Raven floated quietly down to the shore on the Titan's island and once she was close enough to the water, she sat on a boulder and opened her book. It was almost three in the morning, the stars where starting to dim but the sun hadn't raised yet and she had to hurry in order to make her spell work. In the past month she had been having recurring dreams, never fully comprehensible, to the point where she couldn't even tell if it really was the same dream, she just woke up some nights full of angst, and a sort of sorrow she couldn't quite explain and after when woke up, she couldn't go back to sleep no matter what. The dreams were starting to worry her now, since her meditation, chants, or even her herbal teas and potions didn't have any effect on them, and since she couldn't control them each time she had one of them her powers got little bit out of order, and each time she was feeling the effects were getting worse.
She had been hiding everything from her friends up until now. As long as the ritual she was performing that night worked, there was nothing to worry about really and she didn't want to trouble them. She read the book thoughtfully, as she was intrigued by it too. It had appeared in one of her drawers, next to some of her regular incantation manuals, but she couldn't remember having it before; at first she didn't pay attention to it, her books tended to disappear and reappear freely as long as she didn´t need them, and this particular one was a small, simple book, with just a couple of enchantments in it, most of which raven already knew or had heard of. It wasn't until a week back that she remembered that she had seen a different kind of spell on the book, one to open a door to a dark realm which the book pointed out as "the source of dreams". She had been on trips to her subconscious mind before, but even there she did not find any clues about her new dreams; even so, the spell for this dark realm was supposedly a place where all dreams and all minds join, a collective unconsciousness of some sort, and it was her last resort to find any answers.
She checked everything for the ritual was ready: she was at the time of the night when stars didn't shine and neither did the sun; she was on land, yet near water; she had a pouch of ashes which she poured in a circle in the rock in front of her, then she levitated with the book in her hands and chanted while meditating:
"Ianuam at servus apertum, et dominus magnus in nix urbs habitat. Admitte me in tui oppidum, et meum somnii devora. Certe laudus et magnus etsis. ¡Oh Karutimus!"
As she shouted the last part, the ash circle expanded and started to rise up like it was trapped in a strong gust. Quikcly the circle grew larger and larger, surpassing the area of the boulder and Raven had to move back in order to avoid being swallowed by the vortex. Inside the circle, floating in midair, a sort of pitch black pool was forming; Raven stood up to look inside it, but the portal didn't seem ready yet. The circle of ashes was began to stabilize again after a couple of minutes, and Raven was about to try jumping into it when she started to hear the sounds of running footsteps coming from inside, as well as what seemed to be a swordfight. She grabbed the book again with one hand, looking for the way to lose the portal, and with the other hand she prepared her magic to attack anything that might come out of the black pool. Daylight appeared on the city bay, just glimpsing over the water, but the sun wasn't visible yet. Raven started to close the portal:
"Ostium…" But she was interrupted as three figures jumped out of the magical gate, dissolving the circle as they passed and leaping away between the shadows of the rocky beach and incredible speed. She flew after them as fast as she could, they looked like cats or some sort of four legged creature, swift and large. As far as Raven could tell, they were chasing one another and they moved in a strange way across the beach, as if they jumped over the rocks sometimes, and others jumped through them without breaking them, they just jumped into the shadow of a rock and reappeared out of another shadow further ahead. She tried catching them or lifting them with her powers, but as she tried to do it she felt as though her energy was repelled from the creatures bodies and she felt a slight sting in her body afterwards.
"Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos!" She yelled as half of the rocks son the beach raised from the ground, covered in black energy, and trapped the creatures in a sphere-shaped prison. The alarm on the Titan's Tower went off and in a minute the rest of the Titans where on the beach.
"What happened Raven? Are you all right?" Starfire asked as soon as they saw her.. Raven had the huge ball of rocks levitating in midair with her powers, trying to prevent the creatures from jumping out.
"I'll explain later." She said. "Right now there is something in these rocks that we must not let get away." She felt her energy failing, her concentration too, the creatures inside her trap where giving her the same kind of unbalance her dreams gave her, and she could feel them trying to escape. Her friends saw what happened and quickly prepared themselves for when the rocks fell apart and whatever was inside of them came out; they surrounded the mass of rock just in time for Raven to let it drop, revealing nothing between the boulders and smaller stones. The creatures had escaped, just as Raven suspected, but she didn't want to believe what she felt until she saw it. She felt tired, frustrated and guilty, and sat slowly on the ground as her friends, still in their pajamas, came to hear from her what had happened.