Deeesclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, in any incarnation. Just borrowing the lovely lot for a bit of fun.

Intro Notes: "Fate" will take place during The End portion of the plotline defined in the Titans GO! animation, reworked almost in it's entirety. Additional elements will be added from the DC Comics Universe (DCU), to expand the world and give it definition Eventual themes you will find; harsh language, violence, suggestive themes. Specifically, there will be female-centric romance elements. Some characters will be amalgams of their DCU and GO! representations, to give greater depth and allow more development. Eventually, the work will move outside the animation ideal entirely, into an Alternate Universe concept, in which the plot ideals I establish mature and grow accordingly.

How does one describe a life? All the things that go into one? People, those we know are like the thesis statement, the punchline, the constantly changing end of a story that never really ends. All those stories, made up of chapters, sentences that lead us to the end, that end being the person we see. As you can tell, I've grown rather fond of book analogies recently.

Now, let me tell you about this one book I've grown to adore...

Act One; Equal and Opposite Reaction.

Chapter One:

I Tuesday morning, 9 am. Jinx's apartment I

The alarm was blaring unheeded for at least five minutes, before a pale hand snaked out to slap the offensive device off the bedside table. Starting not too distantly behind the hand, the arm bore rather nasty bruises, the limb leading up to the sleepy girl nestled in her bed.

She blinked slitted eyes at the room, the languor of sleep clinging to her mightily. "What the hell was I doing last night...?" She shook her head at the thought, trying to place the sore and aching body, the smell of antiseptics, the feel of coarse bandages on her body.

The last thing she remembered was getting hit with some debris after one of those seemingly endless exploding things that the gaudily caped leader of her current troupe of antagonists carried. The blast threw her into... more through a wall, which wasn't so bad. The tumble out of the building and into busy traffic served to be quite different. She winced and made a small sound low in her throat when she tried to move her other hand.

"Guess this means I won't be playing piano anytime soon," she sighed, listening to her voice echo hollowly in the apartment. Her apartment. How did she get back to her apartment? She wracked her brain for a few minutes and finally sighed, still drawing a blank. Feeling the effects of her meta-human metabolism still knitting up her broken body, she nodded, her eyelids heavy again with sleep.

Grumbling, she turned and tossed, and with a pained expression and a small whimper decided to sleep again, or try to. "Mmm, comfy comf- ow. The hell?" The girl's pink slitted eyes peered from between her disheveled bangs and at the offending pointy thing that had jabbed her in the shoulder.

There on the pillow beside her was a note, the pen having been atop it laying by her shoulder, falling with her shifting apparently. She levered herself up and read it slowly, pink brows knitting as she did so a second time, to be sure she didn't misread.

Jinx,

The wounds you took should heal fast, with your
metabolism as it is, but be careful of your hand and
left side. You have bruised ribs, so take it easy
a while if you can.

P.S. Sorry, but I had some tea, while there. I cleaned
up after myself.

The note wasn't signed, the precisely flowing black script seemed... almost meticulous. Precise was a good word she decided. The script was in cursive, very neat, the loops not embellished, the curves nice and defined. Not a male hand, she decided finally. Besides... tea? Her teas tended to the herbal relaxation or caffeine laden fuel varieties, neither of which seemed to really be a guy's thing. "You're really over thinking this." Muttering to herself, she got up slowly, fidgeting when her feet met the cool floor.

The author of the note was right, her left hand was still a mess and when she shifted her weight and the muscles in her back and torso tensed to set her upright it was agony for a few moments. When the pain lessened and her eyes cleared of their tearing up, she tentatively padded around her apartment, scanning for things out of place, things to help her figure out this mystery.

Jinx wasn't a stupid girl, not by a long shot. Quite likely the Hive's second smartest student, behind the child wonder that was Gizmo. "But he didn't count, really," she mused. "No common sense at all. All brains, no sense!" And it was true. He was brilliant, but too unfocused to really apply it. The Hive hoped to take advantage of this, at least as far as she knew, and maybe in the end the boy genius would come out of it all still with his own sense of self, and less a tool. She hoped he could get that clarity of situation at least anyway.

She shook her errant thoughts away, making her way around her home. The bathroom was somewhat used, the medical supplies rifled through but not disorganized. No clues there though. She shrugged and tidied herself a bit while she was there, and relived some of the pressure in her stomach as well.

The living room was devoid of anything but her shoes, sitting by the small table by her couch. The nature of her fall wasn't lost on her, and she knew a lot of the mud and grime on her boots was fresh, fresh enough to track at least. But as dirty as they were, there wasn't any soiling on the carpet. "They carried me?" Her eyebrows shot up and her mild curiosity piqued mercilessly. She mildly cursed her feline tendencies and went into the last room she'd yet to explore.

Her kitchen wasn't messy, but it was lived in. A small collection of plates, a day's worth, were dirty in the sink. She scanned the room and found the few things out of place. The tea kettle was on the stove, still bearing water she figured. One of her mugs was hung on it's hook out of her normal scheme, having already been washed. She checked her tea cabinet and saw the only package to have been disturbed was her chamomile teas, which confirmed her earlier suspicion. "Oh, definitely not a boy." She went about making herself a cup, trying to do so like she'd not been inhabiting this house, doing this precise thing, so many times before.

As she "searched" for the waste bin she saw her first, and only clue. The edging to the sink was roughed near the stove, by where her waste bin was settled under the tile. She'd repaired it, albeit not expertly. The result was that if you leaned down, and weren't careful your hair or clothes may catch lightly in the not-quite flushly joined edging. It was a minor nuisance, one she'd learned to ignore, or avoid. But there, trapped between her handiwork and the rest of the counter was her target. She grinned as her thief's reflexes kicked into hyperdrive, plucking the single hair from the crease.

"Found you," She sing-songed and swayed in place, holding the hair tightly in her fingers. She pulled out a ziplock baggy, and placed it inside, then evacuated the air to seal it. Reaching under her table desk in the den, she retrieved a piece of blank paper and small reading glass and waited for her tea to cool as she placed the subject of her attentions on the table before her.

"Now... lets see what we can see, shall we?" She crooned at the captive hair, her pink eyes glinting with the glee of the hunt her scavenging had awakened. "Oooh, I wonder who you belong to?" She grinned happily, her injuries forgotten for the moment as her mind focused on the task at hand. She peered through her glass and tilted her head, lips pursed. "Too... dark." She couldn't quite place the color, it really was too dark to make out well. It could be black, or a very deep... violet.

He breath stalled, and she blinked. She looked at the length and nodded once, her mind clicking all the pieces together. It was a little under a foot long, and would probably not be black under closer inspection. She peeled the bag open, and focusing all her attention, sniffed lightly. She sorted through all the signals her mind received, the chemical soup of the bag's polymers, the stale air. There, she thought and her lips crept into a half smile. "So, it was you. Why was it you?"

Her thoughts centered on a single name, and the smell she found very appealing, suddenly. It wasn't one she was unfamiliar with, she'd smelled it often, recently. "Well, at least since the Hive went active, and we've made contact with the Titans," she mused quietly, taking a sip of her now warm tea.

Lavender. Her lips curled up into a smile.

I Tuesday morning, 8 hours previous. Titan Tower I

Robin blinked rapidly as the lights in the briefing room flickered, the shadows lengthening around the person pacing, scowling in front of him like a caged animal. This is so not good, he thought blankly, watching her eyes narrow as she stopped and looked at him directly. She smiled very slightly and his blood iced.

"No, this is decidedly not good, Boy Wonder." Raven's voice carried none of it's usual monotone calm, instead it was breaching into the shaky enraged area.

He flinched at her obvious admittance to scanning his mind, knowing that it was her anger that was taking over and the slip wasn't intentional. He hoped, at least, "Raven, calm down. Tell me what's bothering you so much." He hoped he could manage to do so, at least. If she didn't calm down soon, something was likely to break, and he wasn't sure it'd only be inanimate objects around the room, at the moment.

The other Titans watched mutely, even bubbly Starfire was cowed a bit by Raven's caged anger. They too waited to hear what it was that had pushed their friend and teammate into such a black... or in this case, crimson, mood. Beast Boy fidgeted with his costume, remembering something he'd almost written off, but now made more sense. As he called the scene to mind, the blur of pink hair and the limp body of one of the Hive members free falling to the street below, Raven's eyes snapped to him. He gulped audibly.

Her gaze swept back to Robin and through gritted teeth she finally spoke, repeating her mantra at least five times before settling quietly, calmly before their leader and the table arranged in the briefing room. "You were careless, and you don't even really know what you did, which is what makes this so pointless." Her black energy swept out, cradling her as she floated there a moment, catching Beast Boy's eyes. "You tell him, I don't have the patience right now." With that, she phased through the ceiling and they assumed, went to her room.

The room warmed and they as one took a deep breath, feeling the level of tension abruptly dropping. Robin turned and shrugged apologetically to his remaining team, watching their reactions from the veiled eyes of his mask. Star was staring at the spot that Raven had passed through, a look of obvious worry on her pretty Tamaranian features. Cyborg was blinking at the table, looking thoughtful but confused. Terra was leaning on her hand, tapping at her cheekbone slightly and thinking deeply about something but looking out the window. Beast Boy cleared his throat and grinned sickly, standing up to take the floor meekly.

Cyborg laughed a bit, and chimed in before his friend could start, "What happen man, you cop a feel on the way out of the scene?" The slight giggle this elicited with the team and Robin's glare lessened the tension, but the half metal man shook his head, apologizing to Beast Boy for his interruption. "Go on Gar, what's she upset about?"

Robin nodded to the green youth, knowing he'd been charged with explaining this, and not envying it.

Beast Boy wasn't really sure if what he'd remembered was the point of Raven's tantrum, but considering his being singled out, and what she'd said before storming out, he figured it may be worth a shot. "Um, guys I guess maybe she's upset about that one girl." He started, hesitating a little as they all gave him questioning looks.

He walked over to the main screen and they watched him flick through the files on the people arrested and the ones for the Hive members they'd come in contact with that night. One didn't add up and Robin paled when he remembered why the girl wasn't in the group they'd handed over. He cursed his lapse and nearly did so verbally when Beast Boy turned and pointed up at the pink haired, smiling visage on the screen.

"One of your explosives went off by her, and she was thrown out of the building," He paused as that sank in. The rooms they'd caught the Hive team in were very high up in a high profile software company, and they'd tried unsuccessfully to minimize damages. It was just nearly impossible when you have almost a dozen meta-humans and supernaturals and experts all at odds in such a small place. "I remember seeing Raven drop what she was doing and fly out the window after her, which is when that little geek kid almost hacked into Cyborg." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously as his friend looked uncomfortable at the table. "Sorry dude, wasn't expecting that."

The larger teen smiled and waved it off, "Nah, it's cool man. I just need to install some security, for next time. No more chance of that kind of thing again," to emphasize his point he slapped the table, startling the girls near him. He blushed and mumbled apologies while they grinned at him.

Robin replayed the scene and remembered why he'd not paid attention past the throwing of his birdarang at the hex-flinging girl. Mammoth had just caught Starfire by the foot as she flew by and tossed her across the room, and he'd dived to help break her fall. He sighed and nodded at the screen, agreeing with Beast Boy's explanation as well. "That must be it. I was careless, as she said."

"But man, why is so bent out of shape by a bad guy getting tossed around?" Terra was looking back at them, her attention off the view of the bay from the nearby window for the first time this late morning. She noticed everyone's eyes on either her or the screen, and waved at it for emphasis. "I mean c'mon, there's always going to be a time when someone gets hurt."

Robin nodded, but looked back at the screen. "I think, maybe it's just that we forget that these people aren't just villains. Not just enemies." He sighed and sat in the chair he'd not touched since they'd arrived back in the Tower. "How many people saw Batman as a villain, before time proved he wasn't?"

"But dude, this is different!" Beast Boy gestured at the screen and leaned up over the table where he's sat again. "These guys ARE villains! We caught them in the act!"

Their leader nodded and stared at the place Raven had passed through. "But that doesn't mean we can forget that they can be hurt too." He furrowed his brow, realizing how complicated his position was. Protect the city, and the people on his team. And the people they fought? How could he balance it all out? But despite it all he'd never been pushed to take a life- yet. He hoped that day was far off still.

He snapped himself out of his darkening thoughts and pressed some keys on the pad before him, setting up the schedule of activities on the screen. He scanned the days and wrinkled his nose. "Too lax," he thought to himself. To the others, his words were met with groans, a nod, and some acceptance. "More practices, we need to clean up our style, be more careful, pay more attention." He added, more to someone not present than to quell the protests in the room, "and I'll be joining you."

Up in her room, Raven smiled slightly, not fully satisfied, as Rage was hard to settle down. But it was a step in the right direction. Next though, her thoughts turned inward, her confusion over why this whole situation had made her nearly snap and loose control of herself with her teammates. In a way, Terra is right. Though it pains me to admit it. she thought idly, staring at her ceiling, her cloak cast off as she entered her sanctuary. "But... how hard would it be, to be on the other side? To have something turn one of us into one of them?" Her voice echoed around her small room once, the last syllable of her sentence humming back at her. She knew why her thoughts took this bend. The complication of the entire night wearied her, and she shook memories of her father, prophecies, the whole lot from her mind as she recanted her mantra a few times. The meanings of the words, seemingly just pulled out her history anything but that.

Azarath. Home. The place where she belonged, that was what defined who she is now, to a point. Her prologue. Her beginning.

Metrion. The one who brought her people together. The unification of her people's good, at at once a reminder of what power could do, if mistrusted, taken for granted.

Zinthos. The light in the dark. That which defines it, by at once existing inside it and being outside it, different from it. The one moon of her home dimension.

All these held a special meaning for her. Each one contributed to her calm, to her sense of center. It was anything but a simple phrase. It was the culmination of that which made her Raven. Her beginnings. And as one of the few surviving people of Azarath, she owed them the due of remembrance.

Sighing at herself, at her own darkening mood and tone of thoughts, she looked to her dresser, knowing the silver mirror rested inside. "Not yet, I don't need to do that yet." She composed herself to a meditation pose, her calm unbroken for some time as she hummed lightly, occasionally the words of her mantra escaping the thin line of her lips as she spoke quietly in the dark. The memory of hurt, pink, slitted eyes, a soft lingering presence against her palm flitted briefly in her memory but the only outward sign being a slight dip in in her levitation above the floor of her sanctuary.