Chapter four inbound! I'm trying some new character dialog/interactions, so bear with me... Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans in any way, shape, or form. That honor belongs to someone connected with Cartoon Network and I have no intent of challenging that person! I don't intend to make any money from this and just hope that this doesn't get me sued... Okay, straight to story now for good or ill. Enjoy.

When the Dogs Withdraw, the Cats Return

By Wordbearer

Raven hugged the mountain as she flew towards the coast, the sun lightening the dark blue of her cloak. Terra followed behind her, perched on a chunk of stone for dear life as she guided her mount through sheer will. Raven didn't speak as Jump City came into view, the ruined vista alive with cranes and other repair equipment. Terra's eyes widened in reflexive shock at the blatant destruction and her stone jittered in midair as her control faltered.

She thought, "If this is what you get when you're not on a demon's to-do list, I'd hate to be on it." Terra looked toward Raven, who seemingly wasn't phased by the view and had veered off toward Titans Island. The island was also alive with repair crews who were erecting a framework to restore the lost branch of the iconic building. The refugee structures were being dismantled, crowds of people being guided to the island's docks and shuttled back to the mainland. The blond saw that she was falling behind her guide and hurried to catch up as Raven dropped to the ground.

Raven spent a few seconds catching her breath as she hit the ground in front of the Tower, a white afterglow emanating from her eyes. Prolonged levitation was more draining than she let on and she was mentally exhausted, not the kind of state she wanted to be in when she returned to the Tower after her prolonged absence. A soft thud announced Terra's arrival as her stone mount rolled on its base and came to rest.

Terra dismounted with a small hop and announced as she closed with the petite half-daemon mystic, "Nice place you have here. I can see that you have a great deal going on. Though the view leaves something to be desired..."

Terra gestured at the desolate vista of the city and the accompanying repairs prompting Raven to slowly turn her head and lock a tight gaze on the blond from the shadows of her hood, "Deal with it. You asked to come along and don't have to be here if this all depresses you." Her voice was tightly controlled, the talkative Terra managing to rub the wrong nerves despite a week of dealing with Raven's sensitivities more or less successfully.

Terra backpedaled, "Of course it doesn't bother me. Just commenting, had a slightly different mental picture of the place... Ha... Are we going in?" Raven's look relented and she walked up a well-beaten path to the Tower's double doors, Terra close behind.

Entering her private password, Raven waited a second as the door silently opened and enjoyed the brief pleasure of the tower's clean odor as she took in the thankfully empty entry hall. Terra brushed passed her, mouth open in awe and to Raven's annoyance, dropped her filthy backpack on the tile. Raven was about to comment when an elevator opened and the inevitable welcome wagon emerged.

Beastboy and Starfire made a beeline for the dark mystic, ignoring the comparatively ragged Terra for the moment. "Friend Raven, it is a pleasure to see you again! How was your alone time?"

Before she could respond, Beastboy added his two cents, "Yeah. Things haven't been the same without you. Sure we had this mob of help, but they were all going off on different missions and disappearing at odd hours and, and... I just missed you, Raven!" Beastboy shapeshifted into an unnaturally, cute kitten and jumped into Raven's arms. She reflexively caught him. Realizing she was clutching a purring ball of green-furred cuteness, Raven dropped Beastboy and stepped back as he changed back into his normal form, looking up at Raven with a hurt look. Starfire, with some of her rarely displayed intelligence, quickly cut off any comment by pointing at Terra who was looking at the display in unease.

The red-head interjected, "Who is this person? Is she lost?"

Raven pulled her cloak around her nervously and replied, "Starfire, Beastboy, this is Terra. Terra, this is, Starfire and Beastboy. Found her on my 'week break' and she asked to follow me here. I agreed."

She shrugged slightly and Starfire jumped into the breech, "Oh, this is glorious! Raven has made a new friend and brought her here for us to meet as well! You must tell us how this came about."

At Starfire's exuberant reaction, Terra shot an alarmed look at Raven. She smiled a brittle smile and spoke for the first time, "Pleasure to meet you all. I just met Raven at the canyon and she let me hang out with her while she was there... Long story short, I wanted to meet the rest of you guys and see how you fared through the chaos." During this little speech, Beastboy looked away from his one-sided staring match with Raven and gave Terra the once over. Having seen the likes of Wonder Girl, Supergirl and Black Canary, he was not impressed by the blonde's minimalist physique.

The mood momentarily darkened and a pause lingered, but Starfire spoke again to break the silence, "Things have been quite busy here. We have been aiding people, doing cleanup, and helping to repair the damage inflicted by the malthorp'zyniec horde that ravaged this area while I was gone. We have also been hosting a glorious meeting of many super humanly gifted people." Stafire's eyes glittered intensely at the memories.

"That meeting has recently broken up and they have all returned to their normal realm of operations. Tell me, Terra. What can you do that is special?"

Starfire's barrage of comments left Terra mentally reeling after a week of dealing with the less than profusely verbose Raven, but she managed to get out an answer, "I, uh, move rocks, dirt, mud with my mind. Lithokinesis it's called." Terra looked over at Raven for approval, but all the half-daemon did was raise an unseen eyebrow in the shadows of her hood.

Beastboy spoke up again at this point, "Right. So why did Raven let you follow you follow her home? She's not the most social of people."

"Well, we had a brawl, than we shared a cave for a week and she helped me with my powers, to control them more steadily I mean. Guess that she felt that she could trust me?" Terra shrugged, Beastboy dashed unbelieving looks at Raven, and Starfire had a reflective look on her face as they digested this information.

Starfire thought to herself, "Raven fighting, sharing a room, and inviting people back to our home? Something has indeed changed with you Raven..."

Beastboy pointed an accusing finger at Raven and launched into one of his trademarked comedic tirades, "Okay, who are you? Whoever you are, you're not Raven! Not by a long-shot!"

Raven grunted in annoyance and cuttingly remarked, "You're right Beastboy. I'm not who I appear to be. I'm a shapeshifting mutant clone that has killed Raven and taken her place."

Beastboy was red in the face as he replied, "Oh, yeah. That's hilarious, Raven. I try to lighten the mood and you go and get all sarcastic on me! Can't you take a joke for once?"

"Tell me a joke and I'll take it. I have yet to see one come out of your mouth that was marginally amusing."

Terra and Starfire, temporarily forgotten, watched the verbal fireworks. Terra winced as another of Raven's one liners hit home and thought, "Note to self: never get on her bad side if I value my self-esteem."

Starfire jogged the blond out of her trance by asking, "New friend Terra, would you like to have your gear brought to a room for safekeeping?"

"Uh, yeah. That would be great." She looked down where the pack had left dirt stains on the tile, and blushed.

A thought occurred to her and she gestured at the arguing pair as she asked, "Should we leave them like this? Things are getting heated." Raven was showing signs of irritation now, sending sparks of black energy arching through her form. Beastboy was reduced to mimicry, having run out of clever comments.

Raven said tightly, "This is a stupid argument."

"This is a stupid argument," the green youth mocked.

Raven looked put out, "You're not helping your point, whatever that nebulous goal happens to be."

"You're not helping your point, whatever that nebu... nebulous goal happ..." The effectiveness of his reply was reduced by his stammering.

Starfire tried to hide her expression, but amusement bubbled in her eyes, "They often engage in such seeming hostilities. This behavior distressed me at first, but it seems to be their preferred means of communication. It is harmless."

Terra looked at her sidelong as a lightbulb popped after glowing black from a rogue discharge of energy in its socket, "If you say so..."

Guessing the source of the Terra's unease, Starfire added, "They will not intentionally hurt one another and Raven is very conscientious about repairing what she doesn't mean to break, living or otherwise."

"Yeah, I noticed. After our dust up, she healed me while I was unconscious."

Starfire picked up Terra's backpack and was floating toward the elevator as she asked, "How did this fight occur? It is not like Raven to attack people for no..."

Starfire was interrupted as the elevator opened and Robin barreled out shouting, "Titans trouble! Starfire, Beastboy, let's..."

He ground to a halt as he took in the scene and began again, "Oh, Raven's back. Who are you?"

He quirked an eyebrow at Terra and Starfire answered, "This is our new friend Terra who Raven met while on her week off. She can move rocks with her mind. She arrived with Raven a few minutes ago and..."

Cutting her off, he interjected "I get the picture, Starfire. Are you up to coming with us, Terra?" Robin had grown used to including random super heroes in his forays and accepted Terra's involvement automatically.

Terra answered uncertainly, "Sure. Why not?"

Robin nodded agreeably, "Good enough, let's go."

Raven, fully disengaged with her argument and calm again, cut in with a comment, "What's the problem this time?"

Beastboy, still caught up in their argument mimicked, "What's the problem this..." He trailed off as he was the target of a group look.

Ignoring Beastboy's sheepish foot shuffling and answering the cloaked mystic's query, Robin said, "Slade. He and his minions are raiding a supply depot. We have to stop him now."

Raven couldn't quite hold her comment in, "Great. The one human being on this planet we wouldn't mind seeing dead and he's looting supplies. Glad to know some people never change their ways."

Robin looked at her sidelong and spoke as he walked determinedly out the door, "Be that as it may, he's a criminal and we're going to bring him down. Move out!"

The others rapidly left the room leaving Terra and Raven alone. Terra asked, "Am I up to this? How tough is this Slade guy anyway?"

Raven's response was blunt, "You should do fine. Robin will probably want Slade all to himself and Slade's robots are no challenge when you get down to it. Consider it an easy audition." The thin blond was unnerved by the implication that she had to pass some sort of test. Unable to tell Raven's mood from her voice, Terra just stared at the half-daemon's cloaked back a few seconds before hurrying after her and the rest of the Titans.

Slade was nowhere to be seen as the Titans descended from above. Beastboy dropped into the fray as starbolts rained onto the ground claiming several black clad robotic victims. Raven loosed Robin from a travel bubble like a ballistic missile and the boldly colored teen turned into a whirlwind of destruction as he extended his staff, whirling and striking like a contained tornado. Raven hung back, eyes glowing white as she loosed a flood of projectiles. Terra was less cautious, turning her landing into an assault as her mount crushed a robot beneath it. She gestured expressively and the ground swallowed up a pair of others who were manhandling a box of supplies. A pair of arms clutched her from behind and Terra screamed as a beam of ebony light ripped through where she had been standing and the unknown rescuer rolled to the side, taking her with him. That person turned out to be Robin, who back flipped and used the force of his jump to tear through a laser wielding foe like tissue paper. He mouthed 'watch yourself' at a wide-eyed Terra who turned red in embarrassment before turning back to the fray. Beastboy was an anchor, raging in gorilla form as Raven and Starfire rained energy at his opponents. The hum of emerald starbolts contrasted with the silent precise lethality of Raven's black energy attacks. Raven claimed a kill with every strike, but Starfire knocked at least four from their feet as her bolts explosively splattered the ground with force. An enduring beam of destruction cut a swath through the melee as a robot fired a thermal-cannon through the supply depot's window. The titans scattered only for Beastboy and Raven to be winged by the blast and thrown to the ground.

Terra concentrated and tore a giant chunk of cement from a ruined building, intending to hurl it at the weapon wielder with crushing force when a thought made her pause.

"Only throw what you need to throw, to solve the problem. Big objects are harder to aim and thus less likely to help you when you miss," Raven had admonished. Terra reluctantly dropped the larger piece for a more modest piece of concrete that she flung and plastered the guilty party as its weapon glowed green. The charged weapon discharged into the air and demolished a crumbling store front. The conflict continued as the robots fought to the death.

An observer watched the scene below. This observer didn't seem quite real, the daylight streaming through his body as if it were translucent in places. He was tall and slender, clad in a dark robe. The most distinctive thing about him was the glasslike dome that enclosed his exposed brain, though the pair of midnight black eyes which looked like voids in his face, came close.

He whispered, "So dark child, I find you here and now, playing the heroine in a land ravaged by your father's evil. Let's move into the end game so that I may move onto bigger and better things." He concentrated and a sliver of stone hovered over his ghost-like palm like a humming bird. The wind stirred his long white hair and he smiled thinly as he gazed at Raven.

She got to her feet and pulled a robot off of Beastboy and slammed it against the ground. "So it as it goes, so shall it end." The phrase was whispered quietly, but what could be seen of his translucent face tightened with great emotion.

With these words, the stone sliver blurred as it spun and darted at Raven's face. The blue clad girl heard it coming and turned, but the projectile still struck its target guided by the stranger's will. Raven gasped as it hit her forehead and her neck snapped back in reflexive shock. A crack could be heard and she moaned in pain as an amorphous wave of darkness flowed out of her form to engulf and destroy another robot. The chakra in her forehead bled light from the minute network of cracks that violated its curved form. She bent over and rested her palms on the ground, breathing heavily. Robin landed nearby to protect his stricken teammate. Her body was engulfed in shadow and she teleported away from the battle and back to Titans Tower. The stranger took his leave as well, his shadowy presence fading completely as he departed and left the Titans to their fight.

So you made it down here. What did you think? Good? Bad? Don't care? Well, leave a review if you see fit and tell me what's wrong with this thing Thank you for time. I hope you enjoyed this.