Souls Entwined

by cmartist

Raziel gave his life to stop the elder god. Trapped in the Soul Reaver for all eternity, is this the price to be paid for redemption? Teen Titans, Legacy of Kain XOver. Chapter 25 is now up!

14. Acceptance

Souls Entwined

Disclaimer: After over ten chapters, this section has gotten kinda redundant but again, the only thing I own is the story. All characters (sans my own who surprisingly doesn't appear much) belong to their respective owners.

Acceptance

Raziel coughed up blood as he felt pain course through his body. After what happened on the roof of Wayne Tech, he knew that whatever was affecting him had something to do with Slade. 'Now I know how Robin feels about Slade,' he thinks mirthlessly as he dragged himself through the dark alleys of the city. He had a sinking feeling that it was also what caused Raven's earlier outburst.

As another series of coughs wracks his body, Raziel felt his knees give out from under him once more, his body falling bonelessly to the ground. 'Just...need to rest,' he tells himself as he started to feel lightheaded. As darkness started to claim him, he thought he saw a cloaked figure standing over him, two golden eyes staring at him from within the cowl's shadows.

-2 Days ago-

"DAMMIT!" Robin curses as he beats the stuffing out of the punching bag. All his leads against Slade had been nothing but false trails, the villain mastermind nowhere to be found. Taking a deep breath, he lets out a tired sigh as punching bag looked like it was ready for the trash heap. 'Time to get a new one, I suppose,' Robin groans. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he heads to the main hall where the rest of the team was enjoying some down time.

Raven, being Raven, sat in a corner reading a thick book and enjoying a cup of tea. Raziel, who had picked up Raven's habit of drinking tea, was lounging beside the window staring out at the ocean. Robin smirked to himself when he saw the boy stealing a few glances at their resident goth when he thought she wasn't looking. Ever since the Red X incident, Raven seemed to sticking to the boy like glue not letting him out of her sight. He could tell Raziel was more than a tad miffed at his somewhat constant shadow but somehow Robin felt the boy actually enjoyed her overbearing presence. 'Meh. To each his own.'

Cyborg and Beastboy, the two Gamestation addicts, trash-talked each other as they played a riveting game of Mortar Combat. Starfire, however, was nowhere to be seen which caused Robin to worry.

Not that he was worried about her, of course (or so he told himself), but simply because she was about as predictable as a random number generator when it came to what she was thinking. Just like now.

"Friend, Robin!" Starfire beams as she glomps her best friend from behind. "I have been wishing to discuss with you the new movie that has just come out. Perhaps you would..." Before she could finish her sentence, the central monitor suddenly comes to life, the voice coming from the speakers causing Robin to growl out loud.

"Hello, Robin," comes the cool tone. "Still having trouble finding me?"

"Slade. How did you get this frequency?" Robin barks out. Only he and Cyborg knew the inner workings of the Titans tower which made Slade's intrusion all the more disturbing. The rest of the Titans had already dropped whatever they were doing and joined the de facto Titan leader in front of the screen.

"Well well, it appears the 'gang' is all here," Slade taunts. One could almost sense him smirking underneath his mask. His eye falls on one of the Titans who was standing at the back who glares back at him. "I see you decided to stay with the Titans. Not that I have any idea why. Did you enjoy your hospital stay?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Raziel answers back, the rest of the Titans eyes now on him as well.

"How forgetful we are, Raziel. But then again, your memory was never really your strong point, was it? No matter. It was of little consequence. Although you may want to fill up your paperwork next time."

Raziel's eyes narrow at Slade's words. He had never told anyone outside of the team about his missing memory and the fact Slade knew about it was unnerving. What unnerved him the most was that his intelligence network ran far deeper than anyone had realized and that his mysterious benefactor who paid his hospital trip was none other than the person before him (1).

"Enough talk! What do you want, Slade?" Robin growls, fighting the urge to punch the monitor as he stared at Slade's one visible eye.

"Such impatience from one who still hasn't discovered what it is I'm planning," comes the haughty retort. "I expected better from you. I'm very disappointed, Robin."

"I don't need to answer to you. When I catch you I'll..."

"But you won't," Slade interrupts. "If you haven't found me by now, I'm beginning to think you never will so I've decided to...even the playing field so to speak."

The Titans watch as the camera pans away from Slade and focuses on the men behind him, the troops removing a large tarp which covered some unknown device. Given it's egg-like shape, one would almost think it humorous were it not for the fact that it was made by one of the their greatest foes.

"I assume all of you know what 'chronotons' are?" Slade asks, the amusement clear in his one eye as he enjoyed the looks of horror on the Titan's faces as he mentioned the word.

Raziel, along with Beastboy, had confused expressions on their faces (for the changeling, even more so). From the looks of his teammates, he assumed whatever Slade wanted to do with 'chronotons' had to be bad, if not downright unhealthy for him. Thankfully, Starfire noticed their confusion and elaborated on the term.

"Chronotons are subatomic particles which are the basic building blocks of time. If I am not mistaken, the device we are seeing is a chronoton detonator, a machine designed to destroy the temporal component of the space time continuum."

"Very good, Starfire. It's refreshing to see some intelligence in the Titans for once," Slade taunts, drawing glares from the teenage heroes.

"Uhh...in plain english, Star?"

"It's stops time. Permanently," Raven clarifies for the green changeling, her brow furrowed as she imagined the devastation that would cause if it was triggered in the city. 'Everything would be displaced from time...'

"TELL ME WHERE IT IS!" the boy wonder roars at the screen, the only response he got was a slight nod from Slade.

"You're a clever boy, Robin. I'm sure you and your friends can figure it out. But remember," he adds, waving a small remote in his hand. "You don't have much time."

The transmission ends abruptly, Robin slamming his fist into the console which caused a few sparks to fly. "Find it. Shut it down, take it apart, I don't care! Use any means necessary." As he walks away from the screen, he found his way blocked by Cyborg and Beastboy.

"Robin, you've got issues with Slade and for the good of the team, I think you should stay behind," Cyborg states, arms crossed as he stared at the de facto Titan leader.

Ignoring the argument behind him, Raziel activated the console and started to replay the transmission from Slade, trying to find any clues to the device's whereabouts. Raven came up beside him as well, eyes going over the video replay. "I see you had the same idea as well," he states.

"Someone has to think with a level head on this team," Raven responds dryly. "Find anything?"

"I'm not sure...I think I heard something in the background. It's faint but there was something there."

Raven proceeds to run the sound filters, taking out every foreground noise she could and amplifying the remaining background till a brief but deep sound could be heard. "Was that...?"

"A fog horn?" Raziel asks.

"I'm surprised you heard it. There are only a few places that could have come from. We could narrow it down to...What's that there?" she wonders out loud, spotting a blurred image reflecting off the device. Her train of thought is interrupted as Robin starts to bark out angry retorts.

"I made a mistake, Star. It won't happen again. I promise you." He turns from the Tamaranian, not noticing the hurt expression on her face when a second voice stops him.

"Before you go gallivanting off like some obsessive-compulsive ADD monkey, maybe you'd like to know where to look, first?" Raven calls out in her usual monotone. "Slade was sloppy with this transmission. I don't know what he was thinking but Raziel and I were able to narrow it down to somewhere near the water and..."

"Not much to go on, y'know," Beastboy jibes. "We're like, practically surrounded by water."

"Yes, that's what I thought too, but then there's this," Raven counters, zooming resolution onto the blur she spotted earlier. "If we run the sharpening algorithm here and then flip it around..."

"Pier 41!"

"The docks!"

"Which is right next to the water," Raven deadpans, giving the green changeling a flat stare as he blushed in embarrassment.

"Let's go, team. We've got a villain to catch."

T-T-T

The docks were quiet except for the sound of waves gently hitting the concrete barrier; the moon shining a pale light over the area. With nary a cloud in sight, it was the perfect sign of tranquility. Creeping around the building like he had done it all his life, Raziel seemed to blend in with the shadows like a wraith, his footsteps hardly making any sounds. As he reached the locked doors, only one word could describe what he was thinking.

"Quiet."

"What's that, Raziel?" Raven asks as she lands beside the teen.

"It's too quiet. Something doesn't feel right. I think we should..."

THOOM

"...do some reconnaissance." Raziel pinches the bridge of his nose in irritation as Cyborg blows open the warehouse door. "There goes the element of surprise. Are you sure these are your teammates?" he asks Raven who gave him a brief smirk.

"Yes, and they're your teammates too," she deadpans, suppressing 'Pinky's' urge to laugh but silently enjoying the banter with her mental sparring partner.

"Point taken. I suppose we should go join the 'kids'," he shrugs, mentally wondering if the Titans ever got charged with property damage or if there was some superhero disclaimer.

The Titans storm the warehouse, rushing in ready to kick assorted body parts and take down names. Or at least that's what they would have done had the warehouse actually been full of Slade's minions as expected. Instead, the warehouse seemed to have been vacant for quite some time. There was even a fine layer of dust which only the Titans had disturbed.

"What the? There's nothing here," Beastboy comments at the empty warehouse.

"Dammit! We're too late," Robin curses, slamming his fist into his palm.

"Not quite," Raziel answers as he peers into the shadows. Almost immediately, several dozen of Slade's ninjas appear around them, surround the teens in a circle. Even the beams above them were swarming with the villain's grunts.

Robin looks at the overwhelming odds but his face was a mask of dark determination. One could say he looked like he was ready to kill someone as he growled out his orders. "Take them down. All of them."

Raziel needed no further urging as he launched himself at the nearest group of ninjas. Not having fought them before as his other teammates had, he pulled his punches hoping to simply knock them out of the fight. However, as his fist lands on one's face, his eyes widen in shock as the man didn't even flinch at his attack. That one moment of shock was enough to distract him from the fight as he felt a kick to his stomach, the force knocking the wind out of him. It was followed up by a powerful blow to the back of his head which brought him to his knees.

His body acting of its own accord, he catches a punch aimed at his face and retaliates with a powerful blow which tore right through the android's chest. For a brief moment he felt horror at accidentally killing the man but the sparking wires which now protruded from the body made him realize why he couldn't feel any presence from the black-clad beings. Grinning at the fact he could now use his full strength, he prepared to let loose a full out assault when something tingled at the back of his head. Turning around, he could see several ninjas with energy blades approaching Raven from behind, the goth girl's attention still focused on the four in front of her. In an instant, he could feel his blood start to boil as his eyes suddenly glowed bright with power. "No..."

Raven, who had taken to the air, watched as Robin fought like a madman knocking down Slade's ninja troops. She frowned as she saw the crazed look on his face. 'So much for his promise,' she grouses. However, something else catches her attention as she heard a primal roar of fury. Turning to the source, her eyes widened with surprise as she saw a body fly towards her. "Hey! Watch it!" she growls as the ninja flies past her. When she sees it slam into an armed group that was poised behind her, she felt slightly ashamed at having thought ill of the act. Looking for her benefactor, she freezes in shock at the sight before her.

The goth girl now safe, Raziel turned to the other ninjas surrounding him as the Reaver started to materialize in his hand. Beneath his scarf, he grinned evilly as the soul blade hummed with power. One of the ninjas decides to attack him in a surprise move but he moved even faster, the wraith blade going right through the android's head. "I release you to the wheel," he whispers, enjoying the way the body seemed to twitch in an almost life-like death throe. Tossing the inactive android at its companions, Raziel's eyes began to glow even brighter as he felt a familiar bloodlust stir within him. What followed next was pure devastation.

The other Titans could only stand back in shock and a little bit of fear as the two whirling dervishes cleared the warehouse. One was a mask of rage, hitting anything that moved. The other had a cold look about him and moved like a natural-born killer, inflicting blows that would have been fatal had his opponent been human.

"Remind me to never get either of them mad at me," Beastboy jokes, hiding behind Cyborg's huge frame.

"Raziel..." Raven whispers, shocked at seeing this side of Raziel. It was as if he was a different person entirely, the precise moves he made which could only have come from years of experience. She grew worried as she realized how much the team didn't know about Raziel.

'(You mean how much you don't know?)' one of her constant companions snorted in her head which she vainly tried to ignore.

Ever since that incident in her mindscape, her facets had somehow been able to contact her freely without her calling a meeting of minds. Among the group, only this one had been more vocal than the rest and pestered her to no end. She felt something was changing with the emotional barriers she had erected long ago but a small part of her wondered if it was really such a bad thing. However, the fear of letting her father into the human world quashed any notions of living a normal life. Pushing her thoughts aside, she watches as the last of the ambush forces fall to Robin and Raziel's attacks. Robin was breathing hard, as if daring the broken androids to keep attacking. Raziel, however, seemed on edge as he looked at his handiwork. After a few tense moments, he suddenly spun on his heel and made his way outside the warehouse. Curious, she followed him outside and was surprised to catch him punch himself in the face.

Feeling the cool sea air blow over his face, Raziel tried to calm down as he could feel the same sensation he had when he was with Jinx at the club. He tried to tire himself out but if anything his exertions only served to excite him even more. Punching himself in the face, the pain was just enough to knock away the bloodlust which just refused to go away. Taking a deep breath to clear his mind, he failed to hear the soft footsteps of the one girl who probably understood his situation better than anyone.

"So what's with the masochistic streak?" Raven asks in her usual monotone.

To others, it would have seemed like she was making fun but Raziel knew that it was probably as close to showing concern for the goth girl. "It's...nothing," he answers, quickly berating himself for such a lame answer. She had seen his outburst earlier and with him hitting himself she probably thought he was losing his mind. 'I suppose in a sense that's right,' he thinks mirthlessly as he felt he was losing more and more of himself.

Raven gave a short sigh as she interpreted the gesture as an unwillingness to talk to her. "Look, I know I'm not as...easy to talk to as Starfire but I'm your...friend," she states, hesitating ever so slightly on the last word as she wasn't really used to saying it out loud. "If you need to talk about it..." Her voice trails off as she suddenly felt her face flush, averting her gaze from the pale teen before her. 'What brought that on,' she wondered, not really used to being the one to initiate a talk.

Raziel blinked in surprise at the girl's offer. Whenever they were together, it usually involved one of three things: sitting quietly, a mental debate or taking some villain that was rampaging through the city. They never really 'talked.' It was usually the Tamaranian who offered to do some 'gluing' (or bonding, as he would correct her). Rationalizing she would be the one who could understand most what he was going through, he opens his mouth to answer when he felt a sudden tingling at the back of his neck. Before he realized it, his body had moved of its own volition and lunged towards the girl.

Raven started to wonder if it was such a good idea to try her hand at acting 'normal.' If the boy's shocked reaction was any indication, even he seemed to find the act weird for her. Her wonder turned to shock and more than a fair share of embarrassment as the boy suddenly held her in a strong embrace. "Wha...what are you doing? Let go of me!" she manages to blurt out. Her emotions started going haywire with his touch, a flood memories from the last time she lost control suddenly coming to mind. She started to tremble with fear as she felt her powers activate, unable to close her eyes as she waited for the inevitable injuries and property damage that usually followed. However, instead of her powers blindly lashing out, she felt them being drawn into the boy, a dark shield suddenly covering the two of them as a large green ball of energy burst through the wall. Had the shield not been there, she was sure the two of them would be seriously injured. Her blood ran cold as she realized had the shield not been there, it would have been Raziel who would have taken the brunt of the blast. Amongst the multitude of jumbled thoughts, Raven finally realized something else; she hadn't created that shield.

Sensing the danger was past, Raziel let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding in; the shield itself dissipating before he even noticed it was there. With Raven still in his arms, he wisely moved away from the wall lest the Tamaranian let out another blast, not quite realizing he hadn't been harmed by the sudden explosion. "Are you all right?" he asks Raven as he gave her a concerned look.

Shaken out of her stupor, Raven immediately tore herself from the boy's grasp, a frightened look on her face as she realized how close she had come to losing control. Still, for some reason, her powers flowed directly into the boy instead of killing him. She knew that he could absorb her powers(2) but to be able to channel and suppress them so freely unnerved her. "How...?" she starts to ask before being interrupted by a third voice.

"Excuse me," Starfire apologizes from the newly created hole, her voice sounding strangely nasal.

"Starfire? What's going on?" Raziel asks.

"I am sorry. I think sniff there are some metallic Chromium particles in the air. One out of ten Tamaranians are allergic to them sniff. I did not expect such materials to be in a high enough quantity on Earth."

"Hold on, Star. What did you say you were allergic to?" Cyborg asks as he steps through the hole in the wall.

"Metallic Chromium. Why?"

"Because the whole warehouse is full of them. The Chronoton Detonator must have a component that's made of that stuff. And if you're allergic to it..." Cyborg starts to grin as he turns his gaze to their leader.

Robin's eyes narrowed as his mouth upturned in a smirk. "We've got ourselves a trail."

"HACHOO!!" BOOM

Moving in front of Raven, Raziel subconsciously grabbed her hand just as Starfire sneezed, not noticing the pale girl flinch just before the black shield manifested itself. Blinking in surprise, he turns to Raven with a curious expression. "You're quick with that shield," he comments. When he saw the shocked expression on her face, he suddenly grew puzzled until she raised the hand he was holding.

"That wasn't me."

T-T-T

"HACHOO!" THOOM

Raziel raised an eyebrow in mild curiosity as the shield held once more. Starfire's allergy was turning out to be more of a curse than a blessing but as it was their only clue to Slade's whereabouts they 'rotated with the punches' as he would imagine Starfire putting it. "Bless you," he says to the Tamaranian who nods in appreciation while sniffing loudly.

"Dank you. I dink da bomb is dis way sniff," she struggles to say with her stuffed nose.

Raven followed alongside Raziel, trying to ignore the constant giggling from tweedle-dumb and dumber and the rising blush to her cheeks. Cyborg insisted on keeping the two within physical contact while they followed the Tamaranian (for protection purposes, he claimed) but she was sure he had an ulterior motive for setting them up. In her mind, 'Pink' had insisted that they hug Raziel again as the boy was nice and warm but she easily suppressed that emotion, finally relenting to holding hands (Raziel's currently scorched appearance from the one time he wasn't touching her a major reason she had relented) while they followed Starfire. 'It's for the good of the team,' she mentally chanted to herself even as she already made plans to make Cyborg's life a living hell.

As the Tamaranian sneezed again, Raven felt a tiny bit of her power flow once more into the boy, the black field protecting her and everyone behind them. It looked like he was becoming more efficient in focusing her raw magical energy. She let out a tired sigh as her teammates all gave out 'geshundeits' to the orange-tanned girl, wondering how much longer they would have to keep this up.

Raziel felt the malevolent intent coming from behind him, shivering slightly as he prayed he would come out of this alive. He knew she wasn't exactly partial to physical contact but given Starfire's little allergy he had reluctantly agreed with Cyborg's suggestion. True, his involuntary reaction was much faster than any shield Raven could raise consciously but he was sure that reason would only carry so far. Fast healing or no, one did not get on Raven's bad side. Still, at the very least Raven's hand was warm and soft which made up for whatever uncomfortable feeling he had. He shook his head at the random thought, silently pondering why that had come up when Starfire began to yell from the distance.

"Der!" sniff

After a few seconds of trying to decipher her statement, the Titans just looked to where she was pointing. On top of a small speedboat lay the Chronoton Detonator, one of Slade's android flunkies apparently tuning the device. It spots the Titans and immediately guns the motor, speeding away from the teen heroes as they rushed to catch up.

"Let's go," Raven states. As she disengaged her hand from Raziel, she couldn't help but feel like something inside her was...disappointed. Once more exercising her iron control, she levitates Raziel with her powers as she follows the boat through the sewers. Racing after the speedboat, she summoned her powers to block several rounds of anti-aircraft fire which came from the boat's hidden guns. "Awfully overpowered for a small speedboat," she comments dryly.

Raziel however, had a different opinion. There wasn't enough defense. For such a grand scheme of destroying time and space, it all seemed too easy. He would have laid several dozen troops in wait along with decoys; anything but one speedboat and one soldier. His thoughts are interrupted when something large and gray bursts through the side of the tunnel, grabbing their de facto leader and slamming through the other side. "Raven!" Raziel shouts over the rumbling.

"On it," she responds, spinning around and heading back towards their fallen comrade. As she nears the hole in the wall, she could see Robin squaring off against the behemoth known as Cinderblock. She starts to set down Raziel when the boy wonder shouts from inside.

"Forget about me! The bomb's more important!" he barks as he avoids a large fist aimed at his head. "That's an order, Titans! Move!"

The Titans look at each other and with a reluctant nod they leave Robin to face the stone giant, zooming off after the Chronoton bomb.

Robin watches his team leave and lets out a brief sigh. Slade wouldn't win if he had anything to say about it. Turning to face Cinderblock, his eyes narrow at the villain who simply grunts in response. "Just to let you know, I'm having a really bad day right now."

T-T-T

"Now, Raven!" Raziel shouts. With the turrets currently occupied with Cyborg and Starfire, Raven tossed him towards the boat, the Reaver glowing brightly as he sliced the guns clear off their mountings. Landing behind the android, his eyes start to glow as he points the spectral blade at his opponent. "You will stop the boat now," he ordered.

The ninja seemed to smirk beneath its faceplate, if that was even possible. Leaping at the teen, it proceeded to attack Raziel with blows that would have severely injured a normal man. Unfortunately for Slade's android, it was never designed to handle someone like Raziel.

Dispelling the Reaver, Raziel catches the offending android's fists in his hands. It struggled to pull them free but knowing what it was he was more than willing to exercise full power on it and wouldn't let them go. As it tries to kick itself free, he started to frown beneath his red scarf. "I'm not in the mood," Raziel growls. Pulling back one of his arms, he summons the Reaver and impales the robot with it, his arm bursting through the android's back. It twitched sporadically before falling limp, a few electrical charges running down his arm but nothing that he wasn't used to. Giving an arrogant smirk, he starts to pull his arm out when the robot suddenly grabs it in a vice like grip. "What the...?!" He doesn't get to finish his sentence as a shot series of beeps suddenly comes from the robot's chest cavity. "Oh, for crying...!"

"What's wrong?" Raven asks as she lands next to the boy. "Stop playing with it and let's get to work on the bomb."

His eyes widen with concern as the series of beeps got faster. Turning to Raven, who oblivious to the danger was giving him her typical flat stare, his eyes were filled with resolve as he gave her a weak smile. "Be right back." Leaping off the boat with all his strength, he takes the android with him as they plunged into the murky sewage.

"Raziel!" Raven shouts in an uncharacteristic show of emotion as the boat continued to speed off.

"What is wrong, friend Raven? Why did Raziel jump off?" Starfire asks as she sets down her heavy cargo.

"He jumped off with Slade's robot and..."

THOOM"

The force of the explosion could easily be felt even after the boat had traveled a good distance from where Raziel had jumped. The heat from the blast washed over her face even as the blood drained from it. "No," she whispers as she suddenly felt weak in the knees.

"C'mon, Rae. I'm sure he's fine," Cyborg says, placing a hand on his teammates shoulder. "You, of all people, should know how tough he is. Robin and Raziel gave us the chance. Let's make sure we don't make them mad for wasting it."

Still in a state of shock, she nods dumbly as Cyborg headed to the steering control to stop the boat, vaguely hearing the conversation between him and Starfire.

"Uh oh," the metallic teen gulps.

"What is wrong, Cyborg? That is an Earth saying for something amiss, yes?" the Tamaranian asks. As her metallic friend shows her the now broken steering wheel, she starts to sweat as one phrase came to mind. "Uh oh."

T-T-T

Just as the beeping sound seemed to reach a fervor pitch, Raziel pulled his arm free at the last minute, crossing them in front of his body in an attempt to shield himself from the imminent blast. With a resounding boom, the robot explodes with deadly force. He could feel heat and shrapnel tear through his costume and into his skin, the shockwave knocking him into the tunnel wall with a resounding crash.

Sliding down the wall, he gasped for air as his lungs felt like they were on fire after the fiery blast burned the oxygen in them. His senses temporarily disoriented, he failed to hear the silent footsteps which came from down the tunnel. As he tried to reorient himself, Raziel felt a powerful hand grip the front of his ruined scarf and lift him off his feet. Blinded as he was, the immense power he felt could only come from one person. "You..." he rasps.

"Yes, me," the voice replied in an amused tone. "Now, tell me about this 'Chronoton Detonator.'"

T-T-T

The boat continued on its course unabated despite Cyborg's best efforts to stop it. Finally giving up on the subtle approach, he smashes his fist into the dashboard, the boat finally giving a weak sputter as the motor starts to die. "Whew." Turning his attention back to the bomb, he searches for any panel where the control circuitry might be located.

"Have you actually disarmed a Chronoton Detonator before?" Raven asks in her usual monotone, suppressing the sudden outbreak of emotion from earlier. It made sense not to worry. Raziel wasn't one who would die so easily; a sentiment shared by many of her fractured selves.

"Nope, but how hard can it be?" Cyborg replies, trying to hide the trepidation in his voice as he finally located an access panel.

Raven blinks at her teammate, then blinks again as she watched him go over the bomb's circuitry. "We're all going to die."

T-T-T

"What is it to you?" Raziel gasps as pain continued to raze his body. Judging from the amount of injuries he had it would be probably a day or so before he could move again so he resigned himself to just insulting the man.

"Do not test my patience, boy. I will not have my millennia long journey be stopped by some mere mortal." Reaching for the sword strapped to his back, he unsheathes it as he lifted the boy higher into the air. "Now, I will not ask again. What is this 'Chronoton Detonator'?"

As much as he would have wanted to smash the man's face in, he couldn't see an opportunity to do so quite yet so he decided to comply for the time being. "It's a bomb. Designed... stop time permanently," he gasps, his lungs still protesting from being seared. The man appeared to freeze momentarily as his words seemed to strike a chord in him.

"I see. That will not do," he murmurs to himself. He knew the concept of what a bomb was but never had he heard of it being used in such a manner. 'This bears some looking into,' he muses. He was so deep in thought he barely had time to sense the sudden power surge radiating from the teen.

'Now!' Raziel thinks to himself as he finally found the opening he needed. Summoning his trademark wraith blade, he swung at the man with all his strength in an attempt to sever the arm the held him. However, given his injured state the man was infinitely faster than him as he blocked the spectral blade with his own sword, the two blades suddenly reacting with a spectacular flash of power. The backlash of energy forced the two combatants apart with Raziel landing unceremoniously on his back as the Reaver dissipated; its wielder no longer having the strength to maintain it. Struggling to get to his feet, he watched as the man looked at him with shock even as the cowl covered his facial features. However, for a brief instant, the man's image seemed to shimmer almost like a mirage (3).

Whatever image he saw was quickly forgotten as the cloaked man charges at him, slamming him up against the wall which sent a shockwave of pain throughout his whole body.

"Tell me, boy. How is it you wield the Reaver?" the man growls at him, golden eyes glinting beneath his cowl. "You can either tell me or I can find out myself." (4)

Raziel couldn't have answered him even if he wanted to. Somewhere at the back of his mind the answer lay just beyond his reach and it wasn't about to show itself anytime soon. Still, his face remained impassive as he stared at his captor, unwilling to let him have the pleasure of seeing him weak. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Very well, then. You have made your choice," the man states emotionlessly. With his free hand, he raises it at the boy's throat and points his palm forward.

Raziel suddenly felt like he was being torn inside-out as the man's hand curled like a claw. Suppressing the urge to scream, he tried to resist whatever power was at work but found it futile as he saw his blood start to flow from his wounds towards the man. 'Vampire...' he thought as he felt his body weaken even further. Just as his blood reached the man, he was dropped on the floor, a look of disgust on the man's face as he sheaths the wicked looking blade on his back.

"Your blood is tainted," the man snorts with disgust.

"You're one to talk about tainted, Vampire," Raziel growls weakly.

"Still have the strength to insult me, I see. Spare me your self-righteousness, boy. As I told you before, I am the least of your concerns."

"Unfortunately for you, I'm making you my concern," he retorts, his eyes flaring with power as he tried to get back on his feet.

The man pauses as he watched the eerie glow in the boy's eyes, his brows furrowing as more and more the situation confused him. "As much as you intrigue me, I have no time for this," the man grunts. "I have an appointment with a Chronoton Detonator and no one will stand in my way." With that, the man suddenly shot like a blur down the tunnel with barely a sound (5).

'I have to reach them,' Raziel thought through the haze of pain. When he was with Jinx, the two of them couldn't handle the stranger and it worried him what would happen if he chanced upon the Titans. Forcing his limbs to move, he slowly shuffled his way through the sewers to find his teammates.

T-T-T

Cyborg looks at the exposed panel of the Chronoton Detonator with Beastboy playing multi-tasker, wiping the sweat off his brow while holding the disassembled pieces of the bomb. (6) 'It's always the blue wire. It's always the blue wire,' he chants like a mantra as he tried to determine how to disarm the bomb. 'BUT WHAT IF IT'S ALL BLUE!?!' he wanted to scream as his metallic hand started to shake from nervousness. It was bad enough when Starfire had nearly sneezed them to oblivion thanks to her proximity to the bomb's casing but now the timer was quickly counting down to zero and he had yet to find a way to disarm it.

"Like I said, we're all going to die," Raven deadpans, her heart somehow not into it as some small part of her now vehemently rejected all notions of dying. What that small part was she had yet to find out as it didn't seem to come from any of her 'known' aspects but in any case she was prepared to throw as powerful a shield as she could muster around the bomb should Cyborg fail. Whether or not that would actually work was another question but she would try.

Finally deciding it was all or nothing, Cyborg decides to cut one of the wires and reaches in with his hands when Raven suddenly pulls him back. "Wha? Hey!"

"Something's coming," she answers, looking towards the tunnel they came from. Almost immediately a cloaked figure seemed to coalesce from a swarm of bats, a cloaked man appearing right in front of the Chronoton Detonator. In that instant, Raven suddenly felt a huge chill run down her spine as if she was staring death in the face. In all her years, she had never felt such a presence before. Her father was an exception, being demonic, evil incarnate and all that but this was the first time she had felt the pure killing intent of a predator. The only other time she felt anything similar was from Raziel but even he hadn't radiated anything this powerful.

"Who are you?" Starfire asks through her stuffed nose, her warrior instincts also warning her of the danger of this man.

"You are the humans who accompanied him," the man states rhetorically, not seeing it fit to give them his name. They were mere babes in his eyes but each radiated power far beyond any normal human. The pale-skinned girl in particular seemed to possess an otherworldly aura about her which unnerved him. 'She could pose a problem,' he muses. What intrigued him the most was that she had his scent on her, moreso than the rest. His musings are cut short as a sharp series of beeps starts to sound from the bomb behind him, causing the children around him to panic.

"Ahhhh! I'm too young and handsome to be frozen!" Beastboy wails as he started running around in circles.

Raven starts to cast the barrier spell but to her surprise the man suddenly reached for the sword strapped to his back and slashed at the Chronoton Detonator, the sword seemingly 'howling as he sliced the device into several pieces. The power radiating from the weapon nearly caused her eyes to bug out but what caught her attention was that the energy felt 'familiar.' She doesn't get to analyze it any further as the man re-sheathes the weapon, the energy fading slowly into the background.

"This is the machine which can stop time?" the man sneers. "Even Mobius had more power than this pitiful machine." With his objective no longer relevant, he turns to the four teens behind him which caused them to flinch, his gaze resting on the cloaked girl. "What is your relation to the boy? How does he wield the Reaver?"

At the mention of his trademark weapon Raven's expression immediately changes from one of uneasiness to focused determination. "What did you do to Raziel?" she demands in her typical monotone, drawing a shocked look from the man.

Now he was certain something was definitely working behind the scenes here; there were simply too many coincidences to disregard the theory forming in his mind. Before he could ask further or even answer the girl's question, he noticed something rising behind the teens which caused him to scowl. 'Yet another of the infernal machines.'

The Titans, still in shock over what happened and distracted by the sudden appearance of this stranger, failed to notice the gun which popped up behind them until it was too late. The gun, locking on to the five targets in front of it, fired off a series of blasts which knocked their targets into the water; all but one, that is.

His eyes narrowed at the gun emplacement as it popped up on the bow of the boat. Transforming into mist, the shot passed harmlessly through his immaterial body as he charged at the weapon. Solidifying himself once more, he decapitated the gun with a swing of his sword, the blade cutting through it like a hot knife through butter. Looking at the four teens floating in the water, he gives a snort of disgust at having wasted his time playing with children.

Sputtering out the foul sewer water, Raven turned her gaze to the stranger only to see him break apart into a multitude of bats, the swarm flying out of the tunnels like the proverbial bat out of hell. Now, it appeared Raziel's fears of becoming a Vampire seemed all too justified and it worried her. Looking to her teammates, she found that she was the only one who saw the man fly off as they had just popped their heads out of the water.

"Bleah! What just happened?" Beastboy asks, a disgusted look on his face as he tried to get the awful taste out of his mouth.

"You mean besides the freaky dude we just encountered? Nothing, apparently. That 'Chronoton Detonator' was a dud. Even that gun didn't do anything to us as far as my internal sensors can tell. Now where did that guy go?"

"So if we're 'fine', then what exactly was Slade up to?" Raven asks, keeping her theory about Raziel to herself for now while levitating herself out of the water. 'I am going to need a long hot bath,' she notes, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the smell now attached to her. "I'm going back for Raziel," she states before flying off towards where she had last seen the goth boy.

"I will join you, friend Raven!" Starfire calls out as she zooms after the Azarathian girl.

Beastboy, transforming into a bird, follows the two girls leaving Cyborg with the wreckage of the bomb. Sighing to himself, he climbs back on the boat and starts examining the pieces when he noticed something amiss with the detonator.

"Where's the core?"

T-T-T

Raziel didn't know what was going on. Normally his body would have healed up enough to allow him greater movement but it seemed as if his condition simply kept on getting worse as time dragged on. Each step he took sent waves of pain throughout his whole body. It was only his willpower keeping him up at that point and even then he knew he couldn't keep it up indefinitely. Still, if that man was headed to the Chronoton Detonator, who knew what he would do if he found the rest of the Titans. His breath ragged, he leaned against the tunnel wall trying to regain his strength when he heard a voice call out his name.

"Raziel!" Raven yelled out as her eyes scanned the tunnels for any sign of the boy. While Cyborg had reassured her that the boy would be fine, something inside her sensed something was amiss. They had traveled so far she wasn't sure where he'd actually jumped off. To her relief, she saw his figure leaning against the wall of the tunnel. As she neared him, her worry returned tenfold. All over his body were numerous burns and lacerations, signs of being too close to an explosion. Rushing to his side, she positions herself underneath his arm, supporting him as she felt his whole weight push down on her. "What happened to you?" she whispers, trying to keep the shock and worry out of her voice.

He felt the person catch him just before his knees finally gave out. His vision still blurry from the explosion, he could only make out a faint outline of the person but the glowing white aura around it seemed almost surreal. He could feel himself mutter some words, which were probably words of thanks or something similar, before darkness claimed him.

T-T-T

Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. 'No, scratch that. I do recognize it,' he tells himself mirthlessly. It was the medlab of the Titans Tower. He'd woken up here more times than he'd care to remember. As he tried to get up, he winced in pain as he felt his entire body protest at any movement. Letting out a sigh of irritation, he mentally went through the exercises to block out the pain when a muffled voice off to the side caught his attention. He was surprised to see a tangle of red hair laying on the side of his bed, the poor girl looking like she had spent the night at his side. Suffice to say, he felt somewhat warm and fuzzy by the act since he couldn't quite remember the last time anyone had shown that much concern for his well-being. (7) Still, as guilty as he felt about letting the girl sleep in such an uncomfortable position he wasn't exactly partial to warm and fuzzy so he gently shook her shoulders to wake her up.

"No, mother. I do not require another bowl of gorsh(8)," Starfire starts to mumble in her sleep.

"Starfire," Raziel calls out with a raspy sound, flinching as his throat still felt like it was on fire. The Tamaranian slowly raises her head, turning a bleary eye towards him as she seemed to still be half-asleep. However, her eyes shoot wide open as she finally realized he was awake.

"Friend Raziel!" she cries out, lunging forward and grabbing the pale teen in a bone-crushing hug, tears falling down her face as she sobbed into his shoulder. "I thought I had lost another friend."

"Star! Air!" he rasps, pain now radiating from both his throat and his ribs. As he struggled to pry the Tamaranian off, the familiar hiss of the automatic doors catches his attention, his eyes widening in surprise as a blue-cloaked figure walked into the room.

Raven froze at scene before her, nearly dropping the cup of tea she had in her hand. "R...Raziel. You're awake," she stutters. "A...about time, too. Starfire can brief you on what's going on."

Raziel thought he could see dark rings underneath Raven's eyes but before he could ask her anything the girl had spun on her heels and left the room, leaving a puzzled Starfire hanging off Raziel. "Star, what did she mean by that?" he rasps, forcing himself to speak despite the pain. He could see Starfire's mood dampen considerably as she slowly detached herself from him. Her eyes were downcast as she started to tell him what had happened while he was unconscious.

"Robin is missing."

Starfire told him about how the bomb turned out to be a dud and that when they went back for him and Robin, the boy wonder was nowhere to be found. They tried scouring the city for any sign of him but all their efforts proved futile. Cyborg surmised that the bomb was never really a bomb but bait to lure Robin out as it lacked the actual core. Whatever Slade's plans were had nothing to do with Chronotons and everything to do with their missing leader.

"But it is good that you are well now," she adds. "It took much persuasion to get Raven to leave your side and get some rest herself."

Raziel was shocked at that little revelation. He didn't really expect Raven to be so concerned for his well-being. That would explain the eye-bags he saw on her face. As he made a note to thank the girl, Starfire's communicator went off.

T-T-T

As she walked back to her room, Raven's eyes were downcast as she silently berated herself for her reactions. 'Idiot. You have no reason to be jealous. There's nothing between you and Raziel so stop moping. He was probably delirious when he said that earlier.' She stops for a moment, taking a deep breath and staring into her tea as she suppressed her emotions once more. 'First time someone's called me that,' she thinks mirthlessly. Her somber mood is broken as her communicator starts beeping.

" Titans! We've got a break-in at Star Labs! Move out! " Cyborg orders. With Robin gone, the metallic Titan had taken over the leadership role but she knew he didn't like how he had ascended to the position.

Sighing at being unable to even finish her tea, she phases through the floor, teleporting her mug to the kitchen as she went to meet her teammates. Having the advantage of phasing through walls, she was the first one to meet up with Cyborg as he prepped the T-car. Beastboy soon joined them but when Starfire flew in supporting an obviously injured Raziel she felt a twinge of anger at the Tamaranian for letting him out of bed. Seeing the Tamaranian give a sheepish shrug, Raven realized that it was probably Raziel who had insisted on coming along. She really had to get him to learn that fast healing or no, he needed rest.

"All right, now that we're all here, let's go take down Slade. Titans Go!" The Titans head out towards Wayne Tech, the familiar catch phrase somehow not quite the same without Robin saying it.

T-T-T

"Put down the blaster. You should know better than to steal in this city, Slade," Cyborg states, leveling his sonic canon at the figure. They were lucky Slade had taken his time going through the building. When they figured out what he was after, it was a simple matter of making sure they had him cornered. "This is the only way you're getting out of this room so we can do this the easy way or the Titans' way," he adds, jerking a thumb at the doors behind him as the rest of the Titans descend from their hiding place.

The armor-clad figure seemed to freeze slightly at the veiled threat, his gaze lingering on Raziel as the Titan was giving him an intense look of consternation. As one of them took a step closer, he immediately broke into a mad dash away from the Titans.

As the Titans give chase, Raven noticed that their target moved with uncanny agility as he ran across the roof, his movements reminiscent of someone very close to them. With the moon still hidden by the clouds, she could just barely make out the "S" symbol on the man's chest in the darkness. However, Raziel had zipped past her with a serious look on his face. What followed next surprised the rest of the team.

"Robin, stop!"

Raven gives the boy an incredulous look but when the 'man' actually froze mid-stride she herself started to wonder what the hell was going on.

"You 'feel' the same," Raziel continues as if answering her unspoken question. "Unless you're some evil-dimensional counterpart, you carry Robin's soul and no amount of hiding in the shadows can hide that," he states matter-of-factly. The rest of the Titans had heard Raziel's little spiel and were all shocked but didn't really know what to make of it. It fell to their Tamaranian friend to voice their thoughts.

"Robin?" Starfire calls out hesitantly, slowly floating towards the boy.

The clouds had now begun to part, the pale light of the moon shining over the group. What met their eyes was something which even the normally stoic Raven couldn't believe. Standing before them was Robin, their leader who had been missing for several days now. However, instead of his trademark green and red suit he now wore the dark colors of Slade, his costume making look like a younger version of one of their greatest foes.

"Taken a new tailor, I see," Raziel comments dryly which raised a few eyebrows among his teammates. "Can't say I care for the style but it's a definite improvement over your usual attire." He watched Robin flinch at the accusation, internally smirking at getting the reaction he needed but after hearing a slight buzzing sound he suddenly saw Robin's eyes narrow. There was also...hesitation or was that frustration? He saw something flash briefly across Robin's face but it quickly vanished.

"Robin? Why are you...?" Starfire starts to ask. Much to her surprise, Robin tossed an exploding disc at her, the shockwave knocking her back before she could get close to him. The shock wasn't so much physical as it was emotional as she looked at her friend with hurt and confusion. Frozen to the spot, she almost didn't notice Raziel kneel beside her.

"Are you all right?" he asks the girl, his eyes never leaving their former leader. Noticing Starfire was still in shock, he reached out to shake her shoulder when all of a sudden his body was racked by a series of coughs. It felt like he was coughing up his organs but it wound up serving the same purpose, shaking the Tamaranian out of her stupor.

Seeing Starfire was ok, Cyborg now focused his attention on their erstwhile leader. "Yo, what's your problem, Rob?" he asks angrily. Rushing forward, he stops mid-stride as Robin fires the stolen blaster at the walkway, the concrete structure collapsing to the street. Unable to cross the gorge, Cyborg could only watch as his friend blended in with the dust and smoke, leaving no sign of where he had gone. "Dammit!" he growls, slamming his fist into his palm. With nothing left to be done here, he signals for the team to return to the tower. They had much to think about if Robin was now working with Slade.

Raziel started to stand on shaky knees, the coughing spell seemingly over as he wiped his mouth. Starfire (and Raven when she thought he wasn't looking) gave him a concerned look which he assuaged with a nod. With their target no longer in the area, Raven levitated him alongside her as they headed back to the Tower. He was thankful that his scarf was a deep red color as he discretely looked at the hand which covered his mouth, frowning as he felt he warm liquid run over it.

'Blood.'

T-T-T

"Here's your damn blaster!" Robin growls, tossing the stolen weapon to Slade.

Deftly catching it without even looking, Slade turns his one good eye on the boy, a gleam of approval showing on it as he started attaching components to the blaster. "Careful, Robin. You wouldn't want such delicate device to be destroyed so soon after you stole it now, would you?"

"This can't last forever, Slade. One day, you'll let your guard down and when you do..." he counters, letting his voice trail off at the implied threat.

"But you won't," Slade replies with his condescending voice. Pushing a button on his arm, a large screen comes to life, the vital signs of the entire Teen Titans from Starfire all the way to their newest member visible for all to see. "Not while the nano-probes are in your former friends," he adds, with emphasis on the word 'former.' "And if you're lucky, they may even live for decades without ever knowing." Finishing with the modifications, he turns back to his apprentice and attaches the blaster to his wrist. "Now you're going to keep stealing and you're going to keep enjoying it like I know you do. After all, we're so very much alike."

"We're nothing alike!" Robin growls, spinning on his heels and leaving Slade alone in the hall.

Once the boy was out of earshot, Slade pressed another button on his wrist remote, the display for Raziel was suddenly overlaid with red, his life signs still strong but slowly dropping. "It appears my choice for an apprentice was correct after all," he says to himself.

"Why is that, sir?" Wintergreen asks, stepping mysteriously out of the shadows.

"Raziel is definitely the superior over Robin. With proper guidance, he could have surpassed even myself," Slade answers, motioning to the display panel, "However, he might have proven to be too...defiant. All of your investigations have shown his dislike for being coerced, correct?"

"Yes, Sir. I was unable to find any records of his existence so everything we have is based on observations by our operatives. Is that why you infected him with the prototype Mark II nanoprobes, Sir? I was curious why you had me install them in the android guarding the Chronoton detonator."

"His...unique...constitution would have rendered him almost immune to the regular nanoprobes. The Mark II will ensure that he won't interfere with my apprentice...ever." Looking back to the monitor, Slade had a curious look on his face as he watched Raziel's life signs slowly dip. 'What intrigues me most is the fact he should have been dead hours ago. Could the probes be malfunctioning?'

T-T-T

"I tell you, Robin's been turned into a mind-controlled servant of the undead!"

"For once, you actually made some sense, Beastboy but if he was being mind-controlled, I'd know," Raven answers, looking to the side with her eyes downcast.

"And my scanners say he's a 100 match biologically so that shoots down your robot replica theory. That's our Robin."

"Lies! That is not our Robin!" Starfire counters hotly, drawing stares from the rest of her teammates. "Robin would never leave us or join with Slade! He would never..."

"Look Star," Raven interjects. "None of us want to believe it's him but you heard what we said. He's not mind-controlled and that's not some fake. It's Robin. And he's become a criminal. As much as we wish it wasn't true, it's the Titans job to take him down."

Starfire opened her mouth to retort but she couldn't really find any logical argument to her best girl friend's statement (although if one really thought about it, her only girl friend). As her shoulders drooped, she felt tears start to well up when her newfound friend suddenly coughed from the side.

Raziel watched the scene before him with feigned disinterest. Both theories, in a sense, seemed right. Raven was right that it was Robin. Even he could confirm it was the boy wonder they encountered. However, something felt off when he saw the Titan leader; especially that instance when he seemed to hesitate about something. His thoughts are interrupted, however, by another series of coughs.

"Raziel, are you all right? You have been coughing heavily since you awakened. Should we not take you to a doctor?" Starfiire asks. Before the she could get a response out of the teen, the main screen behind her flares to life as it reported another break-in at a different location.

"It's him," Beastboy surmises, a grim expression on his face as he turns to face the teen.

As Raziel started getting up to follow the team, a wave of dizziness suddenly washes over him, his hand shooting out towards the breakfast stand to steady himself. Ever since he woke up, there was this constant pain and nausea that wouldn't go away. Using the same mental exercises Raven had taught him, he pushed the pain away and ran after the rest of the team.

T-T-T

Arriving at the scene, they caught Robin just as he slipped out of the shadows towards the experimental nano-computer. Moving to block the only exit to the room, they started to corner the boy-wonder hoping he would give up quietly or at the very least explain his actions.

"Look, Robin. We just want to talk," Cyborg starts to negotiate when the boy suddenly does a backflip, somehow knocking aside an air grate and slipping inside. Blinking his one good eye, he shakes himself out of his stupor as he barks out orders to the rest of the team. "To the roof, people!"

As Cyborg, Starfire and Beastboy rush to the stairs, Raziel gave Raven a silent nod, the goth girl nodding in reply as she wrapped the two of them in her dark powers, phasing them directly to the roof. Easily beating the rest of their teammates to the roof, the first thing they saw was Robin seemingly speaking to someone, his hand pressed to his ear.

"It's too heavily guarded. I'll have to come back later. But...! All right. Just..." he stops mid sentence as the stairwell doors slam open. Spinning on his heel, he takes a ready stance just as the Titans burst through the door.

"So Robin, a case of schizophrenia?" Raziel jibes, hoping no one noticed how his movements had slowed due to the pain. He watched as Robin glared at him and started to react but suddenly stop himself. 'There it is again,' Raziel notes, wondering what was making the boy stop.

"Look, Rob. Whatever it is, we'll work it out as a team," Cyborg offers, his hands open in a gesture of peace. When Robin suddenly knocks him back with a flying kick, the whole team knew that words would no longer serve any purpose.

"Guess it's time to show you again why I'm called 'Beast' boy," the green changeling taunts in an uncharacteristically serious tone, morphing into a huge gorilla and charging at his former leader. Slamming his giant fists, they easily cracked the concrete roof. Unfortunately the roof wasn't his target. Looking to the sky, he saw Robin hanging off the building's signage. Beating his chest, he makes his way up the sign ready to take down the boy wonder.

Raziel watched as the two Titans duked it out, unwilling to interfere just yet as something just felt wrong about the situation. As Beastboy was easily incapacitated by Robin, the former Titan landed in front of him and started to attack with a vengeance. However, Raziel easily catches Robin's fists, immobilizing the teen as his eyes narrowed at the small object in his ear. He could hear have sworn he saw Robin flinch just as a sharp sound came from the object. It sounded like a voice but before he could listen further a knee came rising up, landing on his gut which caused him to cough up a surprising amount of blood.

Robin was struck by a wave of shock as he saw Raziel suddenly coughing up blood. He knew there was no way such a blow could have hurt the boy given what he knew of the boy's unnatural endurance. Backing away from the teen, he could hear his new master 'praise' his brutality and order that he finish the job. Hesitating slightly, he moves to try to at least knock him unconscious but Starfire suddenly imposed herself between him and the pale teen.

"Robin," the Tamaranian says as her starbolts charged in her hands. "Please, do not make me fight you. You are my friend and I..." Seeing Robin aim the blaster at her, she dispels the starbolts and lowers her hand, giving the masked boy a gentle smile. "If you have truly turned evil, then I do not wish to be in a world where we must fight." Closing her eyes, she failed to see the conflict on Robin's face as his hand started shaking. Then the pain struck.

Raven, who was trying to assess the damage Raziel had taken, suddenly doubled over in pain as she felt like her insides were on fire. She could barely form a coherent thought as she suppressed the urge to scream. Cracking open an eye and saw the rest of her teammates hunched over as well, a faint glow around their bodies as they writhed on the ground. Off to the side, she saw Robin with a prone Starfire in his arms, a look of fear on his face as she writhed in his arms.

It was the lasts thing she saw as the pain intensified, her iron control breaking as a black bolt of energy lashed out from her body and knocked down one of the building's letter signage. 'No...stop it!' she wanted to cry out. Vainly trying to contain her powers, the haze of pain simply made it impossible to perform even the simplest of mental exercises. As her powers started to flare again, a feeling of dread overcame her as she realized there would be nothing to stop the chaos it would cause. However, a pair of powerful arms suddenly wrapped themselves around her just as her powers went haywire. Much to her surprise, there was none of the death and destruction she had expected. Before the pain caused her mind to go blank, she was able to catch a glimpse of a familiar red scarf flutter across her face. 'Raziel.'

Fighting the pain which had now intensified from earlier, Raziel saw Raven curl into a ball, her eyes glowing brightly as her mouth opened in a silent scream. Looking at Robin, the shocked expression on his face was enough to confirm that the boy wonder was not the one who caused it but it didn't mean he was going to let it slide. However, when Raven's powers suddenly flared outward and started destroying her surroundings his priorities immediately changed.

Rushing to the fallen girl he wraps his arms around her protectively hoping that what he had in mind would work. As he had hoped, her powers flowed directly into him instead of lashing out indiscriminately. Already he could feel the raw power welling up inside him. 'How much power does she have?' he thinks frantically as he felt her powers start to overwhelm him. For all his newfound abilities, he still had limits and with his weakened body he wasn't sure how long he could keep this up. Keeping the girl close, he summoned the Reaver to the forefront, the ethereal blade crackling with dark power as the energy inside him struggled to burst free. Raising his arm, he let out a scream as he the energy was forcefully (and painfully) discharged through the Reaver, a column of darkness rising towards space.

After what seemed like an eternity, the pain vanished almost as suddenly as it appeared. As he felt Raven slump bonelessly in his arms, he feared the worst but the steady beat of her heart as she lay against him made him sigh with relief. Although her breath was ragged, she was alive and that was all that mattered to him. He blinked at that sudden thought, not really knowing where it came from. He didn't have time to ponder it further as his strength left him, the Reaver dissipated as his power was no longer able to maintain the weapon's physical manifestation. This proved to be a bad thing as Robin suddenly landed in front of him, muscles taut as he drew back a fist.

"I'm sorry," the teen mouths to him before everything went black.

T-T-T

Raven awoke with a start, her face pressed against the cold concrete roof. Immediately sitting up, she saw the rest of her teammates similarly awakening with groans of pain slash grogginess.

"Ok, since when was Robin able to do that weird glow thingy?" Beastboy asks as she shook the cobwebs from his addled brain.

"I don't think that was Robin," Cyborg clarifies as he checked his internal systems. "I think we need to head back to the Tower." The rest of the team nods in assent as they get to their feet. One question from a red-haired Tamaranian, however, caught the entire group's attention.

"Where is Raziel?"

Raven's eyes immediately widen as her head whips around, searching for any sign of the boy but they were the only ones on the rooftop. She immediately levitates above her teammates, hoping higher ground would allow her to find him. To her worry, there was still no indication of where the teen was.

"C'mon. If Raz still has his communicator, we can track him from the Tower," Cyborg states.

Starfire joins her female friend in the air as they fly back to their headquarters. Pulling up beside the dark girl, she noticed a dark stain on her friend's cape which caused her to float to her side. "Friend Raven, you are hurt?"

Raven froze in mid-air as she looked at the dark red splotch on her cape. Placing a hand on the spot confirmed that there wasn't any injury which caused her eyes to widen. Chanting her familiar phrase, dark energy wraps around her as she suddenly shot like a bullet towards the tower, leaving her Tamaranian friend chasing after her.

"Friend Raven!!"

T-T-T

"Nothing. Wherever he is, his locator isn't showing up on our sensors," Raven states, fighting the urge to scream in frustration. "Something doesn't feel right."

"That's not the only thing that isn't right," Cyborg adds, switching the display to show a microscopic readout. "When all of us got the same symptoms I ran a full diagnostic scan on all of us. This is what I found." On the screen they could see tiny machines attached to each and every blood cell, seemingly harmless but a tiny engraved 'S' could be seen on each device. "My diagnostics didn't find them the last time 'cause they were set to the microscopic scale. These things are at the nanoscopic level."

"With this kind of technology, Slade could have destroyed us whenever he wanted..."

"EWWW! GET 'EM OUT! GET 'EM OUT!" Beastboy yowls, cutting off the Tamaranian's statement as he started running around the room frantically.

Raven ignored the antics of Beastboy, her eyes focused on the screen as she finally realized what caused her to lose control earlier. Looking at her hands, she suppressed an involuntary shiver at the thought of billions of those things inside her, ready to kill her at a moment's notice. Her thoughts were interrupted by Cyborg voice, his tone suddenly grim.

"Raven, about that blood sample you brought back. You were right. It is Raz's," the metallic Titan confirms. "But there's something else you ought to know." Pressing a key on the control panel, the display changed to show a picture of thousands of blood cells. However, this one had two major differences. One, the nanobots looked much different from the ones earlier. Two, many of the blood cells in the display were a dark shade of gray instead of a deep red. The Titans watched the tiny invader floated around the dead cells towards a healthy one, instantly latching on to the red corpuscle and glowing with a pale amber color. Within seconds, the cell shriveled up and now resembled one of its dead neighbors. Its job done, the nanobot detached itself from its host and started floating off to search for a new target.

"That..." the pale girl starts to blurt, her throat suddenly dry as she tried to deny what 'Yellow' was saying.

"Scans match up. It's Raz's blood. Those things were probably inside him since the sewers. "

"We must find him! If it is killing him then..."

"No," Raven interjects, drawing a shocked look from Starfire. "We need to find Slade."

Starfire's eyes narrowed at Raven's apparent disregard for the life of their teammate but Cyborg stops her with a serious look. "She's right, Star. Even if we do find him we don't have the time to make a counter for the probes. If we stop Slade, we stop the nanobots. I've already discovered a way to find him." Punching a few keys on the console, the display brings up a map of Jump City. "I found the nanobots because they gave off a minute radio wave. That's probably how Slade's controlling them. When I did a scan of the city..." As his voice trails off, a blinking red dot suddenly appears on the screen, complete with coordinates.

"Let's go," Raven orders, a hard edge to her voice which drew shivers from the rest of the teens.

"Scary." Beastboy comments as he watches the pale demoness walk off.

T-T-T

Raziel slowly opened his eyes, the constant pain he was feeling a reminder that he was still alive. As he tried to get up, he found that his strength had all but left him as he could barely raise himself from the ground.

"Ready to return to the land of the living, boy?" comes a taunting voice.

Forcing his weakened body to move, he manages to at least sit up, his head turning to face the owner of the voice. Before he even caught a glimpse of the person he immediately sensed the wave of power radiating from the man.

"Raziel, wasn't it?" the man starts to drone as he leaned against a wall. "I heard your name from that demon girl. Is she your mate?"

"She's not a demon," Raziel retorts. It was technically true, after all. She was only half demon.

"As you say," the man smirks, noticing the boy didn't really answer his question.

"What do you want, Vampire? I can't imagine it's for small talk," Raziel states, trying to call forth his powers but failing as his body felt like a lead weight. Still, he kept his eye on the stranger just in case.

'Even his mannerism's are the same,' the man notes with both amusement and curiosity. "Is this any way for the dying to speak to their benefactor?"

"Benefactor?" Raziel snorts. "That remains to be seen, Vampire." As Raziel tried vainly to glare at the man, he suddenly thought about the rest of the rhetoric question. "What do you mean, 'dying'? What did you do to me?" he growls.

"I did nothing to you, fledgling. Your blood is tainted and has been since we met in the sewers, or haven't you noticed?"

Raziel frowned as the man's words rang true. He had been getting weaker and weaker by the minute and at the rate he was going the prediction of his demise would ultimately come to pass. If what he said about the 'tainted blood' was to be believed, Slade must have infected him with something that was slowly killing him. His eyes widened as he realized that Raven and the others must have been infected as well. 'That would explain why she lost control earlier,' he rationalized. "So, you just came to finish the job?" he asks, somehow finding the strength to give the man an arrogant smirk. "I didn't know you worked for Slade."

"Kain serves no one," the man growls, glaring at the prone teen.

Fighting the urge to shiver from the immense killing intent the man suddenly put out, Raziel started to wonder why the name seemed so familiar as the man's appearance didn't exactly ring any bells. "Then why exactly am I here? It can't be out of the goodness of your heart."

Kain started to chuckle at the statement, thinking about the small scar on his chest. Looking at the outfit the teen wore brought back memories which he hadn't thought about in centuries. "Simple. There is someone I owe a favor too and you happen to resemble him quite nicely."

T-T-T

Raven focused her power through her hands, black energy wrapping around the steel doors and tearing them off their hinges. As the Titans went through the archway, they saw Slade standing over a fallen Robin.

Unable to control herself, Starfire launched a starblast (9) at Slade, knocking the villain off his feet. "Leave...him...alone!" she growls at the mastermind villain.

Slade slowly got back to his feet, brushing off some dust from his armor as he turned to face the Titans. "Good. The stage is set," Slade talks with unusual calm. "I wondered how long it would take you to find me given you didn't have your 'fearless leader.'"

"Get out of here!" Robin yells frantically. "You don't know what..."

"We know, Robin," Starfire answers. "But we are not leaving without you and Raziel."

Robin blinked with confusion as he turned to his 'master', the man's expression unreadable behind the steel mask.

"Raziel? I don't know what you're talking about," Slade answers, his hands hidden behind his back as he stood behind Robin.

"Liar! I know the nanobots in Raziel are different. Where is he?" Raven finally speaks up, black energy crackling around her body as she glared at the villain.

Slade seemed to smirk behind his mask as his eye narrowed at the pale girl. "So you know, do you? Then I suppose this is unneeded." Almost instantly the display which held Raziel's life signs changed, the readings now showing someone who was barely alive. "Is this what you wanted to see?" he taunts.

Raven felt her knees go weak her eyes locked on the monitor, a single word escaping from her lips. "No..."

"Now then Robin," Slade interjects, looking back to his apprentice and raising the arm which had the nanobots' controls. "Let me show you the results of your defiance."

T-T-T

Raziel raised an eyebrow at the statement, wondering what this 'favor' was. In his mind, people who owed him favors, given the swiss-cheese state of his memories, was certainly not a good thing. As the man starts to approach him, he tensed up as pain started to raze his body once more, this time more intense than the last attack. 'Slade!' Gritting his teeth, he could only glare at the man as his body refused to obey his commands.

Standing impassively before the teen, he watched the boy cough up blood even as he sensed the small spark of life slowly start to fade away. "I was going to explain myself to you but it appears we don't have the luxury of time," he states, his arm reaching for the sword on his back. Drawing the sword, an eerie light started to glow from the eyesockets of the skull handguard, white energy coursing along the length of the blade. "How ironic that our meetings always seem to end up like this."

That was the last thing Raziel could remember as the blade plunged straight through his heart.

T-T-T

Just as Slade moved to push the button on his arm, a continuous shrill beep caught the attention of everyone there. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw the life signs of Raziel drop to zero, the entire display turning a pale shade of gray as his nanobots finished their task. "And then there were four," he states out loud. Looking to the rest of the Titans, he could see they were frozen with shock as the gravity of the situation seemed almost surreal. However, looking towards Robin, he could see the boy shaking with rage at the death of his teammate. 'You're becoming more and more like me,' he thinks to himself, a pleased smile beneath his mask. 'Just one more little push...'

While Raven looked just as shocked as everyone else, her mindscape was in turmoil, several aspects struggling to hold back a furious 'Rage' as she tried to power her way to the portal.

'(GIVE ME CONTROL! I'LL KILL HIM!)' the fractured personality roared even as 'Brave', 'Happy', and 'Rationality' nearly dog-piled the screaming girl. Off to the side, 'Timid' was staring at their viewing window, the girl on her knees as she kept mumbling off like a broken record.

('Death always follows us...we'll be all alone. Just like we always knew would happen...')

('Do you want to summon Him?') Yellow-cloaked Raven tries to explain to her struggling sister. Her words seemed to have no effect as the four blood-red eyes simply glowed brighter, her captive's strength suddenly increasing exponentially. Already she was being dragged along with the others as the red-cloaked aspect slowly approached the portal. However, before she could reach the glowing ring, the entire Nevermore suddenly shook as if it was being torn apart at the seams. ('Oh no.')

Even 'Rage' stopped as she felt the very fabric of her 'world' start to tear apart. Although three people already knew of the existence of Nevermore, none of them really understood its true purpose. It wasn't simply a side-effect of splitting her emotions. It was an elaborate lock meant to keep all of her power at bay. The bindings had already broken free once when Slade had activated the nanobots the last time. It was only the quick actions of Raziel that had kept the seal from degrading any further until Slade deactivated his nanobots. Deciding it was in her best interests to maintain the bindings, she reluctantly turned away from the portal, giving a snort of disgust as she joined her sisters in a circle and pooled their powers, hoping they could keep it at bay.

In the real world, Raven bit back a scream as the same razing pain she had felt earlier was back with a vengeance as Slade pressed the button on his wrist. On the screen behind the villain, she could see the nanobots attach themselves to her cells, killing her from the inside out. Struggling to stay standing, she once more felt her powers start to go wild as her mental barriers collapsed under the haze of pain. Her eyes fell on her teammates, all curled in fetal positions as she felt their life force fading as well. As depression started to set in (courtesy of 'Timid'), she thought she heard a faint voice inside her whisper one word.

('Raziel.')

As if to answer her call, a black portal appears right next to her. A gloved hand shoots out of the hole to grab hers, its fingers intertwining her own as the rest of the person came through the dark swarm of energy. Almost immediately she felt her stray powers flow into the teen, her eyes widening with shock and realization as the person started to chant a familiar phrase.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."

Raising his arm, the Reaver materializes in its dark incarnation, a beam of black energy lancing out towards Slade.

Slade, who was shocked at the boy's appearance, barely brought his arms to block the attack. The attack slammed into the criminal mastermind, knocking him back several meters across the room.

Slade gave an evil smirk as he shrugged off the attack; it failed to even bring him to his knees. A cracking sound catches his attention, though, as the device on his wrist shattered. His one visible eye widens as he looks back at the teen. 'Did he plan this?' He doesn't get to analyze it further as he hears his apprentice shout to his teammates.

"Titans, go!"

Suffice to say, Slade did not like the odds he was up against.

T-T-T

"YAHOO!!!" Beastboy shouts as the Cyborg's scanner showed he and the rest of the team were free of any nanobots.

Raziel watches the green changeling do a little jig which he promptly ignores. Giving a tired sigh, he plops himself onto a chair. Tilting back his head and closing his eyes, he tries to doze off when someone sits beside him, the aura they were giving off made it easy for him to recognize who it was. "Hey."

Raven was at a loss for words, really. Too many questions needed answers but one thing remained on top. Finally deciding on one, she turns to face the boy but is interrupted as he suddenly asks her a question which she had asked herself so many times before.

"What am I, Raven?"

She nearly answered with a sarcastic remark out of habit but as Raziel continued his little tirade, her blood started to run cold. He started to detail how he had met up with their mystery man and the little 'favor' he provided to him. 'He...he was run through the heart? Vampire or not, if the stories are real, even he couldn't have survived that kind of an injury.' Looking to Raziel who looked none the worse for wear, she could see the pain on his face even though his voice carried the same tone he normally used. For the first time in her life, she really hated how she had to have the iron controls over her emotions as she did; her people skills really sucked because of them. She almost felt like calling over Starfire to help but a glance at the Tamaranian showed she was busy with bird boy. Just when she thought the silence couldn't get any more awkward, a sudden memory came to her mind.

Raziel had hunched over, hands clasped together as he finished relating his tale to Raven. While it felt good to let it out, a part of him worried if he said too much. While the girl was a half-demon, she was also half-human and to him that made her more trustworthy than someone who could be evil incarnate. When he felt her shift in her seat, he turned a curious eye to her and was surprised to see a faint blush on her pale cheeks.

"You are Raziel; nothing more, nothing less," the pale girl states, unable to look the boy in the eye as she fumbled with the words. "I won't pretend to know what you are or what you used to be. What I do know is the person in front of me has risked his life a lot of times for his teammates and has someone I've come to...trust." Finally working up the nerve to face him, she saw the shocked look on his face as he stared at her with unhidden disbelief. At first she worried she had said the wrong thing but when Raziel suddenly broke out in full blown laughter a vein started to throb on her forehead. As she moved to stand, she is stopped as Raziel grasps her hand. Looking at the boy, her anger dissipates as she saw the worry gone from his face, the outline of a genuine smile clear underneath his scarf.

"I didn't think you'd use my own words against me. Thank you," Raziel responds with all sincerity.

She returns the smile with a brief smirk, glad that Raziel seemed to be back to his usual self. Depressed just didn't suite him. Angsty, maybe but not depressed. "Besides, we just beat Slade. We should be celebrating, not get all gloomy. That's my job." A sudden chill running down her spine breaks whatever mood she had set as a dark figure loomed behind her.

"You hear that, Cy?"

"I heard it, BB."

Turning around, she saw evil grins on her two teammates as she vainly tried to find an escape route. Sadly, she was still in her chair so that made running away a bit difficult.

"It's time for Cy and BB's Breakfast Bonanza!" the two Titans yell out as they drag their unwilling judge to the kitchen.

Raziel watches the frightened expression on the goth girl's face with mild amusement as she tried to get away. That aside, she had finally given him her trust which, gathering from her teammates' stories, she didn't give away easily. Deciding that maybe he was worrying too much, he gets up from his seat to try to 'save' the damsel in distress from her captors.

-End of Souls Entwined: Season One-

Aaaaaand it's finally complete! Made it extra long as well as an apology for the lateness. I'd like to thank all my readers who have kept reading up to now and to all the new 'faces' I've seen drop by. It's because of you (all) that I continue to write.

Get ready for Season Two of Souls Entwined coming soon to a browser near you! Already in pre-production 

Omake 1:

Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. 'No, scratch that. I do recognize it,' he tells himself mirthlessly. It was the med lab of the Titans Tower. He'd woken up here more times than he'd care to remember. As he struggled to get up, a muffled voice off to the side caught his attention. Turning to face the voice, he was surprised to see a tangled mass of red hair, its owner curled at his side looking absolutely bedraggled with a satisfied smile on her sleeping face. He wondered when she had climbed under the sheets with him when his arm rubbed up against something soft and smooth. It was then he realized she wasn't wearing anything underneath the blanket. His brain started to freeze up trying to find out what was going on when he suddenly felt someone grab his left arm. The logical part of his mind told him it was better he didn't look but curiosity got the better of him as he turned his gaze to his left. To his shock lay a familiar amethyst-haired demoness with the same blissful expression on her face and equal nakedness.

'Either this is a dream or a nightmare,' Raziel gulped, deciding it was best to let sleeping dogs lie as he lay his head and closed his eyes. He started praying to whatever gods were listening, hoping that whoever answered he would live to see tomorrow.

Elsewhere, a pink haired sorceress had this awful feeling she was missing out on something but couldn't quite place what.

Omake 1A:

Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. 'No, scratch that. I do recognize it,' he tells himself mirthlessly. It was the med lab of the Titans Tower. He'd woken up here more times than he'd care to remember. As he struggled to get up, a muffled voice off to the side caught his attention. Turning to face the voice, he was surprised to see a tangled mass of hair laying on the pillow beside him. At first he wondered when Raven had climbed into bed but then three things suddenly made themselves known.

The person had black hair. The person was naked. And the most jarring thing was the person was male.

Up in the watch tower, J'onn the Martian Manhunter thought he sensed something amiss, as if a million voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

BURP

'Oh. Must be gas,' he thought to himself. With that he continued to dig in to the pile of Oreos in front of him.

Authors Notes:

(1) See Chapter 2

(2) See Chapter 7.

(3) Remember Kain's power to disguise himself as a human from LoK the original game.

(4) I'm using the concept of Forever Knight's vampires where if they take in someone's blood, they gain the knowledge of that person. At least I think it came from Forever Knight :p

(5) All I'll say is that Kain's Reaver at this point is 'complete'

(6) Kind of like how a nurse wipes the sweat off a surgeon's brow :p I dunno, something I'd picture BB doing for comedic relief.

(7) You have to remember, Raziel never actually woke up with anyone by his side before (see the previous chapter).

(8) Something I made up. I really need a book of Tamaranian words :p

(9) I guess Starblasts are appropriate for the continuous beams of energy she throws.