I'm just going straight to the story since I know that's what you guys have been waiting for. :) Read my AN at the end.

Disclaimer: OC's= Mine, Teen Titans= Not Mine

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Chapter 9- Deal with the Devil

18 Years Ago…

Laughter filled the air, piercing Raven's ears as she looked for the source of the sound. Chaos was strewn all around her as the priests tried to put out the small fire that had broken out around some scared tapestry of theirs while demon kids ran out of the school, screaming. She actually found it quite amusing herself and assumed that whoever was laughing had been the cause.

Her eyes fell upon a lone boy, who stood on one of the desks laughing at the other kids. His dark ash hair cast a menacing shadow over his face. Raven had seen him about maybe once or twice, wandering through the halls of the school and causing trouble wherever he went. Like she acted to all the other kids, she hadn't bothered to look twice at him, although now she reassessed him.

"What are you looking at?" the boy sneered as he peered down at Raven.

"Nothing much," Raven retorted, her eyes becoming uninterested as the boy floated down to face her. His eyes speculated her, critical, and all Raven did was stare back with the same look.

A look of praise then entered his eyes and he smiled, "You're like me."

Glancing back at the boy, Raven then noticed the subtle differences in him that set him apart from the other kids. Like her, she finally realized, his eyes were not of the demonic origin. Instead of a scarlet or burgundy color like most other demon kids had, he had a hypnotic jade green color. His skin was tan compared to her pale tone, and also unlike the other kids, their own blood fueling their abilities, he held a look of thirst for power.

Having those characteristics, much similar to hers in some ways, she realized he was a half-demon like her. He may not have been of the same high blood as her however, but it explained why he too did not take an interest in the prejudiced teachings of the priests and had ruined the lesson, which she herself had come close to destroying.

Raven looked down at the offered hand and he said, "The name's Tray Reeves, son of Damascus. You?"

Slowly, but surely, Raven offered her hand to him, "Raven Roth, daughter of Trigon."

Tray let out a low whistle as he heard that, "Wow, the king demon, huh? That must suck."

"And being the only son of the highest guard does not?"

The two looked at each other, a mutual understanding in their eyes of being different from everyone else. And thus, the start of their friendship began.

13 Years Ago…

"You're going to get in trouble again," was all Raven said as she watched her best friend of five years climb up a knotted tree.

"Tsh," Tray scoffed. "As if they'll ever catch me. Now would you hand me my knife?"

"I don't know why you couldn't just buy the seasonal herb. It's easier." Raven muttered as she followed his orders.

"I didn't want to trouble my mother for more money. You know those merchants overprice us just because we're halves." Tray pulled out the knife from his sheath and began to carve off pieces of herbs hanging to the tree.

"What is the herb for in the first place?" Raven questioned, still not sure why Tray had awoken her in the middle of the night just to steal herbs.

Tray paused in his carving, then continued silently. "Tray?"

"Raven…" he started, stopping again to figure out what he wanted to say. He started to speak again as he carved. "My mother and your mother agreed to have us make a blood pact."

Raven looked up at Tray, her eyes widening at the words, "Blood pact? Us?"

He only nodded to answer. "But…but that's just insane! Us? We're like brother and sister! And I'm only thirteen and you're only fourteen! Hardly close to the age where we can marry! And what about the priests? Would they accept this?"

Raven paused as her eyes widened in recognition at Tray's serious look. "The priests are the ones holding this ceremony, aren't they?"

"They're the only ones who can make it legit." Tray sighed. "And you know that the only reason they accepted it is because our fathers are both high standing people. They think with us two married, we shall make great, demon children for them to use."

Raven's face distorted into one of disgust. No matter what would happen, there was no way she was going through with it.

10 Years Ago…

Raven put the last of her meager belongings together quickly. If she did not hurry, the priests would soon be breathing down her neck.

Taking one last look at the empty house, Raven felt a wave of loneliness wash over her. Just last year, Raven's mother had passed on. And two years ago, Tray had disappeared from Azarath without a trace. Now it was her turn. With the priests frantic over finding Tray and making sure their blood pact would be completed, they had put a tight rein on Raven that she had become sick of it.

She would leave Azarath like Tray and never return.

As she readied to teleport, Raven swore to herself that nothing would be able to bring her back here. Absolutely nothing.

-X-x-X-

"What?" Raven shrieked as a couple of light bulbs busted from her lack of channeling her emotions. Tray was taken aback by her surge of power. It was much stronger than he had imagined.

"I am not going back there." Raven stated firmly as her eyes became dark and clouded.

"Raven, there's the blood pact though…"

"Since when did you care about the blood pact?" Raven snarled as she looked at Tray. "You disappeared the year after it was made! You clearly did not want to fulfill the blood pact either!"

"Of course I didn't," Tray told her. "The priests were only using us. And like a child, I ran from the problem. But I'm all grown up now Raven, and I realize that it was rash and foolish to run away at that time. I only thought about myself and didn't even stop to think about you. Your life is also at stake here, Raven."

Raven paused as she noticed that Tray was right. With the blood pact ten years ago, they both had sworn to be eternally tied, and signed a contract with the Spirits, the higher level demons that she had only heard about in tales from the priests, with their own blood. It was unbreakable, and if Raven tried to break it by marrying someone else, her life would surely be lost in some tragic way.

"Raven, I know how much we both don't want to do this," Tray started, "but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you died. You're my best friend, Raven, and I don't want to lose you."

Raven's eyes tightened at those words. Best friend, huh?

-X-x-X-

"Best friends, huh?" Ryan muttered to himself as he looked at a photo of him, Riley, and Hannah when they were kids. His eyes tightened as he placed the picture face down, "Some friends."

His distressed thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone as it rang. Wearily he picked it up, answering in a dull tone, "Hello?"

"Ryan?" Ryan's eyes widened at the worried, overly sweet tone.

"Hannah?" Getting over his initial shock he hissed, "What do you want?"

"I'm worried about you," she said.

"Yeah right, you're probably just checking up to see if your 'plan' succeeded. Well, congrats, it did! Raven left! Are you happy now?"

"Actually, yes," she answered without hesitation, infuriating Ryan more.

"Why are you doing this!" Ryan demanded. "That accident was over thirteen years ago, Hannah!"

"Don't you remember, Ryan? No one ever says no to me."

Of course not, Ryan bitterly thought to himself. Cause if they did, you would be torturing them to this very day. Like me.

"You better choose Ryan. It's either me or her." Snapping back to the conversation at hand, Ryan's mind drifted between remembering the memories with Raven and their love slowly blooming, and the memory of Hannah being rushed to the hospital, barely clinging to life.

What was he to choose when he felt like either way he'd lose?

-X-x-X-

"Hmm?" Lia snapped out of her disturbed thoughts as she looked at Changeling, who had asked her something. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

"I said, what is a blood pact really? I mean, how bad is it?"

"It's not bad necessarily," Lia replied as the other Titans gathered around her to listen. They had left the main room for Tray and Raven to talk, gathered in a meeting room. ""It's actually more a way for priests to make powerful ties among demons. The priests believe that if the strongest were together, they'd make powerful demon children."

"Now that's just wrong." Cyborg muttered. "To force two people together even if they don't love each other."

"Well most demons don't mind it because that is their tradition," Lia explained. "But in Tray's and Raven's case, it's different. Both hated the priests to begin with, and the blood pact doesn't do much to benefit them. It actually makes them prisoners to the priests."

Actually, not anymore since Tray killed off those priests. Now Raven's his prisoner. Lia thought to herself.

She remembered how Tray had told her of how after he heard Raven had left Azarath, he had traveled back there. With the two years he had made everyone think he had run away, he had actually been training and nurturing 'his' powers.

Some demon he is, stealing other demons' powers using them as his own. Lia thought bitterly. To her, she saw her cousin as a devious coward. If he had been a real demon, he would have faced those priests with his own power instead of slowly killing them off one by one.

"Prisoners how?" Lia turned back to the Titans as she answered Nightwing.

"If they aren't married, the pact that the priests legitimized would be broken and they'd both be committing blasphemy against the Spirits."

"The Spirits?"

"They're the higher class demons who we lower demons praise." Lia explained. "They are to us like you are to the people of Jump City. They are our protectors of justice."

"If Raven doesn't go through the blood pact…what would these Spirits do?" Starfire asked.

Lia frowned as she replied, "They would kill her in the worst way possible. Death by the Spirits is usually described as a dark abyss filled with blood-curdling screams that never end and pierce your ears. You cannot move, cannot escape, you are merely suffering a thousand deaths over and over, the pain of others burning themselves onto your skin."

The Titans looked at Lia, horrified at this revelation. As they turned to look at each other, their eyes said the same thing, "Raven cannot marry Ryan".

-X-x-X-

Ryan sighed as he looked down at his cell phone, getting Raven's voicemail once again. After contemplating his talk with Hannah, he decided he didn't care what she did anymore. He wasn't going to keep on being trapped by her and have her stop him from marrying Raven. He loved Raven. And that mattered more to him.

However, with their previous fight he wasn't so sure if Raven still believed that. He had to go apologize to her quickly, but she wouldn't answer her cell phone and she wasn't at home (his home). As he went through other possible places she could be, he realized,

The tower! Why didn't I think of that before? Of course she'd go back there. Ryan quickly grabbed his keys and rushed to his car, his destination being Titans Tower.

-X-x-X-

"Well, Raven, what is it going to be?" Raven looked at Tray, uncertain. Really, there was only one decision here: fulfill the blood pact. But she couldn't just do that. She couldn't leave Ryan…she…

"Don't even think about that asshole!" Anger hissed in her head. "HE's the one who missed his chance by treating us like crap back there!"

"She's right! We shouldn't be begging on our knees to him for him to accept us back! He should be doing that!" Courage chimed in.

"He…he screamed…at us!!" Sad said between sobs.

"I think we should dump his sorry ass and just hook up with Tray," Rude muttered, bitter at Raven's and Ryan's earlier fight.

"But it was just a small fight, every couple has small fights." Love argued.

"That is correct. We cannot assume he does not love us anymore just because of a petty argument." Intelligence remarked.

"And I'm sure no matter what Ryan loves us!" Happy and Hope said together.

"I…I say we give Ryan another chance…"

All of Raven's emotions turned, shocked, at Fear. Usually scared and quiet, Fear never really participated in much of their conversations. Now they watched as she flinched at their stares but still stood firmly. "Ryan deserves another chance…and frankly I don't like Tray. I…can feel something ominous about him."

"He's our best friend. Tray would never hurt us." Happy told her.

"I…I still don't like him." Fear muttered. "I'm scared of him."

"You're scared of everyone," Rude and Anger snapped.

Fear flinched at their harsh tones. "He's different. I can feel the evil aura in him. He's…changed."

"That's illogical. Tray came here out of concern for us. He's not a bad guy," Intelligence informed her. "You're just scared as usual Fear."

Fear frowned but didn't argue back, her sudden courage slowly fading. After all, she was Fear.

"Raven?" Raven snapped out of the conversation between her emotions and looked back at Tray. His eyes held a look of concern in them.

There's no way Tray is evil…Fear must be overreacting again. Raven thought to herself. "Sorry Tray. I was just thinking about…my fiancé."

Are we still engaged? Raven wondered. No one had really called it off back then. And like Love as said, it was just a small fight and all couples had them. If they had been the perfect couple who didn't fight, wouldn't that be just a little out of the ordinary? Although nothing about this was ordinary to begin with.

"I know it must be hard for you to choose between me and your fiancé, Raven. But if we break this blood pact you'll die, do you really think your fiancé would want that?" Tray smirked inwardly, seeing Raven wavering. She would choose him. She had to.

"Look, Tray…" Raven started.

"Raven!" Raven spun around, looking shocked as Ryan burst into the room.

"Ryan!" Being overcome in happiness that Ryan was here, had come to her, she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. She guessed Hannah was wrong with calling her a 'moment's fascination'.

Tray stood there, incredulous. Did that mean that Raven had chosen her fiancé? Over him? She chose death, over life? Tray looked up as he heard the guy apologized to Raven profusely while she tried to tell him it wasn't his fault. It was sickening to watch them stare lovingly at each other so Tray interrupted, "Ahem."

"Oh," Raven turned back to Tray and smiled apologetically as Ryan raised a curious brow. "Ryan, this is my best friend, Tray. Tray, this is my fiancé, Ryan."

Tray smiled, offering his hand to Ryan. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Ryan replied as he shook hands with Tray.

Tray smiled and watched images pass through his head as he searched through Ryan's mind, "I can see why you like him, Raven."

This guy was definitely someone he would have to deal with. How though? It would be hard to get rid of him. From Ryan's memories, Tray had seen how close he and Raven were. Raven wouldn't give up so easily.

Tray paused as another image filled his head before Ryan let go. It was petite girl, with wavy copper hair and hazel eyes. She was arguing with Ryan, insisting that's he was his fiancé and him denying it. I think I just found something interesting.

He looked at Ryan from the corner of his eyes, watching as he and Raven called the other Titans to the main room to settle something about "proper introductions" as Raven said. Yes, something very interesting indeed.

-X-x-X-

Lia watched her cousin suspiciously as he hummed. They had teleported home from the tower quite a while ago, and since ever then Tray had gone around her house gathering ingredients for something as he hummed a tune.

"What are you planning Tray? I assume it must be some way to get rid of Ryan's fiancé?" Lia's eyes narrowed sharply.

"You could say that," Tray replied as he started to mix what he had gathered. "I won't get rid of him permanently, just out of my way."

"What are you going to do?" Lia asked.

Tray smiled as he finished his experiment and stuck his hand in then pulled it out, watching a fist symbol burn onto his palm. He only said to her, "Lia, be a dear and see if you can locate a girl called Hannah Wither."

-X-x-X-

"Hm, that girl is starting to get very irritating," Hannah muttered to herself as she reapplied her makeup, glaring into her vanity. "I need to get her out of the picture somehow."

"I can help with that."

Hannah whirled around to stare at the mysterious intruder in surprise. "Who…? What…? How…? How the hell did you get in here?! Security!"

"You want Raven Roth away from Ryan Xander right?" the man asked as he sauntered up to Hannah, ignoring her statement. He had already taken care of the guards. "Well I want Ryan Xander away from Raven Roth. I'm sure we can work out some kind of agreement together to make us both happy."

Hannah's eyes narrowed suspiciously at this stranger. "Who are you?"

"How rude of me," the guy chuckled. "I am Tray Reeves, and Raven's supposed fiancé."

"Oh, I see," Hannah smiled slowly. So he was someone who shared her pain. Very interesting. Getting into strict business mode, she asked, "What was this agreement you were talking about?"

Tray smiled, liking this girl already. He could see both of them plotting evil things together. "Just a simple contract my dear, it's fairly simple. If you get Ryan Xander away from Raven, you can have him, and vice versa applies to me."

Hannah pondered it for a moment. So what this Tray guy was saying that if they worked together to get rid of both their opponents, both of them would end up happy. It was simple and the exact result she wanted. Not to mention devious at the same time, exactly her kind of thing. "Alright," Hannah said. "You have yourself a deal."

"Excellent," Tray purred. He stuck his hand out, "Now to shake, to seal the deal."

Hannah shook his hand then yelped as she felt something burn into her skin. She pulled her hand away and looked down at her palm to see a faded fist picture.

"My symbol," Tray explained to her. "So that you carry out this agreement fully."

"Oh trust me, I will. I just hope you'll fulfill your own part." Hannah replied.

"Of course," Tray smiled. He then disappeared.

Hannah looked down at her hand as she grazed her fingers against the symbol, knowing she had just made a deal with the devil.

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Alright! I tried to make it as long as I could because you guys deserve it. :) But I don't want to give everything away just yet.

And I'm REALLY SORRY it took like two months for me to update! And you know the usual excuses like school…blah blah blah.

Really right now I'm supposed to be working but screw school I want to give you guys this chapter.

So I hoped you guys enjoyed it! :) Sorry if there's any mistakes.

Thank you for putting up with my lack of updating and reading and reviewing!

Ciao,

Xaleria