Hearts of Darkness

by Legend Maker

"The conquest of the earth...is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." The sun sets on all your yesterdays, Titans. No matter what you do, TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME.

11. Truly, Madly, Deeply

Chapter 11: Truly, Madly, Deeply

…You must understand. Absolute perfection is impossible. Even God needed six days to create the universe, and he had to rest after it.

I did far better by her than the world would have.

The world abandoned her, and when she punished them for it, they began baying for blood. They would never, COULD never realize that what they suffered was their own doing. Forget being unable to read minds; it was simple, pure selfishness. They didn't want to look at the ugly thing, because it raised too many questions about them for why such a thing would exist. When it bit them, they acted like it was all the biter's fault. They always do.

I vowed to do more. I did just that.

You can curse the end result all you want. I looked at my options, and I made the best of them. I gave her a chance that never would have been within your capability or your capacity. Go ahead and rail against it. Just like you did her.

You're failures. All of you. And you CHOSE to be so. Embrace it. Call it what's needed and best.

I will not tolerate it.

From anyone.

The sun had been vanishing over the horizon when the fog swept over the isolated forest road. Nearby animals fled into the forest, even the insects falling silent, as the forms bloomed within the unnaturally deep mist.

The girl's clothing had gotten considerably better, the young woman now clad in what looked like a workman's jumpsuit and overalls, her belt weighed down with numerous tools and a pair of goggles over her eyes. When she stepped out of the mist, it was with refined confidence. At least, for two steps.

Then she realized she had no idea where she was.

"…Are we making a stop beforehand?" The woman said, turning around and pulling up the goggles from her Hispanic features.

"No."

"What? You're dropping me off? How are we going to coordinate?"

"We're not."

The realization finally dawned on the girl, the darkness before her creeping over her features.

"You fucking IDIOT."

"I looked at what had happened, and what will, and made a choice." The Lord said. "You wanted to be free from her. She wanted to be free from you. I gave you what you wanted, as best I could. From what's come since…I've made a decision. And it no longer includes you."

"You're going to fuck up and fail. You just want to make sure that everyone around you pats you on the back as you do it. You're a bigger idiot than-"

The hand of darkness reached out, seizing onto Zia Mori's throat.

"FALL SILENT." The Lord hissed, darkness settling on the surrounding trees and road like an equally clenching hand. "I did what you asked, what I promised. I gave you guidance and power to destroy your maker. I took you away from the chains of your birth that you so despised. I did this all as best I could, and you know full well how much better my efforts were than this wretched world's. From what's come, I've considered what's to come. AND YOU PROVE YOURSELF UNWORTHY OF IT BY THE WAY WORDS YOU CHOOSE."

"FUCK YOU."

"So you want to die then? Self-negation?" The Lord said, hoisting her off the ground. "I know that's not in you. I should know more than anyone. So I would highly advise you SHUT UP."

The Lord released his grip, the woman sprawling at his feet.

"…You don't want anything effective. You want a puppet who won't fight back. So FUCK YOU."

The Lord's eyes blazed, and Zia was nearly knocked out of what felt like her skin itself.

"I give you freedom. More than just the clothes on your back. I could very well have thrown you out, or slit your throat for your ingratitude, but you are not trash. You are simply not needed. No matter HOW you phrase it." The Lord said. "Go. Miss Mori, or whatever you are. You can go to the heroic world if you wish, in revenge, but I will remind you you still have the face of a hated mass murderer. You know full well how this world will treat you. Use what you have. I'm sure you can eke something out. But our time together is done. Try and prove otherwise at your peril."

"Fuck you. I'll be the last one standing. NOT YOU."

"…Do try. Learn the hard way. YOUR ARMS ARE TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD."

The mist faded into oblivion, the girl having already turned and begun to walk away, the stars beginning to come out overhead. She walked. She raged. She hated. It was all she was, after all.

She was, also, a survivor.

It was not a condition she planned to share.

How do you fix a mind cracked in half? You cannot. So you make the best of what remains, and rebuild as best you can. You don't waste time with pointless efforts, ones that won't make a difference in the end. You don't destroy it because of what spilled out when it cracked. Especially when it broke at your hands.

That's the thing, you see. I'll do what's needed. I'll do what your worthless moralities and delusional hypocrisies can't. I'll FIX things. I'll pay the price you think is too high. I'll get up and fight the battles you cringe away from. I'll do what's BEST for the world.

You WILL understand this. Or you will be swept away.

Because unlike God, I'm going to keep trying until I get it right.

---

The world is always doomed. How had that line ever become a joke?

It seemed like the last and absolute worst time for rumination, but as Starfire floated in the air, the sea roaring beneath her and lightning crashing down on the violated face of La Voix, she found herself doing it anyway. She couldn't sense the Lord, her natural and honed faculties amplified tenfold from her time in the Foreverwhere rift, and she doubted he had run away. Where was he, then? What was he plotting? A wary glance at the Etemenanki tower revealed nothing new or unusual there. Scanning the ground and then the horizon indicated nothing in turn. Starfire glanced up at the clouds, the mass of dark vapor and ash still overflowing with electricity. Nothing.

She'd HAD him, she knew. Just a little more and the Lord would be done being a plague on their house. He'd known it too; Starfire hadn't spent all the time she had with Raven without picking up a few things about emotion. The empathic attack on her had been as much legitimate, overwhelming desperation as it had been his last effort to stop her.

It was strange, knowing the enemy felt fear, especially something as inhuman in body and soul as the Lord. That did not concern Starfire though.

It was what had come after the fear. The re-empowerment, the Lord having again proven too treacherous for her friends to counter…just when she'd had him pinned and cold. He should have been enraged. He should have been trying to punish her. Instead…

A few traded blows, and then he'd vanished. Not enough of an encounter to gage just how far he'd gone back up the power scale either. What was he planning? How far did the cloud cover go?

…He'd shielded himself from direct sunlight. This-

The movement caught Starfire's eyes, the alien whirling around. Nearby, the Lord floated, long lengths of shadow forged into his latest cloak, his eyes greater pinpricks of darkness against his ebony face. His arms were crossed casually, his head tilted to one side. Just watching her.

He had not been there three seconds ago. Starfire felt the next two crawl by.

Expecting another speech?

The voice was like a cold thread impaling through her brain.

No need. It's all been said.

The air visibly rippled when Starfire slammed her fist home, a thunder crack sending free floating ash into violent displacement from the impact tremor, the clouds above them splitting in a chasm as the force displaced itself.

The Lord did not budge, Starfire's radiant hand burning against his forearm.

"And you're done." The Lord said, and punched back. Another crack shattered the air. Another line gorged itself across the black clouds.

Starfire mirrored her enemy, his fist caught against her interlaced hands, her eyes blazing in contrast to the void of her foe's.

"No." Starfire said, and the pair vanished.

No more noise followed. Instead, a fireworks show began, eruptions of green and flashes of black sprawled across the sky at speeds just under comprehension. The last flash of black and emerald was met with a third color, blazing white, as a lightning bolt crashed down from the abyss above La Voix and split the warring halves like a razor applied to a throat. The blackness flared, and then a second flash of light seemed to answer, striking the darkness and driving it down into the dead rock of the island below, green whirling away and heading back down to earth via a different route. Smoking, the Lord pulled himself up from the crater he'd made, the sound barrier breaking as Starfire streaked towards him.

"No." The Lord echoed, and swung out a hand before Starfire reached him. The black explosion consumed both of them.

Starfire hit the ground, the Lord walking on, one hand still out.

"Did you really think that a bolt of lightning would hit-"

The Lord snapped his head around at the rumbling, crushing ululation that sounded behind him, Starfire rising and turning around as the ground shattered and rose around her. The Lord's eyes narrowed in dark frustration.

"You AND Drake. Perhaps he got it from yo-?"

Starfire's fist shattered the Lord's face, his last syllable drawing out as his jaw distended and his features warped under the blow, the sound barrier breaking again as the Lord flew backwards. His form twisted into a roiling funnel and then vanished, the Lord teleporting a mile away.

No sooner were his feet on the ground then Starfire was on him, her arms blurring as she smashed blow after blow into him, the ground ripping up beneath the Lord's feet as he was driving backwards, his own arms a dark mass that blunted every blow Starfire threw.

Then he caught her fist.

He promptly stopped on a dime, and with an eruption of black energy, Starfire was the one flying backwards. The Lord leapt after the alien, his leg flashing out and catching her in the spine, the alien sent into an out of control tumble before the Lord fired off a blast of energy that slammed into the alien and tripled her speed. The cliff face loomed out of nowhere, the Titan slamming into it and drilling all the way through before she broke out the other end, falling down onto the ground on the other side.

Within a second she was in the air again, going straight back the way she had come. The cliff shattered before her, the whole rock face blasted and rattled to pieces as Starfire flew right back at it towards the Lord. The Lord met her, the impact shattering another hole in the ground as the Lord flew up into the sky, Starfire grappling with him before she hurled him backwards. Her hands slammed together, a green lance of energy firing towards the Lord, the Lord meeting it with his own blast.

"You think history will play out the same way? That I can't take the heat?" The Lord said, and took one hand away from his blast, holding it up above him. Around the tortured island, the waters of the Atlantic ocean continued to boil and thrash.

Then they began to slow.

Then the ice began to form, racing across the surface of the salt water, waves freezing in mid-roil, the ice manifesting for miles around La Voix before it began to stab into the depths. Above the Lord, the sphere of red began to form, the concentrated heat stolen from billions upon billons of gallons of seawater, Starfire breaking off her directed beam and flying back, her eyes wide. The Lord cut off his own attack, the orb above him having reached the side of an apartment building.

"Can you?" The Lord said, and hurled the heat sphere at the Titan.

Starfire promptly flew right through it.

"What the-GUYYYYHHHHH!" The Lord snarled as Starfire's blazing hands slammed into him, the heat sphere dissipating behind him. That was the problem when he worked with non-darkness based magic; he had trouble maintaining it.

"I channel the stars, monster. I go out into the depths of space and bathe in their unprotected embrace for light years. SO YES." Starfire said, and punched the Lord into the ground again.

For a moment, the Lord lay there, before Starfire crashed down feet first, splitting the ground open further before the Lord re-appeared to her right.

"Can you?" The Lord repeated. Starfire did as well, the Lord's chest caving in as she drove her fist into it.

---

"She's still winning, right? Like, the Lord might have powered up again-" Terra was saying, before Gauntlet briefly cut her off with an angry "FUCCCCKKKKKK!" "But Star's still keeping up with him! Even WITH all the new power!"

"FUCCCCCCCCCKKKKK!"

"That's good, right Robin? She can match him! Still! Even WITH the-" Terra said, and stopped talking in case Gauntlet wanted to curse again. Her hunch proved to be correct.

"Rob, I get it. Stow it. Still." Robin said, looking at the distant battle before he looked back at Raven. "Rae, an indication of a good idea would be good now. I'll even take an inkling of one."

"How 'bout an inference?" Savior said, standing near Raven as she gazed into the depths of the Foreverwhere void.

"I'll settle for any letter of the alphabet." Robin said. Savior just looked back at Raven, her gaze slightly unfocussed, the burning white dancing across the cool dark purple of her irises.

"I don't think the issue is whether or not we can close that rift." Morgue said, holding out a piece of stone that Scalpel was slowly carving into a dagger (as a weapon for this war, it was sorely lacking, but Morgue trusted it more than her bare hands) "It's more likely if it can be done before the Lord comes over here to raise an objection over the fact."

"This is why you're my favorite." Metatron said, abruptly next to Sophie, petting her like a cat while Scalpel looked on with dull annoyance. "So sensible and not-melodramatically heroic."

"I happen to think some melodrama is good for the palette every now and then." Savior said.

"FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKK!"

"There's always exceptions, of course."

Robin looked at Raven again, but she remained before the rift, staring into it. Running one hand through sweaty, bloody hair, Robin paced over to the fallen form of Marissa Mori, her hands carefully tied behind her back and her unconscious body leaned against one of the remaining walls. Lacking anything else to do, he checked her vitals, trying to filter out the background noises to locate her pulse.

"Nothing's changed since the last time you did that, Tim." Cyborg said. The Titan had finally gotten enough emergency power back online to move around again, but for the most part he was staying away from the giant hole in the wall, his battered metal form and the far-duller-than-normal inner light that he usually had from said lack of power proving an odd uniformity to the dull dark rock and crystal of Etemenanki. "So, this is her, huh? The Mori girl."

"Yeah."

"…I hate to say it, fearless-"

"This is not Old Yeller, Cyborg. She's not rabid. She's not like the ones locked up in Arkham either. None of this is her fault." Robin said, his face grim.

"It's not yours either, Robin. You can't watch every part of Jump every second of every day. There's going to be stuff we miss. Sometimes…" Cyborg shook his head.

"It's more than just that…" Robin said. "You weren't watching when we fought…but she had protection. Selective protection. Debris, shrapnel, it bounced off her…but I was able to knock her out. Between and her sudden insanity…"

"The Lord." Raven suddenly said, turning around.

"He's coming back? Savior said, tensing up.

"No, sorry…was answering Tim. I could hear everyone." Raven said, as she briefly drifted over to Marissa. "The Lord did this. Part of his ritual was to take the angry ghosts that inhabited this island and use them as part of his 'engine', down in the depths of this place. He put magical protection on Marissa to protect her from attack…but it was all based towards the physical. Not the psychological. Why would he consider that? He feeds on whatever they could throw at him."

"…And when he pulled me away, he abandoned her to them." Robin said, his head down and voice grim.

"…so leaving the daughter of Death home was in fact really REALLY a terrible choice," Gauntlet pointed out, and was promptly ignored.

"Why not? His spells would preserve her life. Her mind? Why, he could just fix that later. After all, he's done such a good job so far." Raven said, her voice as bitter as coffee. "The ghosts cut deep. Between that and what he's already done…her brain's unravelling. Maybe that's why the protective spells didn't stop you from knocking her unconscious. It couldn't think of anything else to do to stop the degeneration."

"Robin, Raven…" Scalpel said quietly, his voice briefly drowned out by an explosion. "I know you have a personal aspect to this fight in regards to this girl, but I must insist that our other problem takes precedent."

"Agreed. How do we close that rift, Raven?" Cyborg said.

"…There are several possibilities." Raven said, staying next to Robin and Marissa. "Number one is the fact this structure is needed to make all this work. The rift, the ghosts, the ley lines, this is the heart pumping all those lifebloods."

"All right! Nothing solves a problem like excessive property damage…is what I'd say if I knew there wasn't a catch." Gauntlet said. "What's the catch?"

"The structure's self-repairing. It doesn't seem to affect negligible things like that hole in the wall, but remember what happened when Cyborg blasted it with his ship cannon? Same issue…I don't know if we could properly tear it down even if we were fresh." Raven said.

"What about the communications barrier? Maybe we can get through that, call for help. The Lord and this place has taken a pounding, maybe it's weakened." Cyborg said.

"It might be…but I wouldn't even know where to start, Victor. And we don't have the time to learn." Raven said.

"…wait, wait. Those ley lines, down below, that's like a pool of super lava. Maybe we can break something in the foundations, make the place fall into it-" Gauntlet said.

"Super lava to us, not to this building. It was built with its power. Wouldn't work." Raven said. Gauntlet cursed again, then snapped his fingers.

"Terra. You got that volcano to blow. Do it again. Bigger. Make a pyro classic cloud or whatever it's called." Gauntlet said, pointing, only to grimace when Terra did. "Let me guess. Too worn out."

"Even if I wasn't, Gauntlet…"

"Are you SURE? I read the files about Light City, you did that trick with lava there!"

"There's a difference between lava and a full-blown volcano, Gauntlet." Robin said.

"Plus, even if she COULD do it, you think Ricky wouldn't notice?" Metatron said. "That's the big thing here; What's Ricky paying attention to? I assume that's why you're not trying to tap the Foreverwhere yourself again, Raven."

"He'll notice. I can tell." Raven said.

"Savior did something, and hell, Star's out there getting her Exhale impression on, or whatever her god was named, maybe one of us can tap it instead?" Terra said.

"I took a big risk, nearly blew my head up, and in exchange got Cyborg to move for ten extra seconds. If it had any other effects, I sure can't see them." Savior said. "Am I wrong, Raven?"

"No…no tapping it." Raven said, slowly drifting back to the Foreverwhere rift.

"All right then. How do we close it?" Robin said. "Don't leave anything off the table, Raven."

"…well, if you put it that way, there's one guarantee." Raven said, not looking at her teammates.

"What?"

"Blood magic. Sacrifice. You've seen what the Lord can do with a group of unwilling souls…one given willingly, though? With the right magicks? Could close this easily." Raven said, looking at her teammates. "The downside is…well, obvious."

Her teammates looked back, some tired, some grim, some unreadable. Who's going to die?

"…But you have something else." Robin said.

"I think I do." Raven said, as she glanced upward. Should she mention…no. What was already on the table as a last resort was bad enough. "The Lord's made me run through a lot of my tricks…but I don't have NOTHING left up my sleeve. Not yet." Raven said, a shadow portal manifesting and bringing an old, familiar object.

"Your mirror?" Savior said.

"Wait…that's just a portal into your mind, isn't it? How will that help?" Terra said.

"Sure helped when the Lord tried to kill us with a black hole." Beast Boy said.

"That won't work again. The Lord was new to his power…by the nature of what this is, I was able to make it 'ignore' an attack that was purely of the natural world…he's laced all his attacks with magic now to prevent just that." Raven said. "But I haven't let this mirror of mine gather dust. Since the Sahara, I've worked on it to have other abilities, other techniques…never had to use it in the field since then, but first time for everything."

"So you can use that to close the rift? Without the Lord knowing?" Morgue said.

"Nope." Metatron said, causing all the Titans to snap their eyes towards his crouching form. "Can't keep him from noticing, that is. You did too well, guys. Hurt him too much, came too close. He's trying to watch the whole board now, even with his fight with Kory. This isn't about keeping him from realizing, never was."

"It's doing it in a way that he won't properly notice until he's too late. Because as much as he's tried to improve, his flaws just run too deep. If they didn't, he'd have killed us all by now at least five times." Raven said. "You heard him, over and over. He wants to break us. Destroy us. If we, if I can do this properly…between his constant blind spots and Kory, he won't realize what we're up to until it's too late. The rest would be up to Kory; she knows what to do. It's what she's doing right now. And if need be…the rest of you." Raven said.

"What's the plan, Raven?" Robin said.

"The thing about the Aeternus Locus is that it's neutral. It's possibly what gifts universes with magic, and magic can be used for good or evil. The Locus is just there as the source of the power. It has no direction of its own." Raven said. "My mirror helps show the truth of things. If I use it as a focus, I might be able to make the power within realize it's being misused, that it's not being drawn on for a neutral purpose. Make it reject the Lord, call back its energies and close itself. That will hopefully take him out completely, or at least leave him so weakened that we'd be able to finish the job."

"Downsides?" Savior said.

"It might not work. The Lord might be too hyper-paranoid to trick him this time…I'm going by history there. And if it doesn't work…" Raven said, and left the last part unsaid. Then that leaves the last resort. And its cost.

"…It'll work." Savior said.

"Hopefully." Raven said.

"No Raven. It will. You're doing it. You're the strongest person I know." Savior said. "No matter how hard the Lord stepped on you, how ANYTHING stepped on you, you took it and got back up. There's no bottom to your strength, Raven. There is nothing you can't do."

"Technically that's the Green Lanterns." Gauntlet said. Terra elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow, my capacity to beware!"

Raven couldn't help but smile a bit. There was no empty flattery in Noel's words, no cynical tactical manipulation. She didn't have to be his girlfriend to know that. He'd considered the situation and put absolute faith in her. They all did.

Always. Ever since she'd stepped forth from Azarath with a destiny of damnation.

"Then let's begin." Raven said, turning back to face the Foreverwhere. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos…Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

"Scalpel, Morgue, Gauntlet, you stick near the hole. Keep watch, don't expose yourself. Beast Boy, Terra, Cyborg, Savior, you stay further in. Keep watch around Raven. Metatron, you're the free floater in this room. All of you, keep an eye on everything and hope that the Lord's own everything is too busy being blackened up by Starfire." Robin said.

Nods of affirmation. No words needed.

Then Etemenanki fell away. Surprise shot through Robin, as he began to tumble.

"Robin, it's me. Raven."

"Raven? What are you doing?" Robin said, his comrades fading from his vision, a drifting purple void consuming his gaze.

"The part I didn't want to tell our teammates about. Because only we can do it. Only we're close enough. We have to save her, Tim. YOU have to save her. That's why I originally had the mirror. It was for her…what the Lord did to her head. Things have changed…but that has not. I'll tell you what to do, Tim. The rest will be up to you."

"…Wait, you're going to try and close the rift AND fix Marissa at the same time? Raven…"

"It's the only way, Tim. If we wait, even if we win…it will be too late. The Lord's actions, his oversights…they've done too much damage. We need to do it now. I can shoulder it. I know you can as well."
"…what are you not telling me?"

There was no answer.

"I can tell, Raven. I know you too well. You're holding SOMETHING back. What is it?"

"Nothing that you or any of us can affect or change. If I spoke of it…all it'd do is add to your worries. The trade off of knowing is not worth it. Please trust me, Robin. If it was any other way…"

"All right."

"…Thank you."

"…He's right you know." Robin said, as he began a slow fall into whatever lay below. "You ARE the strongest person I know."

"I should hope so." Raven said, her voice drifting all around Robin. "Because I'm not ready to die yet."

---

She wanted a drink.

She wanted a drink so bad.

She'd never been so…. intimately into her friends' minds. So connected. So close to their own deaths and all she wanted was to guzzle whiskey until she could no longer comprehend what she was feeling and seeing and hearing. Nothing more than an alcoholic voyeur in a dry room to people who she'd like to think trusted her. Ryce rested her head on the counter and tried to keep the shakes from her limbs.

A light clink…a warm woody smell.

"Here."

Disgust and hate and a twisted curling love filled her heart and left a rotted sweet taste in her mouth.

Ryce lashed a hand out and knocked the whiskey filled tumbler from the surface to crash on the floor.

She didn't look at her father.

If they all came home whole, she made a promise to never touch it again.

---

The ground ripped out, choking black fog flying out and engulfing Starfire. She took the blow better than she had the volcanic ash, her power distorting and then casting away the fog while the Lord settled down in front of her. She fired off a Starbolt with her left hand, then her right as the Lord dodged aside, and then spun and hurled a third Starbolt, this one striking the ground. Instead of exploding, it skim-blazed across the ground, almost catching the Lord before he leapt over it.

"That's new." The Lord said, and zipped in, Starfire blocking his punches and kicks with her forearms. The Lord teleported backwards, throwing out a kick as Starfire gave chase, their heels slamming together before the Lord teleported away again. No sooner had the Lord teleported back down to the ground then Starfire followed, an eruption of green fire blasting up from her fist as the Lord teleported again. "What else do you have?"

Starfire just charged. The Lord threw a blast; Starfire ducked under it. He immediately followed with a black energy spear erupting from the ground; Starfire stopped on a dime and dodged backwards. That, the Lord expected.

He did not expect her to lance forward to dodge his second erupting spear, her fist exploding with green fire and driving towards the Lord again. The Lord teleported away again, but he didn't go far enough, Starfire immediately turning around and ramming into him as he re-appeared, her fists smashing him up into the air before she spun, delivering a Starbolt-charged backhand that slammed the Lord into the ground.

Right then. You can dish it out. How well can you TAKE it?

Starfire wasn't wholly sure how long the Lord's psychic message took in real time; just that when it finished in her head the Lord had slammed her backwards with a bladed arcing kick and fired a buzz saw like blade into her back. Starfire whirled around, smashing the disc only for the ground to explode, a line of upward blasts catching her and knocking her backwards heads over heels. A familiar coldness slammed over her, her perceptions slowing; the Lord had summoned another one of his stasis spheres behind her.

"Well?" The Lord said, teleporting near Starfire and raising a hand, red energy surging into his fist before he swung it back.

The stasis sphere exploded, Starfire's whole body ablaze with power, her own hand erupting in strength. The Lord moved to intercept her.

Too slow. The alien's fist slammed into the Lord, throwing him backwards for a pregnant second before he exploded in green fire. Reeling, the Lord turned around to find Starfire uppercutting him into the sky, following behind him with the same inhuman speed to smash him into the ground, and then actually beating him down to the ground, her left fist flooring him and then her flowing right fist smashing into his face, Starfire grabbing her fist and opening her hand, emerald brilliance engulfing both her and the Lord, the ground beneath her charring to ash as her power exploded, the Lord flying across the island, finally coming to a stop several hundred feet away, his cloak digging into the ground as he settled back down to earth.

Starfire did her best to conceal her, striking an aggressive pose that dared the Lord to make the next move.

"Don't bother, Titan." The Lord said. "I feed on darkness. And regretful pain certainly falls under it."

"You think I regret what I'm doing to you?"

"Oh no. But that burning that's starting to grow in you? The burning you can't seem to lock away in a box? What did you expect, alien?" The Lord said. Starfire did her best to keep her face neutral. The pain didn't matter. It had never mattered before and it wasn't going to start now. "There's always a price to pay to become a god."

"One you will pay. IN FULL." Starfire said, and took to the air, shoving the pain that had started to creep across her muscles back down into the depths it had emerged from.

"I'm sure." The Lord said, and vanished again.

---

"Raven, can you hear me? Can you talk?" Robin said. He could see darkness beginning to bloom beneath him, and he was pretty sure that when he went through that, he'd be wherever he was going.

"Yes, for now, but don't count on that staying that way." Raven said. From her own viewpoint, she was still in Etemenanki, but the rest of the world had fallen away. The room's coloration had inverted, going from blacks and purples to whites and golds, her friends having vanished like early morning fog. It was just her, the rift, and when she closed her eyes, what Robin saw. In reality, she floated before said rift, her teammates doing their best to guard her and watch as the Lord and Starfire warred across the island.

"What am I getting myself into?" Robin said. Raven exhaled dry air between her teeth.

"A normal person's mind can be messy and chaotic by itself. Marissa's suffered severe trauma, developed a split personality over it…but that's gone now, Robin. The Lord tried to fix it…but he doesn't have the skill or the appropriate powers to even start repairing something like that. So he just ripped out the bad parts and tried to juryrig what was left together into some sort of functional whole."

"…ripped them out."

"It'll be like a coal seam fire, Robin. A veneer of stability over a broken sea of glass."

"Pitfalls everywhere."

"That's just the framework. The rest of her mind will manifest too, but due to the Lord's idiocy…they could manifest in some really bad ways, Robin. And it's not just her in there. It's his handiwork too. Even if he hasn't left actual defences, what you're going into, he might as well have. Not to mention whatever those tortured ghosts have managed to sink their teeth into."
"So, what's my advantage?"

"I've learned a lot about these kind of projections since Gar and Victor accidentally snuck into my brain. Marissa's unstable, but you're not. In the perceived reality, you can potentially pass that stability on. It won't fix anything long term, but it'll save her from catatonia. Or worse, complete psychosis."

"What do I do?"

"…Don't attack anything. Defend yourself if you have to, but if you start throwing punches, her brain's going to read you as another enemy and you'll just make things worse. Look for signs of decay, or agents. Termites, rust, fungus, anything like that…think of what you'd need to clear it away and I'll do the rest. And Robin…she's confused. Very, very confused. The Lord took full advantage of her vulnerability; we can't use those tactics. We use the truth. And…chances are, the truth will probably hurt you even more than her."

"I had a feeling you were going to say that." Robin said.

The darkness reached out, grasping him with something that almost resembled tenderness.

It was the kind of grasp someone used for a favored weapon.

---

"What the heck happened to Robin?" Beast Boy said.

"Considering Raven's not flipping out over it, probably nothing bad. Probably." Savior said, before looking at Metatron.

"Yes?"

"Oh, sorry, thought you might know something."

"It's not Ricky, that I'll tell you." Metatron said. "He's generally not one for being sneaky…generally."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but what are we going to do if Raven's plan doesn't work?" Morgue said. "She and Robin have kind of left us hanging."

"Met, what about that special thing you have, the one you said you got from a forest or something, it's worked so far. What about that?"

"Definitely could work. If Ricky decides to drop everything and act like a TOTAL idiot. He's done that before, but he's done it…less…as time goes on." Metatron said. "The problem with some thing that refuses to die is that even a moron learns eventually."

"But he HAS done it before." Terra said.

"That he has. Don't worry your pretty little head. I know how to take my shots. I'll do what I have to do."

"…Victor, I don't suppose you have any ability to blow yourself up or something." Scalpel said.

"Not in any way that would make a difference." Cyborg said.

"Worst comes to worst, I'm sticking my hand into the Foreverwhere. I don't care what Raven said, OR you, Savior." Terra said.

"Quite frankly Terra, if it gets that bad, I'll probably be right behind you." Savior said, looking at Metatron. "WILL it get that bad?"

"Maybe. Maybe not." Metatron said. "Even I can't tell you for sure, Noel. You never know what to expect sometimes. Before it happens."

---

The chunk of ice seemed to hang in the air, the black slash suspending it before the truck-sized mass was hurled towards Starfire. The alien shattered it to pieces with one punch, as well as the next one, and the next, the giant projectiles hurled at terrifying speeds that still couldn't match the Titan's reflexes. Neither could the Lord, flying in the shadow of the last glacier, only for Starfire's fist to find his face as well, her other hand grabbing onto him and hurling him down into the ocean's frozen expanse, a mountain of ice shattering and falling down onto him.

Starfire floated down, waiting. The Lord's explosive blast from beneath the ice sent a storm of deadly frozen shrapnel through the air, but any ice that went near Starfire flash-sizzled into nothingness, the ice further melting and swirling in a dark void beneath the Lord's feet as he floated up.

"Not bad, Anders. Of course, you're probably all too aware of that." The voice said, echoing in Starfire's head with disturbing intimacy. "Because it means not GOOD, either. You had me so close and lost the chance…perhaps you're simply less motivated when you're not beating a helpless bag of mush?"

Starfire's eyes flickered with green, but she remained where she was, ice cracking beneath her feet.

"Ah, good, good. Good control, Koriand'r of Tamaran. You and your lover are so alike in that fashion." The Lord said in that same time-distorting thoughtspeak. "Tell me I'm wrong, though. Tell me the momentum…"

Starfire's hand was seized this time, the Lord's hands clamping onto her wrist.

"Hasn't shifted." The Lord said. Starfire's eyes blasted lasers; the Lord's neck twisted at a horrific angle to dodge them outright. "Hasn't it?"

The Lord's form vanished, but when he next appeared the shoe popped onto the other foot, Starfire blocking his attempted sword-slice with her wrist armor.

"Then again…" The Lord said, before Starfire thrust her arms forward, the blade snapping like kindling. The Lord staggered a moment before he fired back with his own punch; Starfire stopped it dead by throwing one of her own. The ice beneath them shattered, but neither of the pair budged; the Titan promptly made the Lord pay for standing his ground by ramming her other fist repeatedly into his side before slamming it across his face. That succeeded in staggering him a step, Starfire juking in once more.

Her punch would have connected if the Lord's head and shoulders didn't promptly, and again, distend away from her blow in a way it was impossible for flesh to move. Thrown off balance, Starfire was nearly knocked out of her boots by the Lord's counter-punch, his body snapping back into traditional shape as Starfire crashed down onto the ground. The Lord smirked and then leapt into the air, blades extending from his knuckles as he punched downward at his enemy. Starfire promptly curled up and thrust herself off the ground, her feet slamming into the Lord's chest and knocking him down in turn as she landed on her feet.

"Then again." The Lord said, and blurred away, his arms blurring as he manifested an energy sphere the size of his body, hurling it towards Starfire. The alien blurred away in turn, the attack not coming anywhere near her.

How purposeful that was immediately became clear when the Lord jerked around, blocking Starfire's punch from behind him with his wrist. Black energy exploded as his arm distorted, liquid shadow threads twining out and seizing onto her wrists, shoulders, and legs, grabbing onto her armor and proving far more resilient than the last mass of dark tendrils the Lord had tried to grab Starfire with. The alien reared back, trying to rip and burn free from the grasp, and when the tendril's grip on her proved to be even more stubborn she exploded backwards, energy ripping from her eyes and trying to snap every strand. She almost succeeded entirely, only the last remaining tendril attached to her wrist holding her to the Lord.

That was when he grabbed onto the tendril and yanked, dark magic exploding behind Starfire and completely reversing her momentum, the Lord yanking her backwards into a thundering punch that sent blood spraying from Starfire's face and shattered the ground beneath them. Starfire flew backwards, only to get yanked back into the Lord's grasp again, the Lord axe-kicking the alien across the ground, then whirling and spinning her like a hammer throw sphere, smashing her through the dense glacial ice. Starfire spun despite the blow, trying to escape, her hard ripping and burning at the handcuff around her wrist, but her efforts were futile, and she found her body swung up and then back down towards the ground.

Directly into the destructive orb she had dodged mere moments before. The explosion cracked the hills of ice all around the impact zone, ice and water exploding upwards from the blast, the wind of it ruffling the Lord's cloaks as the tendril dissolved.

In the blink of an eye, he was by the watery hole his blast had cut in the ice. A wave of his hand blew away the smoky air, revealing the shattered masses of ice floating among the waves…and a Tamarianian body, face down. Unmoving.

"…You're not dead." The Lord said, manifesting another sword. Then a strange expression crossed his face. "Why would you be…"

Water flash-erupted into steam as Starfire blasted out of her failed attempt at playing possum. The Lord met her with a downward slash.

Starfire's punch altered at the last microsecond, her other arm snapping up as she twisted her punching arm's wrist, snagging the sword between her gauntlets. Instead of snapping it, this time she spun with it, throwing the Lord into the air before Starfire blurred up and smashed him into the ground, the Lord's form tearing across the ice and into the rock of Etemenanki before he came to a stop.

Starfire's follow-up punch met the Lord's own forearm.

"…Same old shit." The Lord said. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me who the liar is."

Starfire exploded into a fury of punches, the Lord's cloaks flaring up to serve as his defence.

"No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant."

---

"I wonder when we get to move on to an anime from the 2000's." Gauntlet said, watching the fight through the makeshift 'window' and trying not to show his concern.

"Half of every anime made then was inspired by this." Beast Boy said.

"And everything's inspired by Shakespeare. So I guess we should only make Shakespearean references?"

"Forsooth, dude."

"At least it's not the one with all the Christian robots." Terra said, before looking at Metatron. "Hey. Adam. Can you like, read and see if the Lord's power levels are dropping and stuff?"

"You want the bad news or the really bad news first?"

"I want the GOOD news."

"There's always room for Jello. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico. Dude, you're getting a Dell. Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. Sorry, I jump around so much I can never tell what's hip in memes." Metatron said. "So, the bad news is Ricky's still sucking away at that Locust rift like a…do locusts suck? Well, they suck, but do they SUCK?"

"They bite." Beast Boy said.

"That too, but do they SUCK?"

"No Adam. They bite to eat. Please don't make me turn into one and demonstrate it on your nose." Beast Boy said, his tone a weird mix of amused, terse, and annoyance that he would be terse instead of amused.

"Like a leech then. The REALLY bad news is Raven can't stop that, or he'll immediately know something's wrong and come over here and probably kill all of us. So…who wants to keep waiting until we get some proper good news?"

"Do we have a choice?" Morgue said.

"We could always run away and let Ricky conquer the world."

"Fuck that."

"Now now. Don't let Ricky drive you to cursing. He's not worth it."

"I just feel so…helpless." Morgue said.

"We're still alive. We can still fight." Scalpel said, patting Morgue on the shoulder.

"Yeah, for like maybe a minute. If the Lord takes us seriously, maybe seconds. It's just…"

"To be fair, normally by now the bad guy would have been beaten six or seven times and we'd be home by now. The bastard just won't stop CHEATING." Gauntlet groused.

"And what does that tell you, Rob?" Metatron said.

"That either we're in one of those stupid horror stories where everything turns out to be pointless because the writer doesn't know how to scare worth a damn, or the writer got lost somewhere along the line to the conclusion and doesn't want to admit it."

"Who knows? Me, I just think of how good it will be to get home. Maybe we could even ask for some grey poop along the way. Why anyone would ever want poop of any color, the commercial never told me. Also Ryce promised me moonbread donuts." Metatron said.

"It's PouPON, Met. Grey Poupon. It's a kind of fancy mustard." Savior said.

"Why's it fancy?"

"They use white wine when making it." Savior said off-handedly, his attention more on Raven as she floated in place, eyes closed and legs crossed.

"And you just happen to know this?"

"Yes."

"On purpose?"

Savior just glanced at Metatron before his eyes glided across the room, stopping briefly on Cyborg. He debated asking the question that was probably on more minds than just his own. So, the Lord has access to supposedly unlimited power…so what's Starfire's limit and how quickly is she reaching it?

Do you really want an answer?

No, he didn't.

So he just watched, looking at Raven and Robin, and wondering if their wings contained wax that was due to melt.

---

"…You never offered to make me cronuts."

"I don't love you."

"Pfft…That s'a lie."

Ryce tensed and gripped the counter under her fevered head. Her stomach twisted and turned. With great effort she kept the heaving urge down, focusing on Metatron and letting his humor keep her head above water. It was easier than admitting the sick fuck next to her was right.

---

When you had enemies like Poison Ivy, your mind picked up the strangest facts. One, for Robin, was that hedge mazes were traditionally created with the buxus genus, a subset of plants that incorporated about seventy different species and whose wood was good for carving.

The plants that composed the maze Robin had found himself in were not from that genus. Hell, they didn't look like any kind of plant you'd find on this world, or any other. What made it worse was it wasn't completely alien; in several ways the overgrown leaves and vines resembled just that. But there were other details, shapes and textures that better fit something attached to a cephalopod, or perhaps a cross section of a cancer-riddled organ. Even the color was wrong; here and there, the foliage was green, but mostly it was various muted shades of dark brown, and not the brown of an organism in decline. Age was tragic, but it was natural. There was nothing natural about this color; it spoke of parasites and living beings turned against their very selves, unable to do anything but what the plague desired.

Robin didn't remember landing. He remembered the darkness grasping at him, and then he was here. Robin looked up. The 'plague foliage' came to a clear end about five feet above his head, easy enough to climb, but Robin was pretty sure trying to climb would get him nowhere, especially since he wasn't quite sure what was above him. It might have been the equivalent of a starless night sky, or it might have been nothing in and of itself. He filed it away as a last resort.

The ground beneath his feet seemed to be black dirt. The hedge maze walls stretched on either end of him. Robin's mind began making connections. A maze. Simple denotation is that someone doesn't want something to be found. If this corruption is the Lord, it suggests he built on Marissa's own fears and issues to hide his work, keep it from being damaged…

The hiss caught Robin's ear. It was coming from above him.

The black cat looked like no feline Robin knew. It seemed less a cat as a feline-esque monkey, its flesh withdrawn away from the cruel talons on its hands and its mouth filled with sharp teeth too big for it. It padded along the top of the maze, letting out growling yowls towards Robin.

Yowls that began sounding behind him as well. Robin flicked his eyes backwards, not surprised to find more of the strange black cats there. So. Defences or trauma?

Not like it mattered. Robin remembered Raven's warning. Going on the offence would be a bad idea. For now, Robin began heading forward, sliding around a corner. There were tricks to solving a maze, but Robin had a feeling following a wall or counting intersections would not help her. For all he knew, he was heading AWAY from whatever the maze led to…

Directly into a dead end. Not a wall of plague foliage either. The maze just STOPPED, as did the ground, breaking off into a black, lightless void that Robin's eyes couldn't penetrate. He stopped, as his initial options came to him. Toss a rock into the void to see what he heard. Check at the broken base for handholds to climb down. Take a leap of faith.

Robin dismissed them all, turning around to the sound of more yowling and hisses. The black cats had pinned him down, and were approaching at a steady pace, eyes glinting with hostility. No way to escape. No way to fight back.

You're stable, Robin. You have good intentions. So how do you save a girl without getting yourself killed?

The cats leapt.

Robin let them, feeling their bodies slam into him, their claws digging into his flesh, one set of teeth sinking into his skull, the impact of their bodies pushing him backwards, the momentum carrying him into dark oblivion.

Then he was standing again. The cats were gone. His body ached, but a quick examination found no actual wounds on his person. Outside of that, it was like they'd never been there at all.

You're stable. You want to help. It's all you need, Robin.

"Then I need to find the right way." Robin said, and began walking. Some might have said he started taking turns at random, but in truth, there was no point in trying to puzzle out 'the proper' path. He wanted to be somewhere, and trying to treat this maze like it was an actual maze would just play into 'its hands'.

Around and around and around I go…where I stop…

Was at the next turn, which is where Robin saw the figure scamper around the corner.

"…Hello?" Robin said, breaking into a jog to follow. In a different timeline, Robin might have recalled another journey into a dark place, pursuing a familiar form of a friend. Here, Robin just stayed alert, turning around another corner and finding the maze entering into an open area.

The howls reached his ears then. Not feline. Not like anything on Earth. Robin picked up his pace even more, bursting into the clearing.

The first thing he saw were the statues, all over the place and designed like a man had reduced metal to liquid, forced it into a humanoid shape, and then frozen it on the spot. The next thing was him noting the ground was sticky, and Robin looked down to find himself ankle deep in blood.

The last thing he saw were the spirits, twisting masses of hot red smoke that sprouted hands and mouths in a chaotic, undefined mess, menacing the several girls who cowered before them, helpless and terrified, unable to even look at her attackers. It was hard to read the pose of such entities: Robin couldn't tell if they would just keep menacing the girls or move on to outright attacking them.

Normally, Robin would have immediately attacked, or deferred to Raven, who he knew was still watching. Lacking those options, he instead moved forward. He didn't know where the form that had caught his attention had gone to, but she'd ceased to be important. The Lord had let his own oversights bring pain to others once more, and any solution the Titans or he would attempt if they let it run its course would never be sufficient. The damage had to fixed at its source.

But how did one fight for someone when one could not fight?

Robin needed an answer. The fact that the snarling, shrieking ghosts, echoes of the damned spirit's the Lord had sealed in his basement and that had torn into Marissa's brain like the most rabid of dogs, had finally noticed him meant he needed it all the sooner.

Robin had a feeling he wouldn't be able to just ignore these creatures if they tried to rip him apart.

What can you do, hero?

The Lord was not actually speaking to him, in person or in the infection and damage he'd left on Marissa's mind. The words came from within Robin, that ever-niggling self-doubt, the fear…

Fear.

Then the ghosts were on him, and the voice went quiet.

---

One needed the most observant eyes to note how Robin, kneeling on the ground, eyes closed, head bowed, breathing slow, had tensed up, just a bit. That, or mechanical ones.

If you'd asked Cyborg…what was it, eight years ago? Nine maybe? The time before he'd been changed. If you'd asked him why Batman deserved to be on the Justice League, Cyborg wouldn't have been able to give you an answer. It wasn't the fact he was human either; it was moreso the man's noted lack of social skills. If he'd had the awareness he had back then, he might have been wary letting one of Batman's 'child sidekicks' hang around; who knew how badly THEY'D be screwed up?

The reality answered both his questions. Batman got to be on the Justice League because he was without peer at solving problems, including the ones of his own self he couldn't change. His children, for the most part, combined his best aspects without his flaws: Nightwing might have been the most trusted superhero in the world, and Tim…without Tim, Cyborg was certain he and everyone else who'd ever called themselves a Titan would be dead ten times over. There was no better problem solver among them; Tim may have tripped and fell at times, but he always pulled himself back up.

He took it more personally than them too. No wonder he put his neck on the line for Marissa, who Cyborg honestly would have considered a lost cause. All the Titans had lost family they cared about, but none of them had ever been in a position to change that fact. Gar felt guilt over being unable to save his parents, but in truth his child self could barely use his powers and might very well have gotten himself killed along with them. Cyborg could have saved his dad, but he'd been a different person then, angry and lacking good judgment. The choices he'd made had maybe had a hand in his father's end, but they'd saved thousands of other lives, and Victor knew his dad would have preferred it that way. Starfire, Terra, Scalpel, Morgue, Savior, Raven…none of them had really been in any position to save those they'd lost. Even Metatron, from what Cyborg could recall, was in no position to save his sister, his young mind expertly manipulated by a master puppeteer. Only Gauntlet still had both living parents, and the young man was so obsessed with superhero happenstance that he probably had half a dozen plans in the back of his head if anyone tried something against them.

Tim…he'd been put in a harder position than any of them. He'd been speaking to his dad during the very moments of his murder, and he'd done everything he could to try and save him. But he'd just been too far away. He was literally seconds too late. Every single choice of that day had haunted Tim for months, and in some ways, had never stopped.. So close…yet so far.

He would save her. He'd do everything in his power to do it.

Just like Starfire.

…and for both, that might simply have not been enough.

---

The blasts were oddly blade-shaped, more like her lover's traditional 'rang projectiles that the oval spheres the Titans' Starbolts normally were. They were no less effective though, as they slashed through the Lord's wings at the makeshift ulna-brace, severing the limbs and briefly leaving the Lord in freefall. Starfire promptly removed freedom from the equitation, ramming into the Lord, her whole body alight with emerald energy as she slammed the Lord down into the frozen oceans of Etemenanki again, a gigantic explosion shattering the iced-over waters, the two vanishing into the depths.

A glacier broke in half from below, two forms erupting from the spraying white smoke and frosty air. The Lord hit the ground, immediately and almost calmly rolling to his feet, while Starfire remained in the air.

"…Why stop?" The Lord said. Starfire remained where she was, not answering, green energies arcing off her eyes and hands. "Are you trying to predict my next move? Or perhaps you think if I am presented with the opportunity, I'll start talking again? Now why would you want me to talk?"

The alien remained silent. The Lord snorted, new wings manifesting above his body.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" The Lord said. "Not just in your body. It's hurting your head. That's the problem with your noble types. You tell me I have no idea what to do with power, but in truth you don't have a damn clue what to do with either."

Starfire's fist shattered the ice, the Lord blurring away, his leg arcing up.

"WE'LL SEE WHO PAYS THE HIGHER PRICE!"

Starfire twisted herself back into an upright position before the darkness closed over her, her moments slowing for half a second, her innate solar aura not potent enough to rip apart the Lord's stasis field this time before he blurred over, slamming her with a dozen blows seemingly at once. No sooner did Starfire turn around then her face met a vicious upward kick, the Lord spinning and kicking her away before blasts of destroying darkness blew her further into the sky. Starfire recovered properly this time, her eyebeams raking across the ground, the Lord dodging away as Starfire immediately returned to earth, trading blasts that exploded around the frozen ocean.

Starfire wound up for something bigger, her piercing ray striking the Lord and driving him backwards before he teleported…directly into Starfire's eager hands, the alien smashing him into the ground, kicking him away from her, firing from her eyes a quarter of a second after the kick, the blast throwing the Lord back upwards before she blurred over, grabbed him by the throat, and detonated another Starbolt at point-blank range. The Lord's wings would have been a broken mess had he been organic, from the way he slammed into and rolled on the ground; he, of course, just immediately regained his bearings.

Starfire promptly stole one of his moves, slamming her hands down into the ice and consuming him in green erupting blasts from below. A form crashed down from the attack, and Starfire pounced on it, only for the shadow to burst into another stasis field.

"Subpar."

The Lord's formed blurred in and re-appeared behind Starfire, titanic impacts slamming into her from every angle as he raised one hand.

"SUPERB."

Explosions blasted across Starfire's body from where the Lord had struck, sending her smashing through another wall of ice before she crashed down onto the black beaches of La Voix.

"You think I haven't figured out what you're doing, alien?" The Lord said, re-appearing in the air above Starfire, manifesting a new sword. "You think it makes any DIFFERENCE?"

The Lord slashed down.

Starfire regained her feet in time.

She did not block in time.

Mainly because she took one step forward instead, the slash glancing off her arm and cutting a superficial wound on her arm, Starfire reaching up a hand and letting the Lord's own momentum carrying him into it, her fingers seizing onto his face as she smashed him into the ground, his sword flying out of his hands and impaling into a nearby rock. The pillar of destroying solar energy pierced up through the clouds, briefly blinding all the Titans still in Etemenanki, the blast so strong that even Starfire seemed to be driven back.

She tried to keep her breathing level. To keep the pain off her face. To calm the scratching that had begun at the back of her mind, the old black feeling of bad days gone by that would serve her no good in trying to see tomorrow. There was another pregnant pause.

The shadows flowed up, forming into the Lord.

"Try and stop me." He said, and vanished.

It was a poor taunt to make.

The Lord re-appeared in front of the shattered wall the Titans were looking out of only to find Starfire had beaten him there. Neither the Titans or the Lord even had a chance to react, Starfire meeting the Lord with a punch of such staggering force it knocked most of the Titans off their feet, the air roaring with the force of the blow and the latest sonic boom Starfire had caused finally reaching the Titans' ears. The Lord almost seemed to vanish over the horizon, his form disappearing beyond the icy lands his demonstration of power had caused. Starfire did not even spare a glance backwards as she took off after the Lord, another sonic boom crashing into the room as she left.

---

"…did she figure out a way to channel the Speed Force?" Morgue said.

"What?" Terra said, rubbing at her ears.

"Damn. Star's always had resistance to friction, but…damn." Cyborg said, both thinking out loud and answering Sophie's question.

"WHAT?"

"…This is a good thing, right? We're not going to have a last second twist and have the final boss be corrupted Starfire, right? No one's that cruel…right?" Gauntlet said.

"WHAT? Starfire is boss? Yes, I agree!"

Savior said nothing. He didn't want to. It was the elephant in the room. The Lord had stopped attacking her and gone for them. The clock had just started ticking down, and no one knew when it was going to run out. Savior looked at Raven, and then back out onto the destroyed landscape of La Voix. Come on Star. You can do it. His desire to win can't hold a candle to yours.

---

The Lord was, unfortunately, not a candle person, emerging from the waters of the edge of the ice-wastes and grabbing Starfire's fist when she tried to knock him out further.

"You should hear them. Such absolute faith." The Lord sneered. "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

Starfire's response was to twist her hands, switch the grip so that she was holding the Lord's arm instead of vice-versa, and then rip it off. The Lord would have mocked her with an 'Ow', except she didn't give him the chance.

"JUST! SHUT! UP!" Starfire yelled, literally beating the Lord with his own arm. "YOUR WORDS MEAN NOTHING! YOUR EYES SHOW NOTHING! JUST FALL SILENT AND DIE!" Starfire's eyes blazed, slicing the Lord in half before she punched him in the face, his upper half flying backwards before both exploding into black, vanishing feathers, the Lord reforming yet again some distance away, making a show of reforming the limb Starfire had relieved him of and had dropped just after her punch.

"Ahhhhh…there we go." The Lord said. "You blinked."

"It doesn't matter. YOU WON'T HAVE THEM."

"You can't stop me."

"YOU WILL HAVE TO BURN ME DOWN TO NOTHING."

The Lord's foot impacted on Starfire's armguards, the Lord blurring away and thrusting out his hand. Bladed 'prism-snowflakes' began to burst into the air around Starfire, the alien weaving around their expanding, stabbing blades before going for the Lord again. He blurred backwards, Starfire dodging around his arcing blasts and getting ahead of him, stopping on a dime and ramming into him to smash him into the ground again.

"AS YOU WISH."

Starfire became aware of the impact sites of the Lord's blasts that had just missed her. Missed her on purpose. Having hit the ground, they'd forced the stone upward…into a fixed shape, runes written on the round pillars that glowed brightly, the Lord blurred away and holding out his hand.

The sword she'd knocked away flew back into it. The sword with her blood on it, that the Lord seized on, the chain-like tendrils exploding from the pillars and engulfing Starfire, pinning her down as the Lord pulled her blood from the blade.

"BURN."

The eruption of black fire blasted Starfire up. At the same time, the hand descended from the clouds, smashing into Starfire in a giant fist that exploded, the detonation shaking the sky.

"Not good enough." The Lord said, and blurred back towards Etemenanki.

Starfire smashed into him halfway there. The Lord was so astonished he couldn't even raise a defence, the alien hammering him through two pillars of rock before she flew back up into the sky.

"NOT GOOD ENOUGH." The burned, raging, blazing alien echoed, and promptly blasted the Lord into the ground with eye beams.

---

Raven had expected it. It didn't help.

Tick tock, tick tock. You don't seem to be getting anywhere. Tick tock, tick tock. Time's running out, and if this doesn't work…

She couldn't let it distract her.

Not the fear and worry from her friends. Not the pain and worse that roiled within Starfire. Not her own doubts and fears. She'd been taught most of her life how to keep it together, keep it under control, and she couldn't falter now when she needed it most. She'd overcome her father, she'd overcome her brothers, she'd overcome her worst fears, she'd overcome everything that had ever put itself in front of her. Damned if she would fail now.

Then again…that didn't mean she'd succeed.

When it came right down to it, she wasn't sure what a dimension like the Locus would respond to. She claimed it was neutral, but ascribing a morality to it might have been the wrong way to consider it. If all that mattered to it was the willpower of the tapper, Raven had a sickening doubt that even her most intense, sincere desire wouldn't be able to outpace the Lord's lunatic need.

He knew.

He knew what she was trying to do. He'd tried to come over and stop her. They were dangling on the razor edge of the Lord's broken mind, his need to kill and harm crashing up against his need to win. If the Lord truly thought Raven was on the verge of winning…

NO. None of that mattered. The Titans would stop him, at any cost. Only she could close the rift, she had to do that. If he came for her, for them…they'd stop him. They wouldn't stop.

It was up to them.

Just like only Robin could save Marissa now. He wouldn't falter. None of them would and neither would she.

She floated there, her mirror before her, her vision adrift among multiple planes of perception at once. Trying to save the world.

Who's going to die?

No one on HER watch.

---

How do you fight the dead? How do you fight pain itself?

The crazed spirits, or the destructive echoes they'd left of themselves in Marissa's mind, came onto Robin like a pack of wild dogs. No posturing or hesitating here. They saw what Robin was and deemed that he had to be destroyed. And he couldn't raise a hand to fight back. Defend himself? Even if he could, what good would it do? It'd be trading one terror for another, for what else would something that could strike down ghosts be…

…But a terror?

Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot.

Such were the words of Robin's father. The words, however, spoke of the far more complicated needs for a man who dressed up as a bat to be seen as fearsome instead of comedic…and ultimately their grand solution. Criminals, villains, monsters of all stripes, they all believed that they had discarded fear. That fear held no council in their soul. To bring the fear to the most vile was the ultimate weapon you could raise against them, a weapon that worked against any foe. Even the craziest. Even the most wicked. Even the most damaged and disturbed.

I will become a bat.

So will I.

They were trying to tear him apart. Robin didn't struggle. Didn't fight.

The worst fears came from the worst things, and sometimes those things were the last thing you'd expect.

"…I am sorry for what happened to you." Robin rasped out through clenched teeth. The spiritual abominations shrieked in his face, Robin feeling hands grasp his throat, head, and spine. "This probably means nothing. So I will just speak fact. You're letting them win."

More howls. A crushing grip. Robin took it.

"THE PEOPLE WHO HURT YOU ARE GONE. DEAD AND GONE. I'm sorry you can never revenge yourself on them, BUT THAT IS HOW IT IS. By staying here, by giving yourself entirely to rage and hate, you are letting them win EVEN NOW. They are STILL working their sick wills on you. Making you into THIS. Letting you keep them from whatever compensation lies beyond. Hurting me, hurting her, changes NOTHING. And if you want to tell me that none of it matters any more save doing onto others than was done onto you, then you're WORSE than them. And to hell with you."

The shrieks seemed like they were going to drive Robin's eyes right out the back of his skull.

"You heard me. TO HELL WITH YOU!"

The spirits ripped themselves from Robin, tearing themselves apart with a final agonized cry. Whether Robin had made them see the truth or just broken their grasp on Marissa's mind with his nature, Robin didn't know. He was already moving onto the next problem.

"…Marissa." Robin said, stepping away from where the ghosts had tried to destroy him. With them gone, he finally saw the mental avatars.

His stomach lurched. From what little experience he'd had with Raven's mind-dimension mirror, the mental clones that represented aspects of a person were whole. Even a lunatic's mind would theoretically have all its many, many shards of glass of a personality represented as whole people…but not here. Faces missing eyes looked at Robin, legs tried to stand on obviously broken ankles, and mangled arms that didn't shed a drop of blood gestured towards Robin. Fearful. Unchanging.

"Please…leave me alone." One said, her color a dull off-purple.

"Stop hurting us."

"What did we do to you?"

"You can't help us." A darkly coloured Marissa with a mauled face said. "They hate us."

"We killed their children. They don't care about anything else. They want our blood. They want us dead."

"You would throw us in a cage."

"You would have forgotten us had he not saved us." The dark-coloured one said. "He helped us. He gave us a place. You won't."

"You can't." A green-coloured one with a caved in skull and several missing fingers said. "It's not what you do."

"You hate us. We tried to kill you. Would have, if we could have. Leave us alone."

The Marissas seemed to be massing around Robin. First cats, then ghosts, now the ruins of this young woman's mind. It wasn't aggressive like the first two, though. It seemed to in pained confusion, like Robin was a noise they just wanted to drown out.

This time, Robin reached up…to his own face.

"What you did…it's not your fault. And if you honestly believe it is…I forgive you."

"…you lie!"

"You want to trick us!"

"Take us away from him! The only one who ever tried to help us…!"

"He didn't hurt us…this is what we needed…isn't it?"

"…my name is Timothy. Timothy Drake." Robin said, removing his mask. He cast it on the ground, and for added weight, ripped off his Robin insignia. "I chose this life because I wanted to try and save the world. There is no greater weight on me in knowing those I failed. But every time I get a second chance…I never make the same mistake twice."

"It doesn't matter…"

"Your ways would have us rot…"

"Your world WILL NEVER accept us!"

"We just want to be left alone…it's all we ever wanted…"

"We never wanted anything else…"

"…Neither do I." Robin said. "I…wish I could promise you something, but…I've learned the world holds no promises. All you can do is try. I just ask…if he was better than me, then, now…why are you still in pain?"

"That's irrelevant…"

"The master has more important tasks…"

"Why won't you listen? Listen to someone else…?"

"He fixed us…he never asked for anything…"

"Just for you to build him things. And follow his desires. Including our death." Robin said.

"More than you can offer…"

"They hate us…"

"HE hates us…"

The world was starting to lose focus, and Robin knew it wasn't due to anything on his part. He was losing her.

"…I don't hate you." Robin said.

"Liar…"

"Just leave…"

"…no." Robin said. "Not until I've done what I've failed to do. I won't give up. On this, or you. If I could go back to that day and take the bullet for you instead…I would.

"If you don't believe me…then tell me to go. A liar has no place here."

Silence.

Then the fear bloomed.

Robin knew immediately it wasn't caused by him. That fact didn't give him any comfort; he'd forced away the Lord-traces and ghost-echoes, what else could there be? Robin could only turn to look.

At first, he thought it was the same form he'd seen briefly earlier.

Then he couldn't tell WHAT it was.

They were running. Robin could only snap his head back and forth as all the mental echoes panicked and fled, fleeing into the maze behind him. Robin snapped his head back to the shape. Now it was more distinct. Huge, towering over him. A smell that Robin could only describe as 'rotting swamp' washed over him.

Robin wouldn't have run away normally, and he damn sure wasn't going to start now. That was not the problem.

It was the fact that the ground started to get soft around his feet. Looking down, he saw himself beginning to sink. Robin stared at the sight, wondering what to do. He couldn't 'stand his ground', that was the problem here. He couldn't yell at the ground, or at the approaching form, that wouldn't work either. But just vanishing beneath the blood…that was also a bad idea, he could tell.

The growl reached his ears. A strangled, rasping sound, like the maker was emitting the noise through a potent throat injury. Getting closer, the form was taking on more defined traits. While the Marissas had been injured, this figure seemed more outright malformed, like it had never had anything resembling a normal appearance. It seemed to have three arms, or maybe two and a third, badly misplaced and twisted leg. Horns sprouted from its misshapen head, a second mouth opening and closing in its chest, the blood hissing wherever its feet trod. A nightmare minotaur, sent to chase the hero through the labyrinth.

No ball of string.

No sword to strike it down.

No way out.

…So what WAS it, then? What was it doing there?

That, in the end, was the simple answer. Robin had to know, and so he pulled his right foot from the muck that was trying to absorb him and set it in front of him, the ground suddenly as solid as a rock. Robin pulled his other foot free and walked towards it.

"Why are you here?"

The form evaporated like it had never been, and Robin realized just what it was even before it spoke.

"He can't touch me." The Marissa said. It was the sole intact one, a quiet yellow color, undamaged in any way. Robin really wished he could give it another name. Innocent. Heart. Something kind. But he had enough dealing with lunatics to know how brains worked…and just what someone like the Lord would have to leave untouched.

"You're the memory."

"All memory." Memory Marissa said. "I…remember everything. All of it. Everything."

"…If he damaged you, he'd damage Marissa's ability to build things. But…"

"The others can't bear me. They couldn't back when I was broken, yet whole…and now they simply can't. He stole that capacity in trying to fix me. If they grasped what I was…everything would break down. Like a machine stripped of its gears, running at its most basic settings, thrown into overdrive."

"…So he cloaks you in horror. So they run. And so he gets his way."

"…they're right, you know." Memory said. "You can't save us."

"I…"

"I killed all those people. What are you going to do, lie and say the Lord was manipulating me even then? Shove all the blame on his shoulders? Can you do that, Robin? Can you deny those who died justice?"

"…I…" Robin said, raising a hand, his fingers clenching in frustration.

"You tried. You did everything you could. You and Raven. I know. I'll always know. Thank you." Memory said. "But it's too late. It was too late before you even knew I existed. You should devote your energies to stopping the Lord."

"…Once…I was too slow." Robin said, closing his eyes and remembering. Kneeling there. Ribs shattered. Every breath burning agony. Seeing a damaged woman in even greater agony put a gun to her head, wanting to try and grab for something, anything, that would stop her, but too slow, too weak, a useless burden who got someone killed.

And he remembered running. Running and running until his lungs burned even harder. Trying to will himself to run even harder. Too slow. Too weak. Another corpse lay before him, his life's blood leaking onto the floor, his father dead. In the end, a useless burden who got someone killed.

"…Twice…is unacceptable." Robin said. "I've done many things, failed in many things…but I never, ever, try to repeat the lessons of history."

"What can you do, though?" Memory said. The area around her, as they'd spoken, had gotten worse and worse. More rotten. More dark. More and more of the same disease Robin had seen infecting the maze. Robin, for a moment, just wanted to scream. Scream at what the Lord had done. Scream at how he'd taken a girl so badly hurt and made her into her own worst enemy for his own desires. And called it helping. Called it…helping…

Robin looked down. The rot wasn't going near him. Heck, it almost seemed like where he was standing was looking better than it was a minute ago.

"…If I can do this…not be destroyed by his touch, or those ghosts, if I can see through his curse…then I can do SOMETHING. I can, Raven can…there MUST be a way. People can be terrible…but if that's all they could ever be…then I wouldn't be here. In every way."

Robin looked down, and then, in the logic of dreams, put his mask and letter back on.

"That's why I have to stop him. In everything. Because that's what HE'S chosen to be."

"…I remember…better days. Back before everything good…went away. Back before I knew…just how far down the rabbit hole things went." Memory said. "I…remember…"

"So do I." Robin said. "There's more to life than the dark."

---

Focus. Calm against his madness, sincerity against his hypocrisy…

Don't try to outpace him…let him burn himself out…

You are on the side of the angels…

You are stronger than him…

Raven kept her gaze level…

And the eye of the beholder began to shift.

---

"…I think it's closing. Yes! It's closing! Thank you, thank you, I will never complain about spring cleaning again! Because I'm actually going to make it there!" Gauntlet said. Savior tried to keep the grimace off his face.

"Guys, don't look at it." Cyborg said. "A watched pot never boils and this is when we need to be focussed most."

"I swear, if it just ENDS…I won't complain if the Lord ends up a human being and we have to send him to jail. I just want it to END." Terra said. Savior tried to calm his nerves. Tried not to let the thought come to him.

So he looked at Metatron.

"Is it over?"

Metatron's face was…unreadable. He might have stopped even before Gauntlet spoke.

"…not…until…" Metatron said. "…Oh dear."

---

The Lord's wings flared, the appendages firing off blades of energy in twin with his hands, the dark edges expanding until they were hundreds of feet long. Starfire dodged through them, flying upward past the Lord into the clouds. Trying to locate her, he fired more blasts, the explosions ripping through the swirling, coal-black depths, lightning striking La Voix several times as if in anger. The Lord snapped his eyes down towards Etemenanki.

"Now…"

"No." Starfire said, directly in front of him.

"HOW DO-?"

Her fist tore straight through the Lord's back, the impact throwing him across the sky, Starfire meeting him from behind with an upward axe handle, and then blazing in front of him again, her right hand shining. She brought it down on the Lord's face, the downward blow driving the Lord back down into La Voix. A two-mile portion of the island literally rose out of the ground, Starfire's impact and the Lord's previous cuts causing the stone body of the island to act like a piece of cut cake, the stone chunk rising up in the air nearly three hundred feet before crashing back down, Starfire jumping off from the impact, blood running down her arm.

It took the Lord, even as he was, several seconds to regather himself, and he was not happy.

"You are DYING." The Lord said. "The power is tearing you apart from within, mind AND body. Why won't you BREAK? Why do you keep OPPOSING ME?"

"…Because I do." Starfire said, spitting out a wad of blood. "I will oppose you until hell freezes over, and then I will OPPOSE YOU ON THE ICE."

"You…insignificant…"

The Lord's blurring, arcing blow, trying to get around Starfire's guard, impacted on her wrists again, Starfire lashing her leg up and kicking the Lord into the sky.

"You know, I'm thinking maybe we don't have to worry about destroying this tower. Because I'm frankly amazed the whole ISLAND hasn't sunk by now." Gauntlet said. "I don't know if the real estate here would be cheap or expensive, but damn if it isn't something!"

"The earth's a tough cookie. Just like Star. It'll take it." Terra said. "…This IS good, right? This is what Raven wanted to do? We're not sitting around fiddling while Rome burns, right?"

"That's a myth. The fiddle wasn't even invented then." Savior said.

"NO ONE CARES, NOEL. OOPS, USING REAL NAMES IN THE FIELD! SILLY ME!" Terra said. "I just want some answers."

"Ye, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." Beast Boy mused. "For I am the baddest mamba-jamba in the valley, and am driving a house-sized mass of 'fuck you'."

"…I think the phrase you were coining got a little away from you there…Gar…" Savior said, still looking at Metatron. Standing there. Not talking. Not adding to the banter. Savior didn't want to speak. To put it to words. He did it anyway.

"Adam?"

It was the strangest mirror. Despite the Lord's claims to Starfire, it seemed like it was him who was unravelling. It didn't affect his power, the shadow god focussing a blast between his hands before he fired it off. Starfire mirrored him, and the green and black beams smashed into each other and turned the air around them into a whirling mass of devastated ground and ice.

"Even now! After all this, you refuse to understand!" The Lord said, his claim that everything had already been said having seemingly been tossed away. "You cling to your friendships, your MORALS, like it gives you answers…how many answers have your friends given you to your greatest torments, alien? And morality? Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the…"

Starfire's hand seized onto the Lord's face, ripping his jaw off before her hand caved in her skull.

"You make noise. Endless, buzzing noise. Like a fly. I normally would not swat a fly. That says all that I need to say." Starfire said, and kicked the Lord backwards before she blew him up with a Starbolt. Piercing blades lanced from the explosion, Starfire flying around them and into the ground, emerging with the Lord's form…

As he grabbed at her head.

"YOU WILL LISTEN TO M-!"

Starfire blew the Lord's face off before he could put her in another hypnotic trance and start rambling.

She realized her error when she felt the cold length of the blade stab into her stomach. Misdirection.

"Sorry, Titan." The Lord said, and hammered Starfire into the clouds with a punch. Lightning arced, slamming into the alien, but she barely seemed to notice as she turned to meet the Lord, the dark god smashing into her. Her fist smashed into his face. His smashed into her wound, the pain doing enough to floor her and let his poisonous grip seize her by the head.

"In reality, I understand. I say those words to comfort me. Because in the end, I will never divorce you of the idea that you have greater purpose!" The Lord snarled. "So here's some proper, LAST words for you, Titan. GO TO HELL!"

Starfire's eyebeams burned through the Lord's hand, but further tendrils from his arm and cloaked seized onto the alien as he plummeted down.

Down towards the volcano. Down through the choking plume of poisonous ash and gas. The crater and vent shattered as the Lord hammered the alien down through the conduit, all the way down…to the molten red blood of the earth itself.

The Lord slammed Starfire right through the blazing liquid, the alien vanishing beneath the surface, the Lord driving her through the viscous, incinerating rock, down and down and down. Burying her like the future she represented, that he so loathed. His eyes blazed even brighter than hers.

"I'LL EVEN FREEZE IT."

The upwards blast of absorbed and re-directed heat pierced not only the clouds, but the atmosphere of the planet itself, the Lord instantaneously flash-setting several cubic miles of rock, locking the Titan in a tomb of the Earth itself. His feet settled down on the now-black rock, his wings snapping, several last remnants of heat venting from his body.

"…Mankind would rather have the void as its purpose…than be void of purpose." The Lord said, and twisted onto himself, vanishing with one last hiss more akin to rage than fire.

---

It was then Metatron spoke.

"We're in trouble."

---

Raven felt it, and her heart seemed to stop.

"NO."

---

Robin could sense them. Peering out from the maze. Still terrified…but at the same time, wondering why the monster hadn't just smashed or eaten Robin and continued on. It was a start…anything could come from a start…

Then the rumbling started, and it all came crashing down.

Robin knew the shaking wasn't supposed to happen. He knew this because it unsettled him…and when the rock was unsettled, that meant nothing good.

"…he's coming." Memory said.

"No." Robin said, holding out his hand. "We can fight this, we can stand together…"

"I'm sorry Robin." Memory said,

"I'll fight for you! Like I should have! I will! Together!" Robin said.

"No. You won't."

The black sky shattered, and the maze abruptly was torn out of the ground, flying upwards into a yawning abyss. Robin lunged for Memory, but he was too slow. The wind carried her away.

Even as it carried him away. That's all this way, in the end. A show of power. The most violent expulsion a hateful mind could muster.

He yelled in fury, a rage he didn't think was possible, but it meant nothing. Nothing against the blackness that was crashing down on him, on him and the girls, some screaming…some reaching for Robin…some crying for help.

"GET. OUT."

---

"What's going on? Where's Starfire? Where's the Lord?" Beast Boy said.

"Titans, alert! Be ready for anything!" Cyborg said. Savior snapped his head around, his eyes falling onto Raven.

And he knew.

"Oh…you bastard. You BASTARD."

---

Raven turned to her mirror as the hand ripped from within it, seizing her by the throat. God, why hadn't she seen the possibility that was now literally searing its way into her flesh?

"You IDIOT. You still think you can win? You try and defile my work? YOU DARE?" The Lord thundered, ripping his way free from the mirror, the altered reality Raven had been functioning it beginning to twist and distort. Despair clawed at Raven; it had all gone wrong. The Lord hadn't gone for a frontal assault for his last attempt. He'd taken a back door, slipping into Marissa's mind, the mind he had done so much damage to, and through there into her mirror, tossing Robin aside like he was nothing as he punched his way out.

It wasn't just despair though.

It was rage, and there wasn't a hand in existence that could choke it out of her.

"I dare? I? YOU DARE?" Raven spat back into the Lord's face. "YOU DESTROYED HER! YOU BROKE HER WORSE THAN ANY OF THE HUMANS YOU HATE SO MUCH COULD! YOUR WORK? TO HELL WITH YOUR WORK! AND YOU!"

"And what do you offer her? Hope? I WON'T LET HER STARVE." The Lord said. "Be GONE, Blackbird. This is MY world. You have no place here. I told you already, and you will listen. I. WI-"

"NO." Raven said, thrusting out her hand. The mirror flew into it, the last resort she'd pondered and dismissed and was now bringing to bear. The mirror was cracked, it was damaged, but it was the truth, and against this bastard buried in endless lies, Raven couldn't think of any better usage. She'd throw the cruellest thing she could back into his face: his delusion, his hypocrisy, his never-ending claim that he was the real hero in all these terrible events he'd machinated. She'd turned all his efforts to break him back on him and crack his head like an egg.

AND GOD DAMN ANY AND ALL CONSEQUENCES.

"WHAT?"

"SEE WHAT YOU ARE. COME THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. FALL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH ME."

"NO!"

"YES!" Raven screamed, holding the truth. "I DEMAND THE TRUTH OF IT ALL-!"

"NO!"

And…something happened. The barest glimpse of…

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" The Lord bellowed. It wasn't a howl of fear though, but the same all-consuming rage that had nearly killed the Titans once before. The same kind Raven had felt…except even more potent.

In it, Raven realized she'd had a weapon even more devastating than she'd thought. Whatever she'd tried to call up was the worst truth the Lord had within him. But it was not the magic bullet.

It was throwing gasoline on a fire.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

In the end, Raven found herself horribly, terribly right.

At her best, she couldn't stand up to his worst.

---

The Titans never knew what happened.

One moment everything was the same. They were ready.

The next Robin was jerking to his feet with a gasp.

The next, Raven was flying backwards with a scream, an erupting of black and white power throwing all the Titans off their feet as well. A howl pierced their ears, one that ended seemingly as soon as it began.

Raven's mirror tumbled to the ground.

The Lord's foot slammed down on top of it a second later, shattering it to pieces and grinding them into the dirt.

"…no…damn it, no…" Robin said. So close…so close.

"How tragic." The Lord said. "To be…or not to be. Not to be, Titan. Not close enough. That's your way. Never close enough. Perhaps this time, you will finally listen." The Lord said. "I. WIN. YOU'VE. LOST."

"No-!" Raven said, rolling onto her knees.

"Yes, blackbird. This game is done. You've used up all your surprises, and I've used up all my patience."

"…LIKE HELL." Robin said, getting up and pointing. "TITANS, GO!"

"Straight there." The Lord said, and with a wave of his hand he smashed all the Titans off their feet again as they tried to get up.

After a second, they all started struggling to get up again. The Lord did not attack again, his eyes dark and cold.

"God…you really won't surrender, will you? You absolutely refuse to see the truth of it. The future was mine LONG before any of you started your stupid game. I've just come around to collect."

"Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, I'd tell you to shut up but you wouldn't listen, so just SHUT IT!" Terra yelled, hurling a blade rock that the Lord knocked aside with an errant gesture.

"So strong…so defiant…so absolute in their certainty. A true mirror. Something…maybe even something I can't waste." The Lord said. "…Perhaps merely remaking you in my image is thinking too small. Maybe you shouldn't be the sole exceptions. Maybe…you should be the template."

For a moment, Raven saw the possibility. Her soul broken and devoured. All their souls. Her friends, her peers, those that came before. Forget the world. If the Lord got that kind of chance, realized that kind of ambition, he could bring the universe under his heel.

"…like hell." Raven echoed.

"…none of us will EVER serve you. Neither will any of them." Robin said.

"My brick will save us," Metatron declared boldly, holding the piece of rock up.

"Oh really, Metestasnathean? Titans? Then why don't you tell them that deep down, you're beginning to think how much further I've gone this time? What it means. Or hell, if you file that under everyone has doubts…your claim, Robin…why didn't you ever tell Noel that? Because I don't think that falls under doubt."

The Titans had no answer to that.

"Precisely. It's like I told him during our first meeting all those lifetimes ago. EVERYONE. BREAKS." The Lord said. "What does not kill them, will indeed make them stronger."

The Titans just responded with yells, every one that was still capable of a projectile firing them at the Lord as the rest charged in. The Lord just teleported away…

Next to Marissa.

"…mas…?" The girl whispered, trying to get up, her eyes cloudy, her tone uncertain. The Lord cut her bonds with a gesture.

"So he spoke to you of better things. Better promises. A better world." The Lord said, Marissa looking up at him."…do you know what the cruellest irony is, Miss Mori? He's right."

Marissa's eyes went wide.

"But it doesn't matter. You'll never remember a word." The Lord said, placing two fingers on Marissa's head in a gesture that was almost tender.

"NO!" Robin screamed, trying to reach the girl. Too slow. Always too slow. The Lord just teleported back to where he'd been standing, arcs of dark energy shooting into the woman's head, the girl staggering back and falling to her knees.

"In regards to your ideals, your desires, your IDIOCY, Titans, your FUTURE, imagine a boot. Stamping on a human face. FOREVER." The Lord said. "She loved Big Brother."

Marissa rose back up, her eyes dull and blank, black energy crackling on her body and infusing itself into the ferrofluid armor she wore.

"It's OVER. I. WIN. THE ABYSS GAZES ALSO." The Lord said, and pointed. "KILL THEM."

In a way, the next fifteen seconds, to Raven, were the Titans' proudest moment. None of them had a stake in Marissa Mori's health and well-being. Most of them thought she was beyond saving, one way or another. They extended her the basic heroic empathy, but sometimes that and a nickel would get you a cup of coffee. And as far as they knew, she had just been lost forever.

Yet as Marissa attacked them, with black swords and ebony-cast metal that sent piercing tendrils and crackling blasts of power everywhere, all the Titans fell over themselves not to hit her, dancing around her blows, or taking them where they could, Marissa knocking down Cyborg, Scalpel, Gauntlet, and Beast Boy in quick succession. Perhaps they thought Robin or Raven would have a plan. Perhaps the Lord figured that too, as Marissa made a beeline for Raven next.

Savior was the one who ultimately made the decision. Raven couldn't blame him. In his shoes, with his mind, she might have done the exact same thing.

Except he was too wounded and tired to pull his punch when the Lord snapped his fingers at the last second, and so Marissa's eyes returned to reality just in time for Savior's fist to crash into her. Savior realized what he'd done half a second before the power in Marissa detonated, a wave of force knocking all the Titans back and down. Marissa collapsed, holding her face.

There was silence.

Then the Lord just…laughed.

"…and so it always goes. As it will always go. Never changing under your hand." The Lord said. "You're all just human. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight has ever been made. You know why I sometimes call myself the villain? BECAUSE I WOULD NEVER HAVE THE GALL TO CALL MYSELF A HERO."

The Titans could only stare. Marissa lay on the ground, holding her face, a small sob escaping her.

The sob, Raven felt, made the unfamiliar spark. So unfamiliar it seemed impossible.

Yet the brilliant light flared behind the Lord, lighting Metatron's shadowed, calm features.

"Mistake."

Metatron had become legitimately angry.

The hand of gold blurred towards the Lord's exposed back.

It was caught by one of shadow.

The moment seemed suspended in time: The Lord – no, the shadow construct facing the Titans, standing lifeless at attention, while the Lord himself emerged from its back, like a triumphant tumor, with a smile of pure satisfaction. Metatron, his hand ablaze and captured, with no escape.

In it, it clicked in for Raven. All the Lord's cruelty. All the pain he'd just dealt out. Everything he'd done since Metatron had come back with Savior.

Speed chess.

Misdirection.

Ensuring this result.

"…Yours." The Lord replied.

In Metatron, Raven only saw understanding. "Ah."

She didn't even get a chance to cry out when the Lord slammed his hand into Metatron's chest. The Titan's face didn't change, even as the Lord slammed him into the floor, and with a thundering crash through it, several echoes coming from the new hole as the strange young man went smashing down, down, down.

Until he stopped.

And he stopped. Raven felt his heartbeat seize, and then go quiet. The Lord had literally struck him so hard, he'd induced cardiac arrest.

Who's going to die?

Raven had her answer.

…A bleating shriek shuddered through the empath…

She saw...she KNEW.

Raven's heart broke for her.

For a moment, the Lord remained in the pose he'd finished in, his fist aimed down, his head lowered.

One last, brief laugh, that mirrored Marissa's quiet tears.

"You blinked." The Lord said. "Good night, 'sweet prince.' And the rest…is silence."

---

…Rorschach…

Dr. Sid occasionally asked her to do it. Blobs of black and white and her own psyche simplified onto a piece of paper.

Rorschach…

She often made up random and disturbing images just to mess with him.

("Zalgo…He comes!"

"Ryce, I asked you to take this seriously."

"I see a goat."

"Come now, Miss Gallagher…")

Rorschach…

When had she fallen to her knees? She wondered, her hands sliding against the white floor, smearing the splattered pudding and cake she had dropped. The perceived symmetry of it ebbed away as she tried so desperately to hold herself up. What did Alaryce see in the ruined confection? What smartass jokes flittered up to her often too-sharp tongue?

Nothing.

Alaryce Gallagher saw nothing

Because Adam Matthews was dead.

"…A-Adam?" someone croaked out in a choked whisper. The desperate pleading in that single name, as if its mere utterance could some how take back the grievous hole in his chest so many miles away. It took her a few ticks of the clock to understand it was not someone who had whispered it, but her.

Eye boring into the chocolate patterns her hands were spreading, she tried to find something in it. What she saw, was that something was pittering and pattering down into the smeared mess, finally bringing the warm trails coursing down her face to her full attention. Crying. She was crying. Why didn't she feel it? Why couldn't she feel at all? Shouldn't she feel something other than this cool, buzzing numbness? Adam "Metatron" Matthews is her best friend…her everything. Something lowly and scaled, with stupid-cruel eyes hissed a single word out in her mind.

Was.

Adam "Metatron" Matthews WAS your best friend.

Now, he's flesh with a hole in it.

A meat donut.

…isn't that funny?

"I am sorry, Alaryce."

With a violent jerk, Ryce's eyes ripped up from their desperate attempt to decipher the hidden semiology in spilled confections, or to feel the sting of the tears gathering in them. Absently, a chocolate laden hand roughly wiped away those numb tears, smearing chocolate, blood and saline across her face. That vicious voice within her retreated back. In its place, a dim echo of sitting on the couch and his promise that she would always be his munchkin, never to be left behind rang hollowly.

Azrael frowned down at her, "Get up off the floor."

Adam was falling. Soon, there would be nothing left, and no promise he had ever made could change that.

Soon…

The grin that grew across her face was a sickly, twisted thing, something that bounced back at you from a fun house mirror at best. At worst, something that leered over a ledge through reinforced glass windows in a place like Arkham. She grinned up at her father because if she did not she surely would start to scream. Even if they won, even if the rest somehow came back whole…her family would return home to find her screaming. She would scream and never be able to stop again.

Because of everyone she had lost…everything she had lost? She could not-WOULD NOT- lose Adam. The dark could not take this. It had taken Robbie and Morgan and Eddie. It would not take ADAM. Not before she said it. It was too soon, surely that was obvious. In a trembling voice she could not recognize as her own began to beg. She swallowed her pride and her dignity and on hand and knee begged.

"…H-He's not…com…pletely gone yet…You c-could take it back. Daddy, we could t-t-take it back together!" her smile… it was starting to hurt, "Please, daddy…"

The Archangel stared down at her, "I said up off the floor. You look foolish."

"Daddy…please…" her voice cracked, it felt like the corners of her lips would split. It was as if she could keep smiling, if she could just make it just a little wider he'd understand. He'd make it stop hurting and help her. Gods help her she was pawing at the hem of his jacket.

Azrael said nothing. He watched her. Just watched her cry and kneel, burn every last shred of dignity she had and grovel for this one thing. Her loyalty and devotion, which looked past every harsh moment. Every cruel word and even the occasional blow. Every negligence and oversight that she excused for the simple fact that she loved her father. And Ryce did love him…as sick as she knew it was. All she wanted was this one thing. One last chance at this so she could do it right. Her eyes promised that. Promised that regardless of how this ended she would finally just say it…if he gave her this chance.

He stared.

"…Are you done?"

The words hit her with the force of a train, too rooted in place to even flinch with the impact. The cruelty in those three simple words worth a life time of hiding in trembling fear from her brothers and sisters…worth two life times. The tone was not callous…it was not even cold. It was disinterest. It was boredom. It was indifferent. No amount of snivelling and begging at his feet had changed or ever would change the unfathomable content of those words. No amount of blind love, patience, or humiliation would take back the truth in those three syllables.

Nor could they prevent the mindless rage.

"You…you son of a bitch!" she shrieked, scrambling up to her feet as her grip on it all finally snapped, "You heartless FUCK! After ev'rythin' I've done for YOU! I have given up EV'RYTHIN' time and time again! I have bent and I have broken. ALL FOR YOU!" her voice grinded into a hoarse croak, her throat bled raw, "M'done payin' for Caitlyn! Do you hear me? M' DONE BLEEDIN' FOR YOUR DEAD WIFE, OLD MAN! M'done payin' for your mistakes and your weaknesses and damn you, you are goin' to give me this. Take it back! For once in your god damned existence b'more than the shitty excuse for a father you are! TAKE. IT. BACK!"

His hand was gripped, the knuckles white and Ryce knew how badly he wanted to hit her. Part of her wanted it. Azrael stared down his nose at her as one would stranger. A curl of his upper lip and a flash of teeth was all he gave as he shook his head. Disgust. Shame. The look of brothers and sisters as she had scrambled her way through them for fifteen years of abuse. Then, his back was turned and he was heading for the door.

"You are an embarrassment."

Ryce knew then. He had not come for Noel.

He had come for her Adam.

He had sat there and ate cake…all the while knowing that her world was going to fall down on itself. Her father had sat there smiling, conversing, and looking her in the eye without a shred of remorse over the hurt he knew to be coming her way. Her very heart imploded…and he made small talk.

And now? Now, daddy was going to do his job. He was going to sit in his chair before Adam and judg-

…a great Wooden Door began to rattle on his hinges.

"Azrael?"

Something…else had curled into her tone. Not dead for it had never truly been alive. Something that made the archangel pause, though not turn back to her. That otherness to his youngest made him know better. There was dirt in her voice. There was dirt in her voice and he knew what vineyard it had come from.

"If you will not take it back. I will," her tone so calm and even, as if the hysteria shrieking in it moments ago never was. That serenity made his stomach clench, his skin felt like slime. Without a word, the ancient creature shut his eyes and waited, bracing for the floods.

The Office Door cracked open.

…and what poured forth was Barren.

---

"…so then. What now then, Titans? Do you see history taking shape before you? Do you rise up in rage to avenge your fellow? The one you barely even know, who most of you doubt was really your peer? If you were cursed to lose someone, was this one not the best? Maybe that doesn't matter, a life is a life? Go ahead then. It's over." The Lord said. "You can't break my connection to the Locus. You can't lock me up because there's no prison that can hold me. And even as hard as you try, you can't kill me. YOU CAN'T KILL THE NIGHT."

"…we will fight you. All the same." Robin said, getting into a combat pose for what he was pretty sure would be the final time. "To the last, of everything in us."

"I know." The Lord said. "You may have only enemies whom you can hate, not enemies you despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the successes of your enemy are your successes too. You do yourself proud, Titans. I assure you, you will merely be changing one sense of pride for another."

"Rot in hell, you piece of shit." Savior said.

"No." The Lord said, raising an arm. "For you, Titans. My ultimate blade. The Demiurge. I may never wield it again, and I know I wield it well."

The weapon began to manifest.

The Titans prepared for a true and final stand.

…Etemenanki shook.

Then Etemenanki, for lack of a better word, screamed. The Lord and Raven felt it at the same time.

"NO!"

The explosion mixed with the scream, the fire red and green and white as Starfire smashed upward through the floor and into the room.

"LIKE. HELLLLLLLLLL!" The alien shrieked so loud that Raven nearly went deaf, and then her arms and fists lashed out and the Titans, spurred on by a mental shriek from Raven, were all diving for cover, an inferno of heat and rage and destruction sweeping over the whole chamber. Raven vaguely saw Starfire crash into the Lord before she was forced to throw up whatever she had left as a shield, the room transforming into a furnace, the fire reaching out to devouring everything it touched.

Starfire was alive.

It gave Raven no comfort, as her shield shattered and she was caught, like a leaf on the wind.

---

The alien. The thrice-damned alien. Not even burying her alive in ten million tons of rock could keep her down. Even the Lord was surprised he was still standing where he was.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths. Perhaps, for his most esteemed foes, that applied to death as well.

He'd managed to deflect the alien when she'd tried to strike him directly, but even then, from the absolutely out of control way she'd blasted her way up into Etemenanki, how had he even managed to stand to do…so…

He…

He hadn't.

It had been the metal on him. The quicksilver liquid that had leapt out to partially cover him, giving him just enough with his new defences against the stars to stand his ground. But…

"…Miss Mori…" The Lord said. He no longer could properly smell, but his other senses picked it up just fine.

She lay at his feet, her outfit shredded and melted, every exposed inch of skin hideously burned, half her hair gone, limp, a broken doll with its strings cut. Her liquid metal armor mindlessly flowed back to her, absent when it was needed most. Absent because…

"…what did you do?" The Lord said. "…Your armor protected me."

Marissa's breathing was so shallow it might not have existed at all.

"I never told you to program that in. I wouldn't, why would I need…protection…why did you…?" The Lord said, staring at the girl. "You…for me?"

The Lord looked a few more seconds, then sighed deeply. Humanity. He'd been quoting Kant earlier, instead of Nietzsche, but those words of his also rang true. Nothing straight came from their nature. Nothing.

"…stupid girl." The Lord said, kneeling down. More work for him. More debt to repay. So be it.

"LORD!" Raven yelled. The sorceress had gotten to her feet as well, again, somehow, and as the Lord looked at her, she saw what had become of Marissa.

Her eyes went as black as her soul-self.

"You bastard. You BASTARD."

"This was not my choice."

"IT'S YOUR FAULT! YOUR-" Raven yelled, black wings of bladed energy erupting from her body as she flew towards the Lord.

The Lord smacked her aside so hard she felt like her skull had been knocked clean out of her head.

"Shut up. Useless little girl. Useless, ALL OF YOU! USELESS WHEN IT COUNTS!" The Lord said, putting a hand over Marissa. "None of you can save ANYONE, NOT WHEN IT COUNTS! All you do, in the end, is just make things worse! Look at what YOU did, Raven. Look at what you drove your team mates to do!"

"You'll die for this." Raven said, and flew forward again.

Energy erupted from the Lord's hand, driving Raven back and smashing her into the ground, her offence ripped to shreds like paper.

"No. You won't. You've lost." The Lord said, turning back towards Marissa, speaking in the barest whisper. "I will fix this, Miss Mori, but I must settle this first. Go home. I'll finish things there."

The dark power flowed out, settling onto the girl before it consumed her. Within a second she was gone, taken back to Ginnungagap, to safety. The Lord slowly rose, pondering where Marissa had been.

"…It should not have been this way."

The Lord's hand snapped out, blocking the black blast of power from Raven.

"And it has gone on. QUITE. LONG. ENO-"

Raven never saw where Starfire came from. Neither did the Lord, as she smashed into him, taking out what was left of Etemenanki's outer wall in this battered chamber as she did so. The force of the blow knocked Raven down, and her body screamed at her when she tried to get up. She did it anyway.

"…Kory…" Raven said. That hadn't been her friend. That had been a mad dog, a creature so out of its mind with rage that she not only hadn't given the slightest care to how she'd landed from a blow, but she also hadn't even considered where her friends had been. Her violent eruption had scattered and battered the Titans (shake and bake, Raven's back mind briefly piped up in a crazy trill) more than the Lord, and once she'd recovered she hadn't given a slightest thought to that fact, instead zeroing in on her enemy and striking with maximum force. Gone, consumed by the very power she'd tried to use to save her friends.

Gone. Marissa was gone. Raven couldn't sense her any more. Her teammates were scattered and broken on the ground. Metatron was dead in the depths. And from the tower, even now, she could feel something terrible. A nauseating power that plunged her into despair: Her home, too, was gone.

Raven fell to her knees. It was over. It was all over. She had no spells left. No tricks, no techniques, no cards up her sleeve. No more misdirections. No more power. She couldn't take the life of one of her friends, no matter what the cost might otherwise be. She had nothing. Nothing…

…save all the power in the world.

Raven's eyes drifted over to the Foreverwhere rift, still open, the white void within emitting a steady, crackling hum.

The power. She could still claim it. The Lord might have stopped her from closing it, but after all her interactions with it, not even he could stop her from drawing from it. She could stop him…

Just like Starfire wanted to…

She had to. She didn't have a choice. She'd let everyone down…she couldn't let them down at the very end of the world…

That's how it would start…

All she wanted…was what was best…

That's what everyone always wanted.

Don't take up the power. All it will cost you is everything.

Take up the power. All it will cost you…is everything.

…Raven turned away.

She bowed her head, her hands pressing into the wrecked stone ground.

She had nothing left.

Nothing…except herself.

"You're the strongest person I know."

Was she? What hadn't killed her…

…why hadn't it killed her?

What made her who she was?

Herself…herself.

…and a blade.

The clarity opened in Raven's mind. She looked up. Her hands clenched, and then rose up.

The darkness. The evil. She'd done everything she could. She'd given into the darkness and had it stolen. She'd been offered it again, and turned it away.

To her own soul be true.

The white glow began to suffuse Raven. Sinking into her skin. And around her, Titans trying to recover what little they had felt faint tugging from various parts of their uniforms and bodies.

She would match the gaze of the abyss.

She would dare to bear fangs at god.

---

There was no shift or warning before the darkness came. It moved like fluid, with the roar of a tsunami that cut through even the mournful shrieks of the vengeful dead pulsing in this place, crashing into the floor into non-Euclidean shapes, its depths bleeding dark colors man could no more name than see. The shades were repelled by it…they fled the terrible horned and hooved form as it cast its lidless eye over them.

It was Barren.

It was Hungry.

A great, dark head thrust forward and from its bulk lifted a tendril. It had chosen, striking out and seizing one of their numbers from the very air. The Unfortunate was dragged into it…clawing and roiling and shrieking soundlessly for it no longer had a mouth…It had nothing but desperate flails as the without of the beast sunk into it. Twisted, changed, and hollowed out as the shade threw its head back in a howl that would never be heard. The last tendril of Wormwood coiled around where the shade once had eyes…framing them in stiff rectangles.

And Ryce stood in its place.

"A…Ad….am? ADAM!?"

She was moving, the floor flowing beneath her as the dead recoiled from her path. They knew what diseases this predator had dragged in with her. A plague rat no cat would touch. She screamed his name over and over, sounding quite insane. Had this throat flesh she would have rendered it raw with her shouts…she'd have torn it right open with the wounded mewl that fell from her when she finally found his body. A savage bleat ripped out of her sending the spirits around him scattering like so many birds. He draped forward limp as a rag doll against a piece of the ruined floor looking utterly at peace. If not for the devastating and oozing hole in his chest, her friend might simply be asleep.

Ryce fell upon him with the ravenous, fever-bright eyes of the rabid. Clamoring forward on hands and knees, willing this shade she so abused into corporality. Dimly, she could hear the shades howling and shrieking around her. Of course, it had to be the shades. That...that couldn't be her voice making that keening begging sob...no…

"Open your eyes," it wasn't a request, wasn't a question or a plea...it was a steel braced command.
It was not followed.

"Metestasnathean, you open your god damn eyes and LOOK AT ME!" she screamed, phantom pain that was not real tearing in her throat.

...nothing...

"...o...oh god, please," the steel was beginning to bend. She had thrown herself into the fire and it was so much hotter than she could have thought possible, "Look at me. Not like this. You don't go out like this." She pawed at his ruined shirt, the warmth echoing into her borrowed non- flesh. Warmth he needed...warmth that meant he was still there bleeding out into the howling world around her. He was still. THERE. He had to be. She wouldn't (COULDN'T) let him be anything else.

"...n-no...n…o no...nonononononoNO NO!" she sobbed, hands fumbling with bitter uselessness against his poor crushed chest, trying to keep the warm in. Shoving it back in like the filling of some broken toy, "No Adam, you dun' do this! You stay! You STAY WITH ME! You dun' get t'break your promise. M'your fuckin' munchkin and you promised!"

The blood was pouring between her fingers in dark hateful ribbons. It began to seep through her hands to patter unto the floor where her legs really weren't folded. All she could do was watch in terror...watch and scream and beg. Moving on pure compulsion she threw herself over him, pressing her lips to his and tried to urge air back into his still lungs. It didn't matter to her that she was nothing more than an echo of death here. She did not care that the dead had no breath to give.

"PLEASE BREATHE...oh gods above, Adam, please! Not b'fore I say it. Not before I TELL you," she babbled madly as the shades joined in with a chorus of their own wailing. She was practically on top of him. Pressing closer, her thighs straddling one of his splayed legs, as she pressed her palms flat to his chest and begged. The position was pathetic and twistedly intimate, hands hooked into his shirt one pressed up to his ruined chest...reaching. Always reaching for something. Her family would have recoiled in revulsion and horror at the Halloween mask smile on her face as she brought it up to his until they were nose to nose, "I...I love you. Please...stay with me. You stay with me...please. Adam...

"I dun' know how to be alone any more..."

She pressed her lips into his, not with breath that wouldn't come. It was a kiss. She kissed him and willed with everything she had left to be able to push past the numb buzz, desperate to truly feel this. Ryce cupped his cheek in her hand and just drove the nothing away, determined to feel his lips even if they were unresponsive against this stolen form. This was hers. Even if it was the last thing that ever would be, this was going to be hers. No one could take this, not the Nothing raging above her head…Not the broken god so far away in a kitchen, eyes shut against the Barren thing bleating the scent of vineyard rot into his face. Not the vile unloving thing that curled up inside her behind an Office Door she had forced herself to just forget. This would be hers.

…Something began to trickle through…

And it was the taste of blood.

Her smile shuddered, then fell, finally shattering like that picture frame from weeks before as she pulled away. Trembling, she laid her cheek to his chest as she had done so many times before. In search of comfort...in contented, quiet moments...in exhausted trust...one last time. One last moment, safe in his arms. She began to whisper, "…le…le' m-me follow. Le'me follow you. Please…jus' le'me…foll….ow…"

Metatron's flesh was cold.

The dead hung still.

And the bowels of La Voix De Mort began to quake with barren, bleating howls.

---

The alien was trying to rip his throat out. The Lord was so astonished he almost let her before he finally got a grip, hurling the alien away.

"Hell couldn't hold you then. Fine. You damaged my property. No more games. OBLIVION IT IS." The Lord said.

Starfire blazed directly at the Lord.

Third time was not the charm, as she flew directly into a spray of piercing lasers, the black blasts phasing through the alien and sending rampaging, contradictory signals through her nervous system. The Lord hadn't bothered with such an attack before because a warrior of Starfire's calibre would have immediately worked around it. The mindless beast she had become was left a thrashing, helpless mess, the Lord flying backwards and putting his hands together.

The last time he'd tried this, it had taken a lot longer and had far too much collateral damage. That had been a long, long time ago.

The black void of death bloomed between his hands.

"BLACK-"

The sword pierced out through the Lord's chest.

For two seconds, The Lord could only wonder how Starfire had gotten behind him when she was clearly in front of him.

Then the pain exploded through him, and the Lord's attempted gravity attack snuffed out of existence as he tried to shove the sword out. Some else obliged him, and the Lord turned into a storm of raking, tearing talons. WHITE talons, the attack ending with two hands seizing him, lifting him up, and ripping through his body in an outward butterfly stroke-cut, the Lord recoiling across the sky.

"Kory."

A gentle hand laid itself on Kory's shoulder, the alien keeping herself aloft by instinct alone. As soon as her hand laid itself on the woman, her thrashing stopped. Pain left her body, even as reason returned to her eyes and face.

"…Raven."

"Yes." Raven said. Her shredded outfit was gone, replaced by a fully repaired costume of the purest white, her head long and down past her shoulders. In her hands lay a golden sword, one that only tickled the faintest depths of Starfire's memory. "Titans always fight together. Always."

"…Raven." The Lord said, having reformed. His expression was unreadable, at least until he let out a long, low chuckle yet again. "Of course. That. Always that. The ugliest duckling…becoming a swan."

"What did you say? The successes of your enemies are yours too?" Raven said, holding out the blade.

"And the Fang. The very sword I broke. So you finally found a way to put it back together." The Lord said. "That's a placebo you gave your fellow Titan, you know. The power's still going to rip her apart, be it now or five minutes from now. And what makes you think I won't just break that sword over your head like I did with your lover?"

"Because I learn from history." Raven said. The Lord couldn't help it; he laughed, long and loud and without the slightest hint of anything that laughter should mean.

"This game has gone on long enough. Time for the final moves. Shah mat." The Lord said, waving his arm. A mass of swords bloomed out of existence in front of him, instrument after instrument of cruel death and horror spreading out like a nightmare flower, before all the petals snapped together and merged into a shifting, crackling THING that didn't seem like it could maintain any permanent shape beyond being sharp and cruel. The Demiurge. "Let us settle this, once and for all! What we started on that rooftop, and long before then! Let us see who shall be born posthumously!"

"The Titans will never die." Raven said. "Let's go."

And so, for the final time, the world shuddered beneath those that would see how it would turn.

---

"It is some basic certainty which the noble soul has about itself, something which does not allow itself to be sought out or found or perhaps even to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself.

What is noble? What does the word "noble" still mean to us today? What betrays, what allows one to recognize the noble human being, under this heavy, overcast sky of the beginning rule of the plebs that makes everything opaque and leaden?

It is not actions that prove him – actions are always open to many interpretations, always unfathomable – nor is it "works." Among artists and scholars today one finds enough of those who betray by their works how they are impelled by a profound desire for what is noble; but just this need for what is noble is fundamentally different from the needs of the noble soul itself and actually the eloquent and dangerous mark of its lack. It is not the works, it is the faith that is decisive here, that determines the order of rank – to take up again an ancient religious formula in a new and more profound sense: some fundamental certainty that a noble soul has about itself, something that cannot be sought, nor found, nor perhaps lost.

The noble soul has reverence for itself."

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good And Evil