Yes, a speedy update this time, because I wanted to update on Christmas Eve and wish anyone who happens to read it today a final Merry Christmas.

Actually, I can't help but notice that of late my review count is dwindling again. Maybe it's just the busy time of year, but some of my regular people have all disappeared too… O.o

Anyway, to thank those who did review;

Seductive Angel (yay, you have returned! I've missed your crazy reviews! How many future worlds are there? Let's not go into that, since time travel is an extremely confusing topic…); Quinn and His Quill (how is Malachi Claws coming along? And you are welcome for the Charon pic… I thought he turned out kinda cute…); Raven Victoria Grayson (I don't think Terra would actually make a very good mother – she's a bit messed up if you ask me (all versions of her). But yeah, you gotta feel sorry for her anyway…); Simmie (the trouble with you is that your questions are all very good and if I was to answer them I would end up revealing the entire storyline… And yeah, I think we can all agree that Terra, no matter her age, is a bit dumb when it comes to Slade…); Guardian of Azarath (this final part of the trilogy is quite a bit more morbid than Asylum and Black Magic. Killing the Titans off in like the second chapter doesn't leave very many other options… Will Bruce be having a bad day? You can almost certainly count on it…); Me (God rest ye merry RobinxStarfire haters, may nothing you dismay…Heh heh, there's a tiny bit of RobinxStarfire in this but moreover it's RobinxRaven, so don't worry…); Halfdemon Girl (you're not being annoying at all! I'm not going to kick you in the butt at all… unless you stop reading reviewing, of course! I love hearing what you think!); Ray1 (yeah, Robin's going to be on the warpath by the time Slade is back in the picture, and he's going to be in a lot of trouble…); Coolteenzz (I know, it is kinda boring at the moment… It will pick up, I promise… To be honest, yes, it is quite different from Asylum and Black Magic, but it is all the same storyline, and it will all link up in the end, okay?); and Crazy Insomniac (with four reviews all in one go! Thankyou so much! By "shrimp" I'm going to assume you are referring to Robin… And yes, death to Jinx! What a lame cop-out that she turned good in Season 5. I wanted her to freeze too, that by-otch… As for Slade – don't worry, he'll get what's coming to him…).

All my vanished regulars, including old hands YamiTai, Daybreak25, Rocky-White Wolf of Curses, Peace215, Kami Elf and Narroch (review, you lazy bum, or I swear, I will have you micro-chipped!)… And Flying02Fish, who made the awesome Black Magic trailer… Please come back! I miss you…

Anyway, let us for now take a detour away from Robin/older Terra/blahblahblah-ness…

…and return to Azarath.

Slaying the Dreamer

(Slaying the Dreamer: From Nightwish – Century Child)

"Everything goes according to plan?"

"As far as I can tell."

"To whose plan?"

"Seth's, of course."

Arella looked long and hard at the Head Senator; at Marcus Vandiver, his brown hair tousled, his face worn and weary.

"Marcus, what are we going to do?" She whispered.

"We will wait, Arella. As I told you before, we shall simply wait. We can do no more."

"While Seth gets his own way?"

"At least we are able to monitor him. The time for us to play our parts draws ever nearer—"

"And why couldn't that have been when my daughter was killed?" Arella interrupted angrily. "Tell me this, Marcus. You let those children die. You knew what was going to happen, you knew they would be electrocuted, and yet you—"

"And reveal ourselves to Seth?" Marcus snapped. "Arella, you cannot be serious."

"Azar's way is to protect the vulnerable where it is possible!" Arella challenged him. "And you did not!"

"You know it could not have been any other way. Arella, it agonizes me that I knew beforehand that the Teen Titans would die, but what could I do? I had to let them. It's the only way. It's the only way we'll stop him. Please, you must understand…"

"My daughter is dead." Arella regarded Marcus icily. "Raven is dead, and yet… the father lives. The boy, Robin. A powerless mortal, like myself."

"Seth has great need for him. You know this. We all know this."

"And what of the child?"

"I could not say. If all goes according to our plan, then it shall be—"

"Ah, yes. If." Arella intoned the last word bitterly.

"Arella…" Marcus put his head in his hands. "I am not a miracle maker. I am not a god."

"Marcus, my daughter—"

"Yes, you have already expressed your feelings on the matter." Marcus looked away from her. "For now, there is nothing I can do. And yes, I know you think it unfair that the boy has been resurrected when she has not; and yes, Arella, you. You feel bitterness towards him, towards the boy, because you believe Raven's pregnancy to be his fault. You believe him to be another careless boy, ruining a young girl's life and then leaving her with the burden."

"And is that not what he is?" Arella snapped.

"Seth has engineered this. You know that, Arella. Do not make this difficult. Do not feel hatred you have no cause for."

"It is difficult not to."

"Then you must mediate upon it. Anger is blinding, Arella – that is partly why Azar abhorred it. If we are to defeat Seth, we must not be blinded. We must see all, and see clearly."

"And how is it that you see all? How is it that you know these things? Cordelia Silver?"

"No." Marcus gave a sharp shake of his head.

Arella blinked.

"Then…?"

"I have not seen Cordelia Silver for days." He glanced at her. "Have you?"

"Now that you mention it, no," Arella admitted. "Then this means that her precognitive abilities have been useless to you? To our cause?"

"Yes. I have had outside help, as a matter of fact."

"From?" Arella asked sharply, looking at him warily.

"For now, do not worry yourself over the matter."

"If it's all the same to you, Marcus, I think I will," Arella replied coldly. "We are in the midst of a war against a rebellious former Head of Senate, seemingly intent on destroying us all, no-one seems to be clear in all aspects of the situation, and now you cite that you are receiving help from an outside source? I do beg your pardon for pursuing the matter so, but I can't help but be wary."

"Arella, I understand your concern, but I would prefer it if you would leave the matter be," Marcus snapped, running a hand through his hair.

"This is why everything has gone to hell!" Arella spat, grasping his shoulder. "Too many lies, too many secrets… Marcus, Seth has spent his entire life deceiving people, and now you are adopting the same patterns as him?"

Marcus pulled away from her.

Jonathon had said that too, hadn't he? That Marcus was beginning to act like Seth. He had said it the day he had died.

The day Seth had killed him.

The Head Senator shivered.

"I will never be like Seth," he said in a low voice. "Seth is a murderer."

"But you are becoming so calculating, it is almost—"

"Be silent, Arella!" Marcus shouted, rounding on her. "Do not torment me so!"

Arella stared at him.

"I… torment?" She reached for his shoulder once more, and, again, he recoiled from her reach.

"Leave me, Arella," he said icily, presenting her with his back. "I can do nothing for you at this time. I cannot comfort you… and it would appear that you cannot comfort me either…"

"Marcus, Jonathon's death has brought pain and sorrow to us all."

"You do not understand."

"What is there to understand?" Arella demanded.

"Leave."

Marcus moved towards the window of his office; it was dark out once more, and the rain fell. He was no longer interested in talking to Arella, and had not been best pleased to see her in the first place.

She had interrupted a meditative state – the state in which he received his "outside information".

A state in which he was far happier.

Arella was silent for a moment or two, gazing at the back of the Head Senator's crimson robes.

"You loved him, didn't you?" She asked finally, her voice soft. "You… and he… there was something. You were in love, the pair of you."

In the reflection of the dark window, she saw Marcus' eyes widen, then narrow again.

"That is not your concern," he replied icily, still not turning to her.

"Well—"

"And how can you make such a claim anyway?" Marcus rattled on. "Tell me this, Arella."

"I… when Seth… killed him, I heard him say… that you had kissed. You and Jonathon…"

"It is of no consequence."

"But you are doing this. This is revenge, Marcus. This is vengeance."

"I do what I do for the good of Azarath and the Earth."

"And for Jon—"

"Get out, Angela!" Marcus interrupted furiously.

Arella blinked at him, in particular for referring to her by her birth name.

"Very well, Marcus," she said stiffly at last. "I will obey your wishes, but know this; you are in pain because you have lost one you love to Seth and his design. Well, so have I; my daughter. And if you're going to stop that monster from harming anyone else – that boy you keep defending, for example – then you had better do it pretty damn quickly."

She turned on her heel and made for the door. Reaching it, she turned back and regarded him coldly.

"And my name is Arella."

She slammed the door behind her.

Marcus bowed his head, biting his lip to stop the tears.

She was right, of course; right about everything.

The slayer of his dreams.

As a few escaped tears slid down his face, he lifted a finger and drew in the condensation on the glass – caused by the rain – a capital "A".

And then he rubbed it off again.

TT

He was reminded of Led Zeppelin.

What was this; Stairway to Heaven?

Where he found himself was a place of utmost darkness – behind him, around him, was nothingness. Pure black emptiness.

Only a staircase ascended above; stone, uneven at that, twisting upwards out of sight, as those of a medieval castle or battlement. The walls were lit with flaming torches.

It was strangely familiar to him, and yet he knew he had never seen it before.

He knew he would see it again.

Sometime. Somehow.

To learn. To know. To save.

He followed it upwards, compelled to follow the twisting shape of it. He had no choice but to walk on, ascending higher and higher, as though on a stairway that stretched right up to heaven.

The pathway – the stairway – of the Chosen.

The Avenger.

The destroyer.

He came to a door.

And, upon opening it, he found nothing once again.

Not heaven.

Blackness – emptiness – he could draw no meaning from.

It was meaningless. All of it. He sought reason and knew he would find none. There was no purpose for any of it.

Lies.

All of it; lies.

Nothing worth…

remembering.

Ah, yes, this was what it was.

It dawned on him; nothing more than a gentle surprise. In real life, perhaps he would have screamed.

Not here.

To find himself surrounded by graves; no, that did not surprise him. Not here.

Cyborg.

Beast Boy.

Starfire.

He walked past them without a word.

They were cracked, strangled by ivy and moss; decades old. Maybe a century.

He still lived.

He lived, not a day older than he should have been.

The Century Child.

(Yes, that was what he was; of course it was…)

He walked past them without a word; without a sound; without a tear.

His wrist stung.

Black velvet curtains; heavy, draped – reminiscent of the wings he had once bore. He pushed through them and found Terra.

Not just Terra.

Terra. And Terra.

Two of them.

One the young girl – the renegade Titan – who ran against them in his own time.

The second the older version. The beauteous sinner. With curves in her hair and in her hips.

The younger incarnation knelt on the floor and wept, her straight gold hair a curtain between her and the world that had rejected her; and she it.

The older version was dead.

On her back on the ground, her similarly gold hair a blanket beneath her.

Terra – younger Terra – looked up at him, her face streaked with tears.

"You…" She whispered.

"Me," Robin replied softly. He offered her his hand but she shrank back from him.

"I cannot. You…" Her face contorted, showing anger. "You… what you have taken from me! You have stolen from me! It's all about you, always about you…! And look…"

She pointed at the older version wildly.

"I have taken nothing from you, Terra," Robin replied icily. "Anything that you have lost, you have lost yourself, to yourself."

Terra staggered to her feet, gripping at her scalp as though she had a headache of titanic proportion.

"I am nothing," she muttered, her eyes wide and unfocused. "Nothing. Nothing, because of you."

She looked up at him, her blue eyes still wide and staring.

And then she laughed.

Her laughter wild.

"Nothing will come of nothing!" She said, leaning right into him.

Robin backed away from the mad girl.

"You are not nothing, Terra," he whispered. "You live. You breathe. You destroy."

He looked at her. At Terra.

A natural disaster, just waiting to happen.

A bad moon rising.

He walked past her without another word. Past the dead woman.

Terra watched him go, gripping at her hair as though in despair.

"I have dreams, you know!" She screamed after him. "Dreams that you will take! Dreams that you will slay! You think me destruction, but I… It's you, Robin. You're the destroyer…"

He didn't look back.

He came to another curtain, created of the darkness that was all around, and he put it between him and Terra(s).

Here he found Raven.

Pregnant, dressed in red.

She too lay on the ground, at such an angle that he thought that perhaps she too—

He could not run to her. The dream would not let him quicken his pace.

When he got to her, he knelt, taking her head under one arm.

She opened her eyes.

She did not smile.

Her look was one of dismay.

"Robin…"

"Yes." He found her hand and squeezed it. "It's okay, Raven. I'm here."

"It's not okay…" Her amethyst eyes filled with tears. "…You have led him straight to me…"

"I have…?" Robin blinked at her. "Who?"

"Me."

Robin looked sharply over his shoulder.

Seth Elliott offered him a little wave.

Then he reached down and grabbed the Boy Wonder by the throat, hauling him away from Raven to his feet.

"She is mine, worthless mortal," he hissed.

He threw Robin backwards; he didn't topple, regaining his balance and straightening up.

Seth reached for his arm, catching at his left glove and ripping it off his hand.

He gripped his wrist, his long slender fingers closing over the "A".

He squeezed.

Everything flashed and shuddered; as though, in this dream, Robin had lapsed into a sudden epileptic fit. Strobe lighting in his mind.

Fire burned up his arm – or felt like it, anyway.

Blood began to drip between Seth's fingers.

And with a gasp—

Robin woke up.

He sat there, panting, his breath rising on the cold air of the back room of the church.

He was still utterly out of it – not truly awake.

Trapped beneath the surface of a dream that had ceased, but not released him.

The "A" at his wrist ached, bleeding freely even though it should not ever have been deep enough to cause such blood loss.

It was on his pillow, on his sheets, on the floor, and on his face from where he had been tossing and turning.

He absently rubbed it off his face, not even aware that it was there.

And then he lay back again.

Put his head back on the pillow, pulled the sheets back around him, and went back to sleep.

He didn't notice his bleeding wrist.

The burning brand of the Avenger.

And when he awoke again, he didn't remember a thing.


Ambiguous, yeah…

That dream (it was Robin's, BTW… okay, kinda obvious at the end, but it's not crystal clear) seems utterly wacked and nonsensical at the moment, but when eventually you get right to the end of this story, you'll be like "Ah…".

Um, none that any of it actually happens, but it represents stuff, kinda like Raven's dream did in Black Magic.

That's what I'm hoping, anyway…

Why is Robin's wrist bleeding?

The answer is actually in there…

Anyway, Merry Christmas one and all! Hope everyone has a great time.

RobinRocks xXx