Before I begin this chapter, I would just like to thank everyone for all of the fantastic reviews and support! I am amazed at the response this has gotten and it has been truly inspirational for me. So thank you all so much!

In response to a couple of questions asked to reviewers, I did use the name Raven intentionally. I had run into the same confusion as far as her other name, Rachel Roth, and had to do a bunch of research to figure out which was her real name. From what I found, Rachel Roth was a name Raven invented later after joining the Titans, although I'm unclear as to why that was exactly. I might be wrong though.

As far as the identity of 5343, I'll just let all of you figure that out. For the other children, some of their identities are revealed, others won't be, and others are characters of my own creation so will not be recognizable.

Side note, I have planned out the entire story, beginning to end, and have written half of it out already, so updates will be frequent and consistent for a while. As I get closer to the end of what I've written, updates will slow to once a week, at which point I will let all of you know so that you know I'm not dead. After the updates have caught up with what I already have written out, I'll let you all know that the updates might slow even more. Whatever the case, I will try my best to keep updates consistent and as quick as possible.

Thank you all so much for your support! Enjoy the chapter.


Red, red, red.

Crimson.

Burning. What's burning? What is that burning? Burnt, charred. What is that smell? Burnt, charred, scorching! Heat!

Raining down.

Falling… falling… falling…

Throat burning.

Faded screaming. Who is screaming? Where is that coming from?

Light… too bright. It's awful, it's hideous, no, no, no! Make it stop! Make it go away! It can't be there! God, no, please!

Eyes… the eyes! Piercing, burning, screaming eyes!

Run.

Run faster.

Too late.

Red, red, red.

Rage.

Rage!

RAGE!

Daniel's eyes flew open and he shot up in his bunk, gasping and chest heaving, soaked to the bone with sweat, like he had just returned from a swim. He grabbed his head, trying to stop the spinning sensation and working to calm his frantic breathing.

"You alright, man?"

Daniel looked over at the bunk across from him where Victor lay. The red eye of the cybernetic portion of his head glowed in the dark and Daniel cringed away from it, turning his head away quickly as an overwhelmingly terrified feeling came over him, making his breathing increase again at an erratic pace.

"Daniel?" Victor asked.

"I'm fine," Daniel gasped, shutting his eyes and forcing his breaths through his nose to calm himself down. He placed his hand on his torso, feeling the rise and fall of his own chest begin to steady and decrease. Finally, he turned back around, chancing a glance. Victor's red eye still stared at him in the dark, but the feeling he had had moments ago had vanished.

"Another nightmare?" Victor asked.

At first, Daniel's first instinct was to deny it, as he had been for the past week that he had been there, but when he glanced down at his sweat soaked pajamas, he decided against it. He nodded, assuming that Victor's robotic eye was able to see his movements just fine.

"Is he alright?" a voice said softly from the bunk above Victor's.

"He's fine, Gar."

"I'm fine, really. Just… just a bad dream," Daniel said as reassuringly as he could. After a few seconds, he'd gotten his breathing under control, but was given no time to appreciate it: the buzzer indicating that it was time to wake up began to sound, followed by the sounds of murmurs and groans from the grumpy students from other cells.

Daniel rubbed his eyes and wearily stood up with Victor and Garfield. Following the routine that he had been forced to follow for the past week, a Warden walked in, scanned the three of them and then tossed them out into the line forming.

As Daniel followed the line leading off to the cafeteria, his thoughts drifted for the hundredth time that week to having to endure the same routine day in and day out for however long the Talent Scouts planned to keep them there. It was an unnerving thought and he wasn't keen on letting it happen, but the fact that, of all of the monsters and powerfully creatures and people in the facility, not one had escaped, was discouraging. It was absolutely his intention to look into escape plans, but he would have to go about it carefully and patiently if he had any hope of actually succeeding.

His friends had been having similar ideas.

"Hey, Vic, I know how we're going to escape," Garfield said confidently as they stood in line with their trays, waiting to receive the same mush as the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that...

Vic rolled his eye, but turned his head so that Garfield couldn't see it. "Mm-hmm."

"Yeah, I've got it all figured out. Next time I duel with someone who has fur or fuzz or anything like that, I'm going to turn into a flea, hop on their back when they leave the training pod, and then I'll turn into a fly, find the control center, and set everyone free!"

"Uh-huh…" Victor put his tray into a slot, which took it briefly before returning it, this time filled with brown mush. He took the tray and then turned to Garfield with a sarcastic look. "And how are you going to stay a flea once you leave the training pod?"

Garfield blinked at him. "What?"

"Your suppressor will turn on once you leave the training pod, Gar. As soon as your ride steps outside of the pod, you'll turn back into you," Victor explained.

"Oh…" Garfield said disappointedly, his long, pointed ears drooping.

"You can turn into bugs? I thought it was just animals," Daniel said. Victor had given him a summary of each of their skills and rankings, although he had only gotten a generalization and had not gotten a chance to get any details. However, from the sound of it, Daniel had somehow managed to end up with one of the most powerful groups in the facility.

Garfield looked back at him for a second, then his ears shot up and he grinned. "Oh, yeah! Pick a bug or animal and I can turn into it. I don't normally do bugs, though. They're usually not very helpful."

"Cool," Daniel said appreciatively. "Do you… stay green?"

"Oh yeah, I'm always green. Can't change my color," Garfield said with a grin, placing his tray into the slot and received a white mush in return. "But that's fine by me. Green's my favorite color."

"Why are you green, anyway?"

"I'm an alien," Garfield said.

"From where?" Daniel asked, following after Victor and Garfield and placing his tray into the slot.

Garfield shrugged. "Don't remember. Yet. Raven's helping us get our memories back, but she says we have to do it slowly or we'll get more headaches and migraines and stuff."

"She can do that?" Daniel asked.

"She's not supposed to, but, yeah," Victor said, leading the three of them towards their table. "So don't tell anybody."

Daniel shook his head.

"She could probably help you, too. If you want," Garfield said.

Daniel smiled, but didn't actually answer. Somehow the thought of getting memories back made him anxious, which made him even more hesitant to look into it. He thought it better to wait for them to come back on their own. He wasn't feeling majorly hurried to remember anything.

Suddenly he was roughly slammed into, knocking his shoulder back and nearly throwing the tray out of his hands. His grip tightened so that he wouldn't lose his breakfast and he resisted the urge to retaliate. He already knew who had done it—he had been getting targeted for the past several days by the same person—and didn't want to start anything with someone he barely even knew.

"Hey!" Victor suddenly shouted indignantly. "You got a problem?"

The grey-skinned girl—who had, for some reason, taken Daniel's presence as a personal offense since day one—looked back at them with a glare. "What? I didn't do anything. He walked into me. He should apologize. I almost lost my breakfast because of that wimp," she said, her voice malicious and scathing. Her allies, who were once again surrounding her, sniggered and grinned mockingly.

Daniel frowned at her exasperatedly. She and her cronies had initially been subtle in their dislike of him. It had mostly consisted of sneers, hushed, mocking words, and bumping him into things as sneakily as they could manage, but after the fourth or fifth day, they had started getting more aggressive. This was the first time that they had bothered him with his friends present.

Victor frowned as though something just occurred to him and suddenly his initial outrage seemed to lessen.

Garfield, however, was fired up with the indignity of the situation. "YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE! I'LL WHOOP ALL OF YOU INTO GOOP! YOU'LL BE SO SORE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO USE THE TOILET FOR THE NEXT YEAR! YOUR MAMAS WON'T RECOGNIZE YOUR UGLY FACES AFTER I'M-"

"Gar," Victor said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder to calm him. "Daniel needs to handle this."

Daniel sighed, not wanting to get into a confrontation. It wasn't that he was afraid: quite the opposite. He had no tolerance for bullies and nothing would have been more satisfying than punching the expression off of the faces of every one of the group targeting him, but he just didn't see the point in it. Whatever reason they had for hating him, fighting them wouldn't change it.

That didn't mean that he was going to roll over, either.

"Sorry," Daniel said.

The grey-skinned girl got a gloating look on her face and looked like she was going to mock him more, but he interrupted her.

"Sorry I didn't shove the tray out of your hands. You look like you could lose a few pounds."

Her red eyes began to glow with rage and her face actually gained some color, eye twitching.

Burnfirerageragerageruntoolateredredredheatfireredburnburnburnrunthescreamingalltheeyesburnburnragerageragegetaway!

Daniel's head felt like it had suddenly burst into flame. He let his tray drop to the floor with a loud clatter and he reached up, digging his fingers into his hair and dropping to a knee at the onslaught of flashing memories.

"Dan!" Garfield shouted in alarm, dropping to a knee and trying to remove Daniel's hands from his head to look at him.

As quickly as they had come, the images were gone and Daniel panted heavily on the floor, suddenly feeling a heavy, sharp pain somewhere in his stomach. As soon as he had caught his breath, he waved a hand at Garfield. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he said.

The grey-skinned girl sneered at his knelt form triumphantly. "Look at the little twerp. He can't even stand up for more than a few minutes. What do you think, boys?" she asked, looking at her friends with a smirk, "Should we put him out of his misery?"

Her friends laughed and nodded in agreement, looking at Daniel with hungry gazes.

Victor glared at all of them, taking a step in front of Daniel and Garfield, his expression daring them to come closer.

Suddenly Raven and Koriand'r appeared next to them, also taking up positions in front of their friends.

"Do you have a problem, Wendy?" Raven asked and although her question was as bland as always, she somehow managed to put emphasis on the grey-skinned girl's name.

The girl—Wendy—glared at her, but looked less confident than before. "It's the Gray Lady to you, bitch."

"I don't care," Raven said bluntly. "Just go before you draw even more attention to yourself."

Wendy looked around and noticed that several large Talent Scouts were circling them, waiting for the first sign of movement. She frowned, glanced at Daniel hatefully, and then turned, her anger suddenly diminishing as she said, "No big deal. I'll get the little shit later." She gave her group a meaningful, dark smile and then walked off.

"Yeah, you better run, Wendy! Run away, you coward! People should call you the 'Fraidy Lady!" Garfield taunted.

"Stop talking, Garfield," Raven said, turning and looked at Daniel, whose breathing had evened out significantly. She stared at him, although not at his eyes, but at his center, intensely.

"Are you alright?" Koriand'r asked, reached down an arm to help Daniel up.

He nodded, letting her help him to his feet. "Thanks for the help," he said to all of them.

Victor raised a hand dismissively. "Not a problem."

"What was her deal?" Garfield asked, still glaring at the back of Wendy's head as she and her cronies wandered off to their own table.

"They think he's getting special privileges," Victor said.

"Why would they think that? I've been doing what everybody else has been doing!"

"You're a human with no special skills," Victor said, "Word spread somehow that the Talent Scouts decided to let you live. Some people weren't too happy about it. They don't think you belong here."

"Well, I agree with them," Daniel stated bitterly, "but why do they even care? It's not like I'm taking anything of theirs."

"Some people think they've been 'chosen' for something. We call them Devouts. They don't just tolerate being here; they've embraced it. You're not the only one they dislike," Raven said.

Daniel sighed in frustration. Adjusting to the life he had woken to was difficult enough without making enemies for simply being too normal. He looked down at the tray on the floor, highlighted by a brown splatter of mush. He reached down to pick it up, but Koriand'r gently placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Do not worry about the mess, Daniel. I will clean this up. Please, go and get yourself more breakfast."

"I've got it, its fine," Daniel said, but she raised her hand and wouldn't hear another word from him.

"I must insist. Please, we will be waiting for you."

He smiled at her gratefully and then went off to get more breakfast. He observed the Talent Scouts watching him, but tried to act like he didn't notice. Shortly, he returned to the table where his friends had already resumed their breakfast.

"I am sorry your day has started so badly," Koriand'r said, "But I am sure it will be much better!"

"If it turns out better than last week, then you're probably right," Daniel said.

"Attention new students: report to the west entrance to the Assessment Center and follow the Wardens. All other students, report to the Enrichment Center."

Garfield looked up, scratched his head in thought, and then beamed. "Hey, Dan! You've been here a week, right?"

Daniel nodded. "Yeah. And please stop calling me that."

"You don't have to go to the Assessment Center anymore!"

Daniel perked up at that. "Really?"

Victor clapped him on the shoulder companionably. "Hey, yeah. I almost forgot. Freshman only have to go to the Assessment Center for the first week. After that, it's off to the Enrichment Center with the rest of us."

"What is the Enrichment Center, anyway?" Daniel asked.

"You're about to find out," Victor said as the four of them stood. Daniel followed the group as they made their way with the rest of the students towards the second entrance that he had never been to before, which stood opposite the first.

This second group was apparently acutely aware of the freshmen that were moving up and had no qualms with giving each one they spotted a leer or a dangerous grin. Daniel, on the other hand, noticed that his friends had taken very obviously defensive positions around him, not allowing anyone easy access to him. He once even caught Koriand'r glaring at a rather large alligator-like creature. To his great surprise, the creature backed down and refused to look in their group's direction.

The crowd made its way into another large hangar similar to the Training Center, except this room was lined as far as the eye could see with reclined chairs of all different sizes, customized to their recipient.

Koriand'r placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder and smiled at him when he turned his face to her. "Come, Daniel. Your seat is beside mine," she said, leading past the long lines of seats.

They walked for quite a ways; almost to the very end of the room before they finally got to their seats.

"This one is yours and this one is mine," Koriand'r said, pointing to the chair to the left of hers.

Daniel looked at it and frowned. It was perfectly shaped to his measurements, but it looked like a demented dentist's chair, with the exceptions of ankle, wrist and chest cuffs. At the head was the metal skeleton of a helmet with prongs on the sides and an empty square shape where the eyes should be. Daniel gulped when he saw it and looked over at Koriand'r uncertainly.

"Do not worry. The bindings are only used the first time… and for those who do not respond well afterward," she said with a reassuring voice, but her words did little to comfort him.

He watched her settle into her chair, slightly relieved to see that the bindings did not immediately clasp around her, but still glanced at his own chair warily.

"Students, Enrichment will now commence. Take your seats."

Daniel sighed and, knowing that it was unavoidable, climbed up into his chair and settled in. As Koriand'r had said, the cuffs clasped around him as soon as he had settled. He held back the yelp of fear and watched nervously as the helmet lowered onto his head. The square turned out to be a projector screen, which buzzed and turned on as soon as the headpiece had lowered. The prongs at the sides fell inward; down towards his eyes. Panicked that they were not stopping, he struggled and tried to turn his head, but the helmet would not permit him.

"Do not be frightened, Daniel," Koriand'r told him. "They are to keep your eyes open." He sighed and took a deep breath to calm himself. Resigning himself to the inevitable, he allowed the prongs to latch onto his eyelids, which was only slightly uncomfortable, and keep his eyes open as the screen whirred-

-"Daniel? We are done, Daniel."

Daniel blinked several times, staring at the face leaning over him worriedly. It took him a moment to realize that it was Koriand'r and even longer to comprehend what she was telling him.

"W-what?" he asked, sitting up. He winced at the slight headache he had somehow gotten and looked around him as, slowly, realization began to dawn on him. It didn't take long for him to look back at the seat, stunned. He had been released from his restraints and the headpiece had retracted. "W-w-wait… that's… that's it?"

Koriand'r smiled happily. "Yes!"

He blinked at her. "But… I just sat down…"

"Actually, you have been sitting there for two hours," she informed him.

"But… how?"

"It is like you are sleeping, but you are learning," Koriand'r told him. "Raven says that it has to do with something on the un-conscience."

His brow furrowed at her in confusion. "What?"

"I am sorry, my friend, but I do not do well in explaining. Victor understands better than I."

Daniel nodded and hopped off of the chair, putting a hand to his head when his headache pulsed. "Where are we going now?"

"We must go to training now," Koriand'r said, leading him back down the hall that, he felt, they had just walked down moments ago.

Daniel and Koriand'r met up with the others outside of the entrance, standing in line with the rest of the students.

"Hey, Dan…iel," Garfield said, catching himself when he almost used the nickname he had been trying to give Daniel for the past week. "What'd you think of Enrichment?"

"It felt… short," Daniel replied.

"Yeah, nice right?"

"What does Enrichment do anyway?" Daniel asked.

Victor, Garfield, and Koriand'r looked to Raven.

Daniel looked at Raven expectantly and she looked at him. As per usual, her face lacked any sign of emotion or interest, but her eyes spoke differently. Since he had met her, she had barely spoken to him except when she found it necessary. The only sign that she seemed the slightest bit aware of his presence was when he caught her looking at him. It wasn't like she was staring, but more like she was looking at something beyond the obvious. It unnerved him every time she gave him that look, but he never questioned her about it. He wanted to figure her out a bit more first.

She was giving him that look, but was hiding it better than usual; most likely because she knew the others were looking at her as well.

"It's similar to subliminal messaging," Raven explained with the same dull tone she always had when she spoke. "They feed images into our subconscious mind. No one knows yet what those images are or what they're supposed to accomplish."

"But they're basically teaching us… something?"

"They could be teaching us, or they could be feeding us false memories. There isn't any way to know for sure," Raven said.

"Why would they do that?" Daniel asked.

She shrugged and although the gesture suggested that she lacked any concern, he could see otherwise in her eyes.


I apologize if the chapters have been slow up to this point, but rest assured, things pick up exponentially in the next chapter. Thank you all again! Next chapter will be up on Friday.