The Mad Metamorphmagus: Not even Nightwing is stupid enough to charge someone with vigilanteism, considering that's what all five of the Titans are. Honestly, I'm not sure the DC universe even has vigilante laws.

Concolor44: I aim to please. By the way, there's one particular paragraph in your review that just tickled me pink; if you look at it again after reading this chapter, you'll see what I mean. Yes, Team Black Magic is pretty awesome, and just think: they're only one team out of about fifty. The entire Perseus Initiative is definitely a match for the Justice League, though it would be a long, bloody fight. Thankfully for Nightwing, Raven is soon going to be a little distracted…

skywiseskychan: The accessory charge is for letting Billy Numerous go when he tried to steal the ATM in chapter 8, but you're right, there's not much to hold her for when you look at the actual facts (not that anyone else knows those facts). He was mostly just salving his bruised ego.

Zaan299: Swingers? Uh… NO. Raven is far too possessive to let anyone play around with her lover. It's Baran who is the sex machine; my original notes had Stella coming to Jump with his kid in hand and her daddy's goons on her tail, but that mini-arc was one of the ones I scrapped. Oh well, it works as throw-away comedy just fine, too.

This chapter is like a hand grenade; I'm just going to throw it out there and get my ass back in my bunker. Before you flame, remember that I do have a plan.

Disclaimer: Did Raven's lone attempt at romance end in betrayal? If so, I don't own the Teen Titans franchise; it belongs to DC Entertainment, Glen Murakami, and Warner Bros.

Chapter 11
Angel of Darkness

Jinx groaned as she slowly returned to wakefulness. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment before they revealed her location. "Ugh, this is bringing back all sorts of bad memories."

"Be quiet," ordered the helmeted policeman, his fingers playing along the side of his stun-rifle. "Cause any trouble, and I'll knock you back out."

"With the way my head feels, I might just take you up on that." Even so, she clamped her mouth shut. Knowing Gizmo, he had already told the rest of the team what had happened, and that gave her two reasons to keep her wits about her. One, Raven would have an easier time finding her psychic signature if she were conscious.

And two, someone would have to keep the obsessively protective woman from ripping this guard apart, possibly literally.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot to do in a prison transport aside from twiddling her thumbs — not that she could do even that with the metahuman-suppressing cuffs wrapping around her hands and stretching up to her elbows — so she turned her attention back to the cop. "Hey, got a question for you."

"I said, be quiet."

She rolled her eyes at the repeated demand. After taking the worst drill sergeants could throw at her during Basic Training, his softly worded orders wouldn't impress her unless he put the barrel of that gun in her face. "Where are we headed, anyway?"

"Didn't you hear me? You're—"

"Oh, give it a rest, Lovins. You couldn't scare the crap out of a goldfish, and you're definitely not going to get her to do anything she don't want to do."

Her eyebrows rose at the voice coming from the front. What were the chances? "Heya, Mitch. They still got you carting us poor, lost, little metas around? Thought you'd be retired already."

"Can't," the man grunted back. She could picture him now, smoking that ever-present cigar stump and rubbing his bald head. Mitch had always been her favorite driver; despite his crotchety nature, he had a real soft spot for kids and teens, never letting any of the guards get rough with the Hivers. She had actually been in the truck the one time a cop backhanded Angel, and what was left when he was done beating the tar out of that guy had not been pretty. "Her last year of high school, Paula started dating some freshman at JCU and got knocked up. He skipped town pretty much as soon as she told him. I'm helping her take care of the kid while she's still in college, but that's gotten a whole lot more expensive than it was when she was a baby."

"Damn, sorry about that, man." How many times did I tell him he needed to reign that girl in? Getting caught behind the gym with a bunch of boys when she was a middle schooler should have raised a few red flags. I'm surprised she waited that long to get preggers. Still, sucks for him. "You know, you could always let me out here and head on back home. I sure wouldn't tell anyone."

"Wish I could do that, Kitty Cat, but you're playing in the big leagues now. We're just taking you to the Pen for initial processing before you get transferred to Pelican Bay."

"Holy crap, they're shipping me to supermax?" Pelican Bay was the home of the worst of the worst, and they had a small section set aside for metahuman criminals who were considered beyond all hopes of rehabilitation. Last she had heard, they only had a dozen or so supervillains inside, and none of them were people she wanted to rub elbows with. "Aren't I supposed to get, I don't know, a fucking trial before going there?"

"Well, Nightwing did say that you killed a guy made entirely out of lightning. Trying to hold a meta with kind of power isn't something the warden wants any part of." He paused before continuing in a gentler tone, "Look, you've got nothing to worry about. Anyone sent there for holding gets their court date fast-tracked, and I'd put what's left in my bank account on you returning here to serve out your time. You're a punk and a regular pain in the ass, but you're not a monster."

"Should have let that spiky-haired asshole get himself fried," she muttered viciously. A thought sprang to mind then, one that brought a wicked smile to her face. "My girlfriend's gonna be pissed when she hears about this."

"Ha! That might be the safest place for you, then; they don't allow much in the way of visitation. It'll give her time to cool off."

Her soft chuckle caught the cop by surprise, and Mitch's seat squeaked as he, too, shifted uncomfortably. "You think prison walls will keep her out of anywhere she wants to go? There's only one jail in the world she can't enter and leave on a whim, and Pelican Bay ain't it. Besides, she won't be mad at me.

"She'll be coming after you."

Silence filled the truck for several seconds after that bold declaration, finally broken by Mitch whispering, "What the hell?" She leaned forwards as far as she could to look out the window, and a grin grew on her face.

"That'd be my girlfriend." She relaxed in her seat and looked at her guard. "You might want to buckle up, Lovins. This ride's about to get real bumpy."

Rising from the ground, Raven had to work hard not to allow her eyes to glow red. Tapping into Trigon's powers always brought her more demonic traits to the forefront, and that made her negative emotions stronger than normal. Anger especially was difficult to control so soon after communing with that aspect of her nature. Unfortunately, she was not angry right now.

She was absolutely livid.

A whisper spread around her, the sparse crowd now noticing her arrival. None of them seemed to want to come any closer to their retired hero, however, likely due to her sharp glare. She could worry about the tarnishing of her public image later if she wanted to, but right now, all her concern was directed at rescuing Jinx.

The prison van appeared, rumbling down the road, and a sick smile spread across her lips. They wish to arrest my betrothed without just cause, do they? I will simply have to show them the folly of such a decision. The driver of the transport honked for her to move out of his path, a command she answered with a raised arm and a shadow-encased hand. "Azarath…"

The armored vehicle came closer, not slowing down one iota.

"…Metrion…"

Waving a hand wildly, the man behind the wheel motioned her away.

"…Zinthos."

Darkness gushed from the aether and coated the van until it was nothing more than a white wireframe, and a simple flick of her fingers flung the rear into the air to flip over the front. Landing heavily on the roof, it skidded to a halt only five feet from her. A thought crumpled the doors and ripped them out of their hinges. "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

"Sure thing, but it's a twenty dollar cover fee, payable by cash, credit card, or cunnilingus," came the pinkette's merry voice.

"And if all I have is a personal check?"

"Well, normally I'd say you're shit out of luck, but maybe we can work something out." Her soulself vanished, revealing the former thief hanging upside down from a bench. "Tell you what; you get me out of here, and I'll call us even, 'kay?"

"If that is the best offer you can make." A flash of black shattered the chains and braces that bound her, and Jinx dropped a few inches before being caught in a conjured web. The woman had barely climbed out of the vehicle before Raven had her wrapped in tattooed arms.

"Hey now, none of that. I'm okay."

"You are sure?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Had a nice chat with Mitch while waiting for you to show up." Jinx waved towards the man dangling in the front of the van. "I told you about him, didn't I?"

She nodded. "You did. Thank you for finding my missing kitten for me, Mitchell; I can take her off your hands now."

"Hey, stop!" Her eyes turned towards the police struggling with his seatbelt. "She has to go to prison!"

"Officer, now is really not the time to test my patience," she warned softly. Any response he planned to make was derailed by his shadow lifting itself off the wall and begin inching towards his neck.

A warm hand on her arm brought her attention back to her lover and likely saved the man. "No need to flip your lid, Raven. I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine. Besides, I don't think Nightwing told them the whole story. It wouldn't look too good for him to admit that he knocked out the girl who helped him take down Overload the second her back was turned, now would it?"

"Be that as it may, there was no reason for them to arrest you." The woman looked at her with big eyes, however, and she felt her resistance rapidly crumble. "Very well, if you insist. You can believe that I will be having words with Richard about falsifying charges the next time I see him, though. Pointed words, sharp enough to carve flesh from bone."

"So long as you're prepared to clean up any mess you make. Can we leave now? I really want to get all this dirt and coal dust out of my hair and clothes."

"…Do not think I am unaware of what you are doing," she said. At the pinkette's cheerful smile, however, she shrugged and went along with it. She could not deny that she enjoyed the results when Jinx distracted her from wreaking proper vengeance. Soulself swirled about them to carry them to Mammoth, and from there, home.

Shortly after their departure, a grunt could be heard from the transport. "We should have taken her in, too."

"Lovins, do us both a favor and just shut up."

Nightwing's eyes widened and mouth dropped open as beside him on the couch Starfire progressively paled. Even Persephone looked a little nervous at Beast Boy's words. "I'm sorry, but could you repeat that, please?"

"Apparently, Raven has total authority over Trigon's entire army of demons," Cyborg summed up succinctly.

Oh. So that's why Batman told us not to move against her. Would have been nice if he had explained that bit better before I painted a target on my back. "How much trouble do you think I'm in with her right now?"

"Well, considerin' you just tried to toss her girlfriend in prison? I'm pretty sure she's goin' to be a little pissed off at you."

"You weren't joking around with that 'you need to write a will' comment, then, were you?"

"Nope. She herself said you were a dead man walkin'."

He groaned. "Fantastic."

"Reduce that thing to nothingness and then return to your stations."

Click.

"Reduce that thing to nothingness—"

Click.

"Well, well, I am impressed. You grew fangs in your short time away, my dear." Slade leaned back into his chair, his fingers steepled as he looked over them at the twenty images of Raven's scowling face. "Now the only question is can you truly use them, or are you all bark and no bite?"

The video he had captured with the hacked traffic cam proved nothing. Could she destroy a soulless automaton? Yes, but she had done that before with his myriad of androids. What he really wanted to know was whether or not she could treat a living, breathing person with that kind of heartless disdain, whether she could stare someone in the eyes while she consigned them to oblivion. Was she still a heroine at her core, or had she adopted more of her nigh-omnipotent father's nature?

Honestly, he wasn't sure which he wanted to be the case. If she were still the soft-hearted child she once was, he had no need to fear her declaration of intent, but the scenes he could find of the young woman following her return displayed a poetic lethality, the same primal grace observed in lionesses stalking their prey. He would willingly admit to being amused by their little game of cat and mouse; it had been so long since he had been hunted down by a true predator that he had almost forgotten what it felt like. Even if she wound up killing him in the end, he would have enjoyed his last moments, and falling to a foe he could almost respect was far preferable to succumbing to his cancer.

Still, I won't make it easy on her. If she wants my head, she'll have to work for it, and there's no reason not to skew the odds in my favor. He pressed a button on the arm of his chair and drawled, "Wykkyd?"

"Yes, Headmaster?"

"Come over here. I need to send a message to the troops."

"As you wish, sir."

Slade closed the audio channel and, with a final nod to the multiple half-demons glaring at him, shut off the screens. "Very well, Raven, if this is what you want. Challenge accepted."

"What do you mean, we can't come?!"

"I meant exactly what I said," Raven answered dryly. "You three are not going to involve yourselves in this."

From her spot leaning against the wall, Jinx sighed as she watched the two argue. Melvin could be just as stubborn as the sorceress when she wanted to be, and right now, it looked like neither of them was willing to back down. She might not be able to tell the future, but she didn't need to to see that this wasn't going to end well.

"Why not?" the teenager demanded with a stamp of her foot. "We aren't kids anymore, Raven! We can help!"

The pinkette would have had to be blind to miss the fear that flashed across Raven's face at those words, and the half-demon replied sharply, "No, you cannot. You are talented, certainly, and your skills are much higher than the norm for metahumans your ages, but you are not prepared to assist us. Not yet, and definitely not with this."

"How are we ever going to be ready if you won't let us help?"

"This is not up for debate!" the woman finally snapped. "You asked if you could come with us to Jump, and I said no. That is my decision. End of discussion."

The girl's face flushed in rage, and Jinx knew nothing good could come from this. Sure enough, she was right.

"You're not my mom, Raven! You don't want to be, and you can't act like you are whenever it's convenient!" Melvin whirled around and ran out of the room; it meant she missed Raven stumble back several steps in shock, her face blanching as the words hit home. The woman's knees buckled, and she would have collapsed to the floor if Jinx had not shot forwards to catch her.

"Well, that could have gone better," Jinx could not help but mutter.

Raven turned to her with wide eyes. "Why?" she asked in a broken voice, one that made her sound more like a scared little girl than the calm and confident woman she was. "I did everything, everything I could think of; I tried to be as much like Galya as I could. But for her to feel so much anger at me? Where did I fall? What should I have done differently? Or would it have even mattered?" The former heroine shrank in on herself, and Jinx pulled her close. "In the end, blood will always out. I am just as bad as Arella, and now the closest person I have to a daughter hates me."

"No, you're not!" she denied, earning her a confused stare. "You're a wonderful mother to them, and they adore you. Melvin's just being thirteen; yelling at her parents because she didn't get her way is par for the course."

"I was never like that."

"That's because when you were that age, you were forcing yourself not to feel any emotions. Hell, you were probably already on Earth by that point."

"I had a few months on her when I was exiled," Raven admitted.

"See? Mel's got a close-to-normal life, so of course she's gonna act like a normal teen. Give her a day or so, and she'll be all teary-eyed and wanting you to forgive her." I'll make damn sure of that.

The other woman missed that flash of irritation, probably too wrapped up in her own sorrow to notice. Blotting the water gathering in her eyes, she whispered, "When did you become so wise on the ways of ordinary children? I know you do not have first-hand experience with this."

"All the soap operas you said would 'rot that thing I call my brain'," Jinx answered wryly, eliciting a quiet laugh. "Why don't you head on back home and fix yourself some tea or meditate a little? That'll make you feel better. I'll stick around here for another… half-hour, maybe, and spend some time with Spitfire."

The amethysts focused on her narrowed, and Raven asked suspiciously, "What are you planning?"

"Nothing you need to worry about." She gave her fiancée a quick kiss. "Seriously, it's nothing important, just a quick chat with some of the monks. Maybe I'll let the Abbot have some fun and give him another go at convincing me to convert."

"You two enjoy your little game far too much. Your suggestion is a good one, though. Call me when you are ready to leave." The half-demon dropped into a puddle of darkness, and Jinx felt the smile melt off her face as her temper flared. She did plan to torment Raven's youngest for a while, and she might even talk with some people, but first she had a verbal spanking to deliver.

Melvin was not hard to find; she had only made it halfway to her room when the thief caught up. "What, making sure I don't try to sneak off or something?"

"Oh, no. I'm just here to make sure you understand not to speak like that to Raven again," she answered with a cold smile.

"It's her fault! I'm not a kid anymore, and she can't tell me what to do just because she's a control freak—"

The smack of palm impacting cheek cut the girl off, and Melvin turned back to her, looking… well, looking like she had just been slapped. Jinx's mockery of a grin becoming even sharper had her whimpering quietly. "I told her she was making a mistake by sugar-coating the details of our jobs, that we should give you all the gory details, and it looks like I was right. You see her keeping you here as her dismissing you and your skills, when what she's really doing is making sure you don't get your fool head blown off."

"Oh, please, it can't be that hard. Raven was kicking bad guy butt when she was only a little older than me, and no one told her she couldn't do it."

"That might have had something to do with the fact that all the people who could had just kicked her out of their dimension, but that's not the point. What we do is nothing like what she did as a Titan."

"Can't be that much different," Melvin countered with a roll of her eyes.

"We killed three people yesterday." The teen paled at the apathetic tone of her delivery. "One each, me, Baran, and your mom. That's not the first time we've had to eliminate someone who got in the way of our mission, and it sure as hell won't be the last. You saying you're ready to tell Bobby to grab a guy and break him in half? Order Tony to rip somebody's throat out? Or would you prefer to put a gun to your enemy's head and pull the trigger personally?

"That's the kind of shit we do. We're not costumed heroes; we're soldiers, and we don't have the luxury of playing nice. Raven's got the blood of a hundred-fifty, maybe two hundred people on her hands, all of it from the past five years. You think she wants you part of that kind of lifestyle? It was hard enough convincing her to come back here after her first kill. She was afraid that she was going to 'defile you by association' or some crap like that. By barring you from joining us, she's keeping you safe and — equally important in her mind — innocent."

"But… why? If she doesn't like it, why doesn't she stop?"

Because she's stuck making up for our fuck-ups. Teams don't get their walking papers until everyone's paid the price of their pardons. "Because as nasty as it is, we're doing some good at the same time. It's not like we go around butchering kids or shooting housewives. Terrorists, megalomaniacs, mass murderers; people whose deaths make the world just a little bit better. Someone's got to get rid of them, and it might as well be those of us who can return home in one piece."

"No, I understand that. She told me once that your job is 'stressful and thankless, but all the more important for it'. It's just…" Melvin swallowed before continuing, "the killing part. Why can't she just knock them out or something if she doesn't want to kill?"

Jinx smiled weakly and tapped the tip of the girl's nose. "For you. Every person shooting at us is one more person who wants to keep her from ever leaving the battlefield, keep her from coming back here, and she treats that with all the disdain it deserves. Trying to be gentle risks them getting up and shooting her in the back, and we can't have that. She'd gladly wade through a river of blood if it meant she could see you and Timmy and Teether at the end of the day; sometimes it's the only thing that keeps her going. Nothing can stop a momma bear from getting back to her cubs.

"Unless, of course, one of those cubs says she hates her."

The blonde stammered, "I-I-I never said that! I don't hate her!"

"Sure as hell sounded like it. She was in tears when you left." That was not exactly true, but Jinx was not above using a little emotional blackmail. "You do know that what you said was way out of line, right?"

"I know, it's just… I don't get it. If she doesn't want to be our mom, why does she act like it all the time?"

"…It's complicated, like basically everything to do with her. Has she ever mentioned Arella to you?" At the shaking head, she continued, "That's the name of her own mother, and from what little Raven's told me about her, she was a right piece of work. When Raven was born, Arella basically told the doctors, 'Don't give her to me. She's your problem, now.'"

"Her mom really said that?" Melvin asked in shocked disbelief.

"Or something like it, anyway. At the very least, Arella wanted nothing to do with her, and she sure didn't raise her. Needless to say, Raven despises her, but at the same time, she's afraid that she'll become her. If she isn't your mom, you'll love her, but if she is, she expects history to repeat itself. I think this was probably the first time she's really acted like the mom she wants to be, at least when it comes to laying down the law."

"And then I have to go and prove her right."

"Pretty much." Reaching out, the pinkette gently flicked the girl on the forehead. "You want to make it up to her?"

"Of course I do!"

"Well, here's how it'll work. I'll talk her into coming back in a couple of days, and when I do, you're gonna get on your hands and knees and beg her to forgive you for being a spoiled brat. When she does — because we both know she'll do it in a heartbeat — you promise not to talk to her like that ever again, got it?" Melvin nodded, though her relieved expression drooped a little bit at Jinx's evil smirk. "Until then, however, you're grounded."

Reddening, the girl puffed up in indignation for a second before just as quickly deflating. "I deserve that, I guess."

"Damn straight, you do. You can leave your room for devotions and meals, but you're staying in there the rest of the time. No listening to music, no watching TV, no reading other than your scriptures, and when Timmy and Spitfire ask why you can't come out, you tell them the truth."

"Do I have to?" Jinx just glared at her, and she looked at her feet. "Okay, I'll tell them."

"Yes, you will. Get to your room; your punishment starts right now." The girl scurried away, and Jinx turned on her heel only to be startled by the peaceful old man walking around the corner. "Father Abbot. How much of that did you just hear?"

"All of it. I had wondered what caused you to rush through the corridors like that, so I followed you." He nodded in the direction Melvin had fled. "I will keep an eye on her to ensure she adheres to the penance you set out, but I doubt she will try to get around it."

She smirked. "Why do you think I'm not going with her to take all her things out of her room? I gotta say, those three having that kind of discipline is definitely one benefit of raising them in this place. If that had been me at thirteen, I wouldn't have even pretended to follow those restrictions."

"Neither would I, to tell the truth. Not at that age." He gazed over her shoulder at the bell tower built in the center of the compound and sighed. "As much as I would like to compare our turbulent teenage years, I must prepare for the evening devotion. Unless you would care to accompany me? I am sure we could find a place for you in the service."

"Not today, Father."

He shook his head, though the serene look never left his face. "The same answer as always? Very well. Just know that if you change your mind, you would be more than welcome."

"Ask the same question, and you'll get the same answer," she returned without rancor. The wispy-haired monk was persistent, sure, but never pushy. "You'd probably get better results if you bugged Raven about this stuff, you know."

Finally, his eternal calm disappeared, a mischievous grin replacing it before he turned away and walked off. "Oh, I don't need to. Her children do that well enough without any help from me."

The screen in the base's main room flickered to life, the initial static soon fading away to reveal the familiar bicolor mask of the Headmaster. "Students of the H.I.V.E., you have proven yourselves in criminality and in battle. You have fought the Titans to a standstill numerous times; rarely have any of you lost to those fools who seek to keep you from ransacking this city."

An alarm sounded throughout the Tower, calling the heroes to their command center, and their leader swiftly opened the connection to display the sweaty face of the police commissioner. "Titans here."

"Thank God. Titans, we have a serious situation developing at the museum. It's the H.I.V.E…"

"Now, however, it is time to take on the greatest threat any of you have ever come up against." Four images appeared in the corners of the screen, live photos of two women and a giant of a man, with a mugshot of a kid rounding them out. "These are your new targets, each of them far more vicious than all the Titans combined. Already, four people have died their hands, including your classmate Vulcan. It will take all your skill and cunning to defeat them."

"…I don't care how many there are, sir, we'll take care of them. Nightwing out."

"Tell me I'm not the only one who smells a setup," Gizmo groused as he spun his chair around.

Raven nodded. "You are not. This has Slade's name written all over it."

"But why? What's his plan?"

"That's the million dollar question, Baran," replied Jinx. "Smart money's on him trying to draw us out; after all, we did beat the Titans to the fight last time, and then we jumped in to help them out against his old cronies. Now we just need to decide if we're gonna play along."

The vertically challenged genius snorted. "Don't see that we have much choice. We still need to find Slade, and the best way to do that is get some answers from Kyd. I haven't been able to find his trail on the internet; hell, I can't even find his stinking money. Either of you getting results on the magic side of things?"

"Unfortunately not," answered Raven after a quick glance to her lover.

"Then we can't afford not to go after them. If I had one of the team leaders' transmitters, I could track him, maybe even locate the base Slade's hiding in. Without it…"

"Well, that makes this decision easy, don't it? Get your shit together, people; we move out in five."

"Some of you may be wondering why you should risk attracting the attention of such dangerous foes. Indeed, I expect that from most of you. Therefore, I have an… incentive for you to stand up to these interlopers. For the ones called Jinx, Mammoth, and Gizmo, I am offering bounties in the amount of fifty thousand dollars each; I do not care if you bring them back as prisoners or corpses."

Starfire dashed into her room before picking up the boxy communicator laying on her dresser. Beast Boy had told them a couple of days ago about how Raven had summoned her kin to Earth, and the alien was glad she had sent the cruisers she requested outside the Justice League's detection range rather than all the way back to Tamaran, even if she had been having issues reaching them. Those 162 warriors would soon be needed. The half-demon had entered both of the Titans' recent fights, and Starfire doubted this one would be an exception.

Unfortunately, even with FTL technology, live communication channels were impractical. The best she could do was send them a message and trust the three captains to handle any difficulties that sprang up. She flipped the switch and stared at the screen.

Coordinates confirmed.

Connecting…

Connecting…

Ready to transmit.

"Finally!" She twisted a dial, and her own picture appeared in front of her. "This is Empress Koriand'r, hailing the captains of the Tamgan, Far'yun, and Takarossa. The mission I summoned you for has now begun. All warriors will need to use sprinter ships to approach the mid-system asteroid field, and from there fly individually to the planet in order to avoid the sensor net. Should you be detected by the Justice League, do not engage, but—" The picture suddenly disappeared.

Alert: Connection lost.

"What?! No!"

A banging on her door caused her to let out a high squeak. "Yo, Star! We need to get movin'!"

"Coming!" She cast an uneasy glance at the device before returning it to its place; there was no time to try again. She just hoped her fighters were not needed tonight.

"Raven, however…" Here the last image, showing a female metahuman with grey skin and lavender hair, enlarged to fill the screen. "…has special requirements. Dead, she is worth only twenty-five grand…"

Signal jammed, announced the computer.

With a relieved sigh, the shadowed figure leaned back in his chair. "That was a close one. The Tamaraneans cannot be allowed to interfere; this situation is tenuous enough on its own." Typing swiftly, he deleted the incriminating records from the system's logs. While he was sure he could give a satisfactory explanation for his actions, it would be easier for everyone if he were never found out.

"…alive, I will pay ten times that. She will also be the most difficult to fight, and I expect you to plan accordingly."

"You know, we should have brought Gizmo along. Twenty just isn't cleanly divisible by three."

"I can sit out if you prefer. Then you and Mammoth could each take ten," Raven retorted. "Besides, we all know that you will need my help to defeat your allotment."

Jinx blinked in surprise before grinning wildly. "Uh-oh, I hear a challenge. Whoever takes out the most bad guys gets to be on top tonight?"

"Agreed. Mammoth, you are our witness."

"How did I get involved in this?" their masked teammate asked in bewilderment.

The pinkette shrugged. "You're standing here; deal with it. We start off lethal and worry about taking prisoners when there are fewer than half still standing."

"Excellent. Shall we begin?" Manifesting a dark aura around herself, Raven took to the skies before crashing through the museum's skylight.

"Cheater!" Jinx screamed even as she dropped through the hole beside the giant. "I'll get you back for that!"

"The bounties will expire within seven days. If I have to go out and deal with these four myself, none of you will enjoy the consequences once I return. The timer starts now.

"Good hunting."

A crescent of pink, a soft groan that went unheard in the chaos filling the rest of the room, and a teenager fell to the tile floor. An autopsy would later find that he had died of a sudden, massive stroke, despite being in otherwise perfect health.

That's four, Jinx thought as she somersaulted out of the way of a spectral sword flying through the space she had just vacated. By Shiva, just stand still and let me blast you, you little bastard!

She flicked another hexbolt at the criminal, but he deflected it with his ghostly shield and an arrogant laugh. "You'll have to do better than that! A material attack can't damage an astral weapon!"

His boast made the retired criminal glance at Raven again and sneer at the half-dozen enemies mobbing the sorceress. Her soulself was astral in nature and so was the only thing they had in their arsenal that could take the leader of this squad down, but the H.I.V.E. kids seemed to somehow know that already. They had surrounded Raven from the very start, and as good a fighter as she was, she couldn't go all out and rip them to shreds. Not when Jinx and Baran were close enough to get caught in her attack as well.

The half-demon lashed out with her power, grabbing the wrists of a literal bear of a man and flipping him over her head. He had just begun climbing to his feet when a spear of shadow skewered him in his stomach. "And that makes three!"

It was then that Jinx saw it. Whirling through the air above the battle, a transparent blade was moving into position in Raven's blind spot. The ring of metas around the woman shifted into a semicircle, and now the pinkette was sure this was no accident. She opened her mouth to scream at her lover when a lanky-haired girl who was doing her best to avoid Baran's fists screeched. The sound blew him away from the banshee, but it also filled the resonant room with noise.

She won't hear me! Even if she did, she can't block it; with all of them on one side, raising a shield would give them a chance to get in a lucky shot. Her hexes would be ineffective, her voice would not reach, and Raven would not survive getting stabbed; just because the weapons existed in the astral plane did not mean they couldn't cut flesh like the real thing. Left with no other options, Jinx did the only thing she could.

She ran.

Raven formed a shield to block the ice-carved sledgehammer, but before she could retaliate, her attention and defense were diverted yet again by a powdery butterfly winging its way towards her. The insectoid construct exploded harmlessly the moment it touched her barrier, and she coated her left fist in flames before slamming it into the first face she could find. This group — down to five, now, with their therianthrope bleeding out on the ground — had excellent teamwork, and under different circumstances she would have commended them on it, but not today.

She had a personal policy against praising people who were trying to kill her.

The shriek caught her by surprise, and she nearly dropped to her knees as her skull made a valiant attempt at vibrating off her neck. Thankfully, the H.I.V.E. fighters were equally affected, giving her a moment to regain her balance despite her ringing ears.

A warm body smashed into her from behind, and she barely transitioned her fall into a roll. Taking advantage of the sudden opportunity, her soulself scythed through the waists of two of her opponents. Five.

"Gughak."

Lifting her eyes to see what made that gasping sound, Raven was horrified to find Jinx in front of her, an ethereal sword pierced through her chest. A corner of her mind that had not immediately stopped functioning had just enough time to notice her betrothed was in the exact spot she had been standing before the woman crumpled to the floor. "No. No!" The darkness of her soul spilled from her to wash her foes away, and a moment later it rose in a dome around the couple. She slid next to her love, her heart, her life, and desperately reached out with her soulself to remove the offending object. The blade vanished at the first touch of black.

"Jinx, stay with me." Her healing aura sprang to life around her right hand even as she cradled the hexcaster with her left. As always happened when she tended to the woman, crackling pink static began dancing among the strands of the blue web. They liked to joke that even their powers enjoyed being together. "I can fix this."

She had spoken too soon; her demonborn powers touched the gaping wound, but try as she might, she could not seal the damaged tissue. Merely slowing the bleeding was taking all her focus. No no no no NO! This cannot be happening!

"It won't work," Jinx muttered quietly. "The kid said his weapons were astral."

She grew cold at that. Though her soulself was composed of distortions in the astral realm, her restorative powers were entirely physical. If the wound was truly in Jinx's soul and merely being reflected on this plane…

…there was nothing she could do.

Her beloved seemed to be thinking the same thing, and the arcs of hex energy reluctantly retreated. "My ticket's punched, babe. I'm so sorry."

"I can not, will not accept this. There has to be something—"

"Not when it's on the astral plane. You know that. I know that." The woman winced slightly before continuing, "I want you to promise me…"

"Anything. Name it, and I will give it to you."

"Four things. Kick Slade's ass. Tell Ruiz I quit. Find someone to give your heart to again." Jinx looked in her eyes at that, and she felt hot tears pouring down her cheeks. "And let the kids fucking call you 'Mom'."

Feline eyes drifted closed, and Raven felt something in her chest begin to fray. Nothing was important right now: not their mission, not the enemies surrounding them, not her former teammates staring at her from where they had stopped in the doorway as they arrived. Not even the end of the world would matter in comparison. With trembling arms, she desperately shook her betrothed. "Do not do this. Do not. Nirupama Aanshi Dasgupta, do not dare give up without a fight!"

Jinx slowly raised her hand to lay it over Raven's heart, and her voice was quiet and distant as she spoke. "I love you." At those words, bubblegum lightning spat and jumped between them, coursing into the sorceress's body. It did not hurt, not in the slightest; on the contrary, it felt like the arms of her partner, the woman who was to be her wife, wrapped around her at the end of a long day.

After a far-too-short moment, the bolts of pink stilled and vanished. Jinx's hand — cold, lifeless — fell from her breast to the floor. With one last sigh, the woman slumped completely in Raven's arms.

"No. Come back. Please?" Sobs wracked her body as she brushed her betrothed's short locks. "Jinx? Jinx?

"JINX!"

Silently Watches out.