Teen Titans is not owned by me. Any and all licensed characters, names, or concepts featured in this literary presentation are owned by their respective owners.
A black raven set upon a wind brings an omen of ill-fortune and death to those around it. That is what was believed in many cultures in times of antiquity, but that original interpretation is not without merit. Its darkness and its caw send shivers of impending dread upon those that hear it; a darkened arrowhead darting to and fro that spews a shuddering rasp. These and more are the symbols of the raven.
And the girl who called herself by that name considered it to be a justified name.
Wherever the wind took Raven is where she went. Despite any internal sense of loneliness or any desire to connect, she knew she could not. She was a cursed being in that regard. She knew this to be true. Irreversibly true. Her very existence had deemed it so.
Sometime in Jump City, California.
The pouring rain cemented Raven's dire mood in a rather succinct and unceremonious way. She supposed taking weather advice from a man in an electric box speaking from the other side of a pane of glass was foolhardy enough, but she lacked the funds for a newspaper article. Lacking the funds for a newspaper article also implied she lacked the funds for a television of her own. Nor did she possess the funds for a house. No car, no refrigerator, and no indoor plumbing. Only the Great Expanse of the outdoors; or, rather, the cramped and crowded streets and alleyways of Jump City. A miracle of modern technology coalesced into a city of shimmering skylights and bustling townsfolk. It was home to oddities as well. Raven could've been considered the oddest of the odd.
But now it was past sundown, on a rainy Tuesday (she assumed it was Tuesday anyway) in the middle of town; resting upon a street corner in only a rugged indigo cloak and leotard that was too tight for her sat Raven. A scrupulous, pragmatic, and stoic girl of a mere sixteen of age, yet blessed (and cursed) with great power. Of this power we shall not discuss, but we should be equipped with such foreknowledge. Beyond these diversions, her appearance was thus. Her complexion was unhealthily pale, bordering on vampiric, sporting a set of violet eyes that pierced the souls of those it bore with a cunning and a sadness even the least mentally inclined of us could detect. Raven's cloak, a simple design of washed out indigo, was (and still is) one of the last great gifts her people gave her. Under such things, she wore a leotard (as previously mentioned) a few sizes too small for her. It hugged her chest and sides uncomfortably, but it was a bearable pain for she had no better alternative. The soles of her similarly colored shoes were practically nonexistent, and yet she kept them anyway. To put it in a less comfortable manner, she looked as if a cosplayer had bet his life savings away and was now firmly in "the shit" as the youth of today might so incorrigibly describe.
With nothing left better to do, Raven focused all of her mental capacity into her center, and muttered the incantation that she was taught long ago: "Azarath Metrion Zinthos." The two following words were merely decorations compared to the meaning of the first word, Azarath. Of this I ask you to remember.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos . . . Azarath Metrion Zinthos. . . ." She muttered shakily, finding it difficult not to shiver in the freezing rain. It seemed wasteful to use her powers against the rain, as, even though it may have been a hindrance to her, somebody, somewhere, was in desperate need of it. She was humble and selfless, but that was not from a place of charity of altruism. It was from a place of falsified inferiority.
A loud and disruptive clang! and boom! shook the foundations of the sidewalk she had perched on, and she stood up with the speed of an alerted antelope. An adrenaline rush of fight or flight built up quickly in the pit of her stomach, urging her to choose quickly. Instincts kicked in miles ahead of logic, causing Raven to bolt in the direction of the explosions. Not a block down came the scene of the action. The Jump City Central Bank's first floor had been set ablaze in the explosion, and no police had yet arrived on scene. The only individual not running was a boy, perhaps only fifteen years old, wearing the suit of the Robin. Raven paused a moment, blending in with the shadows easily, and consulted herself.
Robin. Batman's Sidekick. She knew of that much, at least, but the fact he, Batman's protégé, was in Jump City made little sense to her.
Then again, a malnourished and exhausted brain tends to work a little underwhelmingly compared to a nourished and well-rested counterpart.
Robin dashed back and forth, expertly dodging a myriad of attacks from a strange, redheaded woman with a bizarre outfit and handcuffs. Her strength was very apparent by the fact each of her blows, even whilst restrained, caused the pavement to crack and shatter. The boy named Robin could not risk going on the offensive while a woman of such fierce strength and determination was pounding away in his general direction. Raven briefly considered helping before stopping herself.
"No, Raven. You can't control it. Don't move a muscle."
Her abilities granted her a passive ability: empathy. In short, her empathic abilities allow her to feel the emotions of others. From Robin, all she felt was a stoic determination not unlike her own. No strong emotion. Perhaps panic laced with annoyance, but nothing extreme.
The woman, on the other hand, was giving Raven a headache.
Her emotions were running wild. Anger at this. Sadness at that. Totally afraid of something. Overwhelmingly aggressive toward Robin. Each blow (of which she delivered many) was a culmination of these conflicted feelings.
Perhaps that is why she finally got the upper hand.
Another hit by the girl caused her strange cuffs to shatter, revealing a second layer of thinner, grayer ones, but these exposed her hands. The girl grinned a grin only those convinced of victory sport. It was easy to see why when, upon their release, they became engulfed in an intense, green glow. Even her eyes glowed brilliantly as her hands spewed forth blasts of green energy with the same speed and ferocity as a minigun.
The city block was reduced to rubble in mere moments. Raven caught a glimpse of Robin clutching his leg as he dashed behind the nearest piece of cover that would afford him adequate protection against the girl's onslaught. She eventually stopped, hands steaming with the heat of the blasts. A breath. Then a confident march toward Robin.
Raven had two choices. Leave, or engage. The benefits of the former meant her life might be extended by some arbitrary amount of years (she guessed three or four) and that she would save herself the trouble of accidentally destroying the block more than it already was. The benefits of the latter, however, was the potential to gain an ally of Robin. Under any other circumstance, she would've gone with the former. Nobody could reasonably help her with the monolithic weight on her shoulders. Nobody could bear that weight but her.
But she allowed herself to hope that someone could.
And that was enough.
She lunged from her hiding spot just in time for Robin to raise his polearm against a hit from the girl.
"Stop!"
Four eyes turned to face her at the same time. She felt an immediate shift in their emotions.
Robin felt pity. The girl's aggression and anger faltered. At the very least, she could discern that.
"I'm.. not here to fight," Raven explained, her voice as raspy and deep as ever. She attempted to prove this by holding up her hands. The girl paused yet again, and lowered her arms from their attack position. She allowed Robin to slide out from under her in order to quickly assess his leg.
Raven was caught off-guard by her strange language. It sounded intimidating and grotesque, which clashed with her otherwise beautiful appearance. She was caught off-guard, yet again, with her charging her energy bolts in Raven's direction, yelling something likely nasty in her native language.
"No! No . . . give me a moment." Raven held up her hands, and channeled her magic.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" she yelled, and a black veil with white accents covered the girl's restraints, and promptly ripped them to shreds. Raven was internally very thankful her powers worked as intended. Most of them time, in these situations, her powers would fail as her emotions overtook her. Raven's years of meditation and emotional distance had proven useful.
The girl blinked at her newly freed hands, twisting and rubbing them carefully. She mumbled something in her language again, and took a few steps forward. Toward Raven.
Raven tried to take a few steps back, but the girl insisted on approaching. The hood covering Raven's face fell as she hit the side of a car, revealing her face (of which she considered to be subpar), the crystal in her forehead, and her cruddy, mangled black hair. The girl didn't seem to care and bent over (as she was a solid five or so inches taller than Raven) and did something Raven would've never guessed.
She kissed her. As soon as Raven's brain had processed this information, the girl had pulled back. Before she could say anything, a few streetlamps and panes of glass shattered with a loud bang, and Raven attempted to calm herself quietly.
"I appreciate you destroying those bonds, but I must ask that you leave me alone from now on," she said in a crisp and golden voice. She took a step back and leaped into the sky, flying effortlessly into the rainy night sky.
A few minutes later.
Raven had fully processed the situation, but still found it to be perplexing. First, a redheaded woman attacks Robin with an unknown anger. Next, Raven stepped in to save him, and the next, the woman had kissed her, somehow figured out the entire English language in the one and a half seconds their lips conjoined, and left without so much as a farewell pardon.
At least Robin's leg did not look too bad.
"Thanks for the help back there. Without you, I'd have been toast," Robin humbly said, having been assisted by Raven over to an area protected by the rain.
"I didn't really . . . help. All I managed to do was break her cuffs and. . . ." She trailed off, shaking her head a tad, but Robin seemed to understand well enough.
"It is strange though. Whoever she is, she needs to be assessed. And she needs to be brought down if she's a threat," Robin explained reasonably, somehow shaking off the pain of a first-degree burn on his calf with relative ease. It was dumbfounding how a boy a year or so younger than her, three or so inches shorter (Raven was 5'5") could handle pain so well. She then remembered this was the pupil of Batman and realized her mistake.
"And . . . you're telling me this, why?" Raven demanded, emptying her hood of water before putting it back on.
"It's easy enough to figure out I'm no match for her. Anybody who can pick up a car with their toes is too much for anybody like me to handle. But you broke her cuffs, which even she seemed to be having issues with, pretty easily. I think you're more than qualified to help me out on this mission."
Raven sputtered a moment. She should've seen this coming, of course, but nobody asked a creepy girl like Raven for help before. It took her a solid few seconds to respond.
"Fine . . . can't argue with your logic." It came out as more of a resigned huff than what she had expected, but Robin seemed content with the fact she agreed to begin with.
It took a solid hour to track the girl down, and the rain had long since passed, but they were drawn in by the sounds of fighting. Looking around, they found the girl locked in combat with two new people. The first was a green man wearing a purple spandex while the other was a tall man who's entire body was covered in a jacket and pants.
"Just who does this chick think she is?" The green-skinned boy asked with a squeaky, mischievous voice. The taller man shook his head in a 'beat's me' sort of way.
"Well, whoever this lady is, we're not going to let her trash our favorite pizza joint," he declared, taking a fighting stance. The alien girl they fought scowled, but calmed momentarily when Raven and Robin stepped forth.
"Picking fights already, huh? Starting to look less and less threatening by the second," Robin mused, pulling out his retractable metal polearm.
"Um . . . Robin, I don't think violence is the answer here," Raven spoke in a soft tone. She knew it could be diffused fairly easily, given the emotional state of everybody involved.
"If we can get by this without violence, I'm all in, but how can you know that?" Robin demanded, causing Raven to tense a bit.
"Just . . . uh . . . another quirk of mine, I guess."
He sighed.
"Woah, wait, is that Robin?" The green-skinned boy squeaked in an excited manner.
"I think it is! Robin, sir! Hi!" He bounced over energetically, causing the tall man and the alien girl to pause in surprise.
"I'm not a sir," Robin protested, looking down at the approaching boy.
"But, but . . . what are you doing in Jump City? Shouldn't you be in Gotham?"
"I'm flying solo until I can assemble my own team. But shouldn't these discussions come after we reason with the girl?"
"Oh, right right. Yeah, are we gonna kick her butt?!" Raven gasped to herself when the boy suddenly transformed into a green saber-toothed lion. Even Robin looked perturbed for a moment.
"Ah . . . no. My . . . associate here thinks she can reason with her," Robin explained, much to the boy's chagrin. He transformed back with a groan.
"Aww man! But she trashed our pizza joint. . . ."
"Guess you'll have to find another one," Raven mumbled.
"Did I not tell you to leave me alone?" The girl demanded. Her buttery smooth voice caught everybody off-guard (Raven especially), but they composed themselves quickly.
"We just need a few questions, then we'll abide by your request. First, who are you, and secondly, why are you here? Intentions?" Robin asked these, taking the initiative for the soft-spoken Raven.
"In your language, I am Starfire. I am here because of reasons outside of my control. I wish not to engage in meaningless fighting, but I will fight for my freedom!"
"Then step forward and don't make any sudden movements," Robin asked, keeping a perfectly stoic face.
"Tell me your names first," she countered.
"I am Robin."
" . . . Raven."
"Garfield! But everybody just calls me Beast Boy," he chuckled.
"Victor."
"And are you four in a group?" Starfire took a few cautious steps forward, and she found herself significantly taller than everybody except Victor.
"No. But I am looking for a team I can call my own," he explained. "With the proper training, all of you could be viable candidates."
"Now hold up. You sayin' you, Robin, are invitin' us, a buncha freaks, to be in your little group?" Victor asked, requesting verification.
"None of you are freaks," Robin snorted. If Robin had learned anything working with Batman, he learned everybody had a gimmick and that was what made them useful.
"Look here," Victor demanded, pulling off his hood. Half of his face was cybernetic.
"You sayin' this ain't the face of a freak? This is the face of somebody who had to experience the "generosity" of scientists firsthand," he said, raising his voice to emphasis his point.
"Garfield is green, Starfire is from space, and I'm the ex-pupil of a man who associated with people freakier than all of us combined. In fact, your cybernetics would be of invaluable use to any team," Robin encouraged, putting on a pleasant smile as he tried to explain his reasoning.
Victory paused and covered his face again, going silent. It appeared to have worked.
He sighed. "I guess you're right. Doesn't mean I've accepted the offer yet, though."
"I wanna be on a team with Robin! Hell yeah, dude, I'm accepting that any day of the week!" Garfield exclaimed, bouncing back and forth with excitement. Victor, who clearly went along with the little fellow, nodded silently.
"And what about the girls?" Robin asked, turning to face Starfire and Raven.
"I suppose it would be a good learning experience," Starfire shrugged, not totally on board but not totally against it either.
"And. . . .?" Robin looked to Raven. She immediately felt stressed and pressured, and backed up a bit.
"I dunno . . . I'd just get in the way," she said solemnly.
"You destroyed the handcuffs of the Citadelians, who's bonds even I could not break fully. Certainly, you would not get in the way," Starfire protested, causing Raven to glance up at the taller woman.
"That and your bravery was extraordinary. Not just any street girl would've run toward danger to save another," Robin explained, sparking a reaction from Garfield and Victor.
". . . I guess," Raven mumbled. "I'll come."
Robin nodded excitedly, happy that everybody had agreed to join. "Awesome. Now we just need a name."
Everyone paused for a moment before Garfield spoke up.
"Oh! Oh! We're all teenagers here, right?"
Everyone nodded.
"And since titans are a pretty cool thing . . . why don't we call ourselves. . . ."
"The Teen Titans!"
This retelling is canonically different from the show's, as I've borrowed elements from other continuities, but I hope it's turned out okay. If I get some support, I'll write a follow-up to this. If this gets enough momentum, I will go until Raven's final battle with Trigon, but that would be a long ways away. Let me know what think. Any and all critique is welcomed.