This is my second attempt at fanfiction writing, and this one was totally random. I was sitting at work with nothing to do and thought, "What the hell? I'll write a fanfic," and this was the result. Originally, it was meant as a one-shot, but I was having way too much writing it, so I kept it going forever. I don't know when it will stop, or if it will stop, since I have a bad tendency to not finish any of my stories ever. This was also a great distraction from studying for my exam tomorrow, so good job to me on that one. Otherwise, enjoy the story.

It was dark, or rather, as dark as any city can be at night. Streetlamps spaced evenly stood like silent soldiers guarding the night, pushing back the darkness intending to make the vulnerable less vulnerable, but in reality only making their paths more apparent to those who would interfere. The cobblestone sidewalk was not especially conducive to a frantic escape; jagged, uneven, and begging to catch a toe and pull a body to the ground.

She followed the cobblestones smoothly, gliding an inch above the ground, as the path wound through the park. Her cape flowed gracefully around her, catching occasionally in a brisk fall wind, and she stayed invisible in the shadows by the path, nearer the trees, with her hood pulled low over her head, hiding her eyes. Sometimes she half-wished she had bony fingers so she could reach for people like the Reaper. Of all people, she desired to do it most to Beast Boy, knowing his maturity level would guarantee a satisfying response.

Beast Boy, Raven thought as she floated along and, frowning, shook her head slightly, as if to clear the green boy from her mind. What frustrated her most was that she could rarely erase thoughts of him from her consciousness, especially at times like these when she felt most like she needed a friend.

No. No. I won't do it. This is just a vision. I won't let this happen. I won't help this happen, Raven pleaded over the roar of Hell fire burning through her head. She choked on the smoke, gasping for air. Her clothes were torn by fire, her skin not fairing much better. The runes of Trigon sparkled with fiery honesty, declaring to all she was the demon of the prophecy, speaking the truths she herself had yet to bring herself to explain to those she cared about most. Raven felt weak, close to death, and she knew she was ready. But before she could forever leave this mortal plane, she had to know.

Please, don't let this Hell have claimed them, too.

Trigon would be sleeping on his new throne, gathering his strength. She would be unnoticed, unimportant. Raven remained seated on the hard, cold stone of the old library. Crossing her legs and breathing as deeply as she could, Raven sent forth her soul-self, in the hopes of finding her fellow Titans.

Trigon had attended them personally, and she found what little was left of them.

Even as she wandered through the park at an odd hour, Raven did not worry about the thugs other women would have been worried about had they been out at the same hour. No simple robber or rapist would be able to successfully attack her, and considering her ominous appearance and feet above the ground, she doubted anyone would think it wise anyway. Instead, Raven felt safer here. No one would question what she was doing; likely no one would notice she was here. Living the life of a superhero was all well and good, but sometimes she longed for something simpler. She longed to have the life of a normal woman, with infinite potential and a fate unknown but malleable.

Raven spent her life knowing she would bring about terrible things to all those she loved. From the start they had said she was evil. The Azarathians of her home had accepted her as much as any civilization could, had taught her passivism and trained her to separate body and soul. They had also trained her not to feel, to remain stoic, to control her impulses because if she didn't, a city could be leveled in a moment. Her own power scared her.

Had she heeded the warnings? Had she shut down her emotions completely? Again, Raven shook her head to herself, answering her own question. No. She felt strong connections to the four other Titans: Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy. In her heart, she also knew that should the prophecy be fulfilled, they would suffer the most. Trigon would make sure of it.

She hated herself for knowing them.

She hated herself more for liking them.

She hated herself most for dooming them.

Beast Boy flew out of bed, his super-sensitive pointy green ears catching a sharp scream echoing through the Tower. Raven? The more awake he became, the more the sound disturbed him. Raven!

He leapt from the top bunk bed, and swept through the automatic sensor causing his door to open with a Swish! He ran down the hall, slowing once he approached Raven's door. Without thinking, he punched in the override code on the keypad outside her door, and stepped into the doorway.

Raven was sitting up in bed, sweating profusely, pale, and glowing with red markings that appeared burned into her skin. "Raven?" he choked out timidly, his heart dropping half with fear and half with concern.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to him, all four glowing red eyes. Small, sharp fangs hung over her pale lips, stirring up memories of Dracula movies he had forced Raven to watch thinking it would be funny. His mouth hung open, and he took a step towards her to help, though he had no idea what he'd do.

Four eyes blinked, just once, and faded quickly into two, which squinted shut even as her fangs recoiled and her face scrunched up in agony. Raven grabbed at her head, placing one hand on each side as if she could squeeze the pain away. She let out another strangled cry, before managing to say aloud, "I won't let you!"

Beast Boy had no idea what she was talking about, but he sensed her battle was internal, and knew he could do nothing but wait it out. He stood stone-still near the end of her bed, ready to react at a moment's notice.

Finally, Raven sighed. Her face relaxed, as did her tense muscles. She rested her arms on her knees, and her chin rested in-between. Opening her amethyst eyes, Raven saw Beast Boy for the first time, and flushed. He looked pale, or as pale as a green boy can look.

"Why are you in my room?" She inquired bluntly, her voice flat and a monotone, although she still breathed heavily due to a prolonged lack of air.

Beast Boy snapped out of his temporary trance. "I heard you scream. I was worried. Raven…are you okay?"

He seemed genuine enough. And right now she couldn't muster the strength to send him out angrily. "Yes. Just a nightmare." She hoped that would be enough.

It wasn't. "One hell of a nightmare, Rae."

She remained silent. She hated the nickname, and he knew it. But she could feel that he used it because she was concealing something from him again, and it frustrated him. He invoked it as a sign of friendship and consistency, hoping to remind her that despite what she thought, they were minimally friends. After a moment, he sighed.

"Are you going to be okay? For real?"

She nodded, closing her eyes. His eyes remained trained on her face, watching and waiting, judging if it was okay to leave her alone again. After a few minutes, he decided it was.

"Okay. I'll talk to you in the morning then." With a last look back and a frown, he left Raven, who still had not moved.

She heard the metallic swish of the door as it closed behind him, and mumbled in answer to his question, "None of us will be okay for much longer."

Raven was running out of park to glide through, and would soon have to make her way through the city streets. Anyone who saw her would think she was a Titan on patrol, keeping the peace. She wasn't concerned about anyone looking for her. She had time to think.

As much as she loved her friends, she found herself constantly plagued by thoughts of being an outsider to the group. Everyone had so much fun together, and while they enjoyed themselves, she was consistently the bearer of stormy clouds. She longed to be able to express emotions, to tell them how much she loved them and how they had made her feel welcomed, to be able to play a stupid game of Stankball with them and not bring about the apocalypse if her team lost.

Everyone thought she was creepy. The creepy Titan who reads stinky old books and meditates rather than go out and enjoy a day of volleyball at the beach. That was her, alright. Sometimes, during moments when Raven's mood was the lowest, she felt bitterness towards them, jealousy that she could never experience life the way they did. That she would always be fundamentally alone.

Her loneliness sprang from how little the team understood about her. Raven feared most of all that they would find out her heritage, and disown her for it. Zatanna of the Justice League had left a lasting impression of the prejudices of the good guys with her abrupt rejection when Raven had first arrived on Earth. With no one within the Titans able to sense her evil heritage, she had been able to form a team with the ultimate mission of destroying her before she could destroy the world. Only they didn't know that was their mission.

At least not yet.

And when they found out, what would they say? Would she be exiled until the day came to stand and fight against her?

Trying to feel no attachment to them wasn't only to keep her emotions in check, but it was also to defend herself against them when she told them what she was born to do, to make it easier to leave.

Raven heard three timid knocks on her door. Raising an eyebrow, she neared the door and using her powers, opened it slightly, revealing half her face shrouded by her hood.

Beast Boy stood at her door, smiling awkwardly. "I brought you some herbal tea," he explained, offering a steaming mug to her.

Shocked, Raven kept her face neutral as she looked down to the tea in his hand, and back up to his face, before reaching out and taking it carefully from him. "Thank you." His simple act of kindness had made her feel surprisingly better after the previous night.

In an act equally shocking, Raven backed away from her door, and opened it fully, gesturing for Beast Boy to enter. His face registered surprise at her entreaty, but he stepped inside with minimal hesitation. He stood near the doorway and watched as Raven drifted over to her window, staring out at her view of the bay and the morning sun. The silence lasted long enough to make Beast Boy uncomfortable, but Raven seemed to be thinking. She lifted the tea to her lips and took a sip. Beast Boy makes a decent cup of herbal tea, Raven thought impressed. She pulled her hood down but remained facing the window. Finally, Raven broke the silence. "What did you see last night?"

Beast Boy hesitated. Raven sensed his nervousness, and his fear of her. It made her sad. "I need to know," she confessed. "Please tell me."

The green boy shifted and looked at her, before explaining evenly, "I heard you scream from my room. No one else heard that I know of, just me. Sensitive ears and all that. I rushed over to make sure you were alright, and when I opened your door you were sitting up in bed. You were breathing really heavy and looked like you had a nightmare, but then I said your name and when you looked at me you…"

Again, he hesitated. Raven waited patiently, feeling his confusion, his self-doubt, and his concern for fall over her like a wave.

"You had four eyes. And they were red. Also there were red writings or something all over you, and I think you might have had fangs. Oh, and you said something about not letting something happen." He finished in a rush, hoping that maybe speed would make his story seem less crazy.

Raven simply nodded, then closed her eyes and let her head bow slightly.

"I'm not crazy?" Beast Boy questioned half-hopefully, while still hoping a little that he was crazy. Even without knowing what everything meant, he intuited it was bad.

Raven smiled slightly, and shook her head. "No, you're not crazy, Beast Boy." Another silence passed between the two of them. Beast Boy spoke first.

"So what won't you let happen?"

The question caught Raven mildly off-guard. No, not the question, but the bluntness of it. She had known it was coming, but she still didn't know how to answer it. She decided to just be scant with the details.

"Any harm to come to the Titans. I will not allow harm to come to this team, or to this world."

Beast Boy was genuinely puzzled. "Raven, what are you talking about? How would you hurt us?"

"I can't answer that yet, Beast Boy." He looked at her, noticing suddenly the distant look in her eyes, her quiet desperation, her unshakeable determination.

"Raven, what are you going to do?"

It's never easy to leave those closest to the heart. The Titans had been her home, her friends, her family. It had torn her apart to leave them. Maybe she felt herself a coward for not having the courage (or control, as she had tried to tell herself countless times) to deal with each of them individually. While Raven felt she owed that much to them, she had been unable to bring herself to do it thus far. But she had only been gone for a couple of days.

She still wore her cloak from her time with the Titans, but now it covered her tight-fitting long-sleeve black t-shirt, and jeans. There was a small tear in the right knee, not because she thought it looked cool, but because she had torn it when she'd spotted Robin on the R-Cycle searching for her. She'd dodged into an alley, and snagged her knee on the corner of a rusty dumpster. Her knee had healed quickly, owing to her demon blood.

Where were the Titans now? Had they stopped looking for her yet? No, it had only been a couple of days.

A couple of days. It felt like so much longer to her, an eternity. She missed them. She tried to console herself that it was for the best, to protect them, to save them from her fate. These convictions never dulled the pain—sharpening it instead, freeing anger and bitterness within her soul, crying to be unleashed. Her emotions were running high; she hadn't been able to meditate since she'd left. Raven was worn out, depressed, and doing her damnedest to not wallow in self-pity. I need to fight, find a way to fight this. There has to be a way; the hope she clung so desperately to. But now that she was out on her own, flying solo, what would she do? Pretend to live a normal life? Ignore it and hope it went away? Seek knowledge to stop the prophecy? Living a normal life would not fix anything, and looking for knowledge would only put her in danger of Slade finding her again. That was the last thing she needed.

Raven had long ago run out of park to walk through, and was now walking the darkened streets in a bad section of town. Still, she wasn't worried. However, as she passed a dark alley, a hand shot out, wrapping around her mouth. Before she could make a move in defense, an arm wrapped firmly around her arms and waste, yanking her roughly into the shadows.

No one noticed the girl who'd disappeared.

"I have to leave." She raised her eyes to the skyline, her mind made up, realizing the inevitability of her choice even as she said it.

Beast Boy remained still, his mouth opening wide in shock. He sputtered before finding words, "Raven…no…" was all he could choke out. Tears brimmed on the edge of his eyes; hers remained calm and seemingly without feeling. "Why? Tell me what's going on. Tell the Titans! We can help you with whatever it is. Just, please, don't go. You're our friend, Rae. Let us help."

"There's nothing you can do." Her voice shook imperceptibly. Her head lowered slightly, and she looked more like the goth girl everyone had accused of being than she ever had before. The light caught her lavender tresses and eyes, causing an almost angelic glow to fall around her, if only for a moment, before the sun settled temporarily behind a cloud, shrouding her in a light shadow.

Beast Boy was becoming angry. "Why, Raven? Don't you trust us? What do you think we'll do? There's nothing the Titans can't handle!"

Raven ignored his questions. "The Titans can't handle this." Her spine straightened in response to his outburst.

"How do you know if you won't even tell us what it is?" he shot at her bitterly.

Finally, Raven turned toward him. What he saw would stay with him forever. Tears threatened to spill over, but outwardly she was the same Raven he'd always known. The look in her eyes, the tears…it scared him. If Raven was crying, the world was in deep shit. For a moment he doubted the truth of his protests, wondered if the Titans really could stop anything. His anger softened, and his face fell.

Raven felt the change in him, and sensing her chance, made her escape. "I'm so sorry, Beast Boy. Tell the others I love them. I love you. I'll never forget you. And for all of your sakes, I hope we never meet again."

He took a step toward her to protest, his mouth opening, but before he could come any closer, the empath had pulled her hood up, and with a broad sweep of her cape, disappeared in a flash of black power.

Raven was gone.

Okay, that's my chapter one. Questions, comments, reviews--all are more than welcome. I'll e-mail responses to questions, since we're not allowed to answer individually in stories now. Hope to hear from you! Thanks.