Author's Notes

Okay, I know I had originally said that The Dark Army and Second Chance would be the final entries in the Betrayed, Cast Off, Angry saga - don't call me a liar as you should know by now that I am prone to changing my mind about creative ideas during my stories. However, even before I finished Second Chance, I had been toying for a while about another entry, and now I think I have figured it out with this story, the true finale of the saga, titled Her Retribution.

It takes place about three years after the events of The Dark Army and firmly follows that story's timeline, not the alternate scenario timeline that was Second Chance and hopefully will resolve all the blanks from its predecessors, wrapping up all loose ends, with some of these including the identity of Fox and more of an explanation behind the Wilsons' resurrections. And much like the former, this will be a mystery/crime story with elements of fantasy and sci-fi. Though, this story will ultimately feel a bit more like NCIS than NCIS: Los Angeles (which was ultimately more akin to the tone of The Dark Army).

And as for Second Chance, I have toyed with the idea of doing a one-shot series detailing the lives of Raven & Slade as well as the Titans (like rewritten versions of the episodes Switched and Date with Destiny). Whether or not I ultimately pick up on that idea, we'll have to wait and see if my inspiration comes to me for that particular story.

I will post the chapters up in batches of three or four chapters at a time, and I will respond to all reviews in a batch in the next batch.

Now, let's begin the story.

It's been about five months since Vandal Savage was defeated, condemned to hell for eternity for his war crimes as a result of his association with the People's Redemption Army.

Most high-ranking members of the militia had been captured, except for the number two figure, Fox, who had yet to be found. The Titans were no longer certain that Fox even existed, as most of the operatives they apprehended reported never seeing Fox. However, they wouldn't give up as they figured they lied.

However, victory against the PRA came at a heavy price for the Titans - Bumblebee lost one of her legs in an attack by Kyd Wykkyd, Savage's right-hand man and assassin. The same attack also did severe damage to Gizmo, but he was expected to pull through, albeit never being able to walk again.

Unfortunately, during Gizmo's recovery from surgery, he suffered a severe cardiac arrest from hidden poisons inside of Wykkyd's bullets, and he died of his wounds, leaving Jinx, Bumblebee, and Ravager as the only surviving members of the HIVE Academy, as most of them lost their lives to Wykkyd over the course of three years. Cyborg didn't count as he wasn't enrolled as Cyborg, but rather as "Stone".

Taking the tiny genius's place on the Titans Tango team were Raven's "kids", Melvin, Timmy Tantrum, and Teether, having become old enough to leave the monastery in Bucharest they had lived in for the past few years.

The Titans Central team, led by Raven, now consisted of the original members Raven, Kid Flash, Jinx, Hustler, Ravager, and Omen, the latter becoming a ward of the Titans after the death of her parents at the hands of Kyd Wykkyd.

It was a normal day as usual, with Raven getting a cup of herbal tea to start off, watching the sunrise and seeing if there were any threats they had to handle or any crime scenes to investigate.

In the three years since the Titans Central team had formed, they had taken down most of the city's meta-human criminal element along with regular Titans foes as Adonis, Control Freak, Mad Mod, and Johnny Rancid.

Soon joining Raven out in the ops room of the Tower was Ravager, Raven's second in command. She asked, "What's up boss?"

Raven replied, "Nothing, actually. Crime's been way down since Savage's defeat, almost as if he was controlling the city. A year ago, we'd have to deal with five crimes a week. Now, it's not even one a week. Things have been slow lately, and while I hope that this is a good thing, it could also mean that the criminal element is planning something big."

"I think they aren't planning anything. Informants in the remaining members of the Cabresa say the don's got nothing planned. He's focused on stopping the bleeding after we busted his operations." Two months earlier, the Jump City Mafia, the Cabresa, were trying to smuggle in six tons of ecstasy to sell on the black market, but the team intercepted the operation and seized the drugs, which was a crippling financial loss to them.

"That better not happen. They've been on the decline for some time, they'll probably be out of money in a year. They'll be forced to act and we'll catch them and shut them down once and for all."

"They won't be able to buy off any more lawyers or judges. We'll have successfully defeated the mob. Doubt Batman could say the same."

"Yeah, though the mob he faces is much more deep-rooted than the Cabresa. Carmine Falcone holds a tight grip on Gotham."

"Maybe if crime has officially stalled, we could go and bring down Falcone."

"That's an idea, if Batman allows us in Gotham. He's got the rule that keeps the League out of Gotham, and that likely extends to the Titans."

"True, but he doesn't have to know it's us."

"Aside from Grant, it'd be pretty damn hard to keep him from figuring we were there. You've got your katanas, Wally his speed, Nirupama her hexes, and my soul-self sticks out like a sore thumb. So, we probably would get compromised the second he hears about it."

"Good point."

Raven turned around and moved towards Ravager, who had changed quite a bit during her time with the Titans. The only daughter of the infamous mercenary Deathstroke the Terminator, she wore a modified bandana that enabled a ponytail to stick right out the back while the black and orange front covered her eyes and the top of her face from being exposed. Her uniform was a dark blue jumpsuit that covered her arms, torso, legs, and neck with light orange latex gloves covering her hands and black combat boots on her feet.

On her back were two katanas, her traditional armaments, but they had been modified. Normally two blades of Japanese steel, they still were the blades, but they could now activate a light blue sheathing around them, which greatly changed their dynamics - they could now cut through almost anything, with the exception of human flesh, something that was frequently for the better as the Titans didn't want to get charged with homicide.

As the two stood in the ops center, Jinx and Kid Flash, who had become engaged a month ago, walked right into the room. Their wedding was scheduled for early next summer, a few months after the double wedding of Beast Boy and Terra as well as Jericho and Kole, which was within the month.

Jinx asked, "What's up boss?"

Raven replied, "Nothing, actually. Almost no criminal elements remain in the city. We've done our jobs."

Following them was Omen, the Titans' ward. Gifted with precognition, Omen, birth name Lilith Clay, was the daughter of one of the Titans' biggest sponsors, businessman Loren Jupiter, but given up for adoption when Jupiter realized he could not be a father. Now a part of the Titans, Raven has been instructing Omen how to better utilize her precognitive ability, often having her spar with Ravager, who also had her own modest precognitive ability (courtesy of the serum that ran through her blood) to see how one could predict the moves of the other. In addition, Raven also taught Omen basic psionic skills, giving her empathy (though not quite as strong as Raven's), telepathy (which she can do in moderation without being invasive), and telekinesis, plus teleportation with a thirty foot range. They were also training her to become the new coroner, performing autopsies on murder victims.

All in all, Omen was proving herself to be a valuable asset to the team, managing to attend both high school and be a part-time Titan, ultimately helping the Titans Central locate the Cabresa's aforementioned smuggling operation.

Lastly joining the Titans was Hustler, one of Slade's sons (the other being Jericho, a member of Titans North) Grant Wilson, formerly known as Red X. The technological and gadget expert of the team, he carried enough firepower to keep enemies suppressed and equipment to mess with their computers and tech.

They were the most effective branch of all the Titans, which says something given the skill sets of the other five teams.

Once the Titans were all in the room, they sat down to discuss business and have breakfast. Grant and Omen, who proved themselves the best chefs on the team (Omen having learned a lot of cooking from Hustler), prepared challah bread French toast with blueberry syrup and cream cheese icing.

After taking a bite of breakfast, Raven began, "Okay, any progress on finding Fox? Or discovering if Fox truly existed?"

Omen replied, "I know you think I say this too often, but..."

Raven finished her sentence, "...Fox does exist but is hiding. What we need to find out is where Fox is hiding."

"Well I don't think Fox will be coming out for a while. I'm not getting a sense of him coming in the near future." Thanks to Raven's training, Omen could successfully see visions up to two months in the future, but more long-term predictions would come as full-out premonitions that struck her at random.

After taking a few bites out of breakfast, Jinx pondered, "You think Savage knows?"

Raven answered, "Obviously he does. But he's been refusing to give up Fox's identity, regardless of what he's being put through. And I doubt we have enough against him to force him to spill."

Hustler added, "I checked all the security feeds of the main PRA base, Lord Porter's Way, and everywhere else they may have met. From what little video we were able to recover, none showed Fox's face clearly. They went through a lot of trouble to conceal their identity."

"Figures, since they were operating in secrecy. They had a lot of time to delete the records."

Following Ravager's remark, Kid Flash said, "Doubt we'd even have a chance to access them."

Suddenly, before they could continue discussion, the alarm klaxon rang out, signaling that there was trouble. Hustler accessed the computer feed to see who was responsible, and he said, "Erik the Pirate is looting the marina." As most of the existing Titans foes were defeated or dead, new foes started to take their place, one of these was Erik the Pirate, a twentysomething sailor who had become embroiled with piracy, hijacking a yacht to use as his pirate ship, attacking vessels all across the southern California coastline. And despite all of their attempts to stop him, he may have ended up emptyhanded but never in prison.

Raven responded, "Flash, take the T-Boat with Jinx and Omen. Ravager, Hustler, with me."

Out at sea, or rather the Jump City Docks, Erik the Pirate was bombarding ships and the docks alike with his yacht, which contained twelve sixty millimeter cannons on the sides and a triple 158 millimeter cannon on the bow. His crew down below manned each cannon as Erik stared in awe as ships took heavy fire. Erik, with his long blond locks (tied neatly in a ponytail), blue trenchcoat with a black vest and trousers, took a look through his high-tech monocle, remarking, "Ain't it a pretty sight? Come on boys, loot the ships!"

Before the crew could proceed any further, a volley of blue energy rounds stopped the yacht right in its tracks. Erik the Pirate turned around to see the T-Boat right on its tail. The T-Boat was a heavily modified sailboat that was designed to run on either the wind or on a plasma engine. It had a series of mines on the stern it could plant to take out incoming enemies and a high-tech navigation system to plot their course and track down targets. On the bow, it had double cannons which could launch red explosive, green flare, yellow stun, or blue EMP rounds.

Having disabled Erik the Pirate's ship, Raven, Hustler, and Jinx appeared on the yacht, standing right behind Erik as he turned around. Raven smirked, "Ready for a walk in Davy Jones's Locker?"

Erik replied, "Nigh! All hands on deck. Titans are here!"

The crew members quickly climbed up on deck, many of them carrying swords or OA-93 machine pistols. Many crew members began opening fire on the three Titans only for Raven to put up a shield to block the .223 Remington shells.

Ravager tossed Raven a cutlass as she drew her own two katanas while Hustler pulled out a UMP45 submachine gun. Raven dropped the shield and Ravager and Hustler went after the crew while Raven pursued Erik.

Hustler squeezed off a couple of shots at the pirates' guns, removing them from their hands, several of said guns falling overboard. Ravager then encased her swords in blue glow and sliced through the remaining swords and guns, disarming all of the crew members.

While some of the crew members ultimately surrendered, others went up with their fists to take down the two Titans. A few of them made it up to Ravager and Hustler, but they easily beat them back in fisticuffs. Most of the rest were taken down by a stun round fired from the T-Boat.

With the crew down, it was Raven against Erik. While he seemed like he was an ordinary human, Erik wouldn't go down easily as he was well-armored and well-armed.

With two energy blasters resembling flintlocks, he opened fire on Raven, forcing her on the defensive, as from past experience, Raven knew that the energy blasters were much tougher than most projectiles she had faced.

Embuing her cutlass with white energy, Raven took a swing at Erik and split his flintlock blasters in two, forcing him to ditch them as he pulled out a rapier, swinging it against Raven's, the sharp energy-slicing edge matching Raven's empowered cutlass.

Now in an old school swordfight, Raven began to press forward against the swashbuckling criminal, trying to finally capture him after his string of raids.

However, Erik would not go down easily and jumped further away from Raven, forcing her to follow as he proceeded to then ambush her with another one of his toys.

Raven was instantly forced onto the ground, holding her ears in pain as Erik remarked, "It was designed to induce paralysis, but knowing your demon physiology, it just emits a very painful noise. And now, for the big surprise."

Suddenly, he pulled out another device and pressed the big black button on it, resulting in six of the cannons proceeding to rotate themselves right towards the deck where Ravager and Hustler were standing while the others aimed right at the T-Ship. Erik continued, "Say goodbye to the Titans. None of them will be able to escape a barrage of sixty millimeter cannon fire, especially those at point blank range."

However, before they could be blown away by Erik pressing the trigger, a long lost problem resurfaced in Raven - the Rage that she thought had vanished upon her becoming White Raven had returned.

In the blink of an eye, Erik was blown right off of the yacht, falling into the ocean and sinking, and sinking. Raven could only stare as the control she believed she had vanished before her very eyes.

Before the other Titans could confront her, Raven engulfed herself in soul-self and vanished from sight.

Upon her departure, Hustler hopped onto the T-Boat and equipped himself with a diving suit, which had been designed to withstand the impact of water up to half a mile below the water.

It took him four minutes before he surfaced with what remained of Erik the Pirate. The Titans could only stare at how mutilated the body was, missing both of his hands, everything below his right knee, part of his left foot, and his face looked as if someone took a razor to it repeatedly and slashed it.

Returning to the Tower to confront Raven, the Titans were disturbed at the note they found. It said, "Titans, for three years I believed my emotions were no longer a problem, as my demonic father was dead. Now I realize I was a fool, and that hellish influence still resides. I am taking a leave of absence and will try to flush out the rest of my 'rage issues' in my Infernal Province. When, or if I return remains uncertain. Until the day comes that I do return, if it does, Rose will replace myself as team leader of Titans Central, and Garfield my place as the overall commander of the Titans. It has been an honor, now and always, Raven."

Upon reading the note, Jinx asked, "Lilith, you think Rae's comin' back?"

Omen responded, "I don't know. We'll have to wait to see how things turn out."

It had been two years since the Titans Central had received the note, and Raven still had not returned. Had she returned, she would not be facing charges for Erik the Pirate's death, as the Titans ultimately chose to file it as self-defense, as Erik was close to killing them all, and Raven's actions were classified as justified.

Beast Boy, who had assumed control over the Titans as a whole in Raven's absence, married Terra soon after and had a daughter - Coraline Jessica Logan. Kole and Jericho soon followed, and Kole was now expecting a baby boy within the next four months. Jinx and Kid Flash married a few months later, though by that time Jinx was already pregnant with Kid Flash's child, whom they ultimately names Prachi Iris West.

Aside from the weddings, the most prominent change to the Titans was the addition of a seventh team focused out of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island - the Young Justice team organized by the Justice League for their proteges to get valuable experience and run some of the black ops the Titans couldn't run. As for the name, Young Justice was one of the rejected names for Teen Titans when they were first formed, so given the nature of the team, that name simply was the best choice. The team consisted of Conner Kent, aka Superboy (Superman's half-human clone), Megan Morse, aka Miss Martian (Martian Manhunter's "niece"), Greta Hayes, aka Secret (the spirit of a deceased girl and apprentice to the Phantom Stranger), Cissie King-Jones, aka Arrowette (Green Arrow's sidekick) and leader of the team, Jamie Reyes, aka Blue Beetle (the third incarnation of the hero after his predecessor, Ted Kord was recently assassinated), and Tim Drake, the new Robin.

When it was announced that Robin was joining the team, the Titans were initially concerned as the previous Robin succumbed to his obsessive tendencies and became a serial killer named Claw. However, Batman assured them that Tim wouldn't suffer the same problems that Richard had, though he had yet to tell Tim about the true fate of his predecessor.

In the Titans West team, Argent and Hot Spot had hit a bit of a rift and broke up a year ago, with Hot Spot transferring to Titans South, replacing Wildebeest on the team. Aside from fighting crime in Asia and Oceania, most of their black ops duties were transferred to the Young Justice team.

On the Titans South team, aside from the transfer of Hot Spot and Wildebeest, nothing seemed much different than before. They continued to fight crime in Latin America, but many of their espionage duties had been transferred over to the Young Justice team.

Over on Titans Tango, the team still hadn't fully gotten over the Kyd Wykkyd attacks that claimed the life of Gizmo and permanently crippled Bumblebee. The leader of the team now had a prosthetic leg designed by Cyborg that enabled her to walk, but as a result, she was no longer able to shrink down to bee-size, as the new leg could not adapt to that ability. Tramm meanwhile had managed to take English lessons and renamed himself Lagoon Boy, while the "kids" were training to be combat ready, and Melvin was officially now on the field for a few months now.

At Titans East, Coraline had ultimately inherited her mother's geomancer abilities, but had absolutely no control of it, forcing Terra frequently to sit out missions to watch Coraline and keep her from destroying the whole Tower. Wonder Girl had ultimately made the move and now bore the costumed identity Troia while Speedy gave up that name in favor of Red Arrow, one he felt better suited his talents. As for Beast Boy, who was the interim commander of the Titans, he got frequently saddled with the paperwork and meetings with the Justice League and United Nations, meaning he wasn't at the Tower as long as he used to be. As a result, Kaldur'ahm, Aquaman's second protege joined the team for whenever Beast Boy was unavailable.

With the Titans North team, Starfire remained the leader with Red Star her second in command. In the two years since Raven's disappearance, the alien had finally mastered the English language and spoke the language as a normal human would, and was now working on her Russian. However, her beloved mutant larvae Silkie succumbed to old age and passed on four months ago, and was given a burial in space. Other than battles where he was absolutely necessary, Jericho primarily stayed back at the Tower in order to take care of Kole, as she was sitting out field work for the next year as a result of her pregnancy. Much like Titans East, Titans North gained back-up in the form of Barbara Gordon, also known as Batgirl.

Back at the Titans Central team, the five members - Ravager, Hustler, Kid Flash, Jinx, and Omen continued to search for Raven, but to no avail, believing she had disappeared from the universe as they could not contact her in her Infernal Province, despite every channel they have tried (there weren't that many channels though to contact hell). When Jinx had to be benched for maternity, Raquel Ervin, aka Rocket, joined the team to take her place and left a few months ago for a joint duty assignment as liasion between the Justice League and the United Nations.

It was a casual morning over at the Titans Central Tower, Ravager, the interim leader, watched the sunrise. She almost always did that, but she seemed to sense that there was something missing, something that had been missing for two years.

As she watched the sun, Kid Flash sped up to his leader, asking, "What's up, Rose?"

"It's been two years, Wallace."

"Ah, Raven."

"I want her back. She was a better leader than I could hope to be."

"Don't get yourself down. You've handled us pretty good for the past two years. We've been through a lot. And we'll persevere."

"We have, but I mean, Raven's the reason I got a second chance to live. If it wasn't for her, Grant and I would be dead, same with Joey."

"Yeah, Raven saved our asses more times than we can count. Hard to believe she's gone."

"She's not dead, but we haven't seen her in a while. She isn't in this dimension, and I'm starting to think she isn't coming back."

"Face it, who could resist ruling hell?"

"Angels. And for the longest time, Raven. I think her emotions were so much more problemaic than she expected, and it's taking her a while."

Before they could continue the conversation, the klaxon alarm rang and the two quickly proceeded to ops, where Hustler, Jinx, and Omen were waiting. Ravager asked, "What is it?"

Omen replied, "Cops found a body inside Wentworth Labs."

Jinx added, "It's a research facility run by Waxel Mechanics. Started up three months ago when they won a coveted contract with STAR Labs."

Ravager ordered, "Let's check it out."

The five Titans arrived at Wentworth Labs at 8:30 in the morning, which was a relatively small lab, as it was designed only to be used for a short period of time for the Waxel-STAR collaboration.

The police had already taped up the scene, leaving the Titans to investigate the murder. Hustler took a look at the body and commented, "Jesus. Poor bastard's in horrible shape."

Kid Flash asked, "How do you know?"

Hustler put on latex gloves and proceeded to flip over the body, revealing, "It's a man. And from the looks of it, he was brutally tortured and decapitated." Indeed, the body was in terrible shape - the man's head was missing and both of his hands had been removed along with the lower halves of his legs with severe slashing done across the torso. He continued, "African-American, I'd say he was in his late fifties."

Omen walked up to the corpse and placed the liver probe inside of the corpse, remarking, "Looks like he's been dead since midnight. Now, we have to see just what was the fatal wound that killed him." As she continued looking at the body, Ravager asked, "You don't think getting his head chopped off killed him?"

Omen continued, "The decapitation was post-mortem. The other wounds appear to have been made while he was alive, so I'm guessing he died from massive blood loss as a result of the removal of his limbs. Our killer didn't want us to know who the victim was."

Ravager asked, "You think you can get an ID?"

"There's not a lot to work with, but it appears we have a DNA sample." Omen lifted up the deceased's arm and withdrew a sample of bone marrow for DNA analysis.

Jinx took the sample and noted, "Nobody checked in between eleven at night and eight in the morning, so our killer must have come in before then."

Kid Flash swiped the sample from Jinx and added, "But how did he get out?"

The speedster soon pulled out a portable DNA analysis kit and injected the bone marrow sample in. After one minute, the device gave a ding signaling an answer. Ravager asked, "Who is it?"

Upon looking at the results, Kid Flash gulped, "Not good."

Jinx asked her husband, "Who is it?"

He slowly choked out, "Doctor Silas Stone." The other Titans were shocked by that name as Omen pointed out, "Cyborg's father. We're gonna have to tell him that his father's dead."

Shortly afterwards, Hustler came in and added, "And things aren't looking much better. I found the security footage from last night. The cameras were hidden more conspicuously than other facilities, so the killer couldn't find them. For most of the time, the killer obstructed himself from view. But after decapitating Dr. Stone, the killer walks by the camera, and the face is revealed."

Hustler shows the feed to the other Titans, who are absolutely shocked when they discover the identity of their prime suspect.

Ravager muttered, "Raven."

Okay, my original plan for the story was to have Silas Stone be the victim, making the murder very close to the Titans. And in case you don't remember (or know about) the Cabresa or Waxel Industries, both of those come from my Betrayed, Cast Off, Angry spin-off Second Chance - the Cabresa being the Jump City Mafia that Slade and Raven eliminate while Waxel was the company that developed the second chip X acquires.

And remember, I will answer all reviews for this chapter and the remaining chapters in this batch in chapter 5.