Disclaimer: Nope. Teen Titans arent mine.

Note: I had so much fun writing this chapter. it was fun trying to figure out what to say concerning Nightmare's past. I hope you readers enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Chapter 10

Inside the Mind of Nightmare

Nightmare slowly walks down Main Street of Jump City, Slade Bots jumping around the buildings behind him, shooting at anything that moved, and a few things that didn't. There were people running down the street in pure terror as Nightmare invoked his power on anyone that was insight, each person living their own worst nightmare or memory. A few people were lying on the street curled into a ball, sobbing quietly as their fears took place around them. Nightmare smiled, though no one could tell behind his mask. He knew that even if they closed their eyes, they would still see their fear. There was no way around it. In the distance, he heard a loud crumbling.

"I see that Terra has done her job. But I sense something else down here...maybe one of them escaped." Nightmare says to himself.

"You're right. Someone did escape. I did." Raven said as she materialized in front of him.

"Azerath Metrion Zenthos!" Raven shouted. Raven picked up several cars and hurled them at the Slade Bots, destroying all of them. "And now it's just you and me."

Nightmare stares at Raven, looking directly into her eyes. Raven starts to see the world around her dissolve into her home planet, once again her darkest fear starting to set in. Raven starts to meditate intensely, attacking Nightmare's mind while forcing everything he was doing to her out.

Nightmare, sensing this, stops his power, preferring to do battle with the dark psychic in his own mind rather then try to wear her down using his own power.

Nightmare's Mind

Raven walks cautiously down a dark street in Nightmare's mind. She glances around and realizes she was on a dark, lonely country road, with nothing but a large house a few hundred yards down the road. Raven takes flight towards the house and lands on the front porch. The door was slightly open, so Raven pushes it all the way open and walks slowly into the house. The first thing she notices is a staircase leading to the second floor of the house just off to the right of the doorway. Ignoring this, Raven walks through the doorway on the left, into what appears to be the living room. A small love seat sat off to the left, and a dirty brown couch directly across from it. A small black and white TV sat on a stand, the screen blank. As she walked through the living room, she felt something sticky and wet on the bottom of her shoes. As she looks down, she realizes it was blood. Recoiling in horror, Raven quickly levitates above the blood and into the next room, which was the kitchen.

Raven was horrified at what she saw. Blood was absolutely everywhere, on the counters, floors and walls. Raven flies out of the kitchen back to the front door, breathing heavily. She had never seen so much blood! About to walk out the door, she hears a noise upstairs. Raven looks uneasy as she heads up the stairs. Nightmare's mind was getting to be much worse then she could have ever imagined. As she walks up the stairs, she hears the noise again. She heads towards the door and slowly opens it. Inside is a little boy, no more then 8 years old, sitting in the middle of the room crying. He was holding two bodies in his arms, and in between sobs, Raven could hear the small boy repeating something over and over.

"They killed you...so I tricked them into killing themselves...one in the kitchen, another in the garage...another in the bathroom...and the final two in the room next door..." the small boy repeated over and over.

A shiver ran down Raven's spine, as she suddenly felt that she was no longer in the room with just the boy. Turning quickly, she sees that Nightmare has joined her, standing behind her, his eyes on the little boy and arms folded over his chest.

"I remember that day. Five gangsters were robbing us. They killed my parents in a most brutal fashion, and made me watch. I was only eight, but I still knew how to use my powers. I tricked them into thinking they were monsters from their own worst nightmares. They killed each other in a very bloody battle. And in the end, as you can tell by what I am saying, all of them were dead." Nightmare says, as he turns away and walks out.

Raven stands there for a moment, wondering why he was sharing all this with her. She runs out after him only to find herself in what appeared to be a hospital. Confused, she started looking in every direction, but seeing no nurses or doctors. But she did hear a scream. Running down the white hallway, she turns a corner and sees five doctor-looking people standing outside a window looking into one of the room. She walks towards them and looks in the window. The same little boy, but now looking about ten or eleven years old, was screaming in his sleep. The doctors outside were talking about the boy's condition.

"It seems as if he actually thinks that his nightmares are real. Even when he wakes up, he begins to fight an imaginary enemy. We almost always have to sedate him when he wakes up." Said one of the faceless doctors.

Raven turns suddenly, and sees that Nightmare again was standing behind her.

"I was ten when this took place. After they found me in the house covered in blood, they put me in a nut house for two and a half years. This was towards the end. I was losing control of my powers. They were effecting me as well as anyone that happened to be right next to me while I was sleeping. I kept reliving my parent's murder over and over again. I could feel my powers taking over my soul, changing me into something." Nightmare said, staring at himself intently. "The doctors said that I was crazy. But my powers were so far out of my control, they effected me whenever I slept."

"Why are you showing me this?" Raven asked.

Nightmare turns and walks out another door without replying.

Raven takes one more look at Nightmare as a young child and then runs after him. When she passes through this door, she sees Nightmare once again as a young boy, this time looking to be in his early teens. Walking towards the young man, Raven sees that he looked sleep-deprived. Huge bags hung under his eyes, barely covered by the pair of sunglasses on his face. His clothes were dirty and torn. Young Nightmare walks past her into a small convenience store. Raven follows him in. inside the store, Raven watches as Nightmare uses his powers to terrorize the poor clerk and then runs around and steals random food items and raids the cash register. After he finished with the cash, Nightmare released his hold over the clerk, leaving him a scared mess on the floor as he walked out.

"I had to do that to survive. No one would take me in. no one would ever take someone like me into their home. Not with my uncontrollable powers. So that was what I had to do, rob small stores to just barely survive. I was only thirteen. Such a young age. Not a friend in the world. And I still couldn't sleep. My powers were still acting up whenever I slept." Nightmare told Raven as he again walked up behind her.

Raven turned at the sound of his voice. "Why didn't you try to find help?"

"Who was there that would help someone like me? Nobody. Do not think I did not try to find help. There was none. Come, there is still a little more to see." Nightmare said, as he turned on his heel and walked through another door.

Raven followed after one last glance at the store. Walking through the door, Raven found herself in a lighted warehouse full of bodies. Looking closer at the bodies, she saw each of them was wearing some sort of gang tag. It looked like it was a slaughter.

"They aren't dead. I couldn't bring myself to kill them. The only reason I could trick the other members that killed my parents, was the fact that they killed my parents. What I did to these gang members was tortured them with their own fears until they eventually went crazy. It took me some time to track down the whole gang, but once I did, I got my revenge." Nightmare said.

"But what if they didn't send those other guys to kill your parents?" Raven asked.

"They were guilty by association. Simple as that. When I got my hands on them, I completely lost control of my powers. It was more of my intention to hurt them very badly, rather then make them all into crazy idiots. Come, I will show you what happened." Nightmare said as he walked through yet another door.

Raven followed, and when she entered, she saw young Nightmare again, walking into the warehouse full of the gang members. All the gang members that were talking suddenly stopped and stared at him.

"Five years ago, several of your members came into my house and slaughtered my family in front of my very eyes. They made me watch. I killed them afterwards, but there is still much more to be done before I can feel satisfied that I have avenged their death." The younger version of Nightmare stated.

"Yo! He must be talking about-"

"SHUT UP!" Nightmare interrupted, the fury in his eyes burning into the gang member that started talking. "YOU SHALL ALL PAY!"

With those words, Nightmare's powers took over him completely, darkness covering his entire body, transforming him into some sort of creature. Raven watched in strange fascination, as Nightmare's body seemed like it was being ripped apart and put back together in the form of a monster from his own nightmares. His head grew slender and long in the back, like an alien from the movie; his arms grew long and muscular, his hands forming into giant claws. His midsection grew large and black, it seemed as if there was blood leaking from his chest all over his body. His legs were the last things to change, growing longer and muscular, slime covering them immediately, and his feet growing long claws out of the toenails. Drool and foam started coming out of his mouth, as the creature roared in anger.

The petrified gang members just stood there in pure horror, as the creature attacked.

Raven watched as the creature rushed at the gang members, then stopped, as if frozen in the middle of its attack.

"Before I let you see what happens, I should tell you a bit about that creature. I have very little control over it when I transform, but I had just enough to stop myself from killing them all in a brutal manner. One touch from that creature immediately turns the man, woman or animal insane, which is all I did. I grabbed, tossed and punched them until I got them all." Nightmare said, as he again walked up behind Raven, startling her.

"Do you have to keep sneaking up on me like that?" Raven asked.

Nightmare just nodded his head towards the fight again, as the creature began to move once again.

Raven turned back and watched as the creature did exactly as Nightmare said it would. After the creature was done, it stood in what was probably the middle of the warehouse. A black light surrounded it, engulfing the huge creature. When the light died down, on the floor where the creature had stood, was a naked teenage boy lying on the ground unconscious.

"I have only a few more things to show you, Raven. So prepare yourself, for after I show you what I want to, we fight." Nightmare said as he walked through another door in his mind.

Raven nodded to herself and followed.

She immediately recognized the city. It was Jump City. She watched as a young man, looking to be around the age of seventeen or eighteen stumbled around the streets in the daylight, knocking into people and things around him.

"That was a little more then a month ago, when I arrived in Jump City. I was sleep deprived; I hadn't slept in more then three months, keeping myself up with caffeine pills." Nightmare said, again appearing behind Raven.

Nightmare stumbled into an alleyway, away from all the people. Nightmare tripped and fell into a mound of full trash bags. Nightmare struggled to get to his feet, when a bright light appeared in front of him, blinding him. When the light died down, Raven saw Brother Blood standing before the fallen figure of Nightmare.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Brother Blood. I have been watching you for quite sometime, Mr. Sims. That is your name, is it not? Carcer Langston Sims?"

Carcer looked up at Brother Blood, his eyes still trying to focus on him.

"Nobody's called me that in years...what do you want? Leave me alone." Carcer replied.

"I am offering you the chance to come and work for me. I can help you control your powers, no more nightmares when you sleep. How long has it been since you've gotten some sleep, hmm? It's been a few months, hasn't it? All I ask for in return, is to join me in my conquest to take over this city, and then, after we are done here, expand to bigger and better cities!"

Carcer looks up at Blood, shaking his head.

"No. I may have done some bad things in my life, but I would never join you, I don't want to hurt anyone anymore." Carcer says, as he struggles to get to his feet.

"Oh, I see you assumed you would have a say in the matter. I can assure you that you don't." Blood said, his eyes glowing red. Carcer's eyes immediately started to glow red, his lack of sleep made it easy for Brother Blood to take complete control over his mind.

"Now, stand up and follow me." Brother Blood said as he turns and walks out of the alley.

Carcer stands obediently and follows Brother Blood out of the alleyway.

"That, as if you didn't know, was the first time I met Brother Blood." Nightmare said as he walked past Raven, following himself and Brother Blood. "Come, Raven, there are two more things I wish to show you."

Raven follows him, thinking to herself. "Now what is he going to show me?"

"You will see what I am about to show you, Raven. Do not worry yourself about it. But what you should worry about, is the battle that we will have once we are done."

"You can read my mind?" Raven asked in surprise.

"Of course. How do you think I access people's fears? Guessing?" Nightmare said with a chuckle.

The street turns into a strange laboratory around Raven and Nightmare. They stand side by side looking inside a window through to a laboratory. Inside the lab, Carcer was laying on a table, naked with the exception of his boxers. Brother Blood walks around the table, taking measurements of his body and typing them into a computer.

The scene changes once more, and Raven sees Carcer dressed in his current battle suit, looking it over, with Brother Blood watching.

"Do you like it? The mask will help stop you from dreaming, thus, no more nightmares. Speaking of which, that shall be your new name. Nightmare."

"Nightmare, huh? I like that. I like that a lot." Carcer says, as he flexes the suit in different angles.

"The rest of the suit is made of a high density metal that I created. It will protect you from nearly all physical assault." Brother Blood said, clearly admiring his work on the suit.

"Now come, you have a job to do. In the wrists of your suit, you shall find a certain potion that will turn a certain statue of someone back to real life. Come, I shall brief you on the way to meet my new partner." Blood says as he walks out of the lab. The newly christened Nightmare follows.

"You can guess that his new partner is Slade, can't you?" Nightmare asked Raven. Nodding, Raven starts to ask him something.

"Not right now. I realize you have many questions. But there is one more thing I must show you. The girl, Terra, she is not evil. I will show you what Slade has done to her." Nightmare says, as he opens a door and walks through. Raven follows him, her mind brimming with questions.

Through the next door, Raven and Nightmare enter a dark room. The first thing Raven sees is Terra strapped to a table, Slade operating something on a control panel. Terra suddenly yells out in pain, as an electrical blanket covers Terra's entire body.

"Pain is a brutal way to brain wash people. Your friend Terra lasted for three days of torture like this. I was impressed that she lasted that long. But eventually, all people will succumb to the pain, and to the will of whoever happens to be in charge of the pain." Nightmare explained.

"But why would Slade do this? It just doesn't seem like his style." Raven said.

"Slade wanted to make sure that she never betrayed him again, and this was the way he chose to do so. The damage to her is reversible, though it will require much hard work within her mind. I realize that you have done quite a lot of what I call, mind repair, in the past few days, but Terra's mind is in much worse condition then either mine or Beastboy's. It will require much to bring out the Terra that you know and consider your friend." Nightmare explains.

"I see. Is there anything else you wish to show me? And for the record, Terra was never my friend." Raven said.

"My mistake. Anyway, you should prepare yourself. The fight begins soon." Nightmare says as he walks away from Raven.

The world around Raven fades away, and is replaced by the lone country road, with the familiar house. Raven hears a familiar voice.

"This is where you and Nightmare shall fight. Prepare yourself Titan." Came the voice of Brother Blood.