Author's note: This story takes place not too long after "The End". Just wanted to make that one clear. Though this does involve Malchior don't expect Raven to fall sobbing hysterically into Beastboy's arms by the end, because she isn't going to. If there is any shipping it will be what the reader draws from it. Personally I don't mind BB/Rae, but this isn't a shipping fic. So you can hit the "Back" button now if that's what you came for-- but it is pretty good, I suggest you at least take a look.

Prologue

Malchior was fuming. Fuming was one of the few things he had become really good at in his one thousand year imprisonment inside a book. Fuming, and the arts. To keep his sanity he would amuse himself by rearranging the letters on the pages the book contained to form any story or drawing he willed it to be. For the first few centuries or so if one had opened the book one would have found gruesome drawing of a certain wizard dying horribly, with elegant little legends such as "Here lies the sadly necessary profanity at this point who deserves to rot at the bottom of the Themes." Now he had turned his artistic talent to Raven-- but that was not the only thing he was doing.

Malchior was plotting. He was a good plotter, and had time to kill. His situation a thousand years earlier had been hopeless, really-- he was in the hands of highly trained monks who knew at least thirty ways to slaughter him even if he did manage to escape. Eventually he had changed hands to Azarath, and then the first spark of hope tickled his draconic being. The Azarathians did not know who he was, and merely shelved him in a dismal corner. Malchior waited for decades then, but it was a hopeful wait now. All he needed was a stupid apprentice to pluck him off the shelf, and he was free.

From inside his prison Malchior could not "see" anything, but he could sense particularly powerful beings as well as hear. He knew he would be freed as soon as the cursed girl touched his binding and shoved him a trunk. He could sense her power-- great power that he had thought to be long gone from the realm of mortals.

And then she and her friends had ruined it all.

Malchior had one last spark of hope. When she had recaptured him, the incantation had been hurried. Though it was sufficient to trap him, he could feel the subtle cracks in the spell, places where the right words could shatter through. All he needed was somebody to say them, and he could force his way out. When he did he would make sure Raven and her friends died. Horribly. And he had something nasty planned this time-- he would make sure the Titans died at her own hands. All he needed was a certain item back where he once had a home, and they would suffer as he had.

Malchior sensed the half-breed leave the house with quiet elation. The Tameranian, Firestar, (or was it Starfire?) was accompying her on some outing or another. He had overheard that much using a probe. The cracks, he had been delighted to learn, allowed him to slip out low level spells. He had been monitoring the Titan's goings and comings for some time now as he had touched up his plan and learned what was needed of the outside world. This was just what he wanted.

The dragon waited until the girl's power failed to register on his senses before acting. He sent out a tiny telepathic pulse. Malchior was working on the assumption that the shapeshifter's brain was susceptible to outside forces. Really, the shapeshifter was the only one he had any hope of "suggesting" things to; Raven and Robin were both to strong of will to be swayed by magic alone, the cyborg's electronic brain was immune to magic, and the Tameranian's nervous system differed just enough from what he was accustomed to that persuasion was impossible.

Malchior sent out another pulse and waited.

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Not much action here, but it is just the prologue, after all. Review if you dare.