Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jai West always felt something was wrong about that hallway.

He didn’t have his dad’s instinct for cosmic threats or his twin sister Irey’s sixth sense for emotional shifts—but he knew something waited behind the white door at the end of the east wing.

No plaque. No number. Just a small security keypad that blinked red whenever anyone got too close.

He’d asked about it during his first week interning at Keystone State Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Faulkner, his supervisor, had waved it off.

“That’s the Closed Unit,” she said with clipped authority. “Only specialized staff have clearance. It’s been sealed since before your time, Mr. West. Focus on your patients.”

He did focus—on files, on rounds, on psych evals for his summer credit—but his mind always drifted back to the door.

Something called to him.

---

Two months in, Jai began eating lunch near the east wing, telling himself it was “quiet for reading.” The static buzz in his chest grew stronger each day, a barely noticeable hum like a heartbeat behind the walls.

Then one afternoon, as he unwrapped his sandwich, he heard it.

A whisper.

So faint he thought it was a trick of the AC.

“I’m not dead… help me…”

Jai froze. His sandwich fell to the floor.

He leaned closer to the door. “Hello?”

A moment of silence.

Then, again: “Please… I’m not dead… help me…”

His chest tightened. “Who are you?”

The voice cracked like dried leaves. “Lian.”

The name struck him like lightning.

Lian Harper.

She’d been his friend when he was six. Scrappy, wild, always a little dangerous and a lot braver than anyone else their age. She disappeared without a trace—died, they said. He remembered his parents being cagey. Uncle Roy falling apart. Heroes whispering like ghosts behind closed doors.

But she wasn’t dead.

“Lian, it’s Jai. Jai West. Do you remember me?”

Silence.

Then: “You’re real?”

His throat tightened. “I’m real. I promise. And I’m coming back tomorrow.”

---

That became their ritual. Every lunch break, he snuck down to the Closed Unit. He couldn’t open the door, but she could hear him through the vents. She was older now—sixteen, like him—but spoke like someone starved of voices. Time hadn’t been kind to her. The way she talked about Amanda Waller, about sedatives and “testing days,” made Jai’s blood boil.

“Why didn’t anyone come for you?” he asked one day.

“they were told I was dead,” Lian said. “And then waller put me here and locked the door.”

---

On the twelfth day, Jai brought her a new book to read through the vent. But as he started reading the first chapter aloud, alarms screamed down the hall.

Red lights strobed. Footsteps thundered.

He turned to run, but the security team was already on him.

“INTERN 493—UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO CLOSED UNIT. DETAIN AND REMOVE.”

“Wait!” he shouted. “There’s someone in there! A girl!”

But they didn’t listen.

---

They moved her that night.

Jai wasn’t supposed to be there when it happened—but he ran. Pushed speed through his veins, not full-on Speed Force, but enough. He made it to the loading dock in time to see a white van with no plates.

He ran to the back. A single slit of a window in the door.

And then he saw her.

Eyes wide. Lips parted.

Even after ten years, he knew that face.

Lian.

She stared at him, blinking as if seeing a ghost.

And then—her mouth formed his name.

“Jai?”

He stepped forward. “Lian—it’s really you.”

But the van pulled away, tires screeching on the pavement, swallowed by the night.

He stood there, fists clenched, heart pounding.

She was alive.

And they took her again.

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

The moment the van disappeared, Jai ran.

Not physically—yet—but mentally. Through every connection, every name, every person who might know where Lian was being taken. But he hit a wall, fast. The staff had clammed up. His badge was suspended. Dr. Faulkner refused to even look at him when she escorted him out of the building.

“You violated protocols,” she snapped. “You're lucky we’re not pressing charges.”

He wanted to scream. Lian Harper is alive. She had been locked up like a ghost for ten years. And no one was doing anything.

He paced the front steps until dusk.

Then, without thinking, he ran.

---

He didn’t go full Speed Force often—his dad warned him against relying on it for everything—but tonight, he had to. Not just for speed. For clarity.

The Speed Force opened his mind like a map. He could see electric signatures, scan surveillance grids, feel vibrations in the data lines. He rode the pulse across city limits, searching for hospital convoys and private routes.

And then—he felt it.

An unregistered black van traveling west on a side highway.

No plates. No trail.

But Jai was faster.

---

He found the van pulled into a gated facility near the edge of the old industrial zone. No signs. No guards in sight. Just an abandoned warehouse—and sensors hidden under every surface.

He slowed down, crouched behind an old dumpster, and watched as two figures wheeled a gurney inside.

A girl strapped down.

Black hair. Bare feet. A hospital gown too thin for the night air.

Lian.

His chest hurt.

Then—movement. A voice inside his earpiece.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jai.”

He spun. Nothing there. Just shadows and silence.

“Who said that?” he whispered.

A pause.

Then: “It’s Irey. I patched into your signal. I know what you’re doing.”

Jai exhaled. “Irey—I found her. Lian Harper. Waller locked her away for ten years.”

“I know,” she said softly. “And I think… I think I found something worse.”

“What?”

“The facility she’s in now—it’s not a hospital. It’s a holding center. Off-books. Waller’s fingerprints are all over it. There’s a name: Project Vigil.”

Jai’s stomach dropped. “She’s experimenting on Lian?”

“She’s weaponizing her,” Irey said. “Turning her into something else.”

---

Inside the warehouse, Lian’s eyes opened.

They’d drugged her again, but not enough. She could feel the air shift.

Jai was close.

The boy from the vent.

Her friend from a lifetime ago.

She reached out with the strength she had left—and something in her snapped.

The restraints burned.

The metal warped beneath her fingers.

Power.

---

Outside, Jai flinched.

The building shook.

Glass shattered somewhere inside.

“Irey,” he said, breath catching. “She’s fighting back.”

“What are you gonna do?” his sister asked.

Jai stood.

And for the first time, he didn’t hesitate.

“I’m gonna get my friend back.”

Then, in a blur of lightning and fury, he ran straight into the fire.

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

The moment Jai crossed the threshold of the warehouse, he knew this wasn’t a hospital.

It felt wrong.

Too cold. Too quiet. Like every sound was swallowed by concrete and shame. He darted between shadow and light, his body humming with Speed Force energy, dodging security sensors and automated drones like they were standing still.

His comm buzzed.

“Jai, you’re inside?” Irey’s voice crackled in his ear. “You’ve got two heat signatures coming down the northeast corridor—armed.”

“I see them,” he whispered.

Whip— He blurred past them before they could blink, leaving only a ripple of displaced air in his wake.

---

He found the central chamber just as alarms began to blare.

The room was wide and sterile, like a surgery theater… if surgeries involved manacles, injectors, and machines that didn’t belong in any hospital on Earth.

Lian was strapped to a vertical table in the center, panting, dazed—but awake. Her hair clung to her face in damp curls. Her eyes flickered red for a second before fading back to brown.

“Lian!” he called.

Her head snapped up.

“Jai?!” she croaked. “You—you came.”

“I said I would.” He was already at the console, vibrating through the locking mechanism. The straps hissed open.

As she slumped forward, he caught her.

She weighed nothing.

Her hands were shaking.

“You’re real,” she whispered.

He smiled tightly. “So are you.”

Then the walls lit up.

Voice from the intercom: “Unauthorized extraction. Containment breach. Code Black.”

Irey’s voice shot back into Jai’s earpiece. “They’re locking the facility down. You’ve got under two minutes to get out or Waller’s hit squad will be on you like flies.”

“Copy.”

He lifted Lian into his arms.

Then froze.

Her eyes.

They were glowing red again.

“Lian… what did they do to you?”

Her voice was small. “They put something inside me. I don’t know what it is.”

The lights flickered.

Machines sparked and died.

And Jai realized… it wasn’t the system shutting down.

It was her.

---

Flashback – 10 years ago

Waller watched through reinforced glass as the six-year-old screamed in her cell.

“She has residual energy traces,” one scientist whispered. “Post-Lazarus Pit… combined with dormant metagene activity. The trauma seems to be activating it.”

Waller’s eyes narrowed. “Keep her alive. Isolate the response. We may be looking at our first viable host for Project Vigil.”

“But what exactly is she hosting—?”

Waller turned, face expressionless.

“Hope. Or a weapon. Whichever works.”

---

Now

As Jai raced out of the warehouse with Lian in his arms, the entire facility trembled.

Behind them, the holding cell erupted in flames—red flames—with no source.

Lian didn’t scream. She just whispered:

“I don’t want to be what they made me.”

“You’re not,” Jai told her, running faster than he ever had. “You’re Lian. And you’re not alone anymore.”

---

In a black room miles away, Amanda Waller watched a grainy feed as the two figures disappeared into the night.

She didn’t blink.

“Activate Protocol Omega. If the girl makes contact with any costumed allies… we burn the board.”

An aide hesitated. “Even the Titans?”

Waller’s voice was cold steel.

“Especially the Titans.”

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

Jai didn’t stop running until they were deep in the forest outside Keystone.

No more drones.

No more cameras.

Just trees, wind, and the sound of Lian’s breathing against his chest.

He set her down gently beneath the shade of a pine tree. Her body trembled. Her eyes were half-closed.

She looked like a girl waking up from a ten-year coma… and maybe something worse.

“Are you okay?” Jai asked, crouching next to her.

She didn’t answer right away. Then—

“Where’s my dad?”

Jai hesitated. Roy Harper. Arsenal. Once the most determined man Jai had ever met. He broke when Lian died. Or thought she had.

“He… he thinks you’re dead,” Jai said gently. “We all did.”

Lian’s fists clenched.

Her voice was a whisper wrapped in steel.

“Then let’s go prove I’m not.”

---

Later that night – Titans Tower, San Francisco

Irey West didn’t knock.

She just burst in.

Donna Troy, Nightwing, Starfire, and Raven were mid-strategy session when she slammed her hands on the table.

“We have a situation,” she said, eyes blazing. “Jai broke into a black site.”

Nightwing arched a brow. “Please tell me he didn’t start a prison riot.”

“No. Worse. He found someone.”

Irey looked each of them in the eyes.

“Lian Harper is alive.”

Silence.

Then Donna stood so fast her chair toppled. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s not a joke. She was locked in a Waller facility—experimental site under the name Project Vigil. Jai pulled her out two hours ago.”

“Where are they now?” Raven asked.

“Hiding. Off-grid. And Lian’s not the same.”

Irey took a shaky breath.

“Something’s inside her. Some kind of power they tried to bury.”

---

Elsewhere – Forest Edge Cabin

Jai managed to find them an old safehouse—one the Flash family used for low-profile missions. It had no power, no tech, just enough food and first-aid to last a few days.

Lian sat on the floor in an oversized hoodie Jai gave her, staring into a cold fireplace.

“You okay?” he asked.

She looked up, eyes rimmed red—but not glowing.

“Jai… do you remember the last thing I said to you before I disappeared?”

He blinked. “Yeah. You stole Irey’s cookies and ran away laughing.”

She smiled faintly. “That sounds like me.”

Then her hand twitched.

The firewood ignited.

No lighter. No spark.

Just flame—red and controlled—dancing at her fingertips.

Her voice dropped.

“I think I’m scared of myself.”

Jai sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

“You’ve been through hell. But you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got me. And soon… you’ll have them too.”

She looked at him, cautious.

“The Titans?”

He nodded.

She looked away. “What if they see me and only see a weapon?”

Jai didn’t miss a beat. “Then they’ll have to go through me.”

---

Waller’s Control Room

“This changes things,” Waller muttered.

Lian was never supposed to leave.

The Lazarus energy inside her was reactivating—faster than projected. The metagene they tried to suppress had adapted. The girl was no longer just a test subject.

She was a detonator.

Waller turned to the monitor, where a slow, pulsing image showed Lian’s vitals.

“You want to make a family reunion out of this?” she muttered. “Fine.”

She tapped a button.

A file blinked onto the screen: PROJECT: RED CANARY
Status: Active
Target: Lian Harper
Authorization Level: Omega

A new operative stepped into the room.

Black boots. Red armor. A black mask with a red bird’s silhouette.

“Orders?” the figure asked.

Waller didn’t flinch.

“Find the girl. If she resists…”
She paused.
“…remind her who she used to be.”

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

Roy Harper didn’t sleep much anymore.

He hadn’t in years. Not since the day he held a child-sized casket and felt the world collapse beneath his feet.

He still heard Lian’s laugh in dreams. Still remembered her wild pigtails, her scraped knees, her stubborn grin.

And he remembered Waller.

The way she stood at the edge of the funeral. Hands folded. Eyes hollow.

As if she knew something no one else did.

---

“Roy.” Nightwing’s voice broke through the quiet.

He turned from the tower’s balcony, jaw clenched. “Dick. It’s late.”

“I know.” Nightwing hesitated. “That’s why I waited until we confirmed it.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “Confirmed what?”

Nightwing took a slow breath. “She’s alive, Roy. Lian. Your daughter.”

---

For a moment, Roy didn’t speak.

Didn’t move.

His face didn’t change.

Then, voice low:

“Say that again.”

“She was in a Waller black site. Jai West broke her out. Irey’s tracking them now.”

Roy’s bow was in his hands before Nightwing could blink.

“Where.”

“Roy—wait—”

“Where is she?!”

---

Meanwhile – Cabin Safehouse

Lian had stopped sleeping.

Every time she closed her eyes, she burned.

Memories came in sparks—needles, cold metal tables, a woman in glasses whispering “She doesn’t know what she is yet.”

And in between it all… a voice.

“You are fire. You are fury. And when the time comes… you will break the world to save it.”

She looked down at her hands.

Fingers that once held stuffed animals now crackled with restrained heat. Jai had wrapped them in gauze to keep the burns from worsening. He stayed near, watching over her like some kind of silent sentry.

“Do you feel it all the time?” she asked him.

He blinked. “What?”

“The Speed Force. That… hum inside you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Like a second heartbeat.”

She nodded. “This thing inside me… it’s louder than a heartbeat.”

She swallowed. “It’s a drum.”

---

Suddenly, the floor vibrated.

Jai stood up fast. “That’s not me.”

Lian’s eyes widened.

The door slammed open—splinters flying.

And Roy Harper stood there.

Older. Scarred. Worn.

But his bow was shaking in his hands.

And his eyes…

Tears already falling.

“Lian?” he whispered.

She didn’t move.

Then—like gravity broke—she ran.

Straight into his arms.

“Dad,” she choked out, clinging to him like she was six again.

He held her like she was life itself.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispered into her hair. “I felt it. I buried you.”

“They locked me away,” she said. “They made me something I didn’t want to be.”

Roy leaned back, cupped her face gently.

“You’re mine. That’s all you ever needed to be.”

---

Miles Away – Waller’s Strike Facility

The figure in red armor knelt.

“Target reacquired,” Red Canary said. “Harper has made contact.”

Waller stood behind a screen of swirling data. Her voice was colder than ice.

“Then it’s time.”

She pressed a code into the terminal.

A new file opened.
PROJECT VIGIL: INITIATE PHASE TWO
Protocol Name: Phoenix Echo
Objective: Trigger Lian Harper's transformation.

Waller looked toward the red dot on the map blinking over Titans Tower.

“They think they’re reuniting with a daughter,” she said, almost to herself.
“But they’re really welcoming a weapon.”

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

They moved Lian to Titans Tower the next morning.

Not because it was safe — because nowhere was safe anymore.
Not with Waller watching. Not with Red Canary on her trail.
Not with whatever was stirring inside Lian Harper’s chest.

---

The team stood waiting as the Titans jet landed.

Starfire hovered above the platform. Raven stood beside her, magic already dancing between her fingers. Nightwing leaned on his escrima sticks, watching the ramp open like a gunfighter at high noon.

Roy stepped out first. Then Lian.

She looked tiny next to him, wrapped in a hoodie three sizes too big.
But her eyes… her eyes were watching everything.

When she saw Raven, she flinched.

“She’s reading me,” Lian said quietly.

Raven’s voice was calm. “I’m making sure you’re not under control.”

“I’m not,” Lian snapped. “Not anymore.”

Jai was right behind her. “She saved herself. She’s not Waller’s.”

Raven tilted her head. “Not entirely.”

---

Inside the Tower, Lian was scanned, tested, analyzed. Raven tried to use magic to map the energy inside her — and almost passed out from the feedback.

“What is it?” Roy asked, pacing behind the medbay glass.

Raven’s voice shook. “It’s Lazarus energy… but weaponized. Like they cracked it open and shoved something else in. It’s not just resurrection anymore. It’s… amplification.”

Nightwing’s face darkened. “Waller tried to turn her into a living bomb.”

“No,” Raven said slowly. “She tried to turn her into a messiah.”

---

Flashback – Project Vigil Archives

Lian sat in a sterile chamber. Electrodes lined her scalp. Machines buzzed around her.

A doctor murmured: “Lazarus cells in perfect sync. Metagene is adapting. Emotional triggers accelerate power spikes.”

Then a voice over the intercom.

Waller.

“If we can shape the grief… we can shape the girl.”

---

Now

In her new room at the Tower, Lian stared at her reflection.
Ten years, and she barely recognized the face looking back.

The burns on her fingers had faded — not healed. Just vanished.
Jai sat beside her on the bed, silent for a long time.

“I think I’m broken,” she finally whispered.

Jai shook his head. “No. You were broken open. That’s not the same.”

She met his eyes.

“You think I’m still me?”

“I know you are.”

And for the first time in days — maybe years — Lian believed him.

Until the lights died.

---

Outside – Titans Tower, Perimeter Sensors

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Then:
INTRUDER ALERT

Red Canary dropped into the courtyard like a blade from heaven.
Silent. Unyielding. Her mask glowing red. Her staff humming with kinetic energy.

The Titans responded fast.

Starfire charged. Nightwing followed. Raven flared with shadow.

But Canary didn’t come for them.

She punched through the wall of Lian’s room like it was paper —
and pointed her staff straight at Lian’s chest.

“Come quietly,” she said. “Or Phase Two begins now.”

Lian stood.

No more hoodie.

No more fear.

Just a girl with fire behind her eyes — and ten years of rage crackling in her hands.

She raised her arms.

And the flames answered.

---

BOOM.

---

Outside the Tower, the entire sky turned red.

Roy screamed her name.

Jai bolted up the stairs.

But only Raven saw what happened in the moment the fire cleared—

Lian was floating.

Hair wild.

Eyes white-hot.

And behind her… a winged figure of fire, shaped like a phoenix, burned into existence.

Raven whispered one word:

“…Vigil.”

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

The air rippled with heat.

Every surface of Titans Tower vibrated like it was caught between two realities — one of flesh and one of fire.

Lian floated three feet off the ground.

The flaming wings behind her stretched impossibly wide.
Not magic. Not Speed Force.
Something older. Wilder.

Red Canary didn’t flinch.

She activated her staff — blue light clashing against the inferno. “You don’t have to fight,” she said, calm as a whisper. “You were never meant to burn alone. You were meant to lead.”

“Lead what?” Lian’s voice echoed through the walls.

Red Canary took a step forward. “The next generation of meta-humans. You were the prototype. The spark. Vigil.”

---

Elsewhere — Titans Command Center

Raven staggered as Lian’s power flared again.

“It’s not just Lazarus energy,” she said, gripping the edge of the console. “It’s bonded to her soul. She is the power source now.”

Roy slammed his fist against the console. “Tell me how to stop this.”

Nightwing looked grim. “Not stop. Reach her.”

Irey’s voice crackled over comms. “I’m with Jai. He’s trying to talk her down.”

Roy turned sharply. “Put him through.”

---

Lian’s Room — Ground Zero

Red Canary lunged.

Lian caught the staff mid-swing, bare-handed — and melted the steel.

Canary spun, struck Lian in the ribs, then leapt back —
But she wasn’t fighting to win.

She was testing her.

Lian’s body pulsed with fire. Her voice was low and raw. “You think you know what I am?”

“We do,” Canary said, voice almost mournful. “You’re the future Waller tried to bottle.”

“I’m not her weapon.”

“No. You’re her regret.”

---

Jai burst through the smoke.

“Lian, stop!” he yelled.

She turned to him. Her eyes flickered — fire to brown, then back again.

“Jai… I can’t. It’s pulling me.”

“I know,” he said. “But you’re stronger than it. You chose me. You chose to run. That means you’re still in control.”

Canary lunged again.

Lian didn’t even look at her — just flicked her wrist.

The impact tossed Red Canary across the room and through a wall.

---

Alarms blared.

Starfire, Raven, and Nightwing rushed in — weapons ready.

Roy pushed past all of them.

“Lian!” he shouted.

She turned.

And this time, she saw him. Not as a memory. Not as a dream.

As her father.

“Dad,” she whispered.

He stepped closer. “You’re not a weapon. You’re not their creation. You’re mine.”

She dropped to her knees, fire flickering out.

And for a heartbeat — everything was still.

---

Outside — Blackhawk Jet

Waller watched from high orbit, sipping coffee like it was just another day.

“They think they’ve saved her,” she muttered. “They have no idea what’s coming.”

Her aide stepped forward. “Do we abort Project Vigil?”

“No,” Waller said. “We accelerate it.”

She tapped a button.

A screen opened: dozens of red dots blinking across the globe.

“Begin activation of the others.”

PROJECT VIGIL
Status: ACTIVE
Subjects: 14
Command Mode: SLEEPER

Waller smiled thinly.

“Let’s see how many sparks it takes to start a war.”

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

Lian sat on the medbay floor long after the fire died.

Her hands were raw — not burned, but tense. Her fingers twitched every time she tried to relax them, like they still remembered the heat. Like they didn’t know how to not burn.

Jai sat beside her, cross-legged. He didn’t say anything at first.

He just let the silence stretch between them, warm but unspoken. The same way they’d shared tree forts and juice boxes as kids. The same way he used to hold her hand at the top of playground slides when she got scared.

Now he just watched her breathe — slow and shallow.

“You looked at me,” he said finally. “When you almost lost it — you looked at me.”

Lian nodded, her voice hoarse. “You reminded me who I was.”

Her shoulders shook once. She wasn’t crying — not fully — but there were tears in her eyes. Not from pain.

From remorse.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said. “But it was like… like there was something screaming inside me. Like I was just the match and it was waiting to catch.”

Jai gently placed his hand over hers. He could feel the faint heat still radiating from her skin. Like embers under ash.

“You didn’t lose yourself,” he whispered. “You fought it.”

Her fingers closed around his — hesitant at first, then firmer. Like holding on was the only thing anchoring her.

---

Meanwhile — Tower Infirmary

Red Canary lay strapped to a stasis table.

She was bruised but conscious, staring at the ceiling. Her mask was gone. Underneath, she looked young. Maybe eighteen. Dark hair. Sharp cheekbones.

And eyes that didn’t blink.

Donna Troy stood over her. “You were willing to die to take her in.”

Red Canary gave the faintest shrug. “We were taught not to fear death. Only disobedience.”

Donna’s jaw tightened. “What did Waller do to you?”

“She taught us that power without order is chaos,” Red Canary said. “And Lian Harper? She’s chaos in a crown of fire.”

---

Rooftop – Later That Night

Lian stood at the edge of the tower’s roof, wind tangling her hair.

Roy walked up slowly, his bootsteps quiet.

She didn’t look at him. “You should be scared of me.”

He stepped beside her. “I am.”

She blinked — surprised by his honesty.

He continued. “Not because you might lose control. Because of what they did to you. What they made you carry.”

Lian’s voice trembled. “I thought about you every day. Even when they tried to erase everything. I held onto one thing — your voice. I kept hearing you say: you’re braver than you know.”

Roy’s throat tightened. His eyes burned, but he didn’t let the tears fall.

“You were six,” he said. “And they buried you in a place I couldn’t reach. But you kept going. That’s not just brave — that’s heroic.”

She looked up at him, eyes shining.

“I don’t feel heroic. I feel broken.”

He wrapped his arms around her, gently this time — like she was made of ash and grief and still catching her breath.

“You get to be broken,” he whispered. “You get to be hurt. That doesn’t take away who you are.”

---

Across the World – Unknown Location

Four figures stood in a rain-slick alley.

Each of them had a red brand tattooed behind their ear — like a phoenix wing.

A girl in Seoul lit her fingertips with golden fire.
A boy in Berlin blinked — and the air around him froze.
A man in Brazil grinned, his eyes glowing green.

And a child no older than twelve levitated three inches off the ground, surrounded by sparks of raw electricity.

They looked up at the drone hovering above them.

A voice buzzed through its speaker:

“Project Vigil. Protocol Phoenix is now active. Await instructions.”

---

Back at Titans Tower

Raven burst into the main room, breath ragged.

“They’re waking up,” she said. “All of them. Vigil wasn’t about one subject. It was a network.”

Nightwing frowned. “How many?”

Raven’s jaw clenched. “Fourteen. And they’re coming online.”

Jai looked at Lian, still pale from the rooftop.

“You’re not the only one, are you?” he said softly.

Lian’s eyes dropped to the floor.

“No,” she whispered. “I was just the first.”

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

The moon hung low over Titans Tower, pale and distant.

Inside, Lian Harper sat alone in her room, knees pulled to her chest. The fire inside her flickered faintly beneath her skin — restless, like a caged flame.

Her fingers traced invisible patterns on the wall, a trembling whisper escaping her lips:

“Alice, Alice, heart and soul
Fell into a rabbit hole
Dreamers dream until they don’t
Lost her mind a while ago…”

The words weren’t just a rhyme. They were a memory — a curse — a fragment of the girl she once was, now buried beneath layers of pain and power.

Jai found her there, eyes shadowed with worry.

“You’re repeating that again,” he said softly.

Lian glanced up, eyes glinting with something like desperation. “It’s the only way I can hold on.”

“Alice, Alice, don’t you know?
Wonderland was all a hoax
Made it up so she could cope
Madder than a hatter Alice broke.”

Jai swallowed. “You’re not broken. You’re fighting.”

She laughed — brittle, broken.

“Fighting what? The past? The fire? The person staring back at me in the mirror?”

Her voice cracked. “I’m not just Lian Harper anymore. I’m… Alice. Lost in a maze I can’t escape.”

Jai reached out, fingers brushing her hair. “Alice or Lian — you’re both the same person. The one I’ve always known. The one worth saving.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe them away.

“I’m scared, Jai.”

He nodded. “Me too.”

---

Later, Titans War Room

Roy paced, voice low and fierce.

“Waller didn’t just lock lian away — she weaponized her pain. Made her mad on purpose.”

Nightwing frowned. “If this is a network… if there are others out there… what happens when they all break?”

Raven’s eyes darkened. “They won’t break. They’ll shatter. And what’s left will tear the world apart.”

Roy slammed his fist on the table. “Then we do whatever it takes to bring them home. To bring her home.”

---

Back in her room

Lian whispered the rhyme once more — almost a prayer.

“Alice, Alice, heart and soul
Fell into a rabbit hole…”

Her eyes closed.

And somewhere deep inside, the spark of hope still burned.

---

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

The sky above Blüdhaven turned red at 3:17 a.m.

Not because of fire — not yet — but because four other Vigil subjects made landfall, sent by Waller herself.

They didn’t knock.

They didn’t speak.

They just activated.

And the city screamed.

---

Titans Tower – Situation Room

“We’re too late,” Raven said, voice sharp with urgency. “They're already in Blüdhaven.”

Nightwing's jaw clenched. “That’s my city.”

“Then let’s take it back,” Roy growled, already slinging his bow over his shoulder.

Jai hovered near the edge of the room, watching Lian silently.

She wasn’t suiting up.

Wasn’t arguing.

Just… staring at her reflection.

Her face was pale. Her lips moved like they were speaking something only she could hear.

Jai took a cautious step forward. “You’re hearing the rhyme again, aren’t you?”

Lian blinked once, slowly.

“…It won’t stop.”

“Alice, Alice, don’t you know?
Wonderland was all a hoax…”

“Every time I close my eyes, it’s there. Whispering. Telling me to burn the world so it can’t hurt me again.”

She met his eyes. “I don’t know where I end and it begins.”

Jai took her hand. He could feel the faint buzz of power beneath her skin — restrained, barely.

“You do know. You remembered who you were when it mattered. Remember it now.”

She laughed bitterly. “You think I’m brave?”

“I know you are. Because even with everything they did… you still want to protect people.”

Silence stretched.

Then Lian nodded — once, firm.

She rose.

Her steps were slow, deliberate, like she was learning to walk again. But her spine was straight, her jaw set.

“I’m not Alice in Wonderland anymore,” she said. “I’m Lian Alice Harper.”

“And I’m done running.”

---

Blüdhaven – 4:03 a.m.

The city was chaos.

One Vigil subject — Phase Three — moved through buildings like a ghost, disintegrating everything they touched.

Another — Phase Five, the ice child — hovered above the streets, dropping shards of frozen atmosphere like glass rain.

A third, Phase Seven, simply stood in the center of the city square, eyes glowing with fire. Waiting.

The fourth?

Still unseen.

But watching.

Always watching.

---

Titans Arrival

Starfire and Donna Troy flew headfirst into the fray.

Nightwing led the ground team.

Roy’s arrows lit up the skyline — concussive, not lethal.

Jai darted between falling debris, trying to evacuate civilians, his mind split between speed and her.

Then everything stopped.

Because from the smoke and fire…

Lian walked into the square.

Hair tangled. Eyes steady.

The other Vigil subjects turned to her like moths sensing a rival flame.

She didn’t raise her fists.

She raised her voice.

“You were all made to be weapons,” she said, loud enough to echo off the glass.

“So was I.”

They paused.

“But we’re not machines. We’re people. And I know what it feels like to have everything ripped away — your name, your memories, your soul.”

“Alice, Alice, heart and soul…” she whispered under her breath.

Then louder: “But I crawled out of the hole. You can too.”

Phase Three — the ghost — blinked.

Phase Five faltered midair.

Phase Seven scowled. “We don’t want your pity.”

“I’m not offering it,” Lian said. “I’m offering a choice.”

Behind her, the Titans stood ready.

And in that moment, Lian Alice Harper wasn’t just the girl behind the door.

She was the door itself.

To salvation.

Or destruction.

---

And far away, in a bunker lined with screens…

Amanda Waller frowned.

“She’s not supposed to lead them.”

She turned to her aide.

“Prepare Phase Zero.”

---

To Be Continued…