Hey ya'll! I hope you're ready for yet more awesomeness, because here's a brand new chapter! In this chapter in the lives of our favorite teenage superheroes, the titans resume their efforts at torturing their demon captives into revealing who sent them to kill the titans and why. But this time, they have a brand new tactic up their sleeve (namely, an exorcism) that will hopefully prove much more effective at getting the demons to talk. Sound exciting? I certainly hope so! ^_^

To remind you guys once more, I do not own Teen Titans. Also, the exorcism rite used in this chapter is borrowed from the hit TV series, Supernatural. And with that out of the way, onward with the fic!

Chapter 6:

The Exorcism

At the sound of the doors opening up, Carnax directed his head to face that direction in time to see the Titans walk back into the room. With a wolfish grin on his face, he said, "I see that you still yet choose to continue your useless endeavor."

"You could say that," said Robin. "But this time, we have a far more effective form of torture planned."

Carnax chuckled, bowed his head in an insulting gesture, and then said, "Well bring it on, bird boy. We're all trembling with anticipation." The other demons hissed and jeered in agreement.

Robin made a smug grin back at the demons, and then said, "As you wish." He turned to the other Titans and winked at Raven. In a flash, Raven drew out a large book from her cloak.

At the sight of the book, Carnax raised his eyebrow. "A little early for you to be reading us bedtime stories, don't you think?" he derisively asked.

"It certainly isn't for us to be reading this kind of story," said Robin. "Raven, you're free to begin."

Raven proceeded to open the book she was holding, hold it up to her face, and slowly read out loud, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus."

As Raven said these words, the demon's eyes widened in horror as they realized too late what Raven was now reading. And even if they hadn't heard these words before, the slight feeling of nausea that was now starting to develop in their throats and deep within their stomachs was more than enough proof for them to know what Raven was doing.

Carnax looked straight at Robin with an incredulous look on his crimson dragon-like face. "An exorcism?" he hissed. "Seriously?"

"Yep," said Robin. "Since you and your army wouldn't cooperate and answer our questions like nice little demons, we decided to just send you all home and try our luck with someone else."

"Are you out of your mind?!" Carnax yelled, clearly horrified and surprised now. "Do you have any idea how rarely me and my kin get to leave Hell and walk the Earth freely? We only just got here yesterday and we haven't even been here for a full 24 Earth hours yet!" The other demons growled, hissed, and squawked in agreement with a similar fearful tone.

Robin made a tongue clicking noise as if to say 'tut, tut,' and then said, "Well, it's either you answer our questions," before gesturing towards Raven and continuing, "or your vacation comes to a premature end."

At the same time that this brief conversation occurred between Robin and Carnax, Raven continued calmly reading, "Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."

Robin lifted his hand as if to signal Raven to stop, and she stopped reading the exorcism. The boy wonder looked at the demons and calmly asked, "Perhaps now you're willing to talk?"

Carnax growled, and responded, "You are clever, I will admit to that, but it will take much more than just one verse of an exorcism to get me or my men to answer your questions."

Robin grinned. "I'm happy to hear that," he stated. "Because this little 'bedtime story' as you put it is just starting to get good." He turned his head back to Raven and said, "Continue."

"Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare."

As Raven read this verse, the demons started shaking and acting as if they were fighting not to vomit. Right as Raven said the last word of that verse, Carnax abruptly bent over and growled. Robin had Raven stop reading the exorcism and leaned forward to see if the demon was now willing to talk.

"Why are you here?" Robin asked.

Carnax snarled, "Kiss my backside!"

Robin shook his head side to side, looked back at Raven, and said, "Continue."

"Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis. Humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt."

This time, Carnax opened his mouth and howled in agony as if the sound of the words Raven was reading were now causing him physical pain. Robin had Raven stop reading the exorcism, leaned over to Carnax and asked, "Will you answer our questions now?"

"Up yours," Carnax growled.

"Wrong answer," said Robin. He turned back to Raven. "Continue," he barked.

"Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus

omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."

Robin, the other titans, and even the other demons were caught completely by surprise when Carnax started laughing after Raven finished reading this verse. Raven didn't even need Robin to signal for her to stop reading this time. Carnax eventually managed to finish laughing, point at Raven, and look at Robin with a half fearful and half insanely happy look on his face before saying, "Do you seriously expect this to work?!"

Robin shook his head in disapproval, looked back at Raven, and said, "Continue."

Raven looked back down at the page she had her exorcism book opened up to, and continued, "Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare."

"Stop!" Carnax yelled with his right hand raised as if to ward off a blow. Robin gave his hand signal, and Raven stopped reading. With the exorcism now paused directly before the final verse, the titans looked intently at the demons "Stop," Carnax hissed in an almost pleading tone. "You win, you win! I'll talk! Just don't read the last verse!"

"You swear on that?" Robin asked.

"Yes," Carnax howled. "On Lucifer's crown! Just tell me what you want and I'll do it!"

Robin looked to Raven, who nodded, and stated, "He's telling the truth."

Robin nodded, looked back at Carnax, and pointed at him and the other demons before saying, "Alright Carnax, here's what I want. All you have to do is answer a few questions, and you and your army can get out of that devil's trap."

"Fine," Carnax said compliantly. "Ask away!" The other demons nodded hurriedly in agreement, desperate to avoid getting exorcised and having their first vacation in millennia terminated.

Cyborg whistled, looked over at Beast Boy, and said, "Looks like your plan worked BB."

Beast Boy chuckled, clasped his hands together on the back of his head the way Sora from Kingdom Hearts often did, and then said, "What can I say? I have my moments every now and then." Raven rolled her eyes at the sound of that comment, but said nothing else.

Robin took a deep breath, exhaled, and then asked, "Alright Carnax, here's my first question. How are you and your army now here on Earth instead of in Hell?"

"We were summoned," Carnax responded instantly.

Robin nodded. "I had a feeling that would be the answer. Alright then, who summoned you?"

"Two men," said Carnax. "Not quite mortal, but still capable of being sent to the afterlife."

"Can you describe these two men in further detail?"

"Yes, one of them was very bulky and muscular. He looked like a warrior from the days in which your kind lived in caves and hunted woolly mammoths but was dressed up in more or less modern day cloths. He had long hair, and he had scars all over his face as if something had slashed its claws across it."

Robin held up his hand to indicate for Carnax to stop talking. The demon paused in his speech, and Robin turned his head to face the other titans. "That man he just described, does he sound familiar to any of you?"

The other Titans shook their heads in the negative. "I'm pretty sure I would have remembered seeing a caveman-like villain if we'd ever encountered one," said Beast Boy.

Robin thought to himself, and reluctantly decided that indeed the Titans had not encountered such a person. Yet for some reason, he had a feeling that this person the demon had described sounded vaguely familiar. Deciding to file this information for later, he looked back at Carnax and said, "What about the other man? You said there were two who summoned you and your army."

Carnax thought to himself, grimaced, and then said, "Well, I can't say for sure just what he looked like. He wouldn't take off his mask."

"A mask," said Robin. "Can you describe that?"

"Yes," said Carnax. "It was black on one side and orange on the other. The orange side was the only one that had an eye hole on it. It made him look like he had only one eye. Does that help?"

Robin nodded, looked over at the other Titans, and then said, "Him we definitely find familiar."

Beast Boy and Cyborg mumbled in agreement, Raven closed her eyes and nodded slightly, and Starfire proceeded to look slightly to her left with a depressed look on her face as if she felt saddened by the thought of who the man the demon had described sounded like. No one needed to even say the name. They had a feeling that this man with the one eyed mask that had just now been described by their demon prisoner was their arch nemesis, Slade himself.

Robin nodded his head as if resigning himself to the information he'd now gathered, and then looked back at Carnax before saying, "Why did you come here to attack us?"

Carnax glared, and then stated, "Don't you think the answer to that's . . ."

At the sight of Robin turning his head and raising up his hand as if about to signal Raven to resume her reading of the exorcism, Carnax extended his hand out as if to stop with a terrified look on his face and yelled, "We were sent here to kill you!"

"That's more like it," said Robin. He looked back at Carnax and asked, "Why were you sent here to kill me and my friends?"

Carnax took a couple deep breathes, and eventually managed to say, "Our king, Lucifer, is currently in a partnership of sorts with the two men who summoned us, and he says that with their help, we could be on the verge of a breakthrough that could allow every single one of us to exit Hell without fail and conquer the Earth so that we can have an even easier time of attempting to allow his Malevolence to leave Hell himself earlier than foretold."

As Robin was about to ask how this information had anything to do with any need for him and the other Titans to be killed, Carnax continued, "According to what the long haired one said, his Malevolence won't give him and the man with the one-eyed mask the information they need to help him unless they arrange for an early trip to the afterlife for a team of heroes that serve the cause of his Malevolence's father and brothers. Apparently, his Malevolence thought that you would be the ideal choice."

Beast Boy whistled, looked over at Raven, and then whispered, "I'm not sure if I should feel honored that Lucifer thought us worthy of fighting against his soldiers, or insulted by how easy of a target he appears to have thought we would be."

"Good question," Raven droned.

Satisfied with this answer, Robin asked, "This information you mentioned that the two men who summoned you wanted, can you tell me what it is?"

Carnax shook his head. "I don't know what that information is."

Robin's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure about that?" he asked with his voice clearly threatening to have Raven resume her reading of the exorcism.

"Yes, honest," Carnax howled. "I don't know. And neither do my men!"

"And how would that be possible?" Robin asked. "You're demons. Surely you know everything your precious king, Lucifer, has up his sleeve."

Carnax sighed, hung his head, and said, "There are some things that his Malevolence only shares with the five members of his inner circle. Whatever this information the men who summoned us want to know is, it is one such thing; and I'm only a captain. I just do as I'm told. Eviscerate first, and ask questions later. That's the code for us minor demons." The other demons gathered around behind Carnax nodded their heads in agreement, their eyes all closed.

Robin thought to himself, and then asked, "Is there anyone you know who could tell us what this information is?"

Carnax nodded. "Not very many. The best choices I know are for you to either ask one of the men who summoned us, one of the five members of our master's inner circle, or his Malevolence himself. And I doubt either of them will be all that keen on telling you."

"Hmm," said Robin. After a few minutes passed, he nodded, and then said, "Very well then. That takes care of all my questions for now." He turned his head to Raven, and then said, "Finish it."

At the sound of this, the eyes of the demons widened in shock and horror. "What?!" Carnax roared.

"You heard me," Robin growled, a glare on his face showing through his mask, and said, "Now that you've answered all our questions, it's time for you all to go now."

"You said you would let us out!" Carnax snarled. The other demons growled in agreement.

Robin raised his eyebrow. "Oh really?" he asked. "Last time I checked, I said that you'd be getting out of the trap. I didn't say anything about actually releasing you from it and letting you back out into the world of the living."

Carnax hissed, and then yelled, "Why you little swine!"

"I'd be careful if I were you," said Robin, his tone indicating how very close Carnax now was to getting a demon killing sword thrusted through his chest. "And besides, you should really be considering this to be a favor. After all, considering both how you've now failed to complete your mission and how my teammates and I have now learned very important information about your plans, you're going to need to inform your superiors as soon as possible. With that in mind, exorcising you will allow you to speed your way right back to home base."

Carnax and the majority of the other demons snarled in fury upon hearing this. The only exception was a single blue demon who appeared to be deep in thought. "He does have a point," the blue demon then stated.

"You idiot," roared a black demon standing right next to the blue demon who'd just spoken. "Whose side are you on?!" The other demons howled and roared in agreement with their comrade and they all proceeded to rush over towards the offending water demon as if about to beat it up.

"ENOUGH!" Carnax roared. The other demons turned their heads to face their leader. Carnax growled, and yelled, "Have you lost your minds?! I thought I trained you better than this! Have you forgotten that while you are right now about to squabble like younglings, we are in a far more dire situation?!" The other demons gulped, hung their heads, and proceeded to dejectedly get themselves back into a more orderly position.

Carnax snarled, turned his head to face the titans once more, and then stated, "I don't care what you had in mind when you said you'd allow us out of this trap, but you will release us right here in this tower now!"

"Or what!" Robin yelled. "Last time I checked, you're the ones stuck inside a demonic roach motel with your powers on timeout!" Carnax snarled irritably upon hearing this. "And besides," Robin then shouted. "Considering what happened to your advance party last night, you're getting off lightly! I could have just now gone ahead and drawn out my sword and killed you all right now! But instead, I'm letting you live long enough to be exorcised back to Hell so you can have a higher chance of informing your superiors about the current situation more quickly!"

Upon shouting this, Robin turned his head to Raven once again, and commandingly growled, "Finish it."

Raven glanced at the exorcism, then looked back up from it, her face now showing that she wasn't sure what to do.

Robin glared at Raven, his eyes narrowing, and then hissed, "Raven, that's an order."

Raven glanced at the demons, and then looked at Robin before saying, "Are you really sure about this? We are technically welching on them."

Robin groaned, grabbed his hair with his hands, and then stated, "Raven, exorcising them won't be breaking our part of the bargain. I said that if they answered our questions, then I'd allow them to get out of that trap, and exorcising them will indeed allow them to get out of the devil's trap."

"I'm serious Robin," said Raven. "It really might not be a good idea for us to just take on a technicality like this. If we don't follow through properly on this deal, then we'd be no better than them."

Robin sighed in irritation, glared at Raven with his fists clenched and his face blank and emotionless, and then proceeded to grit his teeth and tensely growl, "Finish. The. Exorcism."

Raven still seemed uncertain. Fortunately, before Robin could further lose his temper, Beast Boy then said, "Do it Raven. It's better for us to just exorcise them now then for us to release them from the trap right now and allow them the chance to cause further havoc."

Raven turned her head to face Beast Boy. "Beast Boy," said Raven. "I mean what I say. If we fulfill our part of the bargain we currently have with them on only a technicality, then we're no better than them."

"Well we'd be a whole lot worse than them if we allowed them to continue to walk the Earth and cause trouble for people when we could have prevented them from doing so by sending them straight back to Hell after having finished obtaining all the information we could get from them," Beast Boy responded.

"Oh you wouldn't have to worry about that," Carnax hissed. "Trust me, if you were to break this trap and allow us to be released back into freely wandering through your world, you won't live to regret it."

Robin's eyes narrowed as he glanced at the demons from out of the corner of his eyes. Cyborg examined a voice stress analyzer he had built into his arm, and then looked up from it before saying in an almost surprised tone, "He's telling the truth."

"I can sense that," said Raven.

Beast Boy nodded. "I know Raven. I do to. But my animal instincts are also saying that what he means is that he and his men will kill us so quickly that we won't even realize what's happening until we're already dead. Trust me Raven, my animal instincts are never wrong."

Raven sighed, looked at Beast Boy, and then said harshly, "Well if that's true, then how come you never seem to actually follow them?" Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg gaped at Raven in shock at the scathing comment they'd just heard. The demons also looked briefly surprised, but then a majority of them had sickening grins come on their faces.

Beast Boy took a deep breath as if trying to keep his temper from exploding, exhaled, and then said, "You'd be surprised at how often I do follow my instincts, Raven." He then looked back up in Raven's eyes with a slight glare on his face. "Contrary to your belief, I rarely ever disobey my instincts. In fact, the few times I've ever done so that haven't involved my efforts at getting you to smile or laugh, I've almost always ended up regretting it. The only times I've ever done so without regretting it are my ritualistic efforts at getting you to laugh or even smile; heck, the only animal whose even in open support of those efforts is the Beast, and you know I'd never follow his suggestions unless it's truly worth it."

Raven and the other Titans were briefly surprised. Then Raven's glare came back on her face, and she folded her arms across her chest with the book still in her clutches before saying, "Well, name one incident where you truly did regret not following your instincts."

Beast Boy took a deep breath with his eyes closed, exhaled, and then opened his eyes back up to look directly at Raven before calmly stating, "I ignored what they said about Terra before she betrayed us."

For five seconds, Raven and the other Titans didn't quite grasp the meaning of what Beast Boy said. But then the full import of his words struck them, and they gaped at him in surprise. Raven in particular looked as if she'd just been slapped in the face. Even the demons now looked stunned speechless. Beast Boy sighed, hung his head, and then said "Yes, you heard correctly. In between the time Terra first ran away from us after Robin accidentally framed me for revealing her then secret and the time she betrayed us and revealed her allegiance to Slade, my instincts were roaring at me that she wasn't to be trusted. But I didn't listen to them. I didn't want to believe them; that's how much I loved her back then. But when all the animals in my mind turned out to have been correct all along that time, you wouldn't believe how much I hated myself."

The changeling took a deep breath, exhaled, and then said "This time, I cannot ignore my instincts, and believe me, neither can the rest of you. The cost this time, would be far too high for any of us to ever hope to afford." He looked at Raven, sighed, and then said, "You know what the right thing to do in this situation is Raven. Do what Robin says. Finish it."

For a few more minutes, Raven continued to gape at Beast Boy in stunned silence. Then she gulped, hung her head, and then looked back at the demons. At the sight of the now very sheepish grins on the faces of the demons, the sorceress's eyes narrowed. "He's right," she thought to herself. "Exorcising them is the right thing for us to do."

Now hard-eyed and determined, Raven raised the book back up so that the exorcism she was using was once again within her eyesight, and then began to read the final verse. And at the same time the demons were all snarling, growling, and seething around in rage as they furiously tried to somehow break themselves out of the devil's trap, Raven calmly read, "Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire te rogamus, audi nos."

"NO!" the demons howled in despair as their heads involuntarily jerked back, their mouths snapped open, and what appeared to be jets of smoke that matched their respective colors came rocketing upwards from their mouths towards the ceiling. And as the smoke came close to coming into contact with the ceiling, a gigantic portal of shadows appeared out of nowhere in the air and the smoke flowed into it. For the next few minutes, the smoke continued to spout up from the demons' mouths and into the portal. After what seemed like an eternity, the bodies of the demons seemed to collapse into smoke as well before joining up with the smoke streams that had been rocketing upwards from their mouths and flowing completely into the portal, which then closed and vanished seconds later, leaving nothing but a gigantic empty devil's trap.

After what seemed like an eternity, Cyborg broke the awkward silence by saying, "Well, that went nicely."

Beast Boy rolled his eyes, looked over at Raven, and then said, "You ok?"

Raven sighed, closed her eyes, and nodded her head. "Better," she responded.

"Um Beast Boy?" Robin asked. The changeling turned his head. Robin cleared his throat, and then asked, "What you said about your animal instincts and what they said about Terra, was that true?"

Beast Boy sighed, and nodded his head. "Yes, it's true," he then said before looking back up at Robin and saying bitterly, "I guess that means a lecture, huh?"

Robin winced, shook his head side to side, and placed his hand comfortingly on the green boy's shoulder. "No," the boy wonder responded. "I get how you feel. Heck, I myself had my own doubts about Terra in between when she came back to officially join us and when she betrayed us. Believe me, I know how you feel, and I have a feeling so does Raven." As he said that last bit, Robin directed his eyes towards Raven as if to ask for confirmation. The sorceress nodded in the affirmative.

Beast Boy let a nervous smile come on his face. "Thanks dude," he said.

"No problem Beast Boy," Robin stated with a smile. "What are friends for?"

Starfire placed her own hand on Robin's shoulder, smiling in agreement and admiration.

Cyborg then interrupted the tender moment by clearing his throat. Having caught his friends' attention, the partially robotic teenager asked, "So what now?"

Robin thought to himself, turned to face the exit to the storage room with the devil's trap, and said, "Let's get back to the common room and boot up the computers. With what little information we did get, I say the best thing for us to do now is to try to somehow figure out just what that information Slade and the other villain who summoned those things want from Lucifer is."

Beast Boy shuddered, and then asked, "Are you really sure you want to know what that information is?"

"If it's important enough for Slade and this other villain to try to have us killed, it's definitely worth knowing," said Robin. "Come on, we've got some research to do, and I want us to try as hard as possible to find out what the information is before Slade and his compatriot decide to send something worse than what we just exorcised after us."

And just like that, another chapter is done! I hope you all enjoyed, and that you leave reviews ^_^

Coming up next: The titans make their best (albeit unsuccessful) efforts at figuring out just what the information worth their getting killed for is, have a very important discussion over matters of religion, and end up receiving help in their research from a very (and I mean extremely) unexpected source (feel free to guess who or what that source is in your reviews and comments).