Brotherhood

Chapter 1: Blackest Night

"So, it looks like everyone's arrived, Slade," Brother Blood said with an oily tone as he sat at the long table across from The Brain and Monsieur Mallah. "Mind telling us just what the hell we're all here for?"

Slade's single eye narrowed in amusement, moving from Blood to The Brain and the rest of the former Brotherhood of Evil's leadership and then finally to a tall, well-built man in a suit with long black hair and sharp, unearthly red eyes. Slade felt like a general surveying the ranks of an army months in the making that was finally complete, and he could hardly wait to let them loose on their shared enemy: the Teen Titans.

"That should be quite obvious, Brother," Slade replied easily. "Each of us has been stopped by the Titans and their allies in the past, and I, for one, am tired of it. I have a proposal for each of you, my friends: we must join our talents and strengths together, and use our combined might to utterly crush the Titans once and for all."

Silence settled over the group at Slade's words, but it was broken soon enough by the well-dressed man sitting at the other end of the table.

"Rousing words, Slade," he spoke, his voice deep and gravelly, "but I know best of all of us that a throne only holds one person. And I also know from experience that if there's one person alive who absolutely cannot be trusted, it is you."

"I can understand your misgivings, Trigon," Slade countered, leaving off the 'Lord' from the demon's name just to grate with him even more, "but you should also know from experience that alone, none of us have the strength individually to destroy the Titans. And if you wish to regain your former strength, that is what must come to pass; am I wrong?"

Trigon was silenced by the rebuke, and returned to stewing in anger. He had been relegated to this pathetic shadow of his former self ever since his daughter had turned her back on him. The demon lord was damned by his own prophecy: as long as Raven lived, so would he, but only in this weakened form.

Until, of course, he tore open her chest and devoured her heart, taking with it the power that rightfully belonged to him. And if allying with these weakened beings was what it took to bring about that end, then so be it.

"And what exactly does the Brotherhood of Evil stand to gain from this, Slade?" Brain questioned, his voice as terse and sharp as ever. "If you expect us to share power with anyone, you're out of your mind."

Slade chuckled, utterly unmoved by the implied threat.

"The Brotherhood of Evil was annihilated, Brain, do you not remember?" Slade taunted, with sly malice dripping from his every word. "If it hadn't been for me digging up you and your frozen comrades and thawing you out, you'dd still be sitting deep underground in suspended animation. Take what I'll be willing to give you after the conquest is done and be grateful for it, or I can easily arrange for your shattered Brotherhood to go back to the hell the Titans trapped you in."

Madame Rouge tensed at the insult and looked like she was about ready to lunge across the table, but Mallah stopped her with one massive arm.

"He's right, as much as I hate to admit it," the gargantuan gorilla ceded. "As we stand now, it would be useless to go against the Titans, and it would take far too long to rebuild our legion. To say nothing of the fact that most of them are behind bars or dead, anyway."

"Enough blabbering," General Immortus broke in suddenly, pounding an aged fist down on the table. "We all seem to be in agreement that this alliance—such as it is—is a necessity for finally putting each of those wretched little shits in the ground. So why don't we stop repeating ourselves and start thinking of a plan?"

"Indeed," The Brain chimed in at last, his metallic monotone still managing to sound menacing. "Would not a frontal assault be the simplest course of action?"

"The simplest and most direct, absolutely," Slade replied evenly, "but also the least likely to succeed. Ever since my failed attack on the Tower when Terra was my agent in the Titans' ranks, their security has been tripled. No matter how many drones we can throw against them, if the Titans are forewarned in any way, all we're going to come away with will be an incredibly costly defeat."

"Well, there's an easy fix to that, isn't there?" Mallah countered. "Just use long-range bombardment to level their Tower completely in a matter of minutes."

"That won't work, either," Trigon said, his voice sending brief shivers down the spines of everyone present, save Slade and The Brain, "for the same reason that a swarm attack would fail. What I fail to understand, myself, is why all of you are looking at this as a campaign of physical warfare."

General Immortus arched a single eyebrow at the leading statement, his strategic mind immediately comprehending the demon's thoughts.

"You mean to say that a psychological strike would be more effective, Trigon?" the old man parried. "Possible, but also unlikely; if there's anything these little maggots have been shown to have in spades, it's determination in the face of the odds stacked against them. I believe you yourself stand as an excellent example of this, Sir."

"Maybe so, human," Trigon shot back, his eyes narrowing in anger, "but I believe you are simply failing to see the forest for the trees. The Titans are no different from any organization of humans or metahumans that has ever existed, or will ever exist: they are an instinctual beast reined in by a single, unifying and charismatic leader. Kill the leader— chop off the beast's head— and its fangs will never be able to harm you again."

The cabal of villains paused to consider the proposal for a moment, and it was Mallah who broke the silence.

"So in essence, you're proposing a kamikaze strike, in the hopes of overwhelming the Titans long enough to kill Robin? I won't deny that it could work; but where, Trigon, is the guarantee that such a loss on the Titans' end would counter-balance our own inevitable casualties?"

"Are you implying that you would actually care about any losses we might suffer, you overgrown simian?" Brother Blood sneered, provoking a snarl from Mallah. "Such weakness is unbecoming. I agree with Lord Trigon: if we can deliver a blow crippling enough to the Titans before they are fully prepared for our resurgence, it's a chance worth taking. Besides, if this goes well enough, we might be able to kill them all in one fell swoop: all we would have to do would be keep our strike force small enough to avoid detection until the last possible moment. I doubt there is anyone here who would be opposed to that method of attack, am I wrong?"

"Not at all, Brother," Slade answered, his eye narrowing beneath his mask. "I only demand that I be given the right to fight Robin alone; no one else may interfere."

Brother Blood chuckled.

"That's fine by me, Slade, as long as I'm allowed the same privilege where Cyborg is concerned. That cretin owes me for every day I spent reconstructing myself."

"You mortals can do as you like," Trigon broke in gruffly, his eyes narrowing, "provided that my daughter falls to me."

"Leaving us with the Tamaranean and the Changeling," The Brain concluded shortly, "and almost two of us for each of them, seeing as how I will remain here monitoring all of you. As such, the odds of our victory are incredibly close to one-hundred percent."

As the plan became more and more concrete in the villains' minds, the animosity in the air between them turned into focused bloodlust.

"Well, if we're all sold on this plan, what the hell are we waiting for?" Madame Rouge spoke up brusquely from her seat. Slade nodded in turn, rising from his own chair as the rest of the new Brotherhood of Evil followed suit.

"Shall we?"

Beast Boy found himself wandering through the halls of Titans' Tower as the moon hung high in the sky, nothing on his mind except irritation at not being able to sleep and the nagging feeling that something was wrong. As he made his way up and out onto the roof, Beast Boy saw that he wasn't the only one suffering from a bout of insomnia.

"So, you couldn't sleep either, Raven?" he asked as he walked up to stand beside her, and the empath shook her head in the negative.

"Nightmare," she said flatly after a moment. "It feels like that little piece of himself Trigon left behind is getting rebellious again. But I know that's not your reason, so what're you doing up?"

Beast Boy just shrugged.

"Couldn't sleep."

Raven could read Beast Boy's emotions well enough to know that 'Couldn't sleep' meant 'I had another dream about Terra', but she didn't press the issue. The shape-shifter had been despondent for the better part of the month, and would still get touchy whenever someone so much as mentioned her name.

But Raven knew what it was like to lose someone so close, and didn't want to re-open any of her friend's old wounds.

"I got a bad feeling, Raven," Beast Boy said after a few moments. "Y'know when that tsunami hit Indonesia a while back, and there were all those stories about the elephants getting the hell out of there early because they could tell something was coming?"

Raven nodded.

"Yeah," she answered. "Their instincts told them something was wrong with the environment. Why, is that what you're feeling right now?"

"Uh huh," Beast Boy affirmed with a short nod. "On an epic scale."

The pair stood and gazed up at the moon, each looking for their own answer to their own question and finding nothing. The last two years had brought about a number of changes in the Titans: members had been gained and lost, battles had been fought and won, but sometimes at great cost. The honorary Titans that had helped in the final battle against the Brotherhood of Evil had all left to return to their respective cities. After all, they were all concerned more about the safety of their hometowns than about Jump City, which already had the five original Titans looking after it. Slade hadn't been heard from since Beast Boy had thrashed the drone he'd sent to torment the Titan, but Robin always kept one ear to the ground in case the maniac decided to show up again.

So Jump City had remained peaceful, but the Titans knew better than anyone that a period of peace wasn't bound to last long in a world like theirs.

"It's a hunter's moon out tonight," a new, unknown voice broke in suddenly, and was joined by another that replied.

"Indeed; as good a witness for a massacre as ever there was."

The two Titans spun around sharply to see whom the intruders were, and gasped silently in horror as they recognized the imposing form of Monsieur Mallah. The other figure was cloaked in the shadows, but all it took were four red eyes flashing briefly on his face for Raven to feel like the Earth had opened up beneath her feet.

"No…" the empath forced out past her despair, and the incarnation of her father simply laughed as he walked towards her.

"Oh, yes," the demon lord quipped viciously, before hurling a spear of fire at his daughter. Raven rolled hard to the left to avoid the attack, but was faced with another one screaming towards her as soon as she got to her feet. There was no way she could dodge this one, and it slammed right into her chest. Thrown backwards off of her feet and reflexively coughing up a stream of dark blood, Raven flew over the edge of the roof and began a freefall downwards. As she fell, however, the looming humanoid form of her father appeared over her with his fist cocked back.

"Where do you think you're going, child?" he asked with a savage grin, bringing his fist forward and ramming it into the spot where his previous attack had connected. The last thing Raven felt before she blacked out from the pain was several of her ribs snapping like matchsticks under the strain, and then all that remained was the mute darkness of oblivion.

Back atop the Tower, Beast Boy was struggling against Mallah and felt his strength flagging more and more by the minute.

"Why won't you just stay down?!" the shape-shifter yelled in fury, and Mallah gave a deep, rumbling laugh.

"What's wrong, little changeling?" he taunted. "Are you so incapable of fighting someone with an actual intellect? Just as I thought; when someone can see through your brute force and blind fury, you have nothing left. How pathetic."

"Shut the hell up!" Beast Boy roared back, tapping into his primal anger and transforming into large predator after large predator. But the lion's bite was too slow, the tiger's paw strike too short-reaching, and the velociraptor ultimately too frail to stand up to Mallah's devastating right hook.

"God damn it!" Beast Boy cursed in anger and frustration as he lay almost facedown on the cement, propped up on one broken arm and one that was barely being held in place by a dislocated shoulder.

"I'm afraid he can't help you now, boy," Mallah countered bluntly, looming over his prey. "And here I was thinking I would have to call in Immortus for backup… how the old Brotherhood lost to trash like you in the first place, I have no idea."

The gorilla brought his foot down hard on Beast Boy's back, and the shape-shifter screamed in agony as he felt his vertebrae being forced out of alignment.

"Huh," he vaguely heard Mallah grunt, "you're still in one piece? Impressive, for a runt."

Beast Boy knew as well as his attacker that the next strike would at best paralyze him from the stomach down, and at worst split him completely in two. As he felt his limbs growing lighter, his own blood pooling against his cheek, there was a single face in the Titan's mind:

"Terra…"

Brother Blood made his way assuredly through the halls of Titans Tower, feeling a lingering sense of disappointment. He'd expected breaking into the Tower to at least be a challenge, and maybe rouse the Titans into a fight. But after all of the new Brotherhood's preparations, the security system had turned out to be absurdly simple to crack. Biometrics and voice recognition? Did the Titans think they'd never be fighting a shape-shifter like Madame Rouge ever again?

It was just ridiculous.

"Oh, Cyborg," the half-mechanical telepath lamented as he walked into Cyborg's room at last and faced down the sleeping teen, "how the mighty have fallen, indeed. I expected so much better from you, and you've done nothing but disappoint me."

As he reached out with a red cybernetic arm and prepared to spear it through his enemy's chest, Cyborg jerked suddenly to life from a cold start and lashed out with a hard jab.

"You really need to learn when to shut up, Blood," the Titan growled and he advanced, following up his first strike with a hard uppercut.

"I don't know how you pulled yourself back together, but that doesn't matter," Cyborg said, both of his eyes blazing with hatred and determination. "I took you apart once, and I can do it again!"

Blood took in a shaky breath as Cyborg backed off for a moment to charge up his arm-cannon, surprised by the strength of his former student's assault.

"You sound so sure of yourself, boy," he forced out, smiling as he felt his circuits re-wiring and repairing themselves as he spoke. "But you forget that a skilled combatant always adapts to new situations, Cyborg; if you think I never thought to upgrade myself since our last fight, you're sorely mistaken."

A pair of red laser beams hit Cyborg simultaneously, before he could even register Blood's movements. As he flew back into the wall with a crash, Cyborg saw Blood turning his dual arm-cannons back into talon-like metallic hands.

"Too easy," Blood sneered, leaping forward and punching the rest of the way through the twin wounds his earlier attack had inflicted. Cyborg retched as pain lanced along his nerves and his circuitry began to scramble, oil and blood mingling as it ran from the gaping wounds down onto the floor.

"What's wrong, Cyborg?" Blood taunted cruelly as he yanked his hands out and struck again and again and again, grinning with manic glee as he finally got his revenge. "Why don't you fight back? You can't, can you!? That's because you're weak and inexperienced, boy! You were never worthy to stand against me, let alone stand by my side!

"And now," the older man said with a sigh as he stepped back and looked over the twisted wreckage he'd turned Cyborg into, "I'm finally going to correct my greatest failure."

Pointing one of his arm cannons right at Cyborg's head, the weary Titan could only look blankly into the black, gaping maw of the weapon in front of him. Brother Blood's human eye clouded over for a brief moment with something akin to regret, but it vanished as soon as it had come.

"Goodbye, Cyborg."

The sound of the energy discharge echoed weakly in the small room, and then all was silent.

The sounds of a fight breaking out in Cyborg's room awoke Robin with a start. He was on his feet an instant later, bo-staff in hand.

"Star, get up," he said urgently, but the Tamaranean that had been lying next to him moments before was slow to rouse herself.

"What is wrong, Robin?" she asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning. When she saw the look Robin shot her way, though, Starfire was immediately on edge.

"We're under attack," the leader of the Titans said with stone-cold seriousness as he headed for the door, Starfire following close behind him. As they stepped out into the hallway, the pair was confronted at once by a duel in progress. Slade was exchanging blows with Beast Boy, and clearly had the upper hand.

"Slade!" Robin shouted, charging forward and engaging his nemesis at once. "Starfire, get Beast Boy out of here!" he called back to his teammate, frowning when he saw how hesitant she was to leave him behind.

"Damn it, Starfire, that's an order!" he repeated. "I can handle Slade; you worry about Beast Boy!"

Starfire nodded and scooped the injured shape-shifter into her arms, racing down the hallway in a burst of flight. As he saw her get away, Robin switched his focus entirely to the man in front of him.

"Slade," he hissed with venom in his voice. "I knew you weren't gone for good."

"Of course not, Robin," Slade replied in his usual smug monotone, effortlessly parrying a punch and giving his former apprentice a spinning heel-kick to the chest in return. "Did you think I would ever stop hunting the Titans? Did you ever think I would stop hunting you?"

Robin smiled through his pain, readying his bo-staff for a second round of blows.

"Right back at you, Slade," he quipped, and Slade chuckled darkly before the two of them clashed once again.

"You're not worried about her?" the older warrior said during a deadlock, his eye narrowing. "I'm not the only one who came here tonight, Robin. If the girl gets ambushed by my colleagues, in particular Trigon, I can't guarantee they'll let her live."

Robin's eyes widened at the name of Raven's father, but he forced himself to stay focused on the duel at hand.

"Trigon?" he asked sharply. "What the hell are you talking about, Slade? Trigon's dead; Raven stopped him last year!"

Slade just laughed, sweeping a staff strike away with one arm and lashing out with the other. The punch caught Robin in the sternum, and the Titan stumbled slightly backwards. Rather than follow up his attack, though, Slade took the opportunity to keep screwing with his former apprentice's head.

"You really thought a being as powerful and tenacious as Trigon could really be completely destroyed by something like that, Robin?" he asked. "Come now, we both know you're not really that naïve. His power might have been broken, but it is by no means extinguished. And once he kills Raven and absorbs her essence, he'll be restored to close to his original strength."

"Like I'd let that happen, Slade!" Robin seethed, launching another volley of blows with renewed fury.

"Like you could stop it, Robin," Slade countered calmly as he dodged every blow. "Which reminds me: Trigon spoke recently about his need to father a new heir… yes, I believe it would be safe to say that the Tamaranean's fate will be far worse than death if Trigon finds her."

The leader of the Titans felt his vision tunnel with pure rage as the implications of Slade's words wrapped themselves around his mind, losing all pretense of control as he lunged at his nemesis with reckless abandon.

"So, you're still an amateur after all," Slade said with mocking dismissal as he sidestepped a desperate strike and took Robin's leading arm into a hold, breaking it with a swift jerk upwards. "I wonder what Lady Shiva would think if she saw you now, Robin. What a disgraceful student for such an illustrious teacher."

"That's in the past, Slade," Robin said coldly, seemingly unfazed by the arm hanging limp and useless at his side. "I left that part of me behind in Gotham when I came here."

"Really, now?" Slade pressed. "I'm sure your father would be so displeased to hear you say that, Robin. But then again, Batman isn't your real father, is he? I wonder what John Grayson would think if he saw you now, Richard."

Robin stopped dead in his tracks as he heard those two names, two of his most closely-guarded secrets. His name, and the name of his murdered biological father.

"How…" he gasped out, struggling to keep his mind focused and block out his emotional shock. "How do you know those names?"

Slade's eye narrowed maliciously, and he gave an almost carefree laugh.

"What do you mean, 'How do I know those names', Richard? I've known them since the day your parents fell off of that sabotaged high-wire eleven years ago. Do you know why, Richard?

"It's because I was the person that mobster Zucco hired to do the job."

The revelation hit Robin like bullets to the chest, and he couldn't even move himself to react as Slade struck out once more with another punch. Blow after blow connected with his body, but Robin was beyond feeling any pain.

Slade? Slade had killed his parents? Slade had damned him into the hell of being an orphan with no home, a fate he had only been saved from by the miraculous intervention of his foster father, Batman? All this time, Slade had looked him in the eyes without even flinching? He had forced him to become his goddamn apprentice, taught him like his own heir, even as Slade knew what he had done to destroy his new student's life?

It just didn't make any sense. It was too twisted for Robin's mind to even begin to understand, let alone try to discover the reason why. As the pain screaming in his bruised and beaten body finally called him back into the present, Robin was barely aware of a hand resting on top of his head, while another cupped his chin.

"I'm sorry things had to end this way between us, Robin," Slade said softly, the only other sound in the hallway that of blood dripping down from Robin's smashed nose onto the floor.

"I'll see you in hell, Slade," Robin said faintly, only to be greeted by another breathy chuckle.

"My dear Robin," he said, "I'm already there."

With that, the villain moved his hands with practiced smoothness in opposite directions, and the crack of Robin's neck bounced weakly off the walls as the leader of the Teen Titans slumped to the ground, unmoving.

Starfire felt her heart clutch for a moment and she stopped in midair, her eyes going wide. She didn't know how or why, but her spirit screamed from inside her that something terrible had just happened to the boy she cared so deeply for.

"Starfire, what's wrong?" Beast Boy asked hesitantly, and the Tamaranean was silent for several moments before replying.

"I fear that Robin is in horrible danger, Beast Boy," she said gravely. "Forgive me, but I must make sure he is all right!"

As she began to fly away, she was stopped again; this time, by the sudden feeling of Beast Boy's hand around her wrist.

"No, Starfire," he pleaded, "you can't go! Robin stayed behind so that we could get somewhere safe. We can't just let his death be for nothing!"

Starfire felt her anger turn to suspicion at her teammate's words, and turned to face Beast Boy with narrowed eyes.

"How are you so sure he is dead, Beast Boy?"

"I'm not sure, Starfire," the shape-shifter shot back at once, "but right now doesn't look like a time to be optimistic, does it?!"

That all-but confirmed the Tamaranean's doubts, and she powered up a starbolt in her hand as he eyes began to glow.

"Beast Boy would never use such elevated vocabulary at a time like this," she said sternly. "Explain yourself; who are you?"

A cruel smirk that seemed incredibly out of place on Beast Boy's face twisted his lips, and Starfire felt the sudden urge to run away as fast as she could. It went against her pride as a warrior, but her survival here was much more important. Before she could move to get away, though, Starfire felt a sharp stab of agony and all of the air was forced from her lungs. Looking down, she saw with shock that four razor-sharp, black-gloved fingers had pierced her abdomen. Turning slowly back around, she watched mutely as Beast Boy's figure twisted and shifted to become that of Madame Rouge.

"You figured it out after all," she said sultrily. "Unfortunately, a little too late."

Starfire fell to the ground as the spear-like fingers retracted, but was halfway to her feet a heartbeat later. She stopped, however, when a communicator at Madame Rouge's hip crackled to life.

"This is Slade," an emotionless voice seeped through the speaker. "I'm finished here. If any of you aren't already standing over a Titan's corpse, pull back and regroup. Once the survivors rally, they're going to attack with that much more ferocity."

Starfire felt the words of her enemy against her eardrum, but she didn't feel them: her heart was somewhere else entirely in that moment.

"Robin…" she whispered, stricken by the reality Slade seemed to be reporting. "No…"

"I'm afraid so, darling," Madame Rouge said smugly, nothing in her voice but spite. "All those times they fought in the past, Slade had a reason to keep that boy alive. But now, there's nothing like that holding him back. Now, we've finally decided to stop messing around and take you slime seriously.

"The Teen Titans won't see the sunrise."

Starfire's disbelief and anguish had combined to form an overwhelming torrent of rage, one that had been building and building in strength since Madame Rouge had begun her gloating victory speech. The villainess' final words pushed the Tamaranean over the edge, and Starfire gave an inhuman warcry at the same time she struck out at Rouge with a bone-shattering punch. It connected soundly with Rouge's ribcage, right above the heart. Carried by the most righteous fury she'd ever felt in her life, Starfire sped back down the hall to where she'd last seen Robin.

When she got there, what she saw made her drop to her knees, and she wept openly for the first time since her childhood.

Raven couldn't see anything. She couldn't move her arms or legs, either. But she could feel them, which meant she was alive. But if she was alive, then where was she?

"Somewhere safe, my child."

The maternal, nurturing voice pulled Raven's gaze over to the left, where she saw a form standing that she hadn't seen in years.

"Mother?" Raven asked softly, scarcely able to believe it. Arella nodded, a sad smile on her face. "What are you doing here?"

The adoptive member of Azarath laughed, and Raven felt her spirits begin to lift just from the sound.

"What, you thought your father was the only person who gave you power, Raven? I happened to place in a few safeguards of my own; I'm not totally ignorant of magic, I'll have you know."

Raven's eyes narrowed at the mention of Trigon, her voice hardening to flint.

"That monster is not my father, mother," she spat. But Arella just shook her head.

"Yes, Raven," she insisted, "unfortunately, he is. And you cannot simply ignore that side of yourself forever: if you do that, you will never understand it, and if you never understand it, you will never be able to defeat him once and for all. As long as you push that part of yourself away, you give Trigon an anchor to hold onto in this world."

Arella's daughter was silent for a moment, taking in her mother's words. But as she went to speak, Raven saw that the image of her mother was beginning to fade away.

"Mother, wait—!" she called out, but Arella waved her back.

"We can speak again some other time, my child," she said. "Right now, there's someone else who needs your help."

Raven saw a quick flash of Beast Boy being brutalized by Monsieur Mallah, and her heart began to race in fear.

"Go to him, my daughter," Arella said, her voice disappearing more by the second. "I'll hold off Trigon."

Raven felt a lurching sensation in the pit of her stomach as the blanket of darkness around her was ripped away, and the cold night air rushed back into her bruised lungs. She was on the ground, somehow having survived the fall from the top of the tower, and her father's new form was looming over her with murder in his eyes.

"Oh, good, you're awake," he said with mocking concern. "I was beginning to think that fall had killed you, despite my efforts to keep that from happening. And I couldn't absorb the power from a still, dead heart, now could I?"

As Trigon reached down to tear her heart out of her chest, Raven felt a surge of power rush through every inch of her body, lifting her partway off the ground with its force. Tendrils of white energy lashed out at Trigon, driving him away as they carved scars into his flesh.

"What is this—" the demon began, before he recognized the energy that was attacking him. "Arella, you worthless whore!" he boomed. "When I have my powers back in full, I swear to you I'm going to find you and rip you to pieces!"

Raven didn't stay to listen to the rest of her father's rant, using what strength she still had in her to fly back up to the top of the Tower as fast as she could. There, she saw Mallah poised to give Beast Boy a killing blow, Beast Boy's face still contorted in pain despite him being unconscious.

Not even giving herself a second to think, Raven flew right at Mallah and used her powers to give strength to a full-body tackle. The impact threw the giant gorilla clean off of Beast Boy, sending him sailing all the way over the other side of the Tower and off of it. Raven quickly knelt down beside Beast Boy, ignoring her own pain long enough to channel some of her energy into her friend. She realigned his spine first, which caused him to jerk back to consciousness with a weak moan. Looking up at his rescuer, Beast Boy's eyes were clouded with confusion for a moment before he saw who had rescued him.

"Raven…?" he whispered, his voice low and strained. "Thanks…"

With that, the shape-shifter lapsed back into unconsciousness and was still. Raven felt fear sweep through her again at the thought that he might have succumbed to exhaustion, but his pulse remained active. Raven continued to heal Beast Boy for as long as she could, whispering encouragement to him the whole time, before she could feel the energy her mother had given her fading away at last. Taking Beast Boy into her arms, Raven carried him inside the Tower and laid him down on a couch to rest.

Starfire and Raven, the two conscious members of the three surviving Teen Titans, sat in the main room in dead silence. The place that had once been so lively and happy was now empty and cold: Beast Boy was still bordering on slipping into a coma, Robin was dead and Cyborg's body was nowhere to be found. The members of the new Brotherhood had all vanished without a trace, leading Raven and Starfire to assume they were all still alive and would attack again.

"Starfire, I'm going to go check on Beast Boy," Raven said, watching her friend's reaction with concern. Starfire could only nod absently, her mind miles away.

Why had this happened? What had the Titans ever done to deserve such harsh retribution? Why did Robin have to die, and Cyborg? Why had her friends left her without even saying goodbye? She'd never even had the chance to tell Robin that she—

The Tamaranean's thoughts were cut short by the sharp ring of the main telephone. Starfire let it go, but as it reached the fifteenth straight ring, she began to wonder who it might be. Stumbling over, she picked up the phone and raised it to her ear.

"Who is this?"

The voice on the other end of the line was as cold as ice, and impenetrable as shadow.

"This is Batman," it said. "Robin is dead, isn't he?"

Starfire took a deep breath, gathering up the courage to admit it to Batman, and to herself.

"Yes," she answered, "he is. How did you know of this?"

"I have my ways," the master detective answered obliquely, saying nothing more for a few moments.

"You are the one called 'Starfire', am I right?" he asked at length.

"Yes," she replied, and thought she heard Batman give a heavy sigh on the other end.

"Listen to me very carefully, Starfire," he said. "Was Robin's body in one piece when you found it?"

Although the memory of it made her want to start crying again, the Tamaranean recalled the image of Robin's corpse for a brief moment before putting it out of her mind again.

"It was," she said.

"Good," Batman answered shortly. "That means there might still be a way to save him, but you have to trust me and do exactly what I tell you right now. Can you do that, Starfire?"

Starfire had been sent reeling by the possibility of reviving Robin, but she quickly pulled herself back under control.

"Yes, sir."

"Come to Gotham City as soon as you can, and bring the body with you," Batman explained. "Go to the main Water Tower, and a woman named Shiva will be waiting for you there. Follow where she leads. The organization she is associated with will have access to something called a Lazarus Pit. It's a gamble, but putting Robin in one of those pits is the only way I can think to save him."

Starfire steeled herself for the mission, but one thing was still nagging at the corner of her mind.

"But, sir," she began, "where is it exactly that these Lazarus Pits are kept?"

Batman was quiet for a moment before he answered.

"In the headquarters of the League of Shadows," he explained,

"Under the watchful eye of Ra's Al Ghul."

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A/N: I was originally going to wait until Chapter 2 was done and then post them both one after another. But then this chapter turned out jumbo-size, so I decided to just post it anyway. Hope you liked it, and please review if you did; they're what keeps me going.

For those of you wondering about some of the characters that are more from the Batman comics than the Teen Titans TV Series, here's a quick rundown of the ones that have shown up so far, or will show up in the very near future:

Lady Shiva: One of the greatest martial artists alive, if not the greatest. Born Sandra Wu-san. Was responsible at one point for teaching Batman, although her use of killing techniques put them at odds.

Ra's Al Ghul: 'The Demon's Head', Ra's is an eco-terrorist who has extended his life for centuries by using Lazarus Pits, pools of chemicals that rejuvinate the user and, in some cases, can revive the recently-deceased. Some side-effects may ensue from this process, however. Ra's is also the head of his own criminal organization, the League of Shadows. Ra's' daughter, Talia, was once a lover of Batman.