DISCLAIMER: I do not own Teen Titans. I DO own Kirae Nakase. Thanks to ScarletAngel68, Donut, and SanoZero for getting me this far alone. Next chapter will be up soon. RR please, hope you like it. This is gonna be nuts!

Layer of Darkness
Ch.1 "Even the Stars Hide Tonight" or:
-Kirae!-

8:00PM Saturday night, Jump City

A pair of eyes glow an unnaturally bright orange in the dim shadows of a Jump City alleyway. But these irises appear to be human. They belong to the tall, chisel-faced half Japanese teenager wearing a bulky black combat uniform over his thin, lanky figure. He darts through a twisted path or urban clutter, desperately trying to gain distance from a foe he dared not to glance back at.

Kirae springs to the top of a large dumpster, then vaults to the edge of a ten foot chain-link fence, just barely clinging on with his white cutoff gloves. At that moment, a huge, snarling timberwolf reaches the other end of the alley. Kirae hauls himself over the top, and drops the entire ten feet, rolling when his black tactical assault boots touch ground. The wolf is forced to snake through the assorted alley debris, losing its speed advantage because of the tight confines. It could never get over the gate and is forced to begin shoving and stretching loose the bottom edge.

Kirae looks over his gear as he plans his next maneuver, while crossing a small section of packed parking lot belonging to one of Jump City's busiest multistory shopping malls. His black uniform is strangely unconventional, with bulky white armbands clipped to the shoulders bearing an emblem of crossed swords wreathed in blue flames, with 'Templars Exterminatus Daemon' scribed around the edge. The design is duplicated on his open-finger rappelling gloves, which are made of thick white Aramid, a material many times tougher than Kevlar. A white name tape above the large cargo chest pocket on the right side reads 'NAKASE', stitched in black. His harness system includes two thigh straps, a huge web belt, and also a shoulder rig, with a satchel under each arm. The right satchel contains three bundles of rappelling line, pre-attached and ready to use, while the left satchel contains twenty feet of titanium chain, with an additional ten feet of chain wrapped around his left shoulder and secured with a snap release. There are several equipment pouches on the front, and on his back is an extremely tall military pack that covers his back and reaches up to the top of his head.

He plows through the double glass doors of the second-story department store, startling shoppers as he storms down the isles. Because of the vertical terrain of Jump City, Kirae had entered on the second floor from what was ground level at this end of the mall. The basement floor was actually a subway terminal, and there would be a train arriving in seconds. Most of the store entrances ran along the inside of the mall, lining the walkways that allowed people to see the upper and lower floors. Kirae reaches the railing just as the black wolf with red markings slams through the doors, frightening many more people as it chases after his scent. Kirae had just completed clipping a section of line to the safety railing when the wolf bolts into view. Kirae swings over, and his feet just hit the ledge of the floor when the wolf slams into the railing he'd just been standing in front of. While facing the railing of the other floors, he pushes off the ledges with his feet, controlling his descent by squeezing the rope where it loops through a D-ring in his harness in his right hand, and holding the loose end behind him with the other. He quickly and smoothly reaches the bottom floor, and detaches his line. The wolf will have to make two passes of a hundred-fifty yards each to get to where Kirae is by using the crowded stairwells.

Kirae forces his body into one more good sprint, and flew through crowds of people to swoop into the subway car just in time. The car begins to move away, building speed as it goes, but the wolf once again comes into view, catching up with the train. However, the panic ebbs from Kirae as the train pickes up more speed and the wolf slips out of view yet again.

He rests his hands on his knees, and fights to stay standing as his breath comes back. He thinks out his next escape route, knowing that that giant wolf can easily run to the next stop and pick up his trail once again. Kirae is an amateur dealing with a werewolf, and there is only one way he will survive the night. He had to reach the Teen Titans.

He feels some measure of equilibrium returning to him, and finally has enough strength to stretch his joints. He takes off his sweat-soaked black watchcap and wrings it out. His sweat-matted black hair is cut to military regulation, extremely short on the sides, blending to about two inches on top.

Kirae becomes fully aware how much room he has to himself, seeing that the other people in the car had crept away from him. They eye his gear, the strange emblems, and his focused demeanor.

The next stop neared. Kirae focuses his mind on the next path he will take- a path that has no escape routes if he is caught before reaching his destination.

The doors hiss open, and Kirae lunges out, immediately heading up two flights of stairs while he reviews the directions in his mind. Above ground, this is a commercial district, with tall office buildings that house the operations of larger enterprises; the street level is small business fronts. One block away is where a highway splits up, one leg reaching across the bay, another following the shore. There are on-ramps and off-ramps to allow access to the commercial district, and nestled in that hub of traffic, in a blank lot, is a controlled-access tunnel, with tough automatic security gates. But Kirae could breach the service corridor and travel the tunnel on foot, and would set up a trap to gain enough time to run the 1.5 mile undersea tunnel that lead to a small island in the bay, where the Titans Tower front door lay.

There was no sign of the wolf behind him, but as Kirae knelt in front of the service door and opened one of the smaller outer compartments of his black backpack, the stress quickly built. His entire body was tensing as he took out three small blocks of SemTex plastic explosive, two disposable radio detonators, and his control unit. The door was an extremely heavy steel construct, with two sets of locking studs in the frame. There were bulges in the frame where the actuators were; Kirae placed his directional-blast charges where they would shear the studs between the frame and the door itself. He planted the detonators, and quickly slipped around the edge of the bunker. He covered his ears, and functioned the palm sized control unit. Even so, the crash of the 1.5 pound detonation nearly knocked him off his feet.

He swung around the corner and quickly surveyed the result. It was perfect, having blown the studs and only done surface damage to the thick, inward opening door. There were half-craters in the doorframe, and the door was slightly ajar. The handle was blown off, and the door was too hot to touch, so Kirae used his black auto-opening combat knife to push it open. He slipped inside and flipped on an angle-head flashlight attached to his chest, and a high power tactical light that he strapped to his right arm. The handle on the inside of the door was still intact, which Kire used to close the door. He faced the door and got to work on the trap that would give him his last lead.

On the lower left of his chest harness tucked into two small pouches were two grenades, shaped like soda cans with the standard lever-and-pullpin arming fuse on top. One was a solid green cylinder the size of a soda can, and one was black with dozens of small holes punched in the sides. The green one had fluorescent yellow and gray bands, while the black had dark brown and gray. The yellow and grey grenade would detonate and create a thick cloud of Silver Nitrate, laced with a deadly blast of metal shards. The second was designed to create an even larger Silver Nitrate cloud without the slice and dice effect, to prevent accidental bystander injuries. Kirae had made these himself for use against werewolves, but had only completed two out of the batch.

The setup was very simple. He taped them to the wall and to the door handle, with the safeties removed. When the door was opened, the tape would come loose, the levers would pop off, and the grenades would function. The werewolf would be just past the entrance when the delays would run out, and would definitely soak up a deadly, if not temporarily disabling, dose of the liquid silver compound.

Kirae gave his setup a nervous look over, then bolted down the long, dark corridor. There was an extra wide car lane, and a motorcycle lane. The corridor gently sloped downwards for the first third of the trip, so that it could get under the floor of the bay. The second section was logically level, with about the last two hundred feet on the Tower end sloping up at a harder angle, gaining about three stories of elevation to break the surface. All together the trip would be just one and a half miles, easily within reach under fifteen minutes.

The air inside the concrete shaft was even colder than it was outside, with the beam of Kirae's chest mounted light easily showing his frozen breath reaching out as he ran. Along the sides were concrete gutters, becoming steel grates where the shaft leveled. Kirae watched the reflective lane markings whip by, then looked forward. He pointed his higher powered tactical light down the shaft, where it could just barely cast some light all the way to the other end. He used the sight to encourage himself, knowing he could see the end, he knew he could reach it in no time. He was halfway through, with his arms slicing up and down, settling his body into a good fast pace...

A loud clap announced the werewolf's return. Even from a mile away, the tight confines of the tunnel channeled the sound of Kirae's grenades all the way back to him. By the time he glanced back, the werewolf was already on the ground. He could hear loud wailing and yelping, indicating that that grenades had functioned well. Kirae could not see the wounded werewolf struggling to get out of the choking cloud of misted silver nitrate. A small area had been instantly covered in the deadly fog, with about a ten foot radius. The gas-only grenade proved to be extremely effective, causing the cloud inside the tunnel to expand rapidly to a radius of thirty feet within seconds.

Nevertheless, the last spike of adrenaline gave Kirae the energy he needed to punch up the pace some more for the last leg of the trip. It seemed that on willpower alone he pushed up the steep slope. His body was in absolute agony, every muscle in his legs felt like tightened steel cable, his feet felt like completely dead weight that he had no control of whatsoever. A quick glance behind with the tactical light... Far behind him was a slowly dispersing, but still very deep, wall of rolling vapor. The tortured sounds of the oversized wolf had faded- it had either flamed out, or was recovering. Ahead lay the open-air exit; the stars were not visible through the thickly overcast sky, neither the coincidental full moon. Kirae would later become longing of a starlit sky, because in urban areas, all of the artificial night lights rendered the faint starlight invisible from the surface...

Kire stopped after a few strides uphill, turned, and knelt to steady his aim with the tactical light's beam focused to the max. He tried to convince himself that the damned werewolf was dead- both grenades had functioned with maximum potency- but he had to be sure before he lost sight of this section of tunnel. His eyes narrowed as his face formed into a snarl. He just knew he wasn't to be so fortunate, and just as his eyes focused in on the illuminated remains of the gas cloud, the hulking upright figure of a black werewolf with red accents strode into view. A wave of pins and needles rippled through Kirae's senses. Initially, he could not comprehend how the creature had shifted up two levels into the Crinos form with so much silver in it's system. Quickly his wits returned to him, and he turned away from the seven-foot beast as it began to run after him. Kirae's mind began to race, but he regained control when he realized how much willpower and rage the werewolf must have used to overcome the silver contamination.

Kirae felt nearly flash-frozen by the wicked downdraft of cold air that gushed in from the exit as he pounded up the final slope. He wasn't sure what he would see when he broke ground, but hoped that he would not have to breach the Titan's Tower itself just to get their attention. Blowing off a piece of their home because he couldn't find doorbell was something he sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to do; he was running out of plundered explosives in the first place. As he finally reached the surface, he deactivated his lights and stowed them; a huge glowing yellow tower greeted him with faint illumination. His position was just a few dozen yards out in front and to his own right of the front door, which appeared to be a deep blue colored double slider. His hawk-like vision zeroed in on the keypad next to the door as he hustled to it with loping strides. The garage was obviously in the rear, probably to the right side, which was where the pavement lead to. Kirae followed the pavement halfway in rather than struggle across the sand the whole way, finally reaching the concrete landing just a few feet from the keypad...

A terrible roar made every muscle in Kirae's body strain. He nearly tripped, caught himself, took a fast step and bumped the wall as he stopped. His body continued to tense as pounded the door with backhand strikes, and toggled the intercom with his right. Franticly, he spoke into the voicebox as loud as his unstable voice could-

"I'm outside! I'm dancing with a werewolf out here, help me! Can you hear me! I'm outside, just get out here with me!"

Kirae didn't have the option of waiting in the recessed doorstep where we would be pummeled, and he wasn't about to whip out a demolition charge. He pushed off the wall with his hands, immediately squeezing the release buckles on the shoulder straps of his heavy pack, dropping it. In a smooth motion he drew two white, streamlined pistol-like devices from the tactical-style holsters on his legs. The front end of these air tasers hung down the same length as the grip itself, lending an extremely bulky look. They were good for two shots worth of tethered probes each, delivering a short charge of 750,000 volts to a distance of fifty yards. Kirae had modified them with selector switches just above the trigger, one setting for the standard charge that was safe to use against humans, with the other position jacking up the amperage and activating knockdown capacitors that would provide an additional punch of electricity on contact. The huge front end was also a modification by Kirae, which tripled the battery size and housed a laser sight. Even so, these were completely untested...

-Inside the Tower, 8:35 PM-

The Teen Titans were sheltering inside, burning time to pass the cold, frosty night. Like most teens, they had comfortable routines that they had settled into for their off time. Raven was meditating in the Lotus position, facing the glowing nightlife of Jump City that was visible through the giant living room front window. Behind her, all three of the boys were vying for first place in a battle royale match of Super Smash Bros. Melee. They sat bunched together in a cloud of chaos, tapping away at the wireless control pads and sporadicly shifting around, creating a constant din, with Raven mostly tuning it out. Starfire hovered behind the couch, currently cheering on Cyborg, who was in the lead, using the power-armored character Samus to simultaneously keep Robin's character, Link, at bay, while focusing his attacks on pummeling Beast Boy's Captain Starfox into a box at the edge of the fortress-like arena. Cyborg hooted to himself as he used a series of well-timed mine, projectile, and melee attacks to destroy the box, blast Link into the air, and finally use a powerful airborne swoop kick to knock both of them off screen. No one heard the door intercom over the din of rabid videogaming chaos...

Cyborg taunted Robin, leaning towards him roughly and jeering "What? That's all ya got Wonder Boy? Oh yeaaahhh!" Robin made an annoyed face as he abused the control pad, impatiently awaiting his respawn. Rather than say something back, he angrily planned his next attack.

As the life markers disappeared, Cyborg turned his attention to Beast Boy. "I soo just owned your monkey butt! Kicked your fuzzy face right off the planet! BOOYAH!"

BB growled, and probably would have changed into something big and straight up begun wrestling with Cy, but he didn't want to annoy Raven that much. So instead he just clumsily mashed the controller, citing how Cyborg's hadn't used any skill and was a cheap shot. His excuses came tumbling out, barely coherent.

"Yeah, you're lucky my controller was glitching, or I coulda smacked you down soo easy! You're moves are all just a bunch of finger spazzing..." His voice trailed as his character respawned.

Raven's eyes snapped open during this exchange. Some sense had been alerted, snapping her out of her focused trance. She immediately stood, working her mind to remember... She stepped in front of the screen, and hit the power switch before the boys could even begin to complain. Finally, the sound of Kirae's hurried, desperate voice coming through the intercom at the door replayed in her head. With her eyes wide open, she glared at the others. They froze and listened.

She bolted towards the front door and explained. "There's someone outside, and he needs our help NOW!" The other Titans jumped up to follow her out.

-Back outside-

As the second set of doors opened, the group was blasted by a gust of bone chilling air. It seemed like a thunderstorm would be brewing soon, and the ground burst of cold air was the first indication of where major rain would hit. Upon clearing the doorstep, Raven and Starfire took to the air, Raven gaining some altitude and hooking left, while Starfire did the same going right. Robin went up the center, with Cyborg on the right and Beast Boy on the left. The blowing sand and wind hindered them slightly as they tried to get a handle on what was going on.

Before their eyes, a tall, lanky figure in black fatigues with white armbands and gloves, was courageously fighting the seven-foot tall black and red Crinos-form werewolf, in hand to hand. The taser attack had been unsuccessful; with Kirae's initial volley of taser fire, one had hit in the lower abdomen, while the probe that reached for the wolf's neck had been just barely dodged. Kirae had pushed the probe release stud that was on the back of the pistol grip, and fired the second round, which lodged into the wolf's left shoulder. Yet even under the immense power of electrical waves designed to disrupt the central nervous system, the towering werewolf had refused to relent. The batteries drained their power in seconds, and Kirae had tossed the tasers aside as the wolf regained its posture. By then Kirae knew the creature's reserves of rage and willpower had to be drained completely.

Kirae fought against common sense, forcing his body into a wholehearted blitz against the werewolf. He rushed forward, throwing his caution and fear to the gusty wind that whipped his uniform sideways.

"Bring it on!" Kirae openly challenged the werewolf, daring it to strike the first blow. As he said this, an orange glow flickered across his eyes, and extremely faint arcs of crackling orange energy rippled across his entire body. Both combatants rushed to close the gap.

The wolf gave no indication of attack until the distance was point-blank. When Kirae was just five feet away, the wolf whipped its left arm around, with extended claws. Kirae just barely swooped beneath the four-inch long talons, and that was the exact moment that the Tower doors slid open, and the Titans punched out. Kirae swung up, and threw a flying roundhouse with his left foot. Not his most powerful move, but effective for the close range, and it would allow Kirae to channel his forward momentum into stopping him quickly. The blow hit the wolf's right side under it's ribs, stunning it as if it had been hit by a steel beam. The hit area glowed with a faint blue energy that only the wolf itself could see. Now that Kirae had bled off his forward momentum, he immediately fired a reverse spin kick with his right. The werewolf tried to counter with a right-handed straight arm punch, but Kire leaned back as his foot shot out. The punch went overhead, and Kirae's heel drove into where a human's Solar Plexus belonged, dead center under the ribs.

The Titans were shocked to see the werewolf hurt, much less affected by Kirae's attack. It fought to keep its own footing, and was twisted slightly to the left still, having not recovered balance from its last punch. Kirae let his left leg collapse, and slid closer in at a near horizontal angle. His right foot continued it's return arc, swinging a full circle, but striking much lower now. Kirae kicked at the wolf's right ankle with his left foot, and swung his right foot into the side of the werewolf's right knee. Again, Kirae's blows somehow generated many times more power then they should have. The lightweight teenager brought the towering werewolf crashing into the sand.

Kirae rolled backwards to gain distance and spring to his feet. Yet even as Kirae rose, the wolf jumped back on the offensive. They had both suddenly realized that the Titans were about to enter the fray, and the wolf's next move could not have been any more effective. As Starfire and Cyborg fired sonic cannon and starbolts at it, the werewolf lunged at Kirae and the shots impacted harmlessly behind it. Kirae saw the lunge as he rose, tried to vector to the side and dodge, but wasn't fast enough and caught three razor-sharp claws to his left arm, right where his emblem was. The gashes would require stitches later, but didn't even reach the muscle. The slices through his uniform were very straight and clean, though quickly soaking with blood. But there should have been more damage. The cuts should have been four times as deep, and it was as though Kirae's arm had been armored.

All of this had happened so fast, the Titan's had only closed half the distance to Kirae, though this was only really an issue to Robin and Beast Boy. Kirae had to backflip to regain his footing, ignoring the intense burning pain in his arm. But by this time, the werewolf had turned back towards Kirae, prepared for a lunge with the intent of mauling him. Thankfully, Cyborg's precise, calculated aim punched the wolf sideways, even as it was moving. A salvo of starbolts hit the ground beneath the werewolf, also blasting it sideways.

Kirae was pelted with hot sand and and an intense heat flash as he reached for the snap buckle on his left shoulder. The wave of heat nearly singed him, and he let Starfire know it as he struggled to get his chain free.

"Watch where- you sling- that- fragging- plasma- WILL YOU?" He grunted out as his left arm worked the chain and began a figure-eight arc with ten feet nearly instantly. But there was a stutter in his highly efficient motion when he first grabbed hold of the thick chain. Kire received a strong, though painless, electric shock. And as the chain circled through the cold air, it began to glow a visible orange. This even surprised Kirae, but he couldn't feel any heat, so he continued to prepare his attack, slinging the chain around his body through a fluid, well-practiced pattern designed to build momentum, and allow Kirae to throw the chain, rather than swing it at the target.

Beast Boy had morphed into a giant green T-Rex, distracting the wolf for a split second. The T-Rex had it's jaws opened, nearly catching the werewolf with the huge teeth, but the wolf was just able to spring onto Beast Boy's muzzle. Beast Boy reared up and was about to smash the wolf into the sand when it leaped high into the air. This was an unexpected angle from an obscured position, and Kirae's reflexes couldn't handle the load. Kirae managed to launch a thirty foot length of chain in the general direction, but missed.

Kirae was only fortunate that the werewolf's extended claws were so short. Four of them punched into his torso along a vertical line covering the far left of his ribcage. Kirae was knocked backwards and into the sand by the diagonal attack. He lay on his back stunned, shocked by the pain he felt, having only the capacity to tilt his head up, clutching his side with his right arm as the wolf bolted in for the kill. Cyborg missed his mark with his sonic cannon, but Robin was able to swoop under, diving sideways and rolling Kirae just a few feet over.

Starfire gave up on throwing starbolts seconds ago, deciding to bolt in and join the hand-to-hand melee. Earlier, Raven could not risk throwing the scattered boulders because the melee was shifting too fast. She had tried to bind the werewolf with her powers, but they had fizzled instantly. There had been a small amount of her black energy visible, but none of the others had even noticed the insignificant negative glow in all of the chaos. While Starfire had continued to fireher second salvo of starbolts, Raven had already begun to move in for one last effort. While Starfire and Cyborg were still several yards away, Raven had already closed in.

As Robin struggled to get Kirae clear, Raven swooped between them and the werewolf. It was all or nothing now. The wolf was turning to face Robin and Kirae, throwing a punch at Raven at the same time. With her left hand she created a shield that deflected the werewolf's right fist to the outside, and at the same time used her right hand to manipulate a large swath of sand right out from under the wolf, blasting it away as if there had been an underground explosion. The wolf dropped into the waist-deep pit, swinging at Raven's feet but missing as it leaned against the steep edge on her side. Cyborg sloshed to a stop in the deep sand just feet from the pit, and Starfire took the opportunity to fire a salvo into it. The werewolf leaped into a backwards dodge unbelievably fast, but still took the brunt of the blast. It landed on it's back in the sand, immediately springing to it's feet- but for the last time.

A streak of bright orange shot into and directly through the creature's heart. It almost howled out in pain, but was instantly wiped out of existence by a wave of energy that followed the titanium chain. Kirae's titanium chain, which now glowed an intense molten-steel color. The Titan's eye's shifted to Kirae, who stood next to a thunderstruck Robin. Though Kirae was hunched forward, clutching his side with his right arm, the chain that was now quickly losing it's glow was indeed in his left hand. A long, slim equipment pouch on his chest hung open, where he had retrived a heavy, weighted spike.

The Titans quickly rushed to his aid as he dropped to his knees, sitting on his feet. Robin knelt next to him, supporting Kirae's left arm on his own shoulder, and Raven knelt in front with wide eyes, Starfire hovered just overhead, Cyborg stood close, working the console on his arm to bring up medical information, and finally Beast Boy tried to see around all of them as he moved around the back.

"Oh no, he is hurt!" Starfire exclaimed, rushing forward to assist Robin. But she froze when Kirae extended his blood covered right hand to her shoulder. His head was tilted forward as he spoke solemly.

"I'll live." He continued in few words, explaining with the knowledge of a combat paramedic. Though calm, his speech was quiet and pained, but most worrying of all was the sucking, gurgling noise coming from under his uniform.

"No vitals hit, wounds aren't too deep." His eyes closed, though they were hidden from view already. They were losing their glow, and the color darkened to an orange-tinged brown.

"First aid will be enough." And with the last few words he could muster, he said-

"Hope you don't mind... if I" exhausted, his speech tumbled out in one syllable-

"spendthenight." Finally knowing he was safe, he let sleep take his exhausted, injured body.