The fight between Robin and Wally was a cutting, agonizing split in the tense veneer of Young Justice. The air itself in the training hall, already charged with unspoken sorrow and irritation, congealed into a tangible tension that stifled any more talk. Aqualad's firm, exhausted intervention silenced the immediate verbal aggression, but the harm was done. Their foundation cracks, long foreshadowed by Klarion's subtle manipulation and the League's constant watchfulness, had opened further, threatening to cleave the team permanently.
The succeeding days were filled with a choking silence. The familiar boisterous sounds of camaraderie – the taunting jibes, the laughter shared during idle moments, the coordinated efforts amid practice drills – were noticeably missing. Every member drew himself even deeper into himself, constructing walls of hurt that stood taller and thicker than any defensive fortification. The collective sense of purpose, which was once a burning fire, now smoldered miserably, being suffocated by the freezing shackles of loneliness.
Robin, his expression a mask of unbreakable aloofness, spent all his waking time in the Cave's computer lab. He immersed himself in advanced algorithms, trying to discover a rational explanation for the madness that had taken Conner, and to create technical countermeasures against magic. He only spoke in brief, analytical outbursts, his sentences lacking warmth and compassion. He had no more interactions with Wally, replaced instead by a chilly, calculated avoidance. He saw emotional outbursts as liabilities, unwarranted detours from the rational road to success, and Wally's unedited sorrow was, in his opinion, exactly that.
Wally, sensing the heavy weight of his unspoken grief and Robin's carefully maintained distance, was a ghost in the Cave. His super-speed, once a happy display of unlimited energy, now seemed a curse, allowing him to cover the wide distances of the Cave in seconds, but unable to shed the crushing silence that accompanied him. He ran more, faster, harder, until his muscles throbbed and his lungs were scorched, trying to race ahead of the gnawing despair and the vision of Conner's bestial transformation. He trained alone, ate alone, his customary catchy energy eclipsed by a leaden, deep sadness that even speed could not outrun.
Aqualad, watching the disintegration of his team, felt the crushing burden of his leadership. He tried to close the gap between Robin and Wally, to restore a fresh feeling of solidarity, but his attempts were unsuccessful. His orders, which were once so easily followed, now seemed like empty, echoing commands in the great halls. He frequently conferred with Michael and Zatanna, the weight of his own choices bearing down on him. The tension started to emerge, his normal tone of calm replaced by a haunted fatigue. He drove himself mercilessly in training, as if by sheer dint of willpower, he could repair the broken allegiances of his team.
M'Gann, her empathic powers a double-edged sword, wrestled terribly with the omnipresent discord. The constant barrage of sorrow, frustration, and cold distance from her comrades filled her mind with a cacophony of bad feelings. She attempted to extend herself telepathically, to comfort, to repair the broken links, but the walls of grief and anger were too dense. The experience was overwhelming, making her vulnerable and ever more isolated in her own mind. She spent more time in her room, trying to keep up her mental fences against the barrage of their shared pain, her active personality dwindling under the weight of their unspoken tension.
Artemis, pragmatist that she was, and she was fiercely independent, noted the widening gulf with a cynical silence. Having never been one to indulge in emotional closeness, the team's outward fragmentation reinforced her own carefully built walls. She trained with precise exactness, her arrows hitting home, but her attention was more on her own proficiency rather than team chemistry. She was convinced that ultimately, they could only trust themselves, and this perceived flaw in their solidarity only reinforced her determination to be independent. She made no grand overtures, no efforts at intervention, merely a steady, observant distance.
Michael and Zatanna, knowing the League's quiet monitoring and well attuned to Klarion's patterns, recognized the real insidiousness of the division riling the team. They recognized the fissures in the foundation, not as artifacts of trauma, but as a direct result of the chaos lord's residual influence, insidious suggestions bolstered by their grief and distrust.
"He's doing what he pleases," Zatanna spoke to Michael one night, observing Robin quietly analyzing information in the computer lab, while Wally cycled wires in the practice hall, never meeting. "He's creating their suffering out of division."
Michael nodded, his eyes serious. "Chaos feeds on discord. It dissolves cohesion.". He's not only attacking them physically; he's destroying them from inside, taking advantage of their very humanity." He felt a deep sense of hopelessness. His Libriomancy was all about exercising control, about remolding stories. But how could one reauthor the story of deeply rooted loss and suspicion that Klarion had so masterfully spun into the fabric of their squad? The hush inside the Cave, oppressive and crushing, was a chorus of Klarion's treacherous triumph, proof of the cost of disunity. The unspoken charge, the broken faith, hung over Young Justice like a guillotine, waiting to dissolve them entirely, leaving them exposed to the hidden war Klarion had really unleashed. Their course of action now had to be resolute, not merely against outside threats, but against the very forces that sought to destroy them from within.