Time Never Waits.
It Delivers All Equally to the Same End.

You, Who Wish to Safeguard the Future,
However Limited it May Be...

You Will Be Given One Year;

Go Forth Without Falter,
With Your Hearts As Your Guide...

Saturday, March 17th. 7 days before the next full moon. Dark Hour. Titans Tower

She opened her violet eyes and let out a small gasp. Something had interrupted her meditation. It was a voice she never heard before. It seemed to come from with in her, but also from miles away at the same time. A word pierced the tip of her tongue. She wanted to say it, and to believe something she never knew about. Why was this happening to her? What did it mean by... "One year?"

She spoke out without really knowing what she was saying. The gray skinned girl left her meditation circle and felt a strong urge to scream out something. She broke out of her room in a haste. A weird haze covered the hall. It was all different, almost painful to walk through. The hall looked like a labyrinth. It was splattered with a red substance. It looked like blood, but she couldn't smell any blood. "Guys!?" She let out in what could be described as an alarmed, monotone, shout.

She received no answer from anyone. Fumbling a bit she grabbed her communicator from her clip and lifted it to her lips. "Robin, are you seeing this?"

No response. After further inspection she looked down to see her communicator was completely dead. Which is near impossible with how Cyborg had built them. She walked through the now alien hallway to a doorway. She opened the door and could not believe what she had saw. It was the common room of the Titans Tower, but there was a dark twist to it that she could not have ever imagined. Cyborg and Beast Boy were still where they were when she left them, playing their Game Station 3. Robin was still sitting on the couch listening to his iPod. Star Fire was in the kitchen making god only knows what. Raven floated over to see the whole scene. Obsidian caskets stood where all four of them would be sitting.

Raven rubbed her eyes and tried to wipe away some sort of deception that just wasn't there. This wasn't in her mind or some sort of projection. "Beast Boy... I swear if this is one of your jokes..." She didn't finish the sentence. She could feel the four other Titans presence in those caskets.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" An aura of black power enveloped over the caskets. She tried to pull them apart, she tried to move them around, she tried to do anything, but her power had no effect on any of them. She felt a tinge of fear, and an abyss of being lost and alone. Something else wasn't right. She moved to the window. She could not fathom the horror of that sight. The lake that surrounded the Titans Tower was crimson, and the moon in the sky was huge and yellow, illuminating a sky of green. She did a quick mental assessment of which of their usual suspects could do such a thing. She wondered if her own father, Trigon the Terrible, could achieve such a thing. Her hands clenched in fear. She felt it well up and couldn't control it. The panes of glass she was facing slowly began to warp in a black aura and as she closed her eyes and guarded her face the glass shattered into the tower and over her. Some shards left gashes against her arms and legs. It was all overwhelming and Raven felt a warmth trickle down her forehead.

"Blood?" Did she get gashed? No. This substance was black, like ink. It fell from her head and started to pool up all around her. She clutched her head and dropped to her knees before letting out a full scream. Then there was darkness. Raven felt weightless as she started to come to. At least that was what she thought. She traveled through darkness into a door of light. She felt herself sitting down in a place she didn't know. Her eyes opened to quite the different scene. A lounge room colored in a deep blue. Before her sat a table, an equally deep blue couch and a man with a very long nose. Standing along side the man was a woman with almost a similar complexion as Raven. She had a similar fashion sense, and similar facial features except for a set of oddly colored, yellow eyes and pale, white hair. Raven tried to move, almost to the point of struggle, but she could not.

The man began to speak. "Oh! It seems we have another special guest." The man smiled at her.

Raven found she could not easily focus. "Where am I?" She managed to get out. The man, even if he was odd looking, did not seem threatening.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room." He spoke slowly as if he understood Raven's troubles. "Do not be alarmed, you are actually dreaming. Your body and your friends are safe in the Tower from whence you came."

Raven started to come up to speed with the situation. "What is this place?"

The man with the long nose continued. "This is a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter... We had no idea when the next time we might be fortunate enough to have another guest after the last."

Raven looked at the two. "Who are you?" The man smiled in response. "My name is Igor, this is my assistant, Candice. She is also a resident of this place."

The girl at his side also smiled and nodded to Raven. Her voice was sweet and comforting. "Pleased to meet you."

Focus came back to them and on the table the man had a hard-covered, purple, sign-in booklet and a pen. Raven looked it over, it looked like some sort of contract. "What is this about?" She felt uneasy now.

"This is a contract, as you can see it has not yet been signed, but it seems that fate has chosen you for a great task indeed." Igor looked Raven over. "You are not like the other guests we've had, in fact you are much more of a wild card then we could have ever imagined. You are not one, but several entities, all with a perfect spectrum of the arcana fused into one. A very interesting case indeed." Igor seemed to smile with delight over his discovery. "We look forward to seeing you again, but for now you must find your way and start building your path to enlightenment over the heavy burden you are to face."

Raven didn't know what to think. Before she knew it she was being whisked away from the mysterious duo. She had so many questions yet to ask and a dark feeling about everything she was just told. From the light of The Velvet Room back to darkness, Raven came to with all four Titans around her. How was she going to explain any of this?

Saturday, March 17th. Morning. Titans Tower

The other Titans stood around Raven and gave her that look. What exactly was "that" look? Well, that was the look they gave whenever she did something weird. By now her wounds from the glass had all healed, but she still found herself in the medical wing of the tower. "Did you see any of it?" She threw recklessly at the four others, with a hint of desperation.

As she rose from the table and moved her legs over the side they gave her the answers she expected.

"Girl, you bout gave us a heart attack sneaking up on us like that." Cyborg said.

"Yeah. You just appeared out of nowhere with glass shattered everywhere... is it THAT time of the month again?" Beast Boy added with a snicker, but as with most of his attempt at jokes, it fell completely flat. As did the second bed in the medical wing. Right on top of Beast Boy in an aura of black energy.

"What does Friend, Beast Boy, mean about "That time"? It is Saturday the Seventeenth, is it not?" Starfire added as per usual whenever Beast Boy's jokes failed.

"Uhhh..." Robin looked at Starfire and gave her an expression to drop the subject.

Of course when she realized the punchline she had to express her pride for getting it. "Oh! You mean your Tamocharugcha." Then she failed to register it was a joke. "I have a series of Tamaranian remedies for such an occasion. Shall I retrieve my Posachitan Root and Lynthora Leaf for you, friend Raven?"

Cyborg and Robin both simultaneously face palmed as Beast Boy pulled out from under the bed and laughed. Which of course led to Raven flipping it back over him a second time.

"Seriously, you guys didn't see the moon? The green sky? The blood red lake?" Her voice tapered off as the silence filled the room and gave her the answer.

"What happened to you last night, Raven?" Robin asked, trying to formulate motive as he always did. Trying to see if something was going to pop out of her and try to take over the world.

"It wasn't me, Robin. It has nothing to do with me this time. I heard a voice during my meditation, and when I got out of my room to check the entire Tower was torn apart and put back together as if it was another building entirely."

Cyborg spoke up. "Nothing's wrong with the Tower, Rae. I did a five point scan of the entire base and I couldn't find a single thing missing or damaged. That is except for you and the windows. You literally disappeared from your room and appeared in the living room on the ground where we found you surrounded by glass. All in less than a second."

Raven felt a pit of despair pool up in her stomach. She had one thing on her mind to ask. "What happened to the caskets you all were in?"

"Caskets?" Beast Boy asked, now once again out from under the bed.

"Yes, caskets. Big Obsidian caskets. The ones you were all trapped in last night when it all happened." They all stood painfully silent. Robin even quirked an eyebrow at her. "I'm not making this up!" She shouted. Trying anything to get them to understand.

Robin tried to defuse the situation. "We believe you, Raven. It's just a little..."

Raven interrupted "Weird?"

Robin sighed. "I was going to say far-fetched."

Raven felt her eye begin to twitch. She rose from the table and left in a haste. "I'm going to meditate." The door closed behind her leaving the others behind drowning in confusion.

"This is not just some freak accident. Something is definitely wrong here." Robin said aloud to the others. "Cyborg, look up any of that information Raven told us and see if we can find any leads."

Cyborg nodded. "Right."

Robin then turned to the other two members. "Starfire, Beast Boy... just... just leave her alone for now, okay." The other Titans parted ways and went on with their days.

Saturday, March 17th. Afternoon. Titans Tower

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos..." Raven repeated her mantra, but it offered her little. Her mind was consumed by the events of last night. She thought about what that man with the long nose, Igor had told her. Raven lived her entire life knowing that she could harvest the end of the world, so the thought of impending doom always washed over her, but this was so different. A force even greater then her father was after the world and someone entrusted her with saving it. She regretted blowing up at her friends, but she needed their help. Again, she needed them to understand what she was going through and trust her. She let out a lengthy sigh.

"It's no use..." She shouldn't go without balancing herself, but she just couldn't focus.

Her communicator went off and she flicked it open. It was Cyborg on the other end. "Hey, Raven. Can you come out to the living room, we've got something to tell ya."

Another apology, she assumed. "Alright." She snapped it closed then set a portal and slipped through. When she arrived Cyborg and Robin were both hunched over the middle table looking at sets of pictures and files of information that Cyborg had gotten. "What's all this?" Raven asked.

Robin addressed her first. "This proves everything you told us. I'm sorry for doubting you, Raven."

At that Raven felt the tease of a smile, but nipped it in the butt quick. "What did you find out?" She went to look at the series of photos and notes. They had pictures that went viral of the Yellow moon, the green sky, the blood red water in a place she never heard of. The moon... it was decked out like a space station. How did none of them remember this happening?

"Iwatodai?" She said as she tilted her head in thought and put her hand to her cheek.

Cyborg chimed in with the specifics "It's a man made island near Japan. Some organization named the Korijo Group funded it to be a magnet for local commerce and foreign tourism. It has a huge market place, a strip mall, a traditional shrine for believers to worship and even a high school."

Raven shrugged. "Seems normal enough."

Cyborg laughed. "Far from it, actually. There was a huge accident there in 2006, it involved several students of Iwatodai High School, one of which just happened to inherit Korijo Group, Mitsuru Korijo."

Raven looked over the photos of the students in question. Including one of a Blue-haired boy. She seemed entranced by that picture as she picked it up for closer inspection. She ran her hand along the boy's face. "Minato..." She whispered.

"What Raven?" Robin asked.

"Huh?" Raven snapped out of it and came back to Earth.

Robin continued. "You said, Minato. How did you know his name? Do you know this boy?"

Raven shook her head. "I didn't. I have no idea who he is, it just came to me looking at his picture. I feel... I feel some sort of connection with this boy."

This got some reaction from Beast Boy, who spoke out. "Raven's got a goth, boyfriend?" He laughed. "Who knew? It's gotta be the blue hair."

He poked his fun, but Raven could sense a hint of jealousy.

"This boy... he's no longer with us." Cyborg added. "He died during the incident."

Raven felt uneasy. She knew something wasn't right about that. "No... this boy isn't dead. He is suffering greatly. I sense his pain. I think that's why I've been so on edge lately." What was she saying? She couldn't prove any of this.

Then saved by the bell. The Tower alarm system went off and targeted it's sights on a disturbance in Jump City Park.

Robin as usual jumped right into action. "We'll continue this investigation later, there is much more to discuss. For now we've got bigger fish to fry."

Cyborg and Robin headed for the garage, Cyborg got in the T-car, while Robin got on his R-Cycle. The other three pursued by air. Beast Boy changed into a Falcon, while Starfire shot out leaving a trail of green behind her as she put her all into the chase. Raven opened a portal, still feeling uneasy about this new turn of events, but Jump City had to be saved first.

Author's Notes:

First off I'd like to thank anyone who takes the time to read this project. It is going to be you who gives me the will to power forward and offer this content. I'm going to need your help, not only for me to keep going, but to help me write the story. I want this experience to be all of yours as much as it is mine. When Raven needs to make a decision I will ask you, the reader, for input on which choice she should make. I'm going for complete Reader Interaction as to what direction this is going to go. I will put in my questions at the end of chapters so it's easy to find. I'm not going to be able to please all of you, but I will take a popular vote in the form of input from you in my reviews which I will read daily. This will effect Raven's school life, her social links, and her love life. Now when I say T as a rating I mean that, but you will see romantic relationships form in this. Which means that there are No established relationships in this yet. No Rae/BB, No Rob/Sf, No Persona 3 ones are implied either. With that I'd like to thank you again in advance for your interest in this project, and if you are a fan of TT reading this for the Titans aspect and have no idea what Persona 3 is. I humbly encourage that you look into what the Persona series has to offer. It's a brilliant game series.