Book I: Chapter IX

Raven's eyes widened. The beat of her heart increased, until the speed and intensity of the pounding against her eardrums overpowered the hushed cries of the distant fire.

The smoke, mixed with the hanging soot in the air, felt thick against her throat. The burning ash stung her eyes, as she stared into the empty, smog-ridden elevator shaft. She struggled to take a breath and withheld the urge to gag as the fumes filled her mouth. She took a step forward, treading closer to inspect the scene that splayed before her.

The girl's eyes traced the singed edges of the elevator door. The metal tips of the left and right flaps of the entryway billowed out like a smashed barrel, as if something solid had slammed against the metal entrance from the other side only moments before. The gap between the ruined entrance was several times wider than her head, yet just barely wide enough to allow her sight into the usually unseen.

Raven licked her dried lips and tried to control her shaking fingers as she explored the dark vortex of red and orange that flickered from beyond the door's gap.

The incredulous, tall elevator shaft was alight due to the glowing sparks that had ignited down the sides of the metal shaft from the impact of the cart. The space glimmered with a foggy ember orange, reflecting bits of bright light against the spare copper wires that ran down the left and right sides of the smoggy hole. Residue had built from years of non-cleaning, and minutes of smoldering ash. The migrating smoke blurred out sections of the abnormally empty elevator shaft.

In only a moment's time, Raven became a voyeur of a seldom-seen perspective. She could see beyond the doors of an elevator shaft, beyond the elevator that typically stood in the now empty space's stead. She could see the metallic walls, the bolts within each nut, and the cobwebs that lined the edges. In just minutes, she might have learned from her perspective, witnessing the mechanical side of the tower's elevator system. She could have learned how it slides up and down, and the mechanics required for the feat. Yet, her mind too numb to wander, and her breathing was too shallow to concentrate. It was not the smoke that had caused her dry mouth and difficult swallowing, but the fear that gripped her mind.

Raven could feel her teammates behind her, ushering her away from the smoke. The muffled noises—whispered voices, running water, crawling fire, and falling ash—echoing from behind.

She remembered Starfire's panicked face and Robin's hushed voice. She remembered Cyborg and his fiery anger; the metallic man's regret, worry, and anguish. She remembered her friends holding her back; she remembered breaking free.

She remembered her dive downward. She flew against the blaze, and struggled with the growing strain that pressed against her lungs. She came to the wreckage of ground zero, grabbing the burning metal with her bare hands. She tore through and dug past clouds of hanging dust, into the very cart itself, until her lungs tightened, her grip loosened, and the smoke won.

Yet, of all that she could recall before she blacked out, she could not remember her childish teammate or the toothy grin that surly rest on his friendly green face.

"But Cyborg…I don't understand…" Robin's voice seemed curt, yet unnerved. His arms were crossed and his hair was missing its trademark gel, causing his bangs to spill into his vision. The explosion had occurred before he had a chance to fully awaken and prepare himself. Now, barely an hour after the wreckage, the team continued to be on high alert. "You said you had safety precautions for this. I don't see how this could have happened. This only happens in the movies..."

Cyborg shook his head at the boy wonder. The metallic man had the eyes of someone who had been startled out of a deep sleep. He found it difficult to hide his exhaustion and his worry. "No man, not this time. Heavy things fall. It's just how things go." Cyborg frowned. "I told ya' before, elevators have safety precautions for normal, every day crap. One cable snaps? The others will still be fine. Electronics wig out? Automatic safeties pop out. Normal stuff? No problem," The man paused, "This…this was no accident. I'm tellin' ya man, I had protections built to stop normal accidents. All bets are off when someone messes with my tech, or the environment changes."

Robin's eyes narrowed as he inspected his teammate's face. "What are you insinuating, Cyborg? Was this was an enemy attack?"

"All I'm sayin' is it's not unreasonable to believe someone messed with my tech. Cut all the cables at the top…and I suppose anything's possible, ya' know? No normal malfunction could have caused this." Cyborg let his eyes explore the wrecked elevator cart. It had taken the crew almost half an hour to ensure the fire had been put out and no additional fires had spread. For the most part, the entire team had deemed it a stroke of luck that the whole tower remained standing after impact.

Robin's gaze followed Cyborg's. "So, you think this was a direct attack?" The leader repeated.

Cyborg nodded. "I admit, I don't know how they bypassed my breaking system, or the shock absorber, or the safties…fuck man, hell if know. Did they spoof the software? No, no… man, none of these are software-based safety mechanisms. They're all manual mechanics that occur automatically. They don't glitch. They had to have been spoofed…Did they tape the safeties down? Or what…" Cyborg's frown deepened, "Who knows enough about elevators to pull this off?"

The room grew eerily silent as Cyborg began considering the possibilities aloud. "I know we weren't hacked from a distance. There's no doubt in my mind. Someone broke in, wrecked the elevator, and then got out." As the words fell from Cyborg's mouth, he could imagine Robin's masked eyes change. The change was subtle, but the look of skepticism had turned into anger, and then fury. The expression unnerved Cyborg, and caused the man to bite his lip to reduce his growing tension. "Er, right…Robin, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Let it be, man. I'll just figure out what went wrong and make sure this can never happen again. Just…it'll take me some time, aight? I need to check a few things out, you know, to assess the damage… come up with a better story...that kind of thing. I'm just speculating for now…"

"Happen again?" Starfire's voice interrupted Cyborg. "What do you mean, 'happen again'? Elevators do not just fall! Our friend Beast Boy could be gravely hurt, and we must do something! It does not help to prevent the future, if we already lost our friend in the past!"

The words of his female teammate caused Robin's mind to pause for a second, before detailed calculations and potential scenarios disappeared. He blinked, and his hardened, angered eyes changed into a softened expession. The leader cleared his throat, catching everyone's attention. Worry and concern had left his face. All that remained was the strong visage of what his team needed most—their leader. Robin lowered his voice to his most commanding tone as he began to speak. "You're right, Star. This is no time to get caught up in the details. We need to act fast. Every second we stand here, we jeopardize Beast Boy's life."

The leader paused, before continuing. "First order of business, we must determine Beast Boy's location. We don't even know for sure Beast Boy entered the elevator at any point today. The security cameras were bugged, so we cannot look through the footage. Starfire, I want you to stay with Raven. Once Raven wakes up, tell her to quickly travel to Beast Boy's common hangouts. Raven can phase through walls, and explore Titan's tower faster than any of us. This is paramount, but of least importance; if Beast Boy is anywhere other than…" Robin glanced over at the wreckage, but couldn't bring himself to say the words. "…Then…he must be fine. If he can be found, then he is safe. The search can wait for her to awaken. When she does, tell her to check his room, the living room, wherever. I don't care where, just have her look. Leave no place unturned. Search for any sign of our friend."

Starfire nodded.

Robin looked to their robotic teammate. "Cyborg, I need you to figure out the cause of this disturbance, and I want to know the exact damage our tower suffered. It's possible the impact of the elevator could have harmed structural beams elsewhere in the tower. I need you to assure that the tower won't collapse while we're in it. Report back as soon as you can with a cost estimate for repair, and the overall assessment of this attack. I also want to know if whoever did this might have sabotaged any of our other equipment, or…" Robin took a deep breath, "…if they might still be in the tower. This is of utmost importance. Every moment you waste could jeopardize another life."

Cyborg nodded.

The boy—leader—frowned. "And finally, Starfire, after Raven wakes up, I need you to return here and help me look through the debris for any sign of life. You're the strongest of the team, and most capable of lifting the heavier pieces. As for me, I will survey the damage firsthand and wait for you to return. If Beast Boy is down here, I'll find him and get him immediate medical attention. " Robin sighed. "Once you return…I'll start inspecting the tower grounds, surveying signs of breaking and entering. If someone has entered this tower, we need to know how, why, where, when…we need to know everything we possibly can, and fast."

With his chin held high, Robin looked to the ceiling, letting his voice fill the threatened air, "And everyone…I mean it: do not worry. Beast Boy is still alive. He should be…no, he must be stronger than that. He is a Titan. He must still be safe." The four remaining team members nodded in unison.

"Titan's…GO!"

She still felt shaky, having swallowed a bit too few oxygen, and a bit too much smoke. Starfire had given Raven her assignment; Starfire had returned to the crash site almost as quickly as Raven's eyes had pealed open.

Raven curtly thought of her assignment and briskly nodded. She closed her eyes and focused all of her cluttered and panicked thoughts onto a single subject. The faint outlines of Beast Boy's cheeky smile filled her mind. She let the sound of his voice narrate her depiction of him, and give vibrant life to the image in her head. "Hey Raven," the childish voice called out. "What do you call a pig giving you a Christmas tree...?" the image of the missing green boy giggled. "…A pork-you-pine!"

Her inner-mind groaned. Even in her thoughts, the stupid jokes were terrible. However, it felt good to groan; part of her wished she might still groan in the future.

With her mind's eye focused, she slowly found her center and let her concentration build. In a matter of seconds, she felt calm and collected. The palms of her hands grew steadily warmer. She pushed all of her energy into the tips of her fingers, and began to mold the shape of the growing black aura around her body. She changed into the form of a faint bird and quickly transcended the ceilings above. Only for a split second, did the shape of her transformation mimic that of an overgrown raven, before the obsidian hues dissipated throughout the stagnate air. After the energy disappeared, she stood silent, and alone, on the highest floor's hallway.

The smoke of the accident was less thick than before, but it still made her cough. It was stuffy and she wondered if there was enough circulation of air to transgress safely. However, her precautions quickly left her mind when she once again thought about their missing teammate.

She needed to find the stupid boy as quickly as possible and assure that he had not been hurt. The facts seemed painful. If he had heard the loud crash, he would have joined the other Titans. Even Beast Boy was not that sound of a sleeper. In other words, if he was still safe, he would have made his presence known, even if he had to patch them in through the Titan Communicator. Because his Titan Communicator was off—or perhaps broken—and the green boy was missing, things looked bad. Raven knew the only reason why he was missing was due to something urgent.

She would need to quickly scout out the area and make sure Beast Boy wasn't dumb enough to make a joke out of a serious event. She wouldn't put it past him to scream out, "Dudes, just kidding! I so got you!" if she opened his bedroom door. Perhaps the only reason why a slight smile came to her face was the fact that if he did such a shitty thing, she would make him suffer so badly he would need to eat out of a tube. Or…maybe she'd seal his mouth shut and force him to be her mute servant for a year. Raven shrugged. The specifics didn't matter to her too much...Any form of revenge would work.

Raven crossed her arms as she walked down the bleak hallway. She unconsciously hugged her arms tighter as she neared his room. She knew believing in such false hope was pointless, but a small alcove in the back of her mind still begged that Beast Boy was a damn heavy sleeper.

When Cyborg designed Titan's Tower, he built four very large rectangular constructs one on top another. Then, to design the horizontal band at the very top that fully completed the "T" shape, he turned three rectangular segments on their side. The completed picture represented their headquarters, training facilities, city watch post, and most of all, their place to live. Each segment spanned roughly the size of a five-story building. In total, the four vertical constructs of five stories each resulted in a tower nineteen floors high, not including ground zero.

While initially, the sheer size of the tower seemed unnecessary to Raven, she had come to know the little nooks and crannies—secrets—that made privacy a possibility between five teenagers. More importantly, entire floors seemed to have their own purpose. Two floors were devoted entirely to Titan Supplies, and one of the floors to safeguarding weapons that villains used against them in previous battles. A good several levels of tower were sectioned off, which housed the security sophistication of the entire tower. They also ran the power supply and the main computer.

After all floors were accounted for and the inhabitable levels were narrowed down, the accessible levels for normal use turned into three: the ground floor, the nineteenth floor, and the roof. The ground floor supported their extensive training services and their garage. The highest accessible floor—the nineteenth floor—of the tower was their main home and residence. It had their lounge, suited with red couches, big screen TV, mainframe computer, kitchen, and wall-to-ceiling windows that featured a beautiful view of the city. It also held every bedroom, including the one room that Terra had once frequented, several years ago.

Lastly, there was the roof, to which the Titans often went to get away from everyone else. It was a zone well-renown for peace and tranquility. Late at night, the stars were beautiful, and the soft hum of the ocean smashing against the rocks felt like a meditation garden in surround sound.

Well…Okay, so maybe she was exaggerating a bit, and nobody cared about the roof but herself. In truth, Raven knew almost nobody appreciated the roof's true value, being probably the only one who went up there more frequently than a weekly basis. However, she knew the perks of the roof had to be self-evident; they were a mandatory aspect of her sanity, her peace, and her stability.

When it came to Raven's search for Beast Boy, she assumed the ground floor was covered by Starfire and Robin. This meant she was down to the nineteenth floor and the roof to find her aggravating friend. She would start at his bedroom, and work her way to the lounge, and then ultimately the roof. She had awoken in the lounge moments before the accident had occurred, so it was unlikely he would be found there. Also, as far as she knew, he only went to the roof when all of the Titans were doing a group roof activity. In other words, during summer volleyball, or never at all. If she was to find him, her best—and probably only—bet would be his own bedroom.

As Raven walked from the empty lounge down the long hallway, her own room came first on the right side, then the stairwell up to the roof next to the elevator came next, a second hallway that ran perpendicular to the rest of the tower on the left appeared, and then Beast Boy's room, on the left, soon after. At the farthest end of the tower, in the distance, Raven could see Cyborg and Robin's room perpendicular to each other. Starfire was the only member of the Titans to have a room down the other hallway, which Raven envied far too often. She hated having the room closet to the lounge, and least protected from noisy Titan activity.

Her feet came to a stop as she looked at the large metal door leading to Beast Boy's room. Should she knock? Although common courtesy suggested she should, she knew she didn't have a lot of time to mess around. If he were not in the room, her knocking would be pointless. She also wanted to finish this search as soon as possible, so she could help her friends dig through the rubble at ground zero. It was a terrible thought, but she was practical. Raven knew she would be able to lift ruin faster than any other Titan because of her powers.

Actually, it made her a bit upset. She disliked Robin's plan, which had become something of a growing theme, especially with his recent handling of the Mayor's mandates and Jinx…yet, she continued to follow their leader's plans partially due to obligation, and partially due to that small smidgen of trust—trust that he knew what he was doing—which still remained.

In truth, she thought looking for Beast Boy in safety was pointless, but she had not the strength or the willpower to argue. In her mind, she figured if he was safe, they didn't need to look for him. He would turn up eventually—and he would be safe. Due to the fact that time was of the essence, she would be much better off searching where he could be hurt. If he was still asleep, well, that's fine, right? He'd merely wake up, come looking for them, and everything would be great. Looking for a safe Beast Boy was wasteful.

Her arms hugged tighter, staring at her teammate's door. She took a deep breath. Perhaps her own sense of panic and over-sensitive reaction was a sign of how rare it was for the Titans to fall into near-death situations. Sure, they were superheroes and they risked their lives daily, but being practical, they were better than their competition by a severe degree. Even Slade who had once been their most difficult adversary had become a pushover. On their last skirmish, Slade had shown up with a league of maybe two dozen robots and himself. When the Titans easily exterminated the robots, Slade fled. He had not shown his face for several years now, leading to a lot of suspicion, but it had also made one thing painfully obvious. The more the Titans thought about it, the more they began to realize the 'Genius Slade' had finally run out of resources and ideas. His plans were terrible, and they had never succeeded. He had an infinite failure record, and now he was washed up. He was hiding not because he was in wait, but because he had lost. He was finished.

The thought of someone outsmarting the Titans worried her. The thought of Beast Boy being severely injured frightened her more. The thought of that annoying boy being dead—well, it was too much to bear.

Raven walked up to the door's security panel and typed a series of numbers into it. She had always hated the Titan automated sliding doors. They were bulky and unnecessary technology. At least a simple doorknob and lock would keep out a sneaky green rat who had a tendency to "accidentally" search the computer hard drive for her own room's security code. Maybe she was hypocritical; after all, she knew his security code by heart. Then again, it's not like she had ever used it. She had no desire to get into his room. Her knowing his code is definitely more of a security precaution kind of thing. It was to assure that in a situation of life-and-limb—or, a situation like this—she could quickly and easily get in contact with him. Her mind guiltily threw away the fact that she could easily use her Azarathian power to transverse the door at any moment, which meant there wasn't really a logical reason to know his password...but, that didn't matter.

Raven shrugged.

The door slid open and she cautiously peered her head inside. It wasn't so much that she was trying to keep herself hidden, but the room was so messy she found no legitimate way to actually enter his room. The floor seemed to be artificially several feet too high, crammed pack with junk that she didn't know he had. She bit her bottom lip as she stepped over an apparently unopened bag of potato chips. She put her weight on a red sweater she had never seen him wear, to step closer and get a good look at his bed. The bedding was cast asunder, as if Beast Boy had literally jumped out of bed and thrown the blankets everywhere. With a quick look at the top bunk, she assured herself he was not in his room.

Just for good measure, she called out in a loud, raspy voice, "Beast Boy, are you in here? This isn't funny. I'm not playing around, and I'm angry now. Are you in there somewhere? Are you okay? ...Did you survive…?" She called out again, but met only empty silence; she felt her dehydrated throat begin to burn.

She hesitantly turned her back, and finally left his room.

Cyborg ran as fast as he could up what seemed like an endless flight of stairs. He had forgotten how exhausting it was to travel so many flights. In retrospect, he wished he had waited until Raven woke up, before she swooped up to the top floor using her power. He should have asked her to take him along for the ride.

However, his own business wasn't on the top floor, and he didn't have the time to wait for her to awaken. He needed to reach the eighth floor as soon as possible, where the more personal aspects of the tower were stored. Part of the point of having so many floors that seemed to have almost no activity meant a foreign opponent would have difficulties locating the more delicate machinery—the more critical information—in a timely manner.

In this particular case, he saw his job as threefold. First, he had to figure out how and why the elevator crashed. To do this, he needed to access the mainframe computer's direct interface. He could probably connect via his own robotic arm from a distance, or even the lounge's panel, but he was killing two birds with one stone by accessing the master computer located on the eighth floor, which also housed the structural integrity of the tower. His second, and perhaps most important job, was to determine the kind of damage the tower had withstood. In order to determine the tower's condition, this particular floor was a great place to begin physically analyzing the support beams. If they had been cracked during the incident, this floor would show it. The eighth floor was low enough to notice any signs of emergency wear, but high enough to show if the cracks had spread to the higher levels of the tower. This was critical, as it would hopefully allow him to see the integrity of the tower without being required to visit every single floor...he just didn't have enough time to do so. His third task, and probably the most difficult, would be to calculate the kinds of costs it would take to repair the given damage, both in effort (or his precious hours of free time) and in monetary value.

Cyborg had not had the time to inspect the damage on ground zero, but he assumed the elevator cart was totaled. Judging from the limited scope of the bottom floor he had seen, the bottom floor was tousled as well. He was not looking forward to the next few weeks and the amount of work it would take to fix these issues.

His biggest problem would be dealing with how the intruders had bypassed his security features. This 'accident' was no accident. It was intentional as far as he was concerned. Someone had hacked into his systems and fucked with them. If they had enough power to cause the elevator to malfunction, who's to say they didn't mess with other areas of his tower too? For all he knew, even the structural diagrams that modeled the damage of the Tower could be inaccurate. Hell, they were smart enough to simultaneously stop all the video cameras and hidden recording devices he had installed. Cyborg would need to inspect the key elements of the tower in person, before he could give Robin a full estimate of the situation. Although in most cases the digital world was his friend—this time, digital data couldn't be trusted. It could very well be spoofed to be his enemy, and that was dangerous.

By the time he sprinted as fast as his metallic body would let him to the eighth floor, he was slightly out of breath. A little bit of sweat dripped down his brow, but he wasn't winded. He could probably run up the full tower and then back down before losing his breath. Although he wasn't winded, he had to admit, running up several flights of stairs was by no means a fun adventure, especially when his mind seemed to race even faster, worried about the status of his best, and possibly closest, friend.

He came up to the sliding door, punched in the security code, and met a giant red: "Access Denied" screen. He tried again, only to see "Access Denied" printed once more. Cyborg growled in frustration as he slammed his metallic fist against the steel wall.

Ah man, did they change my password? This week is going to suck, he muttered to himself.

Making a fist with his right arm, he used his left hand to unlatch his lower-arm computer. The movement of the monitor revealed a miniature keyboard underneath. He stroked a few keys, pulled a connector cable from the side of his arm-monitor, and stuck it into a slot near the sliding security door. With a few more keystrokes and a little bit of brute-force hacking into his own system, his right eyebrow rose in confusion. "What the hell man? It says here the code should be the same. Nobody messed with it…"

With the cable still connected to the door, he repunched in the same numbers for a third time: "3-51-904-804-204-61-3" into the security panel of the sliding door. To his surprise, the monitor lit up with a green "Access Approved" message.

He groaned. "Come on man, now's not the time to do stupid shit like that. Beast Boy needs you." When he pulled the cable out and slid the monitor back into his arm, he noticed his left hand was shaking. He looked over to his other hand, which was also shaking. Cyborg brought his hands to his face and wiped his forehead. "Relax Cyborg, he's fine. Even Raven can't kill that little grass stain when she wants to…he's tough. He's gotta be fine. He just has'ta be…"

He shrugged off the fact that he had typed his own master password incorrectly twice and entered the poorly lit foundation of the building. The door quickly slid shut behind him.

Cyborg glanced at the structural beams, the wires, and the cascading garters. He eyed the door labeled "High Voltage" toward the back of the room. He rubbed his robotic hands together. "Aight Cy, time to get to work; time to do what you do best and fix this hellhole. They're all counting on you...and you've got the skills to pull it off."

And with the crack of his knuckles, he began.

Really, thanks for the reviews, everyone! They mean a lot. As always, please leave a review and let me know what you think. Reviews keep me motivated and more excited to continue. Thanks again!