The last thing she said was a scream.
A scream that should never have echoed through the cavernous recesses of the Jump City subways.
They had been fighting Slade- Beast Boy had pushed him down onto the tracks in the form of a rhino. Robin was directly behind him, ready with a grappling hook to snap into the ceiling so he could deal Slade the final blow from above.
It started as a Rumbling.
Starfire was knocked out, having taken a hit on the back of the head from Slade's gauntlet-covered fist. She lay in a crumpled heap against a newspaper stand. Cyborg was trapped beneath the rubble, clearing it away with the sonic cannon.
Nobody saw Raven.
Not until it was too late.
The Rumbling turned into raging Thunder, the flourescent lights that lit the station flickering as a headlight shone onto the wall, coming fast around the corner.
Beast Boy felt a tug, and he was unable to move forewards. He changed into a humanoid form, to feel Robin crash into his back and send them both to the ground.
Black Energy faded from his legs.
The Boys looked up. Raven was flying towards Slade, who had recovered. She sent a blast at his chest, sending the archvillian back a few feet. Slade snagged her ankles, pulling her to the ground, and slamming her against the wall.
Raven got back up.
They were merely silhouettes now, against the blaring headlights. The Train grew closer.
With a final burst of energy, she circled her powers around his throat, cutting off his air supply.
Slade choked for a minute, his single eye reeling back behind the mask. He gasped, feeling his own windpipe closing, his voice scarce more than a whistle. With a last bout of strength, he shoved Raven's telekinesis away.
She was pushed back that one fatal step, onto the third rail.
The effect was instantaneous. Raven screamed, as thousands of volts of electricity pushed their way into her body, sending crackles of electricity across her skin. Her hair stood on end, fluttering faintly, and her face was contorted in unimaginable pain. Her body was being ripped apart from the inside, burning, dying.
Small wisps of smoke were curling out of her mouth.
Slade was on his knees on the tracks, gasping for breath.
The train came and went. The only sounds that remained were the echo of Raven's unearthly scream in the air, and Robin's final cry of "No!".
And then it was gone. Slade was gone. Raven was gone.
They never found any bodies. Raven was simply a pile of ashes.
Everything that was Raven- her voice, her mind, her fears, her loves- it was all simply dust. Like blackened snow.
Beast Boy knelt, sobbing uncontrollably. The lump that had risen in his throat was painful and throttling. His head and heart were wracked with grief. Everything that she had done for him, said to him, were simply footprints in a long beach. Beautiful footprints, that would eventually slip away into the tide.
And she was gone.
Robin stood. And stared. In shock.
Slade had killed Raven.
No.
He told himself, No. This was all just a dream, just a haze. And yet, the cut on his forehead was real, the pain was real, the scream was all too real.
Slade had killed a team mate.
No.
Slade had killed the one person Robin cared for most, the only person except Batman who knew and who accepted that the Boy Wonder couldn't save everybody. When he was around, there was no guarantee things would be alright.
Starfire worshipped him, he knew. But she looked up to him as well, something that tore Robin's mind to shreds when he thought about the tameranean as more than a friend.
But Raven...
Raven considered him an equal. She was someone he felt he could love, he just didn't.
Because she didn't love him back. And he knew it.
But... Beast Boy? He knew opposites attracted, but why..?
Robin realized what he had been blind to see so many times before.
Raven needed Beast Boy to keep her from falling deeper into depression and self doubt.
Beast Boy simply needed Raven to keep him from doing anything stupid.
Which left Robin as only an onlooker, a spectator at a movie that you could feel, and hear, and smell.
Robin could never be on stage with Raven and Beast Boy, the performers. He simply had to watch from the sidelines, behind the rails.
Rails. They held him back. They killed her. They were what kept things on-track, including fate.
Robin felt a surge of hate towards them. Towards Slade, whom he knew to have escaped.
There was no body.
Robin leapt into the pit, tearing at the subway rails.
He had to break them. Break his boundaries.
Break himself.