DISCLAIMER: I do not own Teen Titans or its characters, TV show or otherwise. This story is for entertainment purposes only. It will take place within the universe of the TV series (though within the alternate universe I established with Raven's Story and Nothing Is Harder Than Love), and be after the end of said series as well as the movie Trouble in Tokyo. If you don't like yuri, don't read any further. If you don't like Teen Titans, then I have no idea how you found this story in the first place. Rated M. I do not own the character named Artemis; she is a creation of Echo of an Idiot. He has given me permission to use her in this story, though I have re-imagined her for this purpose. I do, however, own the characters Shadow (daughter of Raven and Jinx), Phase (son of Changling and Lavender), Stinger (son of Cyborg and Bumblebee), Nightfire (daughter of Nightwing and Starfire), and Lavender herself. The character of Shift is the property of DantesClover, and was created specifically for this story. The character of Vulcan is the property of Starbuck Viper, and was also created specifically for this story.

Author's Note: I'm glad you guys are really liking this story. It's a lot of fun to write this. I would appreciate some reviews from those of you reading this, since it does take time and effort to keep you fanfic mongers fed. And I know it's been a while since I updated, but think about this before you complain: To keep the same level of quality you've seen to date, time and effort must be put into it; fast updates may mean poor writing. That said, I won't deliberately take my time every time, but I hope y'all will have patience in waiting for the updates to come.

Titans Forever

Chapter 11 - The Legend Begins

The Teen Titans - Shadow, Nightfire, Phase, Stinger, Artemis, Vulcan, and Shift - were gathered together on the roof of Titan Tower. Cyborg, Nightwing, and Changling were in the common room monitoring the oodanga starship while everyone else was on the roof to see the next generation of heroes off.

"Remember, Shadow, it's about focus and concentration," Raven reminded her daughter.

"Got it, mama," she replied, with only a little exasperation.

"I won't say to be careful," Jinx added, "since you're my daughter as well, so just kick ass and come back. Or I'll go and kick your ass."

"Alright, mom."

"And that goes for all of you," the pink-haired woman added, glaring at the seven teens.

"Yes, ma'am," everyone chorused together.

"I wish you all the best of luck," Starfire told them, hugging all of them gently - for her, anyway.

"No time to waste, y'all, so get movin'," Bumblebee added.

"Alright," Shadow said, looking at her team. "I'll need everyone to stand as close as they can, since I don't know how big I'll be able to make the teleportation portal."

As everyone clustered around her, Shadow felt someone grab and squeeze her hand. She couldn't really tell who it was, though by the feel it was one of the girls' hands. Still, she appreciated the small comfort and the confidence boost it gave her. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and let it out. Clearing her mind, she began chanting the meditative phrase her mama had taught her: "Azarath Metrion Zinthos. Azarath Metrion Zinthos. Azarath Metrion Zinthos." As she chanted, a swirl of black energy shot through with pink bolts that were constantly moving appeared around the teens' feet. It expanded until it surrounded all of them, then rose up to shroud the Teen Titans within its darkness. When it vanished from the roof of Titan Tower, so had the seven teens.

. . . Who reappeared moments later within a large space aboard the oodanga starship. Everyone opened their eyes and blinked, surprised that the teleportation had actually gotten them aboard the ship. "I'm guessing this must be a hold of some kind," Stinger said, breaking the momentary silence.

"You think?" Phase asked dryly.

"You think somebody's spotted us?" Vulcan asked.

"You know, I still can't get over your name," he said.

"What's wrong with my name?"

"Well, it's . . . a boy's name."

"Are you saying I'm a boy?"

"No, no, just that-"

"Zip it, you two," Shadow said. "We've gotta get a move on to that reactor."

"Any ideas where to go?" Artemis asked.

"Stinger?"

"I'm on it," he replied, looking at the readout on his gauntlet's left arm. While Shadow had been on the roof meditating, Stinger had stopped working on the Titans' vehicles with his father and used the time to create and build a high-tech partial battle suit. All it consisted of was a front and back upper torso plate, forearm-length gauntlets, and knee-high boots with armored knee pads. There was also a harness system connecting everything to the powerpack on the torso piece's back. He'd built the gauntlets to function like his father's arm did, but incorporate the sonic cannon as a series of micro-emitters located around the cuff of the glove. Right now, he was using the scanners incorporated into the left gauntlet to trace the alien ship's power output to accurately locate the reactor. After a couple of minutes, during which everyone else was looking around nervously expecting the aliens to drop in and attack, he said, "Alright, I've got it. But without schematics I can't say how we're gonna get there."

"As long as we have a direction," Shadow said. "The rest we can improvise."

"Can't you teleport us there?" Nightfire asked, although Shadow was shaking her head before she was finished speaking.

"Too close to it now," she answered. "If I was trying to sense a person's aura, or a meta-human's power, I could get us closer, so we do it the hard way. What direction, Stinger?"

"That way," he said, gesturing toward their left. "I can't tell how far, either. Too much interference, not enough info to overcome it."

"Alright, here's the marching order," Shadow said. "Stinger, you'll be on point. Shift, I want you to fuse up something and cover our butts. Nightfire, Vulcan, I want you behind Stinger to back him up. Phase, Artemis, I want you in front of Shift. I'll be in the middle so I can easily raise a shield or barrier to protect everyone."

They all walked in the direction Stinger had pointed to, all the while keeping an eye out for . . . someone, anyone. Though no one said anything, everyone was surprised there wasn't anyone coming to deal with them. It had everyone suspicious. After a minute or so, they came to the end of the hold - and it was a hold, if the strangely-shaped containers throughout the space were any indication - and found a door. Stinger moved forward to try and decipher the controls when the door whooshed open. Standing there was one of the ape-looking oodanga, looking just as stunned to see them as they were to see it. Before it could raise an alarm, a fireball slammed into its chest and exploded, knocking it backwards.

"It should be knocked out, I think," Vulcan said, bringing her smoking fist to her mouth and blowing it.

"You do know that they might've picked up that fireball as an energy discharge, right?" Phase said from the back.

"Oops."

"Alright, everyone, let's move it," Shadow said. "We're on the clock here, even without Vulcan's blast." They ran down a corridor, Stinger's scanners showing an increase in the energy output the further in they went. They encountered no more aliens, which they thought was strange, until Phase triggered open a door that turned out to open into a barracks of some kind. A barracks that was filled with lots and lots of oodanga.

"Oh, shit," he said, stepping back. "Um, wrong door?" With a yelp, he jumped back - and caused the door to automatically close - when several of them pointed guns of some kind at him. Everyone heard the sounds of the energy bolts impacting against the door, and picked up their pace, racing to reach the ship's powerplant even faster now that the word on them was out. Shift laid down covering fire - she'd fused with a bunch of metal to form energy blasters of some kind - as Vulcan came back to help.

"Keep moving!" Shadow shouted, ducking under an energy bolt and sending a blast of energy down a side corridor and into an oodanga marine. "Stinger! How close are we?"

"It's on the other side of this bulkhead!" he shouted back.

"We don't have time to find a door!" Vulcan called out. "They're pressing harder!"

"Let me at it!" Artemis growled, running up to the 'wall.' Putting her hands on the corridor wall, she took a deep breath and let it out. Focusing her will, she began dropping the temperature of the wall as fast as she could. The metal didn't seem to be doing anything, until everyone realized that the metal was becoming darker and kind of washed out. As they watched, it seemed to accelerate until a good-sized portion of the wall became covered in frost. After what seemed like an eternity, but was only a few minutes, Artemis stepped back, breathing hard. "Oh . . . kay . . . " she breathed. "Some . . . body hit . . . it."

Stinger aimed his right arm and triggered the sonic emitter cannon in it, and the metal wall shattered like a dropped glass.

"Everybody in!" Shadow shouted, throwing up a wall of pink-striped black energy between her friends and the aliens. Everyone piled into the room . . . . . . and stopped.

"Whoa," Vulcan said.

"I think we found it," Nightfire agreed, staring at the massive floor-to-ceiling (and probably beyond) cylinder that dominated the space they found themselves in.

"Guys?" Shadow said. Everyone snapped out of their daze and, with sheepish looks, went about their tasks. Vulcan, Shift, and Nightfire searched the room for any entrances and found two; Nightfire and Shift posted at one and Vulcan sat at the other, just waiting for something to open it. Phase, Stinger, and Artemis found a bank of control stations and began trying to figure out how to overload the reactor. Shadow remained at the hole in the wall, keeping a shield up across it.

Phase reached through the panel and pulled some wires out through it; Stinger hooked his left gauntlet into the control panel by splicing his connectors into the wires. I hope I can bypass this, he thought, or find some way to unlock it.

"Wouldn't be easier to push this button here?" Artemis, gesturing at a panel. Looking over, Stinger and Phase saw a big red button under some kind of translucent shield with funny-shaped peg holes on either side. "Um, yeah," Stinger replied lamely. The two boys walked over, and Phase asked, "So how do we open it?" Stinger rolled his eyes and blasted the cover off with his sonic blaster and pushed the button. Almost immediately, blue lights began pulsing throughout the chamber and a high-pitched alarm began wailing.

"Looks like you did it," Shadow said, walking up behind them. Artemis looked past her to see the oodanga security soldiers retreating down the corridor at a rather fast pace. "Now I do my thing as you get everyone out of here?" she asked. Shadow nodded. "Alright, then, get to it."

"Back to that hold, guys!" Shadow told the others. She hesitated a bit as everyone went past her. "I'll be back as quick as I can, okay?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Artemis assured her. Shadow smiled at her friend and left, though Artemis thought there was something different about that smile . . .

Shadow caught up to the rest of her friends just before the hold. When they all ran in there, they found Lord-Master Gishta and a bunch of heavily armed oodanga waiting for them.

"So you are the filthy inferior primates who dared to come aboard my ship!" he roared at them. It looked like he was about to launch into a monologue, but Shadow said, "I don't have time for this." Summoning a portal, she sent a hex bolt through it as she dropped herself and her friends through a portal that opened back up on the roof of Titan Tower. Back on the alien ship, her Cris-Cross technique had all of the oodanga - including the 'high-and-mighty' Lord-Master Gishta - diving for cover, though several didn't make and were knocked all over the place by the hex bolts.

As soon as everyone dropped onto the tower's roof, Shadow concentrated on Artemis's active aura and teleported through another portal back into the reactor chamber. It was obvious, once she caught site of Artemis, that keeping the core's temperature somewhat stable was putting a tremendous strain on the blue-haired girl.

"I'm back, now let's get you out of here," Shadow said, stepping forward.

"Can't," Artemis grunted. "It's worse . . . than we had . . . anticipated. It's taking . . . all I've . . . got just to keep . . . it like it is . . . and it's still . . . increasing."

"We've got to get out of here, Artemis!" she insisted.

"If it's between me . . . and the city, I . . . choose the city," she replied. She looked over at Shadow, a determined expression on her face. "One life instead of many. Not a hard trade." Before the other girl could say anything, the ship's deck rumbled, shook, and tilted. The two looked at each other and guessed what it meant; the ship was boosting for space.

"You better . . . get outta here . . . Shad . . ." Artemis grunted.

"Not without you!" Shadow pleaded. Just then, a spark flickered within the blinking energy core. Before either of them could do anything, the core exploded, knocking them both through the hole in the bulkhead. Shadow's head hit the floor hard, almost knocking her out and leaving her in a daze. Artemis had her fall broken by Shadow - deliberately, she suspected. Standing up, she saw her friend's condition and knew that she wouldn't be able to get out of the ship on her own now. The explosion had also destroyed her efforts to stall a full reactor failure. Kneeling down next to her friend, Artemis managed to roll Shadow onto her back and carefully stood up, then made her way down the corridor. It wasn't easy, and the continuing explosions from the reactor didn't help much. She did manage to make it the hold, and laid Shadow down against what she (correctly) guessed was the hull's inner wall. Putting her hands against the wall, she concentrated as hard as she could, pouring every once of energy she possessed into the metal hull. Faster than the reactor chamber wall, the metal turned cold and brittle. Standing up, Artemis kicked the weakened patch several times before it shattered and the hold began decompressing.

"Artemis?" Shadow said, groaning as she tried to sit up.

"Sorry, Shadow," Artemis replied, picking her friend up. "But you deserve to live more than I do." Then she tossed Shadow out of the hole. She smiled as she heard the other girl begin cursing her before her voice faded away, then she turned and made her way back to the reactor chamber. She got as far as the hole into the chamber before she saw a bright blue, purple, and black flash . . . . . .

Author's Note: And that's it. Hope you enjoyed the adventure.