New chapter! Yes! Action in this one. Things start happening. Well, at the beginning anyhow. But I promise the pace will pick up. Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Your support is wonderful and helped me have the drive to write the second chapter. Thanks again.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans, but I wish I did.

It wasn't supposed to happen. Not like this. Not ever. But somehow, impossibly, it had. It was. No way to avoid it. Thoughts scurried about in Raven's mind.

Because, at that very moment, Beastboy was falling. Plummeting, more like. The distance between his body and the broken pavement below it was closing fast. Raven distantly heard herself cry out, felt her energy wrap around her to transport her beneath his falling form. There was an odd clarity to her thoughts, a detachment, almost as if she was watching a mildly interesting TV show.

I've got to catch him. If he hits the ground, he'll likely die. Somehow, Raven's mind was calculating and logical even as she felt panic at the very idea. Can't lose him. Can't lose any of them. Get there, get there, get there—and she was there, beneath him, watching the broken body of her team mate get closer and closer. Her senses heightened. She could smell the sweat all around her as her remaining team mates struggled to overcome their opponent, could hear the crashes, grunts, panting around her and, oddly, the sound of a bird flying over them. She could see the trickle of blood on the side of Beastboy's mouth, the smallest rip in his uniform, the bruise forming on his forehead, the odd angles of his leg and arm.

Just before he crashed into her, Raven saw him open his eyes in confusion. He looked over her shoulder and his eyes widened.

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Beep…Beep…Beep…

Raven came to slowly, her dreams fading. She registered a headache beginning to form, helped along by the shrill beeping sound that had roused her. Clenching her eyes shut, she willed down the nausea that was creeping up on her and forced herself to think and take stock.

Beep…Beep…Beep…

What's that noise? Raven cast about in her head for the answer, trying to ignore her aching head. No idea. Then the sterile scent hit her. Must be in the med-bay. She carefully moved her limbs. No bruises. No broken bones. Why am I here? She tried to remember. She didn't even remember blacking out. Just Beastboy blinking at her.

Raven mentally reached out, searching for an emotional signature. There was one. Its tightly wound emotions were familiar to her mind, tinged with the gentle velvet sensation of dreamless sleep. It called to her, easing the pounding in her head. She wanted to wrap herself in his dreamlessness. She wanted to so much. But she couldn't. That was and his alone. It would be an invasion of his privacy to delve into that velvet. Raven sighed as she slowly drew away from the comfort and opened her eyes, turning her head to look at him.

Beastboy was laying on his side facing her, deeply asleep. There was a red mark on his cheek where it had been pressed against a fold in the pillow right next to a scratch that stretched from just below his left eye to his jaw line. His left arm was in a clean white splint and, judging by the unusual bulk under the thin white sheet, so was his leg. A dark bruise covered half of his forehead, turning the skin there a deep, foresty green. There was a slight frown on his lips, marring the peacefulness smoothed onto the rest of his face.

He must be sore, Raven thought sympathetically. The anesthesia must be wearing off. Even as she thought it, the faint scent of pain wafted into her empathic nose—a scent that reminded her of burnt chicken. Raven crinkled her physical nose. She tried to get up to walk over to the green changeling but found herself unable to. Something was restraining her, forcing her back into the bed. She looked over and down at her wrists. Raven's eyes widened in confusion. A vase on the bedside table shattered.

There were shackles of silvery metal around her wrists with a thick blue beam of light connecting it to the bed frame, preventing her from moving her arm more than three or four inches. Looking down she saw that her ankles were bound thus as well. It was most distinctly Cyborg's work.

Raven felt herself lose control as panic sent tendrils throughout her mind. Why would Cyborg cuff me? The light above her exploded. The heart monitor next to her sparked and collapsed in on itself. Raven saw the light above Beastboy start to flicker and forced herself to calm down, to regain control. Losing control wouldn't solve anything.

Several deep breathes later Raven was as calm as anyone chained up could be. She allowed herself to relax slightly in the absence of the shrill beeping from the heart monitor, mentally chanting to herself. Azarath, metrion, zinthos. Azarath, metrion, zin—

The sound of running interrupted Raven's thoughts. She looked over as the door hissed open and three bodies crashed and fell through it. If Raven had been in the mood to laugh, she might've at the rather comical scene. Robin was at the bottom of the pile, Starfire on top, and Cyborg sandwiched between the two. All three flushed in embarrassment and quickly picked themselves up, Robin looking rather flattened and out of breath. All three looked around and saw Raven at about the same time.

"Raven! You are awake!" Starfire cried, hovering in the air.

"Hey Rae," said Cyborg, grinning. Robin just looked at her. Raven gazed stonily at all three.

"Hello." Raven's voice was icy. "I'd wave, but it seems that someone has me chained." Cyborg chuckled nervously. Starfire stood on the ground. Robin just watched her. Like a predator watches another predator, Raven thought uneasily.

"Heh heh…you noticed that, didja?" Cyborg asked nervously. Raven gave him a cold glare. "Yeah, about that…" Cyborg trailed off, rubbing his hand over his head.

There was a long, tension-filled silence. Raven did not feel the desire to break it. What she felt the need for was to find out what was going on. Beastboy shifted in his sleep and Raven flicked a glance at him, the empath in her wanting to heal him, the demon side enjoying his pain. No sound was made. No ticking, no beeping, barely even the sound of breathing. No one made a move.

And then the silence was broken.

"Oh, but it was necessary, Friend Raven!" Starfire cried, her voice tight with misery. "You were so mad and no one could make you do the cooling-of-the-down. And you were so much scary." Starfire had slipped back into her old way of speaking and Raven felt herself soften to her distress.

"Just—" Raven sighed and tried to raise a hand to her head only to have it jerked back down by her bindings. She sighed again. "Just tell me what's going on here." Her voice sounded quiet and small to her ears; no hint of her normal strength was within it.

"You don't remember?" Robin spoke sharply, still examining her warily.

"Obviously not," Raven replied drily.

Robin looked at her for a moment before responding. "You lost control Raven. You lost it and we had to knock you out for you to get it back. You nearly tore Cinderblock and Plasmus to pieces! You knocked out Starfire! You threw Cyborg and me into a building three separate times! How can you not remember that?" Robin's voice had risen to a shout as he glared hotly at her.

Had Raven not been already laying on the bed, she would have collapsed at his words. As it was, she closed her eyes and clenched her fists, fighting down the despair that threatened to overwhelm her, the anger that tried to consume her. What's wrong with me? She thought in tearful frustration. She was aware of the sound of shattering glass and forced herself to calm down. The shackles around her wrists and ankles seemed to get tighter and to burn into her skin. Like handcuffs from hell…

Raven took a deep breath and shakily let it out. "Tell me what happened," she said without opening her eyes.

"What's the last thing you remember?" That was Cyborg's voice, comforting despite the worry in it.

"Beastboy falling towards me. That's it."

"That's where we should start then, I suppose." Raven could hear him deliberately laying out the bait for her, and she took it to regain some normalcy. Thank you Cyborg.

"You think?" She heard Cyborg chuckle and Starfire giggle. Robin was silent.

"Well, I'll make it short and sweet—er…yeah. Anyhow, you caught Beastboy fine. The force from him falling kind of smashed you into Cinderblock's punch though. I ain't never seen someone hit a wall that fast before. Man, I thought that you'd be knocked unconscious or worse, but you stood up and shook the dust from your cloak as if nothing happened. I dunno what you did, girl, but whatever it was, it probably saved both of your lives. But that's where the trouble starts." Cyborg paused and took a deep breath. "You didn't even move. You just looked at Cinderblock and suddenly he was, like, covered in your magic, squeezing him. It was probably lucky for him—to an extent—that Plasmus tried to sneak up on you from behind. You just picked him up the same way. You kinda floated Plasmus to the front of you and you just…stared at those two, stared at 'em hard, like you were thinkin'. You'd quit squeezin' Cinderblock by then. And then you just—I dunno exactly what you did, actually. All I know is that suddenly Cinderblock and Plasmus were screaming. We figured out what was goin' on when Plasmus' arms started to stretch." Cyborg paused for a moment. Raven could feel his reluctance to continue, but continue he did. "We ran at you to try to talk some sense into ya, but there was no talkin' sense. You smashed all three of us into a wall when we got too close. Starfire tried to do ya in, but you grabbed her and smashed her into the ground then threw her, knocking her unconscious. I went around to your front to distract you while Robin came up from behind, but you got both of us. And god, Rae, your eyes were red. Like in Nevermore and everything. It took us a while to knock you out, but when we did, you went back to normal. Robin thought that the best thing to do would be to neutralize your telekinetic power somehow. And…that's why you've got those cuffs on." Cyborg stopped talking.

There was another long silence as Raven took it all in. Disbelief poured itself through her veins like poison, striking deep into her heart. Then pain as she felt the odd mixture of an acrid scent similar to burning hair and the sharp, nauseating flavor of burnt toast.

Her friends were afraid of her.

And they should be, Raven thought in despair. I'm a demon.

The word echoed through her mind as she heard and felt her friends quietly slip out of the room. Demon, demon, demon, demon.

Demon.


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