Concolor44: Unfortunately, one of the kids refused to be left behind again, but to make up for it, I added a glimpse of Lisa just for you. You're welcome : )

skywiseskychan: I know that Starfire was uncharacteristically quiet, but honestly, I couldn't figure out anything for her to say. Same for this chapter, though here I at least give a bit of a reason.

I know probably none of you care, but with this chapter I have officially published over 500,000 words on this site, and it only took me… eighteen months. Okay, maybe not quite as impressive as I thought it to be.

Disclaimer: Did Jump City's jail have serious trouble keeping superpowered villains inside its walls? If so, I don't own the Teen Titans franchise; it belongs to DC Entertainment, Glen Murakami, and Warner Bros.

Chapter 14
Siege of the H.I.V.E.

Jinx fiddled with the transceiver in her ear; it was already ten till four in the morning, and standing around waiting in the Titans' command center was making her the slightest bit uncomfortable. She glanced over at Baran, the bulky armor and dark helmet covering him completely, as well as the three-foot-tall tank-like robot that sat idly as it panned its camera around the room. Come on, heroes, get your act together. And where the hell is Raven? Surely it can't take her this long just to pick somebody up. Unable to take doing nothing, she tapped the earpiece. "All right, people, we're at T-minus ten. Status check, Team 2."

"Team Antimatter is in position. Soon as Tempest finishes cutting through this last wall, we'll be golden."

"What that guy can do with water still freaks me out." She grinned while Cardinal, the team's leader, chuckled softly. "Good to know, though. Team 8?"

A cheerful young woman's voice rang from the speaker and made her futilely try to jerk her head away from the noise. "Just give the word, Jinxy! Yellow and I are ready to kick some bad guy butt!"

"That's… nice, Red. Hey, do you mind putting White on?"

There was a pause, and then a cool, "You needed something?"

"Yeah. Think you can keep the Super Sisters from getting too crazy this time? Considering their penchant for collateral damage…" She trailed off; Team Gemstone's 'exuberance' spoke for itself. Their idea of subtlety was limiting the destruction to just one city block. Which is why they aren't given assassination missions anymore, Jinx thought grimly. Having to clean up their mess in Tehran was not fun.

"I'm a fencer, not a miracle-worker," the other woman snapped. "I'll try, but no promises."

"Good enough, I suppose. I'm just glad your attack point is near the edge of the city rather than right in the middle. Team 11, speak up."

"Wards are set, and Fox just got back from double-checking for anyone wandering around. We're in the green and waiting for your signal," the next team leader spoke up.

"Good work," she complimented the blind witch. Queen's group, at least, could be counted on to get things done with a minimum of hassle. "What's the condition of the targets?"

"Sound asleep, from what I can hear."

The doors chose that moment to slide open, revealing the assembled vigilantes. Finally, the pinkette griped inside the safety of her own head. Raven, too, appeared in a splash of black, her arms wrapped securely around a nervous Melvin. Jinx turned away from the invasion force and looked out the wide windows onto the bay. "All right, then. Before we isolate the channels, I have one last thing to say." Taking a deep breath, she continued, "As you are all aware, our opponents this time, with few exceptions, are still in their teens, and I know you'll want to go easy on them. Hell, I do, and I know first-hand what they're capable of. The thing we have to keep in mind is that in addition to being teenagers, they are also fanatics; they cannot be paid off, scared away, or reasoned with. If you see a few particularly young kids who immediately try to surrender and you are sure they haven't been totally indoctrinated yet, knock them out if you want. On the other hand, if there's any doubt in your mind about their honesty or if they launch any attack whatsoever, eliminate them. I would rather lose ten, fifty, a hundred maybe-salvageable idiots than even a single one of you.

"I told all of you that this was supposed to be covert, and that hasn't changed. Should it all go to pot, however, just remember that success under any circumstances is acceptable. This mission isn't a hostage rescue, an infiltration, or a gentle discouragement; it's search and destroy. Giz, split comms and continue the roll call." Ignoring the click from her earwig as it stopped receiving updates from the other teams, she pointed at the three full pitchers sitting on the counter. "Coffee's still hot if you're not awake yet."

Cyborg nodded gratefully and led the charge to the liquid caffeine.

Shaking her head, she meandered her way over to her lover and her soon-to-be unofficial stepdaughter. "You okay there, Mel? You look like you're about to puke."

"It's… it's a lot scarier now that I'm actually here," the young blonde admitted reluctantly.

Raven immediately spoke up. "If you are that uncomfortable, it is not a problem for me to return you to the monastery before we leave…" The half-demon's hopeful offer trailed off at the girl's shaking head. "You are sure about this, then? Once we start, there is no turning back."

"I know, and I am." Melvin laughed weakly and added, "You two should be proud of me right now. After all, I've lost count of the times you told me not to let fear stop me from doing what needs to be done, and Aunt Jinx, you once said that if I'm going to make big claims, I need to be ready to put my money where my mouth is. This is me doing just that."

Raven sighed before sharing a significant look with her fiancée. "We really need to coordinate the advice we give them from now on."

"Ain't that the truth."

Producing a black domino mask to match her dark shirt and skirt and quickly sticking it to her face, Melvin looked at Jinx seriously. "Nightmare reporting for duty, ma'am."

"Okay, first, lose the stuffiness. We don't care about shit like that unless we've got the brass breathing down our necks," she ordered with a roll of her pink eyes, prompting a faint giggle from the teen. "Second, calm down. You're sticking to Raven like glue on this little adventure until we actually find Slade, and you know she won't let anything happen to you. You'll be fine."

"Besides, even if something did happen that distracted these two, you've got me to count on," Lisa announced as she sidled next to Melvin and threw an arm about her neck. "Us blondes got to stick together."

Jinx snapped her fingers. "And speaking of that… Titans, listen up a sec." Once she had the masked vigilantes' undivided attention, she continued, "We're going to be moving together for the most part, but worst comes to worst, we might need to split up. So, we're going to be in two teams. Mammoth, Nightmare, Persephone, Beast Boy, you'll be under Raven's command. Cyborg, Nightwing, Starfire, you're with me and Eloise." She patted the automaton fondly. "This is one of Gizmo's drones, and it's got a fully functional A.I., though the program's pretty simple in terms of what it can do. All of us have been entered as friendlies, and everyone else by default is labeled an enemy. Thankfully, it's accurate enough that unless you teleport in between it and its target – I'm looking at you, Raven," she commented, earning herself a half-hearted glare, "you won't have to worry about friendly fire. Just to be on the safe side, though, Eloise is going first."

"Why must we bring that machine with us?" Starfire demanded sharply, the look on her face showing her distaste. "From what you say, it will not recognize when someone has been defeated."

"Oh, it knows when someone's defeated, all right. Most people don't get back up after taking a few rounds to the chest from a fifty-cal autocannon," answered the mercenary with a wicked grin.

Robin groaned. "When you told whoever you were talking to about 'eliminating' the H.I.V.E. members, I hoped you were exaggerating. We need to bring them in to be tried in court."

"Our employer did not hire us to arrest them," Raven retorted. "I would be perfectly content with only the nine of us leaving Slade's base alive. If you do not believe that you can accept this parameter, you may as well go back to bed. You will only be a hindrance to our operation."

"That's not an option!"

"Such a thing is most evil!"

"We're better than that!"

"All of you, shut up!" Cyborg glared at his teammates before moving to stand beside Jinx. "I don't like it either, but let's face it; if these guys are even half as good as Slade was, there's no way we can just arrest them and drag them to jail. We couldn't beat him when it was five-on-one, and now we're outnumbered. Sometimes… sometimes you just gotta do what's necessary. Our job is to protect Jump City no matter who throws what at us, and if today that means we have to… have to kill them… then that's what we have to do."

"We don't have to like it, but we have to do it," Lisa echoed, not letting go of the younger girl. Her visage was like the stones she controlled as she stared at nothing in particular. With a shake of her head, she refocused on the group. "The longer we wait, the worse our chances are to catch them by surprise. Let's get this thing over with so I can get back to worrying about what I'm going to tell Father Tommy at my next confession."

"Can you deny that the Doom Patrol has done the exact same thing, Garfield?" The shapeshifter whined lightly at Raven's question before he shuffled over to stand near the half-demon.

"Jinx, it's go time."

She sighed. "Okay. You two can stay here if you can't handle it; Beast Boy, looks like you're with me. We'll—"

"Wait, wait." Robin sighed before he and Starfire moved towards her. "We won't kill, but we can incapacitate. If you still want our help, that will have to be good enough."

"That is fine; we are not requiring Nightmare to do any more than that, either." Raven's sudden proclamation seemed to take a heavy burden off Melvin's shoulders. "However, while you may disable them all you like, their continued existence is not assured. Should they still attempt to struggle, I will see their lives extinguished." Both heroes grimaced at that but eventually nodded with obvious reluctance.

Jinx expected that however immoral they considered what they were about to witness, they figured putting down as many Hivers as they could but keeping the villains alive would prevent their black-and-white philosophy from crumbling under the pressure of the real world. Yet another reason I made a crap hero; I never did get that.

"We'll be teleporting into the base's communications room and main office," the pinkette announced. "From Kyd's memories, that's where Slade likes to spend most of his time, so if we're lucky, we'll be able to catch him off-guard."

Cyborg frowned. "And if he's not there?"

"Then we'll have to look for him, and this job will get a whole lot messier," she answered with a helpless shrug. "Not like we can know what's going to happen ahead of time. Raven, we ready to go?"

Rather than answer, the half-demon wrapped her allies in darkness and spirited them away.

The curtain of shadow lifted after a few seconds, allowing Cyborg to swing his eyes around a darkened room full of blank monitors and metalworking tools. "Doesn't look like he's here," he told the others.

"Someone turn on the light."

He grinned at Raven's muttered command. "I thought you liked the da— Aah!" The Titans whirled around at his muffled yell and froze at the four red slashes glowing in her face. Doctor Fate said she wasn't a full demon anymore! Why does she look like that?!

"I can see perfectly well," she answered shortly. She flicked her hand toward the switch on the wall, and the touch of the lights reverted her eyes to their normal purple. "I was thinking about the rest of you."

Nightwing shook his head as if to dispel the fearsome sight he had just witnessed. "If Slade's not here, where's the next best place he would be?"

"His quarters, presumably." She and Jinx shared a weighty look before continuing, "Unfortunately, Kyd Wykkyd did not know where those were located. We shall have to search for them."

"Good thing we got here early," the pinkette commented as she opened the one visible door and peered down the empty hallway. "Looks like they're all still asleep. We move, and we keep real quiet. Raven, you're rearguard."

The half-demon nodded and waited as the others slipped out the door until it was just her, Nightmare – which, if his ears hadn't deceived him in the Tower, he thought was the little girl Raven had been close to years ago, Melvin – and himself. Raven turned to him and quirked an eyebrow. "You can go ahead, Cyborg."

"I know. I figured I'd wait for the two of you."

She shook her head and sighed in exasperation, though she made no effort to convince him otherwise. Instead, she looked at the teen they had brought along. "You have already manifested Bobby?"

Bobby, as in the giant invisible teddy bear? Yep, that's Melvin.

"Him and Tony," Nightmare said quietly. "I brought them out as soon as we landed."

Raven smiled. "Good girl." She stretched out her right hand, the tattoos inked all over her skin shining an ugly crimson, and she murmured something that he could not pick up even with his cybernetic hearing. His curiosity was satisfied when two rings of fire sprang up before disgorging a pair of flame demons. "Wait in here for five minutes, then follow us. Stay inside the building. Kill everyone besides the eight I showed you."

"Uh, Mom? Are those things… safe?"

His head swiveled to the girl while his thoughts raced. She did not just call Raven 'Mom'. That's just a scary picture from beginnin' to end.

The grey-skinned woman snorted indelicately as she ushered them out. "Safe? Not in the slightest. Thankfully, though, they are the lowest form of lesser demon and so will not stray from the commands I have given them."

"You told them not to hurt eight of us. Who'd you leave out?" he asked, a slight bit of nervousness coloring his voice.

Raven's stare was flat. "I am their master; they are incapable of harming me, directly or indirectly. It is unnecessary for me to include myself in my instructions."

A bit of hustle soon had them caught up with the rest of the group. Midway down the hall, a klaxon began blaring loudly.

"Good morning, Titans," Slade's deep voice rang from the intercom. "I wondered who would have the audacity to break into my base. If you had sent advance warning, I could have had breakfast waiting on you."

"Taunt us all you want, Slade, but you're going down!" Nightwing shouted.

"I doubt that." All along the walls, doors slid open to reveal swarms of androids that marched out to surround them. "Nostalgic, aren't they? Let's make sure you haven't lost your edge."

Cyborg moved to stand back-to-back with Persephone, his arm swiftly reconfiguring into a cannon. His preparation proved to be unneeded; an enormous circle of darkness swept around the heroes and former villains before breaking off into two crescents that sliced all the robots in half at the waist. He turned around in time to see Raven rise from the floor and stare into the lens of a camera mounted in the corner.

"We are not the ones who have become rusty, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson. You will not live to see today's sunrise, this I guarantee." The half-demon ripped the door out of the far end of the corridor and hurled it into the crowd of H.I.V.E. students marshaling in the large room beyond. "Black Magic, move out!"

Not to be outdone, Nightwing cried, "Titans, go!"

They charged.

What followed was like no battle Cyborg had ever joined; not even the final fight with the Brotherhood of Evil had been this brutal. The air crackled and snapped as pink lightning bolts, green energy blasts, black blades, and his own blue sound beams shot at their enemies and met the students' own powers. Closing the gap, he laid out two teens with solid punches before a third landed a blow to his own chest. Thrown to the ground, he was in a perfect position to see a big black cat with thin orange stripes appear from nowhere and pounce on the tall criminal, sharp teeth ripping through the boy's throat in a fountain of blood. The reverse-colored tiger glared at him with the seven acid yellow eyes plastered on the left side of its head and neck before racing after yet another victim.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him upright. "Melvin certainly has developed an appreciation for the macabre, has she not?" Raven asked idly.

"Wait, that was Melvin's creature? I thought her power was making living toys!" Whipping his head around, he finally found the girl riding on her bear's shoulder, paws tipped by large claws slapping away clustered enemies and delivering gaping, crippling wounds. Those who could still fight quickly found giant hands ripping out of the floor and sucking them into the earth, the two blondes working in tandem and watching each other's back. He winced when a small boulder smashed one villain into the wall, a red smear following his slide to the ground. Okay, Seph, time to dial it back a notch or two.

Or ten, he corrected himself when sharp stone spikes shot up through the H.I.V.E. fighters' feet and pinned them for the tank to spray with bullets.

The sorceress shrugged, unconcerned with the carnage around them and nonchalantly slicing another teen in half with a burst of black power. "It was when she was younger. Unfortunately, someone – Gizmo, I expect – introduced her to horror movies, and the rest is history. She must have seen every monster movie ever made by now. Of course, I might share some of the blame for her darker traits, as well."

Cyborg rolled his eyes. Some of the blame? More likely most, if not all.

"These fools spring up like cockroaches," she said with a grin while another squad of students moved into position to attack them. "Did any of you know that I have a dog?"

The students glanced at each other dubiously, looking as confused as Cyborg felt. Finally, one of them offered, "So?"

"Kids like dogs, right? I thought you might wish to see him." On the ceiling above the villains appeared a dark portal. "Meet Fluffy!"

What fell out was something new to him. The canine robot landed heavily in the middle of the cluster and immediately set upon the teens with the snapping jaws on each of its three heads. He had to blink several times to make sure he was not dreaming. Though the steel framework, spinning gears, and thick cable 'muscles' removed all doubt that it was mechanical, the way the ghastly automaton moved, not to mention the snarling growls it made, were far too organic for his peace of mind.

"Too much?"

"A cerberus. You have a robotic cerberus." She nodded but did not elaborate. "Where the hell do you even get one of those?"

"Do you remember our fight with Johnny Rancid and Control Freak shortly before I resigned? I pulled Rancid's three mechanical dogs into Nevermore during that battle and completely forgot they were even there. By the time I remembered and pulled them out for Gizmo to play around with them, they were a little twisted."

"Okay," he said slowly. That made about as much sense as anything involving her mental plane ever had, which wasn't necessarily saying much. "But still… Fluffy?"

The half-demon shrugged nonchalantly. "Melvin's fault. She found it absolutely hilarious."

"Why?"

"No idea." She looked up at him. "Honestly, I was afraid to ask."

"Hey, you two!" Jinx screamed. "Less yapping, more fighting!"

They nodded before leaping back into the fray.

A sharp flick of her wrist flung away the blood coating her conjured sword, and Raven turned to her past and present teams. "I do believe that is all of them."

"Me, too." Jinx held up one hand, bubblegum static arcing among her fingertips. "We ready to face the Final Boss?"

"That is more than enough out of you. Nightmare, stay with Persephone." She swung back to the elaborate door standing alone along the wall, its nearest neighbor around the corner and farther down the hall. Still, she eyed the wooden barrier with trepidation, for she could feel familiar, demonic power lurking behind it.

"Well, what are we waitin' for?" Moving to the door, Cyborg opened it with a solid kick.

"Well, well, so nice to see you again, Cyborg." A bolt of scarlet slammed into the metallic man and threw him back into Nightwing and Starfire. "Unfortunately, you aren't the one I want to talk to. Come now, Raven, don't be shy."

Steeling herself, she strode into the, for lack of a better name, throne room. Slade sat in a chair positioned on a raised dais, clad in his classic armor though he had left his face exposed. Clearly, he knew as well as she did that one way or another, he would not have to worry about them revealing his identity after today. He smirked at her. "Aren't you going to tell me to drop to the floor and put my hands on my head?"

She pointed her broadsword at him. "I am not here to arrest you, Slade. My mission is to kill you."

"I see; the little bird really has grown up. However, I can't say that I exactly like your plan." He stood from his throne and picked up an evil-looking weapon, a chipped axehead on each end of the long staff. The blades wreathed themselves in flames that quickly flowed up his arms and into a glittering ruby mounted on his chest. His joints cracking as he stretched, he muttered, "That feels much better."

Raven, on the other hand, stared at the axe in shocked recognition. "Where did you find that?"

"Find it? Oh no, child, I took this off one of your father's servants after I left his employ and regained my flesh and blood. It didn't work well against him, not surprising in retrospect, but I reclaimed it and kept hold of it when you killed him and undid the changes he wrought on the world. A very good thing I did; it is far more powerful than any other weapon a human can easily wield." Slade spun the wicked axe in his hands before pointing it at her. "Too bad you are no longer in the demon form you used to slaughter my students two days ago. You would have been able to defeat me then."

He is taunting me, trying to goad me into transforming. Why? What good does it do him? Her eyes flicked over the room and latched onto the numerous gems lining the top of the walls, along with the thick wires connecting them. "Clever, Slade, very clever, but ultimately pointless." She raised the sword, her own fire spilling off the edges. "You wanted to absorb my powers as you did with that weapon. I doubt it would have worked, but even if it had, I need not take up Trigon's mantle to best you."

His single eye narrowing, he launched himself at her, and she did the same. She blocked his first blow, her infernal resilience just enough to counter his enhanced strength, but the twirling of his axe forced her to evade the second and third. The fire sheathing her blade could not burn the artifact due to its own origin, and while she was well-trained, he had an advantage over her in pure combat experience. She struck with a soulself talon to push him back if not rip through him, but the darkness vanished the instant it approached the jewel boosting Slade's abilities. Fire would likewise be ineffective, then. Damn. She leapt back to give herself a bit of breathing room and took to the air while a portal formed on the wall before firing a storm of black daggers that were blocked by his spinning armament.

Thankfully, she had not been counting on that to hurt him, but merely to distract him. A smile split her lips as the floor underneath Slade shattered and pelted him with shards, each one smoldering with pink light. Off-balance, he was unable to withstand the tremendous punch Mammoth delivered to his head and soared to the opposite side of the room. She landed between her teammates, birds escaping from her personal dimension to harry the villain. He was better than she was alone, but she was not alone, was she?

Team Black Magic always fought together.

"You ready for this?"

The gigantic man cracked his knuckles, and Jinx snickered before flinging another series of hexbolts at the headmaster's feet. "Let's show him what we got. Formation Alpha-6."

Slade was a skilled and deadly fighter; that was not in doubt. Unfortunately for him, he had grown complacent in the five years he had been running the H.I.V.E., and even before then, the Titans had always fought him one at a time, only moving in when the previous member had been defeated. Now, however, he was facing an entirely different beast. Shielding himself from the high-caliber rounds fired from Eloise's cannon left his back undefended from Mammoth's electrified punches, and turning to counterattack created an opening that Raven could use to slice through armor and skin alike. She would then move away so the robot could continue spraying him with bullets, and throughout the entire exchange, arcs of pink lightning raced at him and refused him even a stable environment from which to work.

"Delta-1!"

Raven jumped, levitating herself out of Slade's reach in time to watch a hexbolt barrel into the man's abdomen, staggering him. The energy crackled before being sucked into the gem, and the stone's glow brightened ominously.

"Jinx, what did I tell you about your hexes and Chaos?!"

"I know! That's the plan!"

"What?!"

More and more hexes landed on his chest, his arms, his legs. Each one was immediately absorbed, amplifying the power stored in his device. With a final flash, the ruby exploded. The shockwave slammed him into the wall, the armor covering his chest blown away and his skin hissing with steam as his serum-derived healing factor worked desperately to ward off his death. She floated to the ground as the pinkette walked up. "See? I knew it would work. Gems can only hold so much power, so if I kept bumping it up, eventually it would overload. I didn't expect the explosion, but it was a nice touch."

"Next time, give me warning before you start experimenting with aspects of your talent in the middle of a fight." Reaching out with her soulself, she grabbed the axe and sent it back to the demonic realm in a flash of flame. "Your strategy has failed, your weapon is gone. Have you had enough, Slade?"

"Not hardly." He whipped his right hand from behind his back, a slim device with a large red button clenched in his fist, and then yelled when darkness wrapped around his hand and crushed it. Her soulself vanished, the fragmented detonator slipping through his broken fingers.

"Come now, did you really think we would allow you to blow this base up with us in it? Did you have the explosives set on a timer so you could negotiate your escape? Please. We know better than to give you a chance to turn the tables on us."

He laughed mirthlessly at that. "I don't know who trained you after you left Jump City, but whoever it is did a marvelous job." A harsh coughing fit hit him then, blood spraying out of his mouth to splatter on the floor between his legs. "Come on, then. Kill me. You'll only be delivering my fate a few weeks early."

"What do you mean by that?" Jinx demanded.

"Lung cancer. It's stage 4 already, and if there were a stage 5, I'd qualify." He leaned his head against the wall and continued chuckling. "Well, what are you waiting for? Either finish me off or let me go."

Nightwing stepped up. "Slade, you're under arrest. You can serve the rest of your life in a jail—" He never had the chance to finish; darkness welled up and tossed him back to his team.

"What did I tell you about getting in our way, Richard?" The half-demon asked softly before looking back at the fallen man. "I normally despise executing people, but I would find killing you a great pleasure. Unfortunately, I cannot bring myself to do it."

Her team glanced at her in confusion, but Slade simply smirked. "And you had risen so much in my estimation, too. Still the bleeding heart, are you? How disappointing."

She continued as if he had not spoken. "You see, I think throwing you into Death's jaws would be too… plebeian. You need something special. So, I have arranged a gift of sorts for you, something you might have missed for the past few years. I call forth the Doors of the Damned." Her runes radiated unholy light, and a line of fire raced along the floor. From it rose a flat, grey stone, the same doorway she had summoned in the museum to lead Mammoth back to their base. This time, however, the panels opened not to an earthly hallway, but instead showed a vista of tall cliffs and seas of magma before the heat spilling forth caused the very air to ignite. As if in response to her call, the flame demons she had summoned earlier to finish off the H.I.V.E. students the Titans had incapacitated swept inside on umbral wings and latched onto Slade's arms.

"No! What are you doing?!"

"My father was a cruel being, as I am sure you know well. When He pulled you out of Hell, He denied you the opportunity to experience the full spectrum of delights it offers. I am simply making reparations. Take him away."

"Raven, stop!" Nightwing demanded, his desperate cry echoed by the Tamaranean. Beast Boy had run to the far wall to vomit. Cyborg and Lisa simply winced and looked away; they, at least, seemed to understand that she could not be shaken from her path this time.

She had forced down her demon blood when attacked by Starfire. She had promised Jinx that she would give Richard, if not forgiveness, at least a chance to return to neutrality so as to avoid additional conflict. This man, on the other hand, was ultimately responsible for her betrothed's temporary death, for dragging her back to Jump in the first place. Her vengeance this time would not be denied.

A black barrier sprang to life, cutting the Titans off from their longstanding foe and prompting Melvin to scurry to Mammoth's side. Only when Slade had been dragged kicking and screaming through the Doors and the portal had slammed closed did she allow them to approach. "It is finished."

"Raven," Batman's estranged disciple whispered, "what have you done?"

"Something I should have done years ago. I am more surprised that you are not happy he has been taken care of at long last," she answered blandly. She knew the real reason for his disquiet, one that her former leader was more than happy to voice.

"By sending him to Hell? He should have gone to prison for his crimes!"

"Why? He is incapable of rehabilitation, and even if he were not, his time on this world was limited. Besides," she said with a wicked smile, "if he had cancer as he claimed, he probably wanted the power of a Demon Lord so as to make himself immortal. I do not know whether Trigon truly brought him out of Hell, but I do know that the rare mortals tossed into the demons' dimension are safe from death. In a way, I simply gave him what he desired." Soulself spilled from the shadows, wrapping them in its cold embrace and depositing the nine individuals and the drone inside the Titans' living room. "Regardless, what is done is done. There is no need for further discussion."

Nightwing snarled. "Like hell there isn't! You have to—"

Whatever she had to do went unheard; tenebrous chains latched onto him and tightened painfully. She stalked towards him, her upper set of eyes itching to open despite the predawn light. "You seem to think I care. My patience is at its limit; if you have a problem with what I have done, file your precious charges against me. Accuse me of sending a legally dead man to the world of demons. Reveal that I took part in a tactical strike against a terrorist group and left no survivors. Testify that I finally eliminated a repeated threat towards this city. Tell everyone what I did today, and assuming you are not laughed out of the courtroom, I will be waiting."

A rock the size of her fist smashed into the back of Nightwing's head, and he slumped in his bindings. "Why do we work with this idiot again?" Lisa asked Cyborg, earning a shrug from the mechanical vigilante. Raven's eyebrows rose as she saw the stone cocoons encasing Starfire and the gag in her mouth, along with Beast Boy standing to the side trying hard not to be noticed. "Anyway, we thank you for helping out against the H.I.V.E. the past few times, and for including us in the attack. It… well, it wasn't fun, but at least we know that the danger's over."

"You are welcome." She dropped Nightwing and braced herself as the blonde pounced on her and squeezed her until her ribs began to creak. "Lisa, need to breathe."

The geokinetic let her go with a bright blush. "Sorry. Next time you're in town, don't be a stranger; we don't get to see you nearly enough."

"I don't know that we'll ever come back here," Jinx interjected apologetically, "too many bad memories for all of us, but we might be able to meet up somewhere close by. Not to mention, you can always visit us if you want."

"We might just take you up on that." Cyborg came over to pick her up in a massive hug, then did the same with the pinkette and Melvin. Letting the teen down, he hesitated just a moment before sticking his hand out to Mammoth. "Take care of them for me, man."

The giant tucked his helmet under one arm and clasped hands with his former foe. "Don't need to tell me twice. You keep up with Persephone, or she might go and get herself melted."

"One time, that was one time!" Lisa tossed back her hair and faux-reluctantly shook Mammoth's hand as well. "Next time, it'll be me saving you."

"Looking forward to it," he said with a smile, his expression causing the woman to blush minutely.

One last round of good-byes were shared before Raven gathered her team around her. "We will see you soon, Victor, Lisa. Until then." The pair waved before darkness took them away.

Slipping unheard through the metal hallways, Batman found his quarry. "Kent, I'd like a quick word."

"Of course." Doctor Fate gestured for the Dark Knight to join him, and the two heroes took a moment to stare through the wide porthole at the Earth as the Watchtower orbited around the planet. "It truly is a magnificent view, is it not?"

"It is," he agreed. "It would be a shame if something ever happened to it."

"Mmm."

"Alien invasion, nuclear war… a Demon Lord. The Titans' most recent reports were quite interesting reading," he said, carefully not looking at the other man.

"Really? I did not think any such reports were on the computer system."

"They weren't. I had to riffle through the deleted files to find them. Perhaps a sorcerer should spend more time learning about technology if he is trying to keep his activities a secret."

"Perhaps he should."

Batman sighed and finally faced his colleague. "Damn it, Kent, what were you thinking? You deliberately hid evidence of Raven evolving into a Demon Lord, then wiped Nightwing and Beast Boy's memories. You should be glad it was me who discovered what you did."

"Yes, it was. It has always interested me how the most paranoid and cautious men are also the ones who trust most fiercely once their loyalty has been earned. Or is that just you?" The golden hero leaned against the bulkhead. "Let me begin at the beginning. Have you ever heard of splinterpoints?"

The Caped Crusader wracked his brain for a moment before shaking his head. "I can't say that I have."

"I am not surprised; they are rarely discussed outside precognitive circles, and they are not a common topic even within those groups." Doctor Fate raised his hand, his five fingers pressed next to their neighbors. "Normally, destiny flows in a single direction. Individual actions of the universe's inhabitants mean little in the grand scheme of things, and so we can safely intervene in future events without worrying about that foreknowledge producing the so-called 'butterfly effect' that theoretical physicists harp so much upon.

"A splinterpoint, however, is much different." His fingers split apart and pointed in various directions. "It is a short period of time when there are innumerable diverging futures. Strangely enough, almost all recorded splinterpoints have focused on a single person, one whose choices determined what path the world would take. Guess who that individual was this time."

"Raven," he said firmly.

Doctor Fate nodded as his hand fell back to his side. "Correct, Raven. The Tool of Fate who was able to undo the destruction she was prophesied to cause. Her decisions in the past two weeks have charted the world into the path it will now take. I… merely helped her out a little."

"Why?" This was the question burning in Batman's mind. Why would the good Doctor, a man who loved justice, actively participate in the creation of a Demon Lord, a force of boundless evil?

"When I had my vision in the commissary, I was bombarded with the possibilities of the future. Most of them were… quite horrific, actually, exterminated worlds and extinguished stars as she consumed this entire dimension before moving onto the next, doing more damage than even her father had been able to accomplish before she eradicated her very soul in a final attempt at suicide." The other man sighed. "Such tragic and pointless loss."

"That does not explain why you would not tell us any of this, why you, in fact, implied that she would be the one to stop the Demon Lord who would arise."

"No, it does not." Doctor Fate was silent for nearly a minute, just watching the planet spin and weighing his words. "If I had had a choice in the matter, I would have had the vision in the privacy of my quarters rather than where all of you could hear bits and pieces. Moaning 'Demon Lord', 'Jump City', and 'Raven' did not leave me much wiggle room with which to work. Tell me, Bruce, had you known what she would become, would we have barred the Tamaraneans from entering our system?"

"Most likely not," Batman replied.

The sorcerer nodded. "No, we would not. They would have attacked Raven with all their strength and hatred, and she would have been forced to respond in kind, kicking off a Tamaranean–demon war with Earth as their battlefield. Needless to say, I would rather not watch an interdimensional conflict between the armies those two young women can amass."

Ah. No, that would have been very, very bad. "A good reason not to allow them entry, I agree, but why then did we not handle the threat on our own? We could have beaten her and the former criminals she associates with."

"You are correct; of the four, only Raven is on our level. Two of us could have neutralized her while a third defeated the others. Unfortunately, interfering meant we would then be forced to contend with an army of metahumans with a thirst for revenge and a desire for nothing less than the League's total destruction."

"An army? Surely that is an exaggeration," he retorted.

"Have you ever known me to partake in hyperbole?" The avatar of Nabu fixed him with a glare before returning his gaze to space. "What else would you call a force of trained, organized, battle-hardened killers, almost two hundred strong, other than an army?"

His eyes widened perceptibly behind the cowl. "Two hundred?"

"Yes. It would cost them numerous lives, but they would have eventually won the battle, and I doubt any of us would have survived to see the next morning."

Only now did the Dark Knight fully appreciate the vicious future Doctor Fate had seen and managed to avoid. The Justice League was strong, but there were only fifteen of them; fighting thirteen metahumans each would be a stretch for all but Superman and possibly Green Lantern, and both men had weaknesses that had been taken advantage of in the past. Additionally, when they founded the League, each member had sworn an oath not to take lives unless there was truly no other option left before them. The metas attacking them with death as their first choice would therefore have had a serious advantage, and all it would take was a single lucky blow to murder one hero before they moved on to overwhelm the next. Killing was far easier than capturing, as the League had discovered time and time again.

"The potential futures shifted after the point when she became a Demon Lord," the sorcerer continued. "We would have distracted her from her primary goal of resurrecting her lover, and as I stated earlier, Earth would have been swallowed by the void in her soul before she left to continue her attempts at assuaging her grief. Once Jinx was brought back to life, the consequences of entering conflict changed back to war and our annihilation. Of all the possible futures, this was the third best."

"Third best?" Batman asked slowly. "I assume there was a reason you chose that rather than the first or second."

"Indeed. The absolute best option, by which I mean the one that would have yielded the least destruction and death, was disclosing everything to the League and us subsequently helping her in her mission, but it eventually would have required me to execute Zatanna and you to do the same to Diana."

"Absolutely not," he immediately denied. Though few knew it, he had been developing feelings for Wonder Woman for some time; killing her was something he would never, could never, do.

"I know," Doctor Fate confirmed gently. "The second best was to imprison Nightwing and Starfire for a time while ordering Beast Boy to assist her. This path, and to a lesser extent the first, were murky; there remained too many other factors that I could not foresee. I feared that even doing all we could would not be enough to avoid a dismal outcome. The path I chose was the clearest, and all it required was a little subterfuge on my part.

"That said, I do feel somewhat guilty for deceiving all of you, necessary though it was. I can only hope that you will accept my apologies."

"Apologies are pointless when you don't really feel sorry for what you did." He stared out the window, imagining the planet below dark and broken, if Raven would have left it existing at all. "It is clear why you were chosen to take up that helm. In your shoes, I hope I would have made the same choices, but I can't honestly say that would have been the case." A weak smile appeared, the expression empty of humor. "I have caused enough unintentional trouble as just a man in a mask; having to navigate the rapids of this 'splinterpoint' is a task I am glad to have been passed over for."

The blue and gold hero moved to stand next to him. "Then may I request your silence on this subject? I fear the others will not take news of my actions as reasonably as you have."

"You're probably right; considering the cold shoulder Zatanna has been giving you lately, there's no telling how she would react." He sighed and nodded. "They won't hear about this from me."

"Thank you, my friend."

You know, when I first started this chapter, I was sure it was going to break 10,000 words, but instead it's a touch under 8,000 minus notes. I just couldn't take the truly awesome running battle in my head and turn it into text, much to my regret.

As much as it saddens me, this story is nearly over. Just need to tie the knot in one last loose end…

Silently Watches out.