Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Teen Titans and related characters are property of Warner Entertainment.

Teen Titans – What Grows From Deception

Chapter 38 – Penultimate

Malchior flexed, his monstrous anatomy forcing his dislocated wing, shoulder and jaw back into place and staunching the flow of blood from a handful of wounds where the scales had been blown clean off by numerous missile strikes. It went to show just how much returning to the physical realm and fighting the Titans the night before had ground his abilities down that they had done even that much damage.

Still, if that was their best shot, then they could never win. Starbolts were falling on him like rain now, and doing about the same amount of damage. The same could be said for the sonic blasts from Robin's pod. A shadow passed over him, and he prepared for an attack from Beast Boy.

Except the green, armored dragon passed right over him in favor of preforming a flyover of a carved rock outcropping in back of the tower.

Rising from the dust, he resolved to teach that little wretch to never turn his back on him.

Dark energy overshadowed some sort of metal encasement atop that outcropping. What could—

A metallic fist burst from the ground and pounded Malchior in the chest, bowling him over on his back. Then another came up and struck his wing, flipping him over. This time, he leapt away in time to miss a third and then a fourth.

As he backed away, more rumbling came from the ground and three structures that looked like gigantic guillotines except with rock slab in place of blades sprung up in his path and started dropping their slabs on his back.

Roaring his surprise and angry, Malchior threw off the weights and hurled himself away from the obstacles. At which point, turrets emerged from the ground and opened fire with lasers and clay pigeons.

From her vantage point on Beast Boy's back, Raven allowed herself a small smile as she watched her old tormentor go crazy smashing turrets. "Okay. I have to admit that this is part of the plan that I like."

Beast Boy puffed out his chest with pride. "See? Sometimes I do have good ideas. Like stankball and the tofu crust pizza."

"Don't ruin your moment of triumph." Raven admonished.

"Are you kidding? I'm just about to put the cherry on top of my sundae of awesome!" Beast Boy gathered himself up to charge the highly distracted Malchior.

But then something strange happened. A flare of white light issued from the tower, curving as it homed in on Malchior. The dragon seemed to sense it and turned, eyes going wide with shock and then narrowing in rage. "You! How dare you!"

It was too late. A black flare erupted from his own forehead and streaked up to pass the white one on its way to the tower. Malchior's eyes briefly flashed green before steeling into a staticy white.

"Oh no..." Raven murmured.

"What? What just happened?" Beast Boy asked.

"Oh, yes." said 'Malchior' with Aionor's voice. Ignoring the turrets still stinging her, she threw herself into the air with a single beat of her wings. "No more playing around, Rae-Rae. This time, it's the end for you and your little green pet."

"Dude! Not cool. You already did the body surfing thing." Beast Boy complained.

Raven overshadowed one of the metal fists and directed it at Aionor's face, something she very much wanted to do with her own fist at this point. "He is not a pet!" Her voice was the voice of legion and her eyes tinged red as she swung the massive weapon.

Aionor rolled in the air, curling around the attack before answering with fire. Beast Boy dodged himself, but he wasn't the target: the fire melted the control panel for the Titans' obstacle course to slag. No sooner had she let loose that gout of flame than she surged forward to tackle Beast Boy while he was correcting from his dodge.

Roaring and snapping at each other, the two dragons tumbled through the air until Beast Boy's wing clipped the tower. The remaining missiles in the rack attached to that wing exploded, sending Beast Boy to the ground wreathed in smoke and flames.

Drinking in the agonized sounds he was making, Aionor landed a short distance away and began to chant a spell. A sphere of unnaturally red fire formed before her and at her command, lurched erratically toward him.

Beast Boy was in no condition to dodge, and could only watch in horror as the fireball swept over his shoulder and exploded on impact with the passenger cabin on his back. Missile, gas and oil were all touched off by the blast and detonated shortly thereafter.

The flaming wreck of the armor hit the ground with a sickening groan of metal and plastic. A green field mouse darted from the conflagration before becoming Beast Boy in his default form. Ignoring the heat and flames, he ran back to the passenger cabin. "Rae!"

Aionor forgotten, her jumped from one relatively flame free spot to the other until her got to a door. In gorilla form, he ripped it off before returning to human. "Where are you? Please be okay. You've gotta be okay!"

A shadowy form emerged from the ground and ensconced him before he could get himself hurt searching in the middle of the flames. The moment it drew him in, it sank into the ground once more, finally emerging a safe distance from the fire and leaving Beast Boy leaning on Raven's shoulder, coughing up the smoke and fumes he'd inhaled during his ill fated rescue attempt.

"I will never complain about coldness or the feeling of things crawling on me when you do that ever again." He said weakly.

"There's not supposed to be a sensation of crawling. I should probably look into that." said Raven. Beast Boy paled.

Aionor rumbled deep in her cavernous chest. "You just don't know when to die, do you?"

"And you don't know when to keep tabs on your surroundings." Robin's voice boomed over external speakers built into his pod. There was a hiss of an ejector seat being launched just before the pod came down n a steep dive, colliding with Aionor's back and exploding.

Furious, She span to breath fire on the parachuting boy detective, only to get a face full of starbolts. Lowering her head, she took it and endured as only a dragon could. "You think this makes any difference?" She screamed. "You can't hurt me. Malchior took your best shots and you still couldn't put him down. And I'm a much better tactician than he ever was. If I wanted, I could just let you grind yourselves down to nothing!"

Beast Boy grimaced. "This looks bad, Raven. I think I'm gonna have to rest a while before I can do the dragon thing again." He was still greener than usual thanks to the fumes he'd breathed in.

Raven focused on Aionor, but nodded. "You've done enough. More than enough." She looked at him sideways. "Thank you."

"No problem." He said shyly.

Though he brightened at the praise, her empathy told her of the sharp pang attached to the memory of what happened with Aionor. There would be a lot of discussion once this was done and not all of it something she was dreading anymore. She gave him a quick squeeze with the arm holding him up and one of those small smiles he used to work so hard to see. It surprised her just how much it didn't surprise her that those little things completely obliterated that pain.

"Can you stand?" She couldn't look him in the eye, so she looked at the clouds. They were thin and high, but they would have to do. Her gaze tracked back down to Aionor and the faint glint of metal on her back.

"Yeah, I'm good." He said quietly.

She let go of him, testing first to make sure he was telling the truth. "Then I'll finish this now."

Flying straight up, she gathered power in her hands. Once before she'd tried this against Malchior, but his thick hide protected him. Now however...

"Aionor!" She shouted. Her raspy voice carried through the power of her magic. The dragon turned back to her from chasing Starfire. "It's me you wanted, right? All of this, just because I didn't turn evil and let you kill me like you wanted?"

"The long and short of it." Aionor snarled. "You have no idea what I went through!"

Raven's eyes flared white. "And you have no idea what I went through! And I still managed to stay good. Still managed to do more than let my life revolve around my destiny. It isn't my fault you let yourself get corrupted, that you never just came to us if you wanted to be a hero. None of this was necessary."

"You still don't get it, do you?"

Face reverted to her usual lack of emotion, Raven closed her eyes, projecting her soul-self into the clouds. "No. And I'm done trying to care." The clouds moved, particles against particles, stripping electrons. It was fine work, and complex on top of it, but Raven soldiered through and from those clouds, coaxed lightning.

A blinding white bolt fell from on high, following a path forged by Raven's soul-self—directly into Robin's sword, still embedded in Aionor's back. The sounds that came from Aionor as the electricity coursed through her made even Raven's demonic side cringe. Whatever it did, it have far more of an effect this time than it did when Malchior first attacked.

But it wasn't enough. Spasming from the shock, Aionor clawed to her feet. "You aren't learning. I'm unstoppable. Do whatever you want to me, but I'll keep coming again and again until you've suffered every bit as much as I did. Maybe my plan to set myself up as a hero failed, but I swear that everything I do is going to be geared to ruining your life."

"That's where you're wrong." Raven's voice was strong and, for her at least, bold. "Remember that 'surprise' you said you left me? I think maybe for all you wanted to destroy my life, you ended up doing the opposite."

Aionor recoiled in confusion. "WHAT?"

"I'm sure that must be crushing to hear." Raven reached behind her for the biggest, heaviest thing she could find and hurled it. There was a crash, a rumble and then an entire room was torn out of the tower and brought down with incredible force down on top of her nemesis.

The thunderous noise of it landing seemed to bring silence behind. Cautiously, the four Titans present cautiously approached the pile of rubble; Raven and Starfire from the air and Robin and Beast Boy from the ground.

Something shifted, throwing off a dresser. Everyone prepared to throw everything they had at it, only to find Silkie forcing himself to the surface. The mutant larva gurgled his discontent at his nap being interrupted and squirmed down the side of the pile, directly into the waiting arms of Starfire.

"Oh, my little bumgorf! You truly did give us the fright!" The alien princess gave her pet a tight hug, which caused it to gag and spit up a green cymbal banging monkey toy.

"Wait a minute..." Beast Boy took a closer look at the rubble. There were some pieces of his bunk bed, and elsewhere, a telltale deposit of funky laundry, and stuck to a broken piece of rebar fluttered his old Doom Patrol mask. "This was my room! You threw my room at her?"

Raven shrugged and pulled up her hood. "Oops?"

TT^TT^TT

Back in Cybrog's room, the mirror flashed and turned back. "Puppet King!" Aionor's voice boomed out. "Bring me back! You have to bring me back right now!"

"Of course Mistress." the diminutive villains said. He wondered where she was that the mirror communication spell wouldn't show her face, but that wasn't really any of his business. He turned to grab his controller and the puppets from the slab, only to be blinded by a flash of light.

"You!" He said, incredulous. In front of him stood Control Freak.

The redheaded geek blew on the business end of his remote like it was a six shooter and holstered it at his side. "Nope. Us."

From behind him stepped Cyborg, holding the controller. The index finger of his right hand fliped open to reveal a blowtorch, which he held under the device. "There's been a change of plan, ya creepy little Jigsaw rip-off. So do what we say, or you're going in the Toys For Tots box instead of prison."

TT^TT^TT

A/N: We're in the home stretch now, folks. One more chapter to sew it all up. Not a lot to say this time, I'll say everything I need to after...

Next Chapter: Cyborg and Control Freak return and Raven and Beat Boy finally have some breathing space to deal with what's happened. Final Chapter: Consequences and the Resolution!

Oh, and last chapter's reference as Rune Soldier Louie.

Straight to the Heart—Louie Punch!