any final equipment needed, we’ll be one of the first squads sent, so we’re vapour travelling to Gotham. Meet your four at the entrance to the Mirror Maze,” Percy directed her final words towards the people on screen.
Nightwing nodded, the smile gone, replaced with a look of grim determination. “See you in ten.”
The call disconnected, the hologram disintegrating, and Percy turned around. “Let’s go find a god.”
Lou cracked her knuckles, grinning like a madwoman. “And kill it.”
Artemis Crock, also known as Tigress since 2016, had, naturally, known all about Dick and Astron—now Percy, it seemed—when Dick called her three weeks after he got his new partner with a frantic ‘She’s so badass, Arty’ and the rest was, kind of, history.
She figured he would make his move earlier, considering Dick’s personality, so she had lost that bet, but whatever.
She’d known, that’s all that mattered.
And now, she got to see Percy’s friends and battle-warn kin reacting to it too. Technically, just had seen. They were… not happy.
Percy was well-loved, clearly.
Dick was too, and due to the fact that the Batfamily seemed wholly delighted she was joining them, Artemis would give her the shovel talk when they met.
Upon arrival at the back-entrance of Amusement Mile, it was a whole of three seconds before the painfully strong scent of the sea hit Artemis full force. Salty, fresh, and what felt like a soft breeze despite being miles away from the coast hit Artemis, and she barely stopped herself from coughing at the sudden change.
It died down quickly and there, in the centre of swirling winds of mist, Percy Jackson and Co. stood armed to the teeth.
Their standard uniform had changed.
Mage was the most different with a long, black coat that seemed to shimmer red slightly. At her right hip, she had two daggers, and strapped around her upper left thigh, there was a set of silver throwing knives. Artemis wondered why she was wearing a coat and how the coat was shimmering, but she also chalked it up to demigods and their demigod-ishness. However, he didn’t know demigods enough to actually understand shit, so yeah, Mage looked different. Also her eyes were glowing red more than usual.
Mischief and Mayhem were the least changed, though Mischief now had a gun at his right hip, and a pouch clipped onto his belt; Mayhem had what looked to be bombs strapped around her upper right thigh and a bag of what Artemis assumed was extra weapons.
Then, of course, Percy Jackson. Her usual domino mask was gone, replaced with the standard face mask of the demigods, and Artemis could finally see her startlingly vibrant sea green eyes. Dick had described them several times before, and Artemis could distinctly remember the several times it almost sounded like he was waxing poetry about them, but she could also see why he would do so.
(Artemis was straight, completely straight, but even Percy made her question some things, and that was just the eyes alone.)
Percy’s hair was braided, and the hair ornaments usually prevalent in a ponytail, or something, were nowhere to be seen. Other than the mask, Percy had on cargo-style pants made of some odd material that most demigod uniforms were made of. It made no noise as she moved. The pants were tucked into shin-high combat boots that also made zero noise as she stepped across the ground towards them.
Her standard swords, daggers, throwing knives, and the two rings always on her index fingers were there though, so she hadn’t exactly changed everything.
Again, Artemis wondered about Mage’s coat. It looked cool, yes, and she probably had a lot of things hidden inside it, but it was still very confusing.
She asked her about it, naturally. Mage grinned, “My mother’s hair is woven into this coat, it was my seventeenth birthday gift. Anyway, my power is enhanced when I have something of my mother near, and also, I have several knives up my sleeves when wearing this.”
“Don’t you mean cards?” Mayhem asked, because Artemis got the feeling this was a necessary meme to perform.
Percy shook her head, and Artemis could see the fondness in her eyes. “No, she does not.” Naturally, at that moment, a knife slid out of Mage’s sleeve.
Cass stepped over, pointing at the knife, which Mage happily handed over. Turning it over, Cass tucked it into her belt, and looked to Percy, who shrugged. “If Mage is fine with you taking her knife, sure.”
Cass looked at Mage again, who nodded, eyes crinkling at the edges to show she was smiling.
Dick clapped his hands together. “Alright, let’s get going. We’ve got to have half the maze as our ground in about ten minutes so the squads coming in ten minutes won’t have to worry about any surprise attacks from inside the maze. Once you have half the maze, tap the button on your wrist”—Percy shook her head at the other demigods and pointed at Artemis’ wrist—“to signal me. Make sure to radio in every two minutes. If you miss a mark, someone will come for both of you, presumably the pair closest to you.
“But first, we’ve got to get to the maze, which is about a couple metres from here, to the west. How many monsters are there?”
Percy tapped her thigh, eyes closed. “About fifty. Mischief, Mayhem, and I will go first, Mage will signify when it’s ready and the rest follow.” They disappeared through the entrance, the darkness swallowing them.
Mage tilted her head. “Gods, I can’t wait for all this to be over. The demigods might have to remain training, but monster activity will certainly die down if the base of operations is closed.”
Tim looked around. “Why will you continue working? I mean, won’t the monsters become invisible again?”
Mage’s laugh was hollow, like it scraped its way out of her chest.
Artemis didn’t like that sound.
Her answer was worse. “With the amount of ichor they’ve probably ingested? No, it’s permanent now. It’ll probably take a couple thousand more reforms and maybe a few centuries before the ichor fully fades from their systems. Demigods will have to continue fighting.”
Mage’s words were casual in the way only people accustomed to endless violence could manage. Artemis had heard soldiers talk like that before—people who no longer measured time in years, but in survivability.
Percy’s name came up again, inevitably, framed as a solution rather than a person, and Artemis filed that away with a tight, uneasy twist in her gut. A demigod who fixed things permanently was not comforting. It was alarming.
“They’re done,” Mage said suddenly, tilting her head.
Artemis hadn’t heard a sound. No fight, no echo, no sign of fifty monsters dying nearby. That bothered her more than anything else.
When they moved, Artemis’ hand never left her bow.
The Mirror Maze rose out of the mist like a carcass picked clean. What must have once been colour and noise had rotted into something obscene—green paint smeared like infection across broken walls, blood darkened to nearly black where it had soaked into concrete. The smell hit next. Not fresh death. Old death. Death that had been left to linger.
By the time they truly reached the entrance of the Mirror Maze, Artemis’ instincts were screaming.
The entrance sagged inward, arches cracked and half-collapsed, glass shattered into uneven teeth beneath their boots. The tented ceiling still clung stubbornly to its frame, shredded and drooping, as though the structure itself refused to let go. Reflections fractured across every surface—too many angles, too many places for something to hide.
Artemis stopped without meaning to.
This place didn’t feel abandoned.
It felt fed. Fed by suffering and deeds beyond comprehension. Fed by maniacal laughter and radical actions.
Fed by the most vile of things and then fed more but the same vile being. Over and over and over again.
Of course, they split up, and Artemis found herself trudging down the far right corridor with an enchanted bow in her hand and a silver knife. Like pure silver, because that harms both humans and some monsters (it depends on if the silver was blessed and this one, it seemed, was).
The first obstacle was a trap. Calling it an obstacle was a gross overstatement,it was hardly even a pebble when Mischief got to it. The trap was supposed to be a trapdoor into possibly a sealed-off chamber that Mischief disabled in a minute by clicking his fingers and also tapping the trapdoor, which was weird, but demigods seemed to have weird powers from their parents, so who was Artemis to judge?
“Clicking your fingers?” she asked softly.
Mischief nodded. “Only works on smaller traps, like trapdoors or arrows from the wall. Something like a bomb from a tripwire or maybe falling axes would require more than just a click,” he explained just as quietly. “The next trap is in about two metres and is triggered by pressure, so follow my steps perfectly.”
Artemis made a noise of confirmation just as they rounded a bend.
The floor changed from mirrors to LED hexagonal tiles, the tiles constantly changing colours. It was disconcerting, having only seen her reflection for several minutes, to be faced with glowing lights in the mirrors, along with her face.
The light was wrong.
Not too bright—not immediately. It pulsed instead, cycling through soft blues and greens at first, then bleeding into harsher reds and yellows, the colours refracting endlessly in the mirrored walls and ceiling. Artemis’ reflection multiplied around her, fractured and stretched, every angle showing a slightly different version of herself: bow raised too high, bow too low, eyes narrowed, mouth parted, breath fogging glass that shouldn’t have fogged at all.
Her depth perception went to hell.
“Step where I step,” Mischief murmured ahead of her, voice steady, barely louder than breath. His boots landed with deliberate care, weight distributed perfectly, heels never fully touching down. He moved like someone who had done this a thousand times—or like someone who had learned very young what happened when you misjudged a floor.
Artemis focused on his feet.
Left. Right. Pause. Shift.
She followed, carefully placing her boots into the faint depressions his had left behind, though the tiles themselves didn’t depress. They lied. That was the problem. Every hexagon reflected light differently, some gleaming, some dull, some flickering half a second behind the rest. It made it look like the floor was moving even when it wasn’t.
Her brain kept insisting that something was sliding beneath her.
The mirrors didn’t help.
Every step created ripples of reflection, Artemis watching herself walk forward from the side, from above, from behind. Her shoulders tensed as her reflection lifted her bow a heartbeat before she did. It felt like being followed by ghosts that knew her movements before she made them.
She swallowed and forced her breathing to slow.
In. Out. Quiet.
Well get traught, or get dead. Of course, little Dick’s words came to her at that moment. She paused momentarily, taking a deep breath.
She couldn’t panic. That would make everything worse.
Still—her instincts were screaming. This wasn’t a maze meant to trap you physically, not really. It was meant to erode confidence. To make you hesitate. To make you second-guess your own body.
A flash of white cut across the floor.
Artemis’ eyes jerked down reflexively—and that was her mistake.
The lights flared brighter, the hexagons beneath her boots shifting suddenly into sharp, blinding neon. Her reflection multiplied again, dozens of Artemises staring back at her, eyes wide, pupils blown, each one caught mid-step at a slightly different angle.
For half a second, she couldn’t tell which one she was.
Her foot hovered above the tile.
“Don’t stop,” Mischief said immediately, sharper now, but still quiet. “Tigress—don’t freeze.”
She tried to move.
Her body refused.
It was like standing at the edge of a cliff you knew was there, even when logic told you the ground was solid. Every survival instinct she had clawed up her spine, screaming wrong, wrong, wrong, her muscles locking as if bracing for impact that hadn’t come yet.
Her reflection blinked.
Then another did it out of sync.
Her stomach lurched.
“I—” Her voice came out hoarse, barely audible. “The floor—”
“I know,” Mischief said, and now he was turning, slowly, carefully, redistributing his weight so nothing shifted beneath him. His eyes met hers—not through the mirrors, but directly.
Solid. Real.
“Ignore it. Don’t look down. Look at me.”
(In any other circumstance, that would sound romantic, but here it was truly a grounding force. Artemis had dealt with many things, but not a trap like this, not one designed in a maze where every turn was a lie and every step a taut rope waiting to snap.
But Mischief clearly had. He clearly knew mazes very well. Knew traps all too well. And he clearly knew how to ground people into focusing when faced with traps almost too confusing for a mere mind to comprehend.)
The mirrors betrayed her, reflecting his image a dozen times over, each one slightly warped, slightly delayed. His mouth moved in one reflection before the sound reached her ears. In another, his eyes were wrong—too bright, too dark, too amused.
A laugh echoed faintly through the corridor.
Not real. She knew that. It bounced too cleanly, too evenly off the walls. Recorded. Or enchanted.
Her pulse spiked anyway.
“Mischief,” she said, forcing the word out through clenched teeth. “I can’t tell—”
“Which tile is real,” he finished for her. “Yeah. That’s the point.”
He took one slow step toward her, moving backward along his own path, never breaking eye contact. The lights beneath him didn’t react.
“Listen to my voice,” he said. “Not the floor. Not the mirrors. Me.”
Another flash—red this time—splintered across the tiles.
Artemis flinched despite herself, her boot scraping the edge of a hexagon.
The tile didn’t depress.
Didn’t click.
Didn’t drop.
But somewhere deep beneath them, something shifted.
A low, grinding sound vibrated up through the soles of her boots, subtle but unmistakable. The lights froze mid-cycle, all colour draining into a sterile white.
Mischief went very still.
“…Fuck,” he breathed.
Artemis’ heart slammed into her ribs.
“That was me,” she said immediately, guilt sharp and cold. “I hesitated—”
“No,” he cut in quietly. “You didn’t trigger it.”
The grinding grew louder.
The mirrors ahead of them darkened, reflections bleeding away until all Artemis could see was herself and Mischief suspended in a narrowing tunnel of light.
“Then what did?” she whispered.
Mischief didn’t answer.
Instead, he grabbed her wrist firmly, and pulled her backward, retracing his steps with sudden urgency. “Move. Exactly with me. Now.”
They didn’t run. Running would have killed them for certain.
They moved, fast but precise, his grip unyielding as the floor beneath them hummed ominously. Artemis’ bow knocked lightly against her shoulder as she stumbled once, her balance thrown off by the lights flickering erratically now, tiles flashing in harsh whites and violent reds.
Another grinding sound echoed—closer this time.
They cleared the last hexagon just as the sound crescendoed into a deafening crack.
The floor behind them vanished.
Not collapsed—vanished, dropping away in a clean, brutal line as the hexagonal tiles folded inward and disappeared into darkness. Artemis twisted instinctively, bow snapping up as she skidded to a stop on solid ground.
What waited below made her stomach drop.
The pit was deep—deeper than it had any right to be in an amusement park. The walls were lined with concrete scarred by claw marks, gouges, bloodstains layered so thick they’d turned brown-black with age.
And at the bottom—
Spikes.
Dozens of them.
Blunt, uneven, rusted at the tips, angled upward like broken teeth. They weren’t sharp enough to kill quickly. They were designed to impale, to trap, to let gravity do the rest.
And coating them—
“Oh god,” Artemis whispered.
Feces.
Dried, caked, smeared thick along the spikes and the pit walls. The smell hit her a heartbeat later—overpowering, rancid, unmistakable. Human waste. Rot. Infection.
Her skin crawled.
Mischief swore softly beside her, a sound stripped of humour entirely. “It’s a Punji Pit,” he said.
Artemis stared, bile rising in her throat.
She knew this.
History lessons. War documentaries. A tactic designed not to kill outright, but to maim. To infect wounds. To slow enemies down, drain resources, break morale.
Someone had recreated it here.
Someone had thought about this. Chosen it.
“I’ve heard of them, but seeing them…” she said numbly, trailing off because what could she say about such a tactic used in war time?
“Yes,” Mischief agreed. “It’s very different to hearing about them.”
The lights above the pit flickered once—twice—then died completely, plunging the hole into darkness that swallowed the spikes whole. The mirrors around them remained dark, reflecting nothing now.
Artemis exhaled shakily.
“If I’d stepped wrong…” she trailed off.
“You’d be alive,” Mischief said quietly. “For a while.”
That was worse.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to look away from the pit, from the implications, from the knowledge that someone—many someones—had fallen into that hole and hadn’t climbed back out.
Her hands shook.
She clenched them into fists, grounding herself in the familiar weight of her bow, the bite of the string against her fingers.
“I didn’t trigger it,” she said again, needing to hear it confirmed.
Mischief met her gaze. “No. You hesitated, but the pressure plate didn’t engage. This one’s on a timer—or proximity. It was always going to drop.”
“Then why—”
“Why make it confusing?” He gave a humourless smile. “So you blame yourself. It’s a sick joke, but it’s something the Joker probably liked: Make his victim believe they were the problem until their death.”
Artemis closed her eyes briefly.
That fit. Too well.
Somewhere deeper in the maze, metal shrieked as another mechanism activated—another trap, another corridor, another team. Artemis wondered, distantly, how many variations of this hell existed here. How many ways someone had found to twist mirrors and light and fear into weapons.
She opened her eyes, steady now.
Well get traught, or get dead. She better get traught quickly because this was getting to a degree of madness she wasn’t sure she wanted to encounter.
(How the Bats ever managed to survive in this hellhole of a city with Joker running around alive was insane.
How Percy managed to kill the Joker was incredible.
How the Joker managed to find anything he did funny was psychotic. Deranged.
He was a lunatic and even with him gone, he haunted the place—his cruelty was habit, his traps were infrastructure, his mind a maze like this one—like a puppeteer.
The strings had never been cut, merely tightened, and taut and ready to strangle the city whole. The ownership of the strings never transferred, merely the owner disappeared and the end of the strings with him.
What a magnificently demented nightmare.)
Tim swallowed as they entered.
Amusement Mile had closed when he was in his second year as Robin. He was fourteen when it closed and it was, in all essence, a very good call from the government in maybe a long time.
The air still carried it—old oil, mildew, rust, rot. Not fresh decay, but the kind that settled into concrete and never left. The kind that meant something awful had happened here and no one had bothered to scrub hard enough to make it go away.
Drug deals. Hostage situations. Gang fights. Bodies dumped where the rides once spun. Amusement Mile had been a playground for monsters long before literal ones learned to walk openly.
The staff Mayhem hand handed him before they entered was collapsed and clipped at his hip—it was small comfort, but it was a good staff, so no complaints from Tim. It allowed him to fight a monster with the celestial bronze head, and that was really all that mattered.
Mayhem was at the front, and while Tim preferred leading, he also understood the need for the son of Hermes to be at the head of the group. All things considered, he was more likely to dodge traps, enhanced reflexes and all.
Then Mayhem halted, head tilted to the side, he flicked his left wrist and a dagger appeared in his hand. “There’s something beneath the tile three forward and one to the right. The space below is a lot larger, though, and it’s activated by a tripwire maybe just before the tile,” Mayhem murmured, kneeling.
Tim narrowed his eyes, his domino mask lenses scanning the floor. He saw it too.
Again, Tim marveled at the senses of demigods. So incredibly accurate and aware, he almost wished he had those senses. The way Mayhem knew the trigger, the location, the way he looked at the trap like it was obvious…
Tim had met Metas with sense enhancements. He’d met a Meta that could hear a cricket chirping 5 miles away and the flutter of a butterfly’s wings on a flower at the other end of a field; he’d met a Meta with eyes so keenly aware, she could see through buildings (though mirrors were kind of a foil to that Meta); he’d met a Meta with a nose so good, they could smell poison.
And yet demigods were a different breed. Yes, their powers from their respective gods helped, but their own senses were so carefully tuned to spot anything—everything—that was amiss, it was almost terrifying.
“Stick to the edges,” Mayhem said again, stepping over the tripwire.
Tim followed his step perfectly and followed, sticking to the left side of the corridor.
He caught his face in the mirror, and for a moment he wondered when he last ate. Tim looked pale to himself, gaunt in the mirror that was possibly warping his view.
An illusion? he wondered, moving forward as Mayhem passed over it without a single thought. Tim had definitely been eating enough and getting enough sleep recently, but the mirror looked ordinary and Mayhem hadn’t reacted.
He ignored the sinking feeling in his chest right as Mayhem shouted to duck and Tim dropped to the mirrored floor as whizzing passed over his head. Turning around, he found himself facing a wall with dozens of holes, and looking forward, he saw arrows embedded in the ground and wall.
Mayhem stood, and Tim followed, looking back. Not that impressive of a trap considering that was possibly the oldest trap in the book. Not to mention, Mischief and Artemis had already radioed about their Punji Pit trap, which was by far the worst thing Tim had heard about in the past two weeks.
Two more bends in the maze, a dead end, and a return to the correct path, they’d passed a monster, two more traps, another Punji Pit, a mine, and they were once again turned away from the original maze path because the maze shifted like magic. Well, not ‘like magic’, it was magic.
And that was when another trap was triggered by… Possibly movement.
Tim once again lamented that he didn’t have demigod senses as the trap was triggered and Mayhem turned faster than Tim could blink.
Mayhem grabbed him roughly and tossed him in front right as an axe fell down where Tim had just stood. Again, another textbook trap to be expected, and yet, this axe was stained with dried blood and rusted and…
“Is that a body?” Tim whispered.
Mayhem grimaced, looking back at the axe. “Yep. I reckon that’s been there for about a year. Wonder what idiot strolled into the closed down Amusement Mile thinking they’d be okay.”
Tim swallowed. Okay, yeah, he really hated this place. “Let’s continue,” he said finally as he stood.
Mayhem nodded, also looking as grossed out as Tim felt.
Death Hallway was truly living up to its name. Really, an award for most accurate naming should be given, which Tim would personally vouch for should he actually manage to survive the hallway itself.
He jinxed himself, of course, because not a moment later, both he and Mayhem heard a rumbling and the click of gears.
Tim closed his eyes, gulping hard. “Please don’t tell me the walls are moving.”
Opening his eyes, he could almost see the smirk Mayhem wore despite the face mask. Mayhem’s mischievous brown eyes glittered. “Then I won’t, but we should get running.”
Tim groaned and followed behind the fast demigod, and his reflection got closer and closer.
“Turn right in a second!” Mayhem shouted.
Tim did so right as spikes jutted out of the wall, nearly impaling him. Tim wasn’t religious, but Jesus Christ, that was close.
“Duck!”
A broadsword swiped at around chest height.
Three more turns, the walls creeping closer and closer like the end of July.
Mayhem paused, his hand held out to touch the mirror, and then he turned left. Tim followed, confused but certain the man wouldn't lead him wrong. Another left, two paths missed, a right, and a shouted “JUMP!” as three tiles disappeared from the ground, they soon found themselves in a room.
Well, what would be classified as a room except the entrance they’d come through as gone, the wall clicking shut. There were no windows, no doors, blinding lights above, coupled with mirrors everywhere.
Tim’s chest burned from the race against the mirrors, encroaching on what little they could say they had in the maze.
His head hurt from the lights, the reflections, the movements.
His legs felt like they were falling apart.
His breath fell from him in short, sharp gasps, desperately trying to drag air back into his heaving lungs.
Mayhem was perhaps a little better, but hardly. He too was breathing hard, his eyes were looking around the room like a caged animal, his hair was a mess, droplets of sweat ran down his face. His short-sleeved shirt clung to him, and he looked like he was itching to pull off his gloves.
Tim noticed the thin line of blood on his arm, and he paused in his quest to regain breath to stare. When did he get hurt?
Mayhem looked at his arm, and shrugged casually. “The second broadsword. I twisted a tad slowly.”
Oh, Tim had just said that aloud. Well, that’s fine. “Can you heal it?”
“I mean, I have some nectar and ambrosia, but this isn’t bad enough to need ambrosia. I might have a sip of nectar though, now that you mention it.” He unclipped a cylinder from his hip and took exactly a sip before replacing it on his hip. Instantly, he looked energised and healthier, his breathing normal and the cut reduced to a thin, white scar.
Tim stared. “Wish we mortals had something like that.”
Mayhem managed a sharp laugh. “Wish I was mortal, dude.”
Tim conceded; demigods did seem to live far worse lives (or more accurately, survive short lives).
Having passed the walls closing in on them like the maze from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Tim also took a chance to look around the mirror room.
“Those walls moving thing…”
“Magic, and maybe a touch of mechanics, but can’t be sure. Pyro would know, but I’m more into magic traps than mechanical traps,” Mayhem replied easily, at the other end of the room, hand running along the mirrors. “This room is heavily drenched in illusion magic. I can also feel traces of Lady Hecate, so probably an empusa or empousai. Not a good sign.”
Tim tapped a mirror, the sound echoing around them. “They don’t know how sound works, it seems.”
Mayhem laughed again. “Yeah, they always like the echo-y thing, but it’s never realistic. Kinda disappointing, but can’t really nitpick with monsters, can ya?”
“No, I don’t suppose you can,” Tim agreed, nodding slowly.
The walls crept closer and closer. Marched like soldiers on a hill.
Steady. Strong. Silent and powerful and terrifying.
So utterly imposing.
He turned around. Again and again. Wall, after wall, after wall.
There was no end to this nightmare of twists and turns of crushing pressure.
His head ached. His breath was dying. His body burned with exertion.
It stayed steady and powerful and horrifying and everything Tim wasn’t. The walls crept closer and closer again and again.
Tim wasn’t fast enough.
Tim shook his head. It was fine, he wasn’t stuck. That was years ago, when he first became Red Robin.
Damian had appeared at the ripe old age of ten, became Robin and Tim gave it over, Bruce was severely apologetic and he tried to make it up, but Tim couldn’t care less that he had a murderous younger sibling. Then, Tim became Red Robin…
It was the first mission he’d done as Red Robin and they’d been facing a magic user Zatanna had taken down in the end, but Tim remembered how the stone maze shattered his every thought.
He remembered the feeling of his ribs being crushed by the walls. The light going and the everpresent darkness branding scars across his skin, through a tattered uniform.
Tim remembered the painful, dreadful fear of his world shrinking and his body breaking.
Tim shook his head. Again, he remembered, that was two years ago. He was fine now.
There was nothing wrong, and Timothy Drake-Wayne was fine. He had to be.
Mayhem paused in his round, tapping the mirror he was at. “Huh,” he murmured, voice low and tinted with incredulity. “This feels really… weird.”
Tim straightened immediately.
That word meant something coming from Mayhem. Demigods didn’t call things weird unless they were wrong on a fundamental level (Tim would know, Percy rarely called anything weird). Tim pushed himself upright, ignoring the protest in his legs, and scanned the room again.
Nothing had changed.
That, somehow, made it worse.
The mirrors were identical on all sides, stretching floor to ceiling, reflecting the same blinding white lights overhead. No seams. No distortion. No obvious exit. The floor beneath his boots was smooth, unblemished, perfectly level.
Too perfect.
“What kind of weird?” Tim asked carefully.
Mayhem didn’t answer right away. He dragged his hand along the mirror, slow and deliberate, brow furrowed. His eyes weren’t tracking reflections anymore—they were unfocused, like he was listening to something Tim couldn’t hear.
“This room,” Mayhem said finally, “isn’t just layered with illusion magic. It’s… folded.”
Tim’s stomach sank. “Folded how?”
Mayhem exhaled sharply through his nose. “Like it’s pretending to be one space when it’s actually several. Or none. Or—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Hermes domains are all about paths and thresholds. This place is lying about where those are.”
Tim took a slow breath, grounding himself in facts. “Okay. So illusions. Spatial manipulation. Nothing we haven’t dealt with before.”
Mayhem shot him a look. “Red Robin.”
That alone made his pulse jump.
“The floor,” Mayhem said. “Does it feel… hollow to you?”
Tim shifted his weight experimentally. The surface didn’t creak. Didn’t dip. Didn’t give at all.
“No,” he said. Then hesitated. “…It feels like it’s trying very hard not to.”
Mayhem grimaced. “Yeah. That.”
A low sound threaded through the room then—not loud enough to be obvious, not sharp enough to register as danger. A vibration, more felt than heard, buzzing faintly through the soles of Tim’s boots.
He froze.
“Mayhem,” he said quietly. “Do you feel that?”
Mayhem’s head snapped up. “Don’t move.”
Too late.
The vibration deepened, turning into a subtle, nauseating hum. The lights overhead flickered once—twice—then steadied, brighter than before. Tim’s reflection multiplied as the mirrors seemed to stretch, the angles just slightly wrong now, elongating his limbs, warping his proportions.
His reflection smiled.
Tim’s breath caught.
“That’s new,” he muttered, backing up a step—
The floor shifted.
Not collapsed. Not cracked. It rolled, like a massive plate sliding over unseen machinery beneath them. Tim staggered, arms flailing as his footing vanished for half a second.
“Red!” Mayhem shouted.
Hands slammed into his chest and shoulder, hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. Mayhem dragged him sideways, bodily hauling him toward the edge of the room just as the center of the floor dropped away.
The sound was enormous.
Metal screamed. Stone shattered. Glass exploded downward in a violent cascade as the mirrors at the center of the room fractured and fell, revealing not a pit, but empty air—a yawning, lightless void that swallowed debris whole.
Tim skidded across solid ground, boots scraping, fingers clawing for purchase as the remaining floor lurched violently toward the collapse. Mayhem’s grip on his cape had been iron-tight when he pulled him away from the edge. Now, he stayed, holding Tim at the edge of the room with him, backs pressed to the mirror.
Both looked down only to see the vast expanse of nothingness greeting them like the unhinged jaw of a megalodon.
Tim wondered if there were spikes at the bottom. He smelt blood—he knew the smell all too well by now and it still burned his nostrils—but he saw nothing, which was worse. The infrared lens of his mask wasn’t helping.
“Mayhem?”
“Not a Punji Pit. This was just a straight up fall into darkness kinda thing.”
Tim nodded. “And the floor?”
“Probably won’t return for a while,” Mayhem confirmed calmly, leaning over Tim to see further. “Can’t see shit down there. Also, did we miss the call-in?”
Tim cursed. “Yes, we did. Hang on, let me—”
Tim’s back met nothing but air.
“Red Robin!”
The world inverted violently, reflections streaking past him as he tumbled through layers of glass that weren’t glass at all. He twisted midair, catching a glimpse of Mayhem through a translucent barrier—close enough to touch, separated by inches of impossible space.
“Mayhem!”
For one heartbeat, they were side by side, falling in parallel—mirrors peeling away around them like pages torn from a book.
Then something pulled.
The space warped, yanking them in opposite directions with brutal force. Tim’s arm wrenched painfully as he was dragged away, Mayhem’s shout cutting off mid-word.
The mirrors snapped shut.
Tim fell alone.
The sound of Mayhem’s voice echoed once—distorted, stretched, fading—and then there was nothing but the rush of air and the sickening certainty that the maze had finally decided to stop pretending.
Tim landed on a mirror, as expected. His knees hurt from the impact, having not reacted in time to even manage to brace himself before impact.
Standing up, he took stock of his surroundings. It was… the same room as before?
Tim looked around.
The glass in the far corner was chipped in the corner, while the one beside it was cracked slightly. There was a red stain on the mirror at the centre of the ceiling, and what looked like a bullet mark.
It was the exact. Same. Room.
Down to the weird echo.
His eyes widened at the realisation. That he was in the same room as before. That he’d fallen through the mirror behind him, was separated from Mayhem, and was in the same damn room.
(Tim hated being alone.
Hated seeing his reflection on every surface.
Hated looking around only to see his pale, scared, beaten form looking back.
Tim feared he’d die like this—lost, broken, and utterly alone.)
His head pounded as he tried to form a coherent thought. But all he could see was himself and Mayhem falling and the glass shattering.
The sound of a gun. (Hadn’t Mischief had guns before they entered?)
Tim turned sharply when he heard a clatter.
He was met with his panicked glance staring right back at him. There was nothing but him in the room. And a flickering light above. That hadn’t been in the room before. But it was there now. Only one of the ten lights on the ceiling.
“Same room? Identical room? Magic bridge to room?” He muttered ideas, possibilities, theories, and yet he couldn’t tell as his mind ran through thousands of thoughts. None stuck, like a leaf in the wind.
Tim took a deep breath.
He was Red Robin. He was trained by Batman. He was the kid who faced the Reach, fought aliens, befriended a semi-suicidal demigod, and he used to be Robin.
Robin’s magic, Timmy, that’s the point. It gives you something that you didn’t have before.
Robin was—is—magic. Tim was, is, and will always be part of Robin.
Timothy Drake-Wayne is Red Robin and he was one of the greatest minds of the current era. He was not going to panic.
One more deep breath, he opened his eyes.
The room was the same save for the shattered mirror—a bullet shot—and the flickering light. Tim could work with that.
The light was damaged when someone came into this room briefly during the time Tim was “falling”. Something appeared in that mirror, was shot at, and the room probably shifted as the thing or person left the room. Or people. Mischief and Artemis had been together, and if this room had been something they passed through (Mischief was the only one with a gun), it was viable that they were still together.
Tim nodded to himself.
So, that mirror had something up with it.
He walked over, head tilted slightly as he examined the mirror.
The scan he did did nothing.
Nothing happened until he looked straight at his reflection. And the reflection blinked back.
Tim hadn't blinked.
Stumbling back, the reflection tilted its head, reaching out a hand, as though to grab Tim from the other side of the mirror. Tim scrambled back further, but the reflection stopped, and could not reach through the mirror.
He took a breath.
It can’t get here, he thought, standing.
The entire maze shook, and Tim’s legs nearly gave out beneath him, and screamed in protest as he forced them to remain standing despite what seemed to be a minor earthquake.
“Percy?” he asked aloud, looking around. Again, louder, he shouted, “Percy?!” sounding far more desperate than the first time.
No reply.
The shaking didn’t stop.
Tim looked at his the reflection, also looking at the ceiling. It was the same as Tim now, no weird movements. Nothing like a real life Tim in the mirror trying to drag Tim into some new dimension (though he doubted it was a new dimension, just another mess of mirrors and traps and horror).
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
He stepped towards the mirror.
In. Out.
It stepped closer as well.
In. Out.
The ground shook again, like a response to emotions untold. Like it was being commanded to destroy, and everyone had to brace for impact.
Tim reached out, enraptured with his reflection. The correct arm rose, the reflection acted like a reflection.
An inch away from the mirror.
A centimetre.
Logically, Tim knew he was mesmerised to an off-putting degree. Logically, Tim knew something was wrong. Subconsciously, he screamed to stop and hold himself back and to just not touch the mirror.
Physically, it looked fine. Consciously, he could do nothing as the mirror called for him.
Breathe. In. Out.
Half a centimetre. He could almost feel the cold glass of the mirror.
(Somehow, he could feel the body heat from the reflection.
And his mind screamed that it was wrong.
But his body was too far gone.)
A millimetre.
The image shattered as a piercing, destroying scream tore through the maze.
Tim jerked away, but his finger had touched the reflection, and whoever the screamed belonged to would remain unknown because the mirror came to life again and the reflection had pulled itself out the mirror, grabbing Tim’s arm, and dragging him into it.
Tim pushed back, a batarang in his hand cutting through the reflection of himself.
It did not cut through at all.
The hand holding Tim in a vice-like grip melted into shadow and another formed and held on tighter.
The screaming roared in Tim’s ears.
It was too loud. Too much. Everywhere and nowhere and anywhere but visible. But Tim heard, oh how he heard that gut-wrenching, painful scream. Like the person was being tortured.
And all it took was one look away. One glance to try and find the source of that destructive sound.
The reflection shadow hauled Tim into the mirror, the cool glass brushing Tim’s skin. Something cut into his side, and he felt the warm liquid spill over his suit.
He couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t smell anything.
He didn’t feel anything but the cold, furious grasp of shadow on his body and the way it clung to his being.
But he could hear the screams. Louder, stronger, more pained every time it resounded in his ears.
The shadow laughed.
Again, mirrors shattered.