Lunatic: Well here's another one. And NO I do not own the Titans ok? Stop bugging me about it.

As it turned out, the human residents of Slade's group of minions wore overbearing, protective faceplates. Robin donned his with a small grin as he turned around, waiting for Raven to dress herself.

She didn't bother to take off her black leotard. She just didn't like the idea of Robin watching her and possibly visualizing. Besides, none of the other Titans had ever seen her without her cloak.

As she pulled the slightly too large shirt over her head, Robin scanned the empty hallway. Even without his usual Bo staff and assorted gadgets, he still looked dangerous. He may be short of stature and fairly small when it came to bulk, but Robin was as powerful as any of the super powered teens.

He stalked silently toward the edge of the light, the small bulb above them flickering carelessly. Their circlet of stuttering illumination was sibling to others that stretched in either direction down the corridor. Robin vanished in the shadows between one lamp and the next.

She buckled the last of the garment; a belt adorned with various pouches, around her waist and tucked her blue cloak into the largest of the compartments. It barely fit. Looking at her new attire, she grimaced slightly. Raven rather preferred her blue and black uniform to this awkward collection of fabric and metal.

Robin's hand came out of nowhere and pulled her into the shadows. He handed her, her faceplate and put a finger to where his lips would be. Raven followed his approximate gaze down the oppressing darkness of the hallway.

Though she could not see anything, she sensed through the demon genetics in her blood, that further down the orange and black hallway waited two more guards. There was no pound of a heartbeat from these new presences, only the mechanical whir of metal and gears.

"Machines." She whispered. Her voice was emotionless, but in truth she was having a hard time keeping her black energy under control. Robin's fingers intertwined with hers were distracting her and allowing various emotions to show themselves in her mind.

She closed her eyes and focused on the backs of her eyelids, chanting softly. Azarath, Metrion, Zhinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zhinthos. She pulled her fingers out of his and wished desperately that she were wearing her cloak. Its mysterious dark folds had always made her feel more protected than any amount of armor.

Robin didn't appear to notice her inward struggle, or her hasty withdrawal from his touch. He began to edge along the wall, fingertips pressed to the rough metal. Raven followed, though she did not flatten herself against the steel barrier in order to avoid the light.

The guards were standing with their backs to them, half in the light and half out. It gave them an eerie impression. Robin turned to her and pointed to the guard closest to them, indicating that this would be her target.

She glared at him from under her mask. She was used to Robin giving orders, but she thought the plan was to sneak quietly, not attack. He ignored her and began to edge onwards, toward the other side of the light.

Sighing she sidled through the shadows to stand behind her guard while Robin continued forward.

She posistioned herself silently and waited.

"HI-YAH!" Robin appeared from the other side of the circle of light into which the two machines were watching. His foot connected with the head of the second guard.

Raven didn't wait to watch more. "Azarath, Metrion, Zhinthos." A small dart of blackness split the head of her appointed target and a shower of sparks rained down on her. She held her hand up to shield herself and watched as the black and orange figure fell forwards into the spotlight, disabled.

A moment later, the second guard had fallen on top of its comrade.

"I thought you said we were going to sneak out quietly." She said in a monotone, one eyebrow raised.

Robin appeared at her side, looking down at the demolished mechanical guardians. He lifted the black faceplate from his face and sighed.

"I know. But I needed to get rid of some pent up energy." He grinned at her. Raven only shook her head and strode forward down the hallway. After a moment, Robin followed.

The shift was almost over and Malciah was getting tired. He couldn't wait to return to the mess hall and get that coffee. He was too exhausted to think much about his job of guarding an illegal nuclear weapon that threatened the lives of a thousand or more innocent people. He just wanted some caffeine.

So when he saw the enormous, leathery T-Rex charging through the stone cavern, he figured he had fallen asleep. He didn't figure much in a moment or two though, because he fainted from sheer terror.

Starfire followed her green friend into the chaos that ensued; shooting luminous green star bolts into the swarms of fleeing (and charging) enemies. Beast Boy was doing a good job of destroying the minions of Slade, and luckily, most appeared to be machines.

Cyborg came in their wake, using their perfect distractions to get close to the bomb. The guards that had surrounded it had run from their posts in terror or had charged forward at the two attackers.

He circled the mess of wires and metal for a control board. It was like no bomb he had ever seen, though the technology looked to be the same as any other. It seemed as if this were just an outer casing for the actual weapon, as is the nuke were inside it, hooked up to all these wires.

He aimed his cannon at a man that came running at him, shooting red lasers. The blue stream of energy hit him squarely in the chest and sent him flying. Cyborg moved on.

Starfire did her best to defend her friend, and avoid getting injured at the same time. She floated above his head, throwing star bolts and eye lasers where they were needed. The number of enemies was dwindling.

Beast Boy's roars of outrage added more chaos to the cacophony of noise and struggle that were already pounding their ears. The battle was coming to a climax as reinforcements came to support the original guardians of the bomb.

Star cried out in pain as a laser hit her in the shoulder, leaving a festering burn. Beast Boy's black, reptilian eye swung around to give her a questioning glance. She nodded to him in reply. She would be fine.

He returned to the battle with renewed force. The black and orange clad foes were dwindling again, as Beast Boy trampled, bit and swung with his thick tail at the pressing forces. Green bolts shattered some of the ranks, sending mechanical parts and sparks flying everywhere.

Suddenly Beast Boy's large, toothy head stretched toward the ceiling and he called out in alarm. Starfire's head whipped around at the sound, as did Cyborg's. There was blood on the shining white teeth of Beast Boy's mouth.

"Friend, you are hurt!" She called frantically. Beast Boy changed, and Star caught him.
He shook his head, looking dazed and frantic as he touched his mouth. He stared at his fingers as they came away red.

"It's not mine!" He whimpered strangely. "That guy! He was- he was-human!" He gagged, looking shocked and horrified at what he had just done.

Starfire gazed at him with a similar mixture of emotions. "Oh Beast BoyÉ" He looked up at her, stunned with his own actions. There had been no avoiding it, he knew that, but he had just killed someone.

A hail of red lasers interrupted their shocked silence.
"Hey you two!" Cyborg cried above the noise. "Are you ok?

Starfire and Beast Boy gazed at each other a minute longer, joined by the terrible realization of what was happening around them. Beast Boy looked terrified and thenÉdetermined.

"Don't tell anyone Star. Just don't." He jumped from her arms and fell, landing amongst the fray as a charging rhino.

Star watched him as he fell. This war with Slade was much, much more serious than it had ever been before. People were dying. In all her experience with the Teen Titans, no one had ever been killed, least of all by one of her friends.

"Star?" Cyborg's voice came from somewhere down below.

"We are fine, friend Cyborg." She replied, and hurriedly returned to battle.

Cyborg watched his red haired friend fly back into the fray. Something had happened, her voice had been far too cold for everything to be fine. A moment later he was distracted as a beam of redness passed over his shoulder.

"Hey!" He yelled, and dispatched of his attacker.

He had found the controls the minute that BB had fallen. Now that that situation appeared, for the most part, to be resolved, he began work on hacking the computer.

He began typing in a series of codes, feeling out the level of security. There were several lock-down passwords, all easily bypassed, and a few protective firewalls that kept anyone without a special keycard from accessing the mainframe. Getting past those would not be a challenge. Cyborg chuckled confidently.

Around him, the number of robots was down to ten. Starfire swept away half of them with a blast from her star bolts, glaring coldly at the remaining fragments that were left behind. Beast Boy was being assaulted by the remaining five.

One leapt at him and was promptly thrown aside by a calloused gorilla fist. Starfire caught him with her star bolts, leaving behind a smoky ruin.

That left four.

Beast Boy leapt as a tiger at one of them, metal and claws screeching together. He tore out its mechanical throat with his fangs but a laser hit him in the side. He yowled in pain and spun around, just as Star removed the accused machine from existence.

Beast Boy became the T-Rex once more and lunged for the final two. They scattered, leaping in either direction. He caught one with his tail, sending it crashing into a wall. Starfire dispatched of the final black and orange clad robot.

The cavernous room was pockmarked with laser bolts and littered with the broken parts of the machines. Both Starfire and Beast Boy tried not to look at the blood that mingled with the oil spilling from the broken robots.

They trudged through the ruin to join Cyborg who had just broken through the last firewall.

"Finally!" He sighed. A list of options glowed blue on the screen in front of them. There wasn't a shut down.

"Damn." He whispered. "We'll have to do this manually.

Starfire glanced at the mass of metal and wires incredulously. "How?' She asked. "Surely you cannot understand how to disable such a mass of colorful cords?

He shook his head. "That isn't the bomb. From what I can tell with this system, the bomb is inside that thing. I think it's a lead casing, extra protection from powerful radiation.

"Where are you going to find a can opener big enough to get in there?" Beast Boy smiled wanly. He still felt shocked and perturbed. It didn't matter how you put it or how evil the bad guy was. It was still murder.

"Ha-ha." Cyborg said dryly. "I just have to press this-" he punched a symbol on he screen with one metal finger, "and it shouldÉwhoa.

The mass of metal and wires was hissing as steam poured from cracks along its five edges. Wires shook and jumped as the five sides of the container parted with a mechanical squeal and blossomed like a spring flower.

Inside it, there was not a bomb.

Raven hastily bit back a cry of surprise as Robin grabbed her hand for the hundredth time and dragged her back into the shadows. They were following hallway after hallway, navigating an endless maze of stuttering light bulbs and metal. There were few doors along these empty corridors and little chances for distraction.

So far they had encountered more guards than she could count, all of them mechanical, and all of them now lay dysfunctional in a pile of broken parts marking their trail. It seemed Robin had a lot more energy to burn than he let on.

"Robin do you have to do that every time? I know they're there, I can feel them." She hissed. She couldn't help the tiny purr of anger that slipped into her words. Every time he touched her, she felt her concentration falter and even the tiniest crack in her control could be disastrous. It was frustrating.

He didn't bother to apologize. Raven didn't need him to.

Ahead of them, two guards were pacing across an open doorway. Raven felt that this doorway marked the end of their rat-like sneaking. For one, it lay at the immediate end of the hall, shedding more light than they had seen in several days. For another, it wreaked of wrongness.

The entire appearance of the door was slightly prophetic.

Robin made a slight movement, shifting his weight onto his back foot. Raven had come to recognize, in her years fighting by his side, that that tiny movement was his preparation to attack. She grabbed his arm of her own volition.

"No." He stared at her. "Let me.

He didn't release his aggressive stance; although he didn't charge forward either. Raven took this as acquiescence on his part.

She put both hands in front of her face, palms outward, and chanted the three words of power. Two soundless bolts of black magic flew from her fingers and embedding into the clockwork hearts of the pacing guards. They froze mid-step.

Robin was already hurrying forward, peering around the open doorway into the room beyond. Raven followed quietly, her face concealing the foreboding that had risen within her at the sight of the unblocked doorway.

In the center of the room, surrounded by floor length surveillance screens stood a familiar shape.

"Slade." Robin whispered the name with a venomous hatred. Raven wasn't watching the figure in the center of the dark room, illuminated by the flickering images of the screens. She was watching one of the screens themselves.

"RobinÉ" Her tone was full of a nervous horror. It wasn't like Raven to express any emotion, let alone one akin to fear. He pried his eyes away from the silent figure of Slade to look at her.

Raven had removed the black protective mask from her face to see the screen more properly. She was not mistaken. But how, how was such a thing even possible?

Robin followed Raven's stunned gaze to the screen in the very center of the room. What he saw made him rip the faceplate from his head as if it were distorting the image somehow. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"What the-"

Lunatic: HAHA.