Alfred woke slowly. The first thing he did was groan, then groan again because the sound of his voice made his head hurt even more. And he hadn't even opened his eyes yet. The pounding on the inside of his skull reminded him a bit of a time when he was younger, and had challenged a large Irishman to a drinking contest. Except that the pain he was feeling now was about thirty times worse than that.

He felt hands pulling him gently into a sitting position and a voice saying "Easy chap, there you go, have some water. The nerve gas this madman uses takes a number on you."

He felt (because he knew better than to open his eyes at this point) a metal flask being held to his lips. Cool water sloshed against his mouth as he tried to drink some down. He promptly vomited it back up.

"There we go; flush it out of your body, there's a good sport."

After several more dry heaves, Alfred felt confident enough to sip some more water. After several more minutes, he felt it might be safe to crack open his eyes. The dim light still made his head ache terribly, but at least he no longer felt the desire to take a drill press to his forehead.

Looking around, he discovered he was sitting in a dirty room bereft of any furniture. The floor was carpeted, but the carpet was so old and worn that it was no different than sitting on the cold cement that lay underneath. The only light came from (thankfully) a crack under the grungy double doors on the other side of the room. Alfred shivered slightly as he realized he was missing his usual jacket, and that the shirt he was wearing was torn and bloodied. There was a dim shape next to him, but he couldn't make out any of the features of his cellmate in the light.

"Alfred Pennyworth", he introduced himself, extending a hand.

"Wintergreen. William Wintergreen." The man took Alfred's hand in a firm clasp.

"Any idea where we are, William?"

"None, blast it. The madman ambushed me and hit me with some sort of nerve agent, we could be halfway to Gotham for all I know."

"No," said Alfred, rising unsteadily to his feet, "He wouldn't stay there, not after taking me. Too easy to track, you see. He would take me somewhere new, foreign. Somewhere that would put my master off his balance."

"I say, just who do you work for? Some sort of policeman?"

"Oh damn." Muttered Alfred, realizing he had said too much. The gas was still making thinking a little difficult, and he had been so absorbed in examining the door and trying to figure out just where he was. Any sort of advantage he could give Master Bruce at a critical moment could help save lives.

"Where did you say you were from again?" Alfred asked, dodging the question.

"I didn't." replied Wintergreen, his voice hard.

There was a tense moment, then Alfred's shoulders sagged and he sank to the floor.

"Look, we can't be fighting. Not when the Joker holds us captive. We're going to need every little advantage we can get just to stay sane."

"The Joker? Is that the bloody madman who kidnapped us?"

Wintergreen paused, and did a mental calculation of the last few sentences Alfred had spoken.

"My God! You can't mean to say that your employer is…?"

Alfred simply buried his throbbing head in his hands.

"I need a drink."

…

"Uhg, who is this stupid pig they got modeling my outfit? She looks simply atrocious!" exclaimed Jynx, waving the cheaply packaged "Teen Super Villainess" knockoff costume around.

"Hey guys! What do you think?" called out Beastboy, emerging from the changing room in a very poorly fitted Batman costume.

"I think it's got a certain appeal, right?" he asked, flexing and posing in front of the mirror.

Jynx giggled, Raven simply sighed.

"This is a waste of time."

"Don't be such a Debbie downer!" Jynx pouted.

"We've been here for three hours and we still haven't found anything for Beastboy."

"It's not my fault!" complained Beastboy. I'm green! That's really hard to hide! Plus, anything looser than my usual costume will rip when I transform."

Raven looked thoughtful. "I think I have a solution. Come on."

…

It was nearing sundown, and both at the Titan Tower and the abandoned warehouse, people began to suit up.

Robin paced the room tensely in his Red X costume. Starfire, concerned, trailed him, hovering slightly above the ground. She picked distractedly at the metal sleeves that were a part of her Blackfire outfit.

Jynx sat on the couch, filing her nails. Mammoth was leaning against the wall behind her, picking out lice from his hair.

Gizmo and Cyborg were putting the finishing touches on Beastboy's "costume". It had been simple enough after Raven had thought of it. They simply had Beastboy transform into a gorilla, then painted him black. Cyborg and Gizmo then went about quickly crafting some cosmetic armor for him. With the heavy spiked breastplate and the large metal wristbands, Beastboy looked quite intimidating. The final touch was a device Gizmo had invented in his free time, a neural receiver/transmitter. Simply put, it would allow Beastboy to vocalize his thoughts without having to transform back into a human. After they attached it, they stepped back to admire their handywork.

"Does it work?" came a voice from Beastboy's neck, where Gizmo had installed the device.

The voice was enough to startle Robin out of his pacing.

"…Why does he sound like James Earl Jones?"

"Well his normal voice is so wimpy, you know? I was trying to think of a voice that really puts some fear into people…and who's more scary than Darth Vader?" Gizmo grinned.

"Luuuuuke, I am your faaaatheeeeer!"

"That's why it won't work."

"Fine, fine, I'll change it to something else."

"Aw man, I liked that voice!"

"What's taking Raven so long?" Robin wondered out loud, looking out the window, "Sun's almost set."

"Alright. I'm ready."

Raven had emerged from her darkened room. She had traded her normal purple cloak for one of midnight black whose ragged edges were long enough to drag along the floor. She had scribbled weird symbols all over her body with a magic marker, but otherwise looked the exact same. Jynx burst out laughing.

"THAT'S your idea of a costume?"

Even Starfire seemed doubtful of Raven's wardrobe choice. "It seems…nice?" she added helpfully.

Raven sighed, dreading this moment. "It's not done yet. Watch."

She closed her eyes and chanted under her breath. Her eyes began to glow the familiar white, but then abruptly shifted to red. The runes on her body began to glow, brighter and brighter, until they were nearly blinding, and then they vanished into her skin. Where Raven had stood now towered a shadowy figure, taller than even Mammoth. Its face and body were completely hidden by shadow, but four pairs of glowing red eyes glared out from under the hood. The cloak stirred in a non-existent wind, and the very air around it seemed darker than the rest of the room.

There was silence, broken by a single "whoa" by Beastboy, which summed up how all the others were feeling at the time.

"Well that was…impressive" remarked Robin guardedly.

"I have released some of my control over the demonic half of myself" rumbled Raven. When she spoke, her voice had a strange low rasp to it, and in the background one could almost swear they heard the screams of people being tortured. From within the depths of her robe, a ornate dagger was drawn out by a tendril of black energy and hovered over to Robin.

"This is the holy dagger of Sha'a. It seals demonic energies. I should have it under control, but if not…you know what to do."

"Raven…I…"

"Please."

Robin took the dagger reluctantly and secreted it within his costume.

"Well," he said, looking around at his assembled team, "It looks like we're just about ready to go. Last thing on the agenda, we need to come up with some aliases for Beastboy and Raven."

"I've been thinking about it" chimed Beastboy, "And I've decided to go with Urko." He gave a big gorilla grin. Urko had been the name of one of the characters in the Planet of the Apes television series he loved.

"You can call me…Magpie." Raven flashes a grin. It very noticeably had fangs.

"Alright team, let's head out!"