A/N: Hey, guys. Sorry it took me so long to get this out, I've had a really busy summer and the beginning of the school year didn't start out any slower, plus I've been working on some of my other stuff. Sorry if some of my action scenes suck, I haven't quite gotten the hang of them yet. On one final note, last chapter...YAY.
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are."
"Damn, she's a lot stronger than I gave her credit for." Raven said as she floated out of the portal she had created next to Starfire.
"Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg told me that when they were here with you, you combined with your emotions in order to defeat your Hate."
"I did, but if I win and Hate joins with me I'm pretty sure they would be stuck."
Starfire came up and put a hand on her friends shoulder.
"Would that be such a bad thing?" At Ravens startled look she continued, "You are stronger than you were as a teenager, more in control. I do not think you need to worry about your emotions any longer."
Raven looked at her emotions, all with hopeful expressions, as she thought. She looked within herself for her power center and found it glowing more brightly than she had ever seen. With a nod, she turned to face her friend.
"Would you mind keeping an eye on her," she nodded toward the rock they were hiding behind, "while we combine?"
"Of course." Star answered before flying up to a spot where she could see over the rock without being seen. Raven turned back to her emotions.
"Okay guys, you know the drill." She said. Without a seconds hesitation her emotion circled her as they all began to float. With a flash of light they came together as one, just before Hate noticed them.
"Noooo!!!! We agreed that it would just be the two of us! No outside interference."
"It is just the two of us. You know as well as I do that ALL of my emotions are a part of me, it is perfectly within the rules that we decided on that they join with me."
Hate glared at her for a moment before flinging many of the rock in the area, including the one Star was behind, at her opponent. Raven dogged every piece of the shrapnel before retuning the favor, with slightly larger rocks. The battle continued this way for a comparatively short period of time. The Raven's pulling out all the stops, while Starfire tried not to interfere; avoid being hit by the things flying around; and be supportive of Raven, the good one, all at once. Finally Raven got a slight advantage over her emotion and put it to good use.
"Give up, you've lost." Raven stated calmly as she floated down toward where her emotion lay.
"THIS ISN'T OVER!!!" The red clad copy screamed at her.
"Yes, it is." She replied as what looked like an upside down tornado formed around Hate with the tip at the other end pointing toward Raven. The funnel lifted the red clad girl off the ground and thrust her at Raven until the two met. At first there was some resistance, but Hate was already weekend from the battle and it was not long before she became a part of Raven.
Almost as soon as that was complete a new funnel surrounded Raven and Starfire; it sucked them out of Ravens mind and unceremoniously deposited both back in her old room.
"Raven, are you damaged?" Starfire asked her friends prone form.
"I'm fine Star." Raven replied as she stood up. Raven glanced around herself, something was off but she couldn't place what.
"Raven, your mirror is broken." Starfire stated. She was standing next to her holding the now useless object.
"I don't need it." As she said the words everything clicked. She was one with all of her emotions and, therefore, more powerful than ever. What was suddenly making her feel off was the fact that she could sense the things around her. She knew that Star was now lifting her arm to put the broken mirror down on her dresser, even though her friend now stood behind her. She could feel Stars aura, as well as those of the other Titans...her eyes snapped open as she began walking toward the door.
"We need to go Star." Starfire immediately stopped her examination of the other objects that used to belong to her friend and followed her out the door.
"What is wrong, Raven?"
"The guys are in trouble, we need to get them out of it." Starfire nodded as the two women exited the old tower and took to the air, flying toward the docks.
"Man do I need to get back in shape." Beast Boy said to himself as he was thrown against a wall... again.
"You both do." A new voice came from the shadows in the room as Cyborg was thrown into the wall next to Beast Boy.
"Ro...I mean Nightwing." Cyborg corrected at the last second as their leader shot a glare at him.
"Dude, what took you?" BB interrupted.
"It's only been ten minutes."
"Oh, seemed a lot longer."
"I'm not surprised." Nightwing mumbled.
"Hey, it's not our fault our physiology decided to change after we turned twenty-five!"
"You could have attempted to work out. Look at Raven, she stayed in shape and she thought she was insane."
"You know most of the stuff the rest of us went through woulda' never happened if you hadn't decided to quite the team."
"You think that just because I was able to stay in shape that nothing bad has happened to me in the last twenty years!"
"Uh, guys?" Beast Boy interrupted.
"WHAT!!!" They both turned to shout at him.
"Do you think we could argue less and fight more?"
Nightwing and Cyborg looked around to see that they were surrounded by Slade's robots, who had gotten up during their argument. Blackfire hovered above "her" army, smugly smiling down at the trapped men.
"Well, well, well, looks like I've caught myself a worthy prize after all." She said, looking straight at Nightwing; he grimaced.
"Beast Boy, Cy," Nightwing began under his breath. "You guys go left and head for the door, find the girls while I distract them."
Both men nodded their heads and began to inch away from their darkly clad friend. Nightwing took out his bow-staff and a few freeze disks, which he threw at Blackfire while he began taking down the robots. Beast Boy and Cyborg made a mad dash for the door, only a few stray robots actually deciding to get in their way. The two heroes' were just getting to the door when it suddenly blew open.
The battle seemed to be put on pause as everyone turned to see what would come through the door. As the dust cleared two, rather attractive figures could be seen in the shadows.
"Running away from a fight, BB?" A voice came from one of the two figures. All three boys recognized it immediately and the little green man and the robot smiled broadly as the man in black, who was poised to attack one of Slade's robots, smirked good naturedly. The rest of the dust cleared to reveal the two remaining Titans.
The two girls looked around the room for a moment, as everyone still seemed to be frozen. Raven tilted her head to the side and looked at the boys as she began to speak.
"What have you guys gotten yourselves into this time?" She whined good-naturedly.
"Hey! This so wasn't our fault." Beast Boy immediately jumped into defensive mode.
"Yeah, the only reason we were here in the first place was to see if Slade still used it and to try and find that supposed memory device. It ain't our fault we didn't realize it would be..."
"A trap?" Starfire cut him off.
"Well, yeah."
The two girls looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes, rolled their eyes at the guys, then sighed and began walking toward the center of the building.
"What?" Both boys asked in unison, the girls just walked past them. When they were about five feet away from where Nightwing was fighting the robots, Starfire took off and began flying toward her sister. Nightwing made a move to follow but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
"There are fifty-some robots here, not even I can take them all on my own, and somehow I doubt that they will be of much help." Raven said, pointing over her shoulder at the two remaining Titans.
"But, Star..."
"Has been traveling the Universe, tracking her sister, alone, for the last twenty years. I think she can handle this." Nightwing still looked like he wanted to go after the Tameranian, but instead pulled out his bow-staff and took up a fighting stance next to Raven.
"So you finally caught up to me."
"I would have done so much sooner if you did not have Slade's assistance, sister."
"You think that I couldn't have escaped you if I didn't have help?" Blackfire asked cockily.
"No, I don't think it, I know it."
A scream of rage could be heard throughout the old warehouse as Blackfire hurled herself at her younger sister and the Tameranians began their fight.
On the ground, another battle raged. Nightwing and Raven were doing much better than Cyborg and Beast Boy, obviously, but were able to hold their own, allowing Nightwing and Raven to seriously cut down the numbers of their opponents. They were down to about twenty robots when a body fell to the ground, and didn't get up.
The Titans hesitated a moment before looking up to see who it was that was still standing. Starfire floated in the air looking slightly battered and out of breath, but otherwise all right. She began sinking to the ground and was about to run over and assist the rest of the Titans when a familiar voice spoke, echoing throughout the room.
"Well, well, bravo Starfire. Although I knew all along that you would be able to defeat her in actual battle."
"Slade." Nightwing hissed.
"Very good, Robin."
The five Titans took up defensive postures. The robots had stopped attacking for the moment, but none could tell even the general area Slade might have been.
"Tell me, Titans," Slade's voice once again rang out, "what do you think would happen if Starfire forgot everything that happened after her little trip to our time from when she was a teen, or even if she just forgot everything in general?" He asked as he stepped out of the shadows. He held a silver machine that looked like a cross between Cyborg's sonic cannon and shotgun. Raven gasped as he came fully into view.
"Nightwing, that's it!" She said into her leaders mind.
"What the... Raven?" He thought, though he showed no outward signs that anything had happened and his eyes stayed focused on Starfire who was looking warily from Slade to what he held.
"Yes, it's me. Listen, we don't have time for explanations right now, but I know that that is the machine he used to adjust our memories. I can reverse it if you can distract him so that I can get the stupid thing."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Don't think I'd let you even begin the process, Slade." Nightwing shouted. He pulled five of his freeze disks from his belt and threw them at the villain. Slade dodged every one of them, but was distracted enough that when Raven reached for the memory machine he didn't even notice until it left his hand.
"You don't actually think you can use that?" Slade said condescendingly.
"Wanna bet?" Raven then reached under the larger portion of the machine and flipped the hidden power switch to "on," took a moment to make sure that it was set to "erase," aimed and fired.
Slade's eyes widened behind his mask as he realized that she did know how to use the machine. Unfortunately, he had made the weapon with the Titans in mind and therefore the beam was too fast for him to dodge. A few seconds after the blast was fired a grown man, with the mind of an infant, fell to the floor in place of one of the most insidious villains the earth had ever seen.
An hour later, the local cops as well as the Intergalactic Police had come to claim their newest, or returning, criminals.
"So... the Titans are back?" Jump City's Chief of Police asked Raven hesitantly. He and his men had just seen her crumple some sturdy machinery like it was paper... with her mind.
Raven glanced over at her teammates, all of whom were now standing on the docks watching the sunset.
"Yeah, we are." She said before walking over to join her friends. The Chief saw the girl smile a genuine smile and, for a moment, her eyes softened before she turned away from him and he couldn't help but smile as well as he turned back to his men and gave them the order to depart.
The five Titans stood watching the Titans Tower against the backdrop of the sunset.
"We have really gotta get that place fixed up." Raven and Beast Boy nodded their heads in agreement.
"I believe that it is uninhabitable, for tonight at least." Again Raven and Beast Boy nodded, this time Cyborg joined them, Nightwing seemed to be off in his own world.
"I have rented an apartment for the time being, everyone is welcome to stay with me." The others agreed then began to drift off toward the docks entrance, leaving Starfire and Nightwing alone for the moment.
"...ick, Dick, are you coming?" Nightwing started and turned to the alien girl standing beside him. She looked at him uncertainly for an instant before speaking again.
"You are surprised that I know your true name?" She asked. 'I thought Raven had reversed the affects of Slade's memory machine.'
"No," Dick's voice interrupted her thoughts, "I just missed hearing you say it Kory." With that he leaned over and kissed her gently. She sighed as they both pulled back and looked into each others eyes, then she smiled at the man she had fallen in love with over twenty years ago; he smiled back.
"Yo Lovebirds, you comin'?" The two laughed while Star dropped her head on to his chest for a moment before straitening and turning to their friends.
"We're comin' Cy, try not to overheat those circuits of yours until we can get you some new ones."
"Ha, ha, funny." Starfire, Beast Boy, and Raven immediately started laughing, albeit BB was a little more exuberant than the girls. The boys immediately turned to gawk at Raven before looking around to see if anything had blown up.
"Long story," she said once she noticed, "how about Star and I tell once we get out of the cold?"
"And we have something to eat." Star added as her stomach began to rumble.
"This calls for a celebration. I say we get some pizza."
"Haven't you outgrown that yet?" Raven asked the green skinned man.
"Dude, you can never outgrow pizza."
"Mmm, I can already taste the Meat Lovers supreme."
"What!?!? No way! Veggie!"
"Hear we go again." Raven shook her head at the two.
"How about we get three pizzas? A Meat Lovers, a Veggie, and one of the lady's choice, and the two of you stop arguing, deal?" Both nodded and Nightwing put his arm across his girlfriend shoulders as the hero's began the walk to the pizza parlor. For the first time in twenty years everything in Jump City was back to normal.
A/N: Yay, I finally finished it, after I don't know how many months. And yeah I know that I don't really focus on Cyborg or Beast Boy, but I figured that the episode, "How Long Is Forever?" is mainly about Starfire so I should focus this on her and the two that I see as having the closest relationship with her, Robin (Nightwing) and Raven. Again thanks for reading and please Review.