A/N: Ta-da! Chapter 2! Don't forget to review at the bottom! Oh, and just so you know, the dreams don't have any hidden symbolism, or any meanings that you couldn't figure out from reading them. If you don't get where I was going with a particular one, just ask in your review, and when I put up the next chapter, I'll give you an answer as best I can.
Also - I've never been to a bus station, and I don't really know how Starfire came to be in Jump City, so I kind of made it up as I went along. If anyone out there can tell me what really happened, I'll be glad to incorporate it into the dream sequence and take out that bit that I made up. )
Robin's second dream in this chapter is pretty much taken from one of the Batman movies. I figure that Robin came to Jump city after he was in Gotham City, so all of his adventures with Batman have already happened, even though Robin's a 'Teen' Titan now and Robin was pretty much all grown up in the Batman series.
Alas, timeline's matter not in the realm of fan fiction.
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As previously stated...
Comes now Me, the Authoress, and hereby states the Obligatory Disclaimer.
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Oh, and that MXE show, or whatever it's called, is really a show on tv that my boyfriend watches. I don't own that either. Or 'I, Robot' since I mention that once.
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Chapter the Second: Emotions
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Raven sat up and pulled her cloak out from where it was tangled around her legs. She tossed it aside and floated into the hallway. From there, she could see that the clock in the kitchen said 4:57. It was very early, too early for anyone to be awake. She knew this already, of course, for she'd woken up at this time on purpose.
The door to Robin's bedroom was closed, but that didn't matter. She closed her eyes and she went right through the heavy metal. Robin's room was much like it had been the night before, however instead of sleeping in the bed, Robin had fallen asleep at his computer desk. Raven went closer, and looked at the screen. He had several pages open, and, mentally manipulating the mouse, she looked at each one in turn. Apparently, he had been doing some research before falling asleep. Research on demon powers. She left the mouse alone and looked at his face. Before she knew it, she was deep inside of his mind, watching his dream.
It was another battle. This one was between Robin, and his own one-time alter-ego, Red-X. They were on the roof of Titan Tower, and Red-X was taunting Robin, pointing out all of his failures in the battle with Slade, in being a leader, and with his real family and the new family that he'd found with the Titans. Robin was putting up a good fight, but with every remark of Red-X's that got through his defenses, Robin grew weaker, while Red-X grew stronger. Robin dodged all of the X's that were thrown at him, but Raven could tell that he wasn't going to last much longer.
Robin and Red-X were involved in hand to hand combat, and X had managed to get the upper hand. Robin was knocked to the ground, and before he could get up, X had thrown two X's at him, one hitting his face and covering his mouth, and one large one hitting him in the chest and wrapping it's four legs around him. Immobilized, Robin could only stare after Red-X as he ran away, jumping off the edge of the Tower and disappearing.
Robin struggled against his bonds, kneeling on the cold concrete. He could do no more to dislodge the large X than he could to get the small one off without freeing his hands. Slowly, Raven walked over to where he was. She bent down in front of him, and peeled off the smaller X. It left red lines on his face, and Robin averted his eyes. She went around behind him and worked the legs of the larger X apart, so that it fell to the ground. His fists were clenched tight as he watched it blow away.
Raven sat down beside him. After a few moments, he sat back, legs outstretched in front of him, arms thrown out behind him to brace himself. "I didn't need any help," he said.
"I know," Raven replied. They sat in silence for a very long time until a strange beeping noise invaded Raven's head. Reluctantly, she pulled out of the dream to find that it was 6:00, and Robin's alarm clock was going off. He began to wake up, so she made her exit. Aura black, she melted through the wall and into the hall where Star's room was.
Star typically rose at 7:30, so Raven knew she'd not be interrupted here. She entered Star's mind and found that she was dreaming of Halloween. Star had been quite confused at this Earth holiday, and so the Titans had taken her to a Halloween party. They'd dressed in standard costumes, and Star had been enthralled with the candy and the costumes. Raven had the feeling that she often dreamt of this night. In this particular dream, Star was dressed as a cat. She had ears on a headband stuck in her hair, and there was a long cloth tail sewed into the seat of her orange pants. The tail and ears were also orange, and her shirt was white with the orange logo of Josie and the Pussycats. She was dancing with Robin, a normal looking, not-green Robin, who was dressed in army fatigues; camo pants, combat boots instead of his normal metal-soled shoes, a tight white t-shirt and dog tags. Raven rolled her eyes. She just couldn't see Robin slow-dancing, voluntarily, in front of all these people. Especially to one of those upbeat pop songs that Star favored, such as whatever one was playing in the background right now.
Raven searched through the crowd for the rest of the Titans. Thanks to his green skin, she found Beast Boy right away, leaning on a counter. He was dressed, as far as Raven could tell, as a gangster. He was wearing a tailored pin-stripe suit and had on a black hat. He was carrying a plastic Tommy-gun and attempting to chat up a short blonde dressed as a nurse. She was giggling, and he was smiling back at her. Raven thought of Terra, but this particular blonde wasn't Terra.
Cyborg was nearby, talking to a bunch of guys about cars and electronics. She rolled her eyes. He was dressed as, interestingly enough, a pirate. He had a black eye patch that covered his electronic eye, and a red and white striped shirt. He had on black pants that were torn off just below the knee, and he carried a short plastic sword. Raven soon moved on from him, as she soon found her dream-self in the crowd.
Like the others, she was in full costume, and the only good thing that she could think of to say about it was that it was black.
The Dream-Raven was wearing a black leotard similar to the one that she wore with her uniform, but she didn't have Raven's heavy cloak for cover. All that she had was a short, filmy mesh skirt, tied around her waist with a black ribbon. It had silver designs on it, and was ragged at the bottom. Dream-Raven had black tights that disappeared into black shoes that had coffin-style heels and a strap across the top of her foot.
Around her neck was a heavy silver amulet on a black ribbon. She was wearing heavy Goth make-up and coming out of her back were two large, black wings. They were made of a mesh cloth stretched around a wire structure and had silver designs airbrushed onto them, matching the skirt. They were made to look torn and ragged, giving Dream Raven the over-all appearance of a dead fairy. She had distanced herself from the party and was staring out the window.
Raven, not wishing to see herself in this ridiculous costume any longer, exited Starfire's dream. It was ten after five. Since Beast Boy was usually the first to rise, at seven, usually, so that was where she went next. He was sleeping deeply, and Raven entered into his dreams.
The first thing she noticed was that it was hot. Blinking in the sudden sunlight, Raven found herself standing on a wide plain, with dry grasses and a single nearly dead-looking tree. She was in Africa, she decided.
Beast Boy was a tiger, and he was fighting a lion. Starfire was lying on the ground, apparently unconscious, and Dream Raven was lying near her, cloak torn. Robin and Cyborg were no where to be seen, and Beast Boy was injured. She walked over to herself and quickly found out why she and Star were just lying there. Dream Raven had been caught across the back with the lion's razor sharp claws, and those same claws had caught Star across the mid-section.
There was a lot of blood.
Raven stood under the sparse shade form the tree and watched. Beast Boy and the lion were going head to head, both now reared up on their hind legs and trying to force the other to the ground. It wasn't working. Beast Boy transformed into a huge Rhino, and used his horn to toss the lion several feet away. The big cat hit the ground, hissing and snarling.
Beast Boy turned to see to the girls, but the lion came back. Now a gorilla, Beast Boy pummeled the surprised lion with enormous fists. Turning lastly into a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Beast Boy succeeded in chasing away the lion. He turned back into himself, and went to the girls. Star was closer, and he stopped at her side. Bending down, he rolled her onto her back to take a look at the wounds. He sucked in a breath and took his hand off of her quickly. Rubbing his hand on his pants leg first, he felt Star's neck.
Raven opened her eyes wide. Star was dead. Did that mean that her dream self would be dead too? Beast Boy shut Star's eyes and moved on to Dream Raven. Leaving her on her side, he touched her face. "Rae?" Dream Raven stirred, and Raven felt a little better. She didn't know if she could really handle seeing herself dead.
Beast Boy took off Dream Raven's cloak and laid it on top of Star's body. He piled rocks all around the edges of it, and went back to Dream Raven. He picked her up like you would a sleeping child, carefully avoiding the injury to her back. Raven followed him as he walked away.
They reached a very small village and Raven looked around. All of the people here were people that she knew. The other Titans were there, as well as nearly everybody who had been bestowed the title of Honorary Titan. People who they had fought were there, and even people long since dead. No one was fighting, not even with the bad guys. Terra was there, walking down the middle with Robin, both carrying firewood. She went into a hut and he kept walking, catching sight of Beast Boy carrying Dream Raven. Robin dropped his firewood and ran over.
"BB, what happened?" They went into a hut on the edge of the village. Beast Boy laid Dream Raven down on a bed of sorts, and Robin looked at the claw marks on her back.
"It was a lion. It jumped us out near the tree. Robin...," BB paused, and Robin looked up at him. "Robin, he got Star pretty bad, and..."
Robin jumped up. "Where is she? You left her out there!" BB bit his lip.
"She was just hurt too bad, Rob. There was nothing any one could do. The lion, it attacked her first, before we even knew it was there. I'm sorry, Robin." Beast Boy looked at the ground, and Robin stared at him in disbelief.
Dream Raven began to wake up. Beast Boy took one last look at Robin and then ran to her side. "Rae? Rae, can you hear me?"
"Beast Boy?" Robin's voice was scratchier than usual, and she blinked her eyes several times, trying to focus them.
"Yeah."
"What...What happened?"
"We were attacked out by the tree. There was a lion, and it got you pretty good." Robin ran out of the hut and into the one directly across from it. Raven looked at Beast Boy, now getting some blankets out from under the bed. Raven wondered why, because it was so hot already, but then she saw that Dream Raven was pulling her arms out of her leotard, and Beast Boy was helping her pull it down off of her back. She was using the blanket to cover herself, and Beast Boy began to clean her wounds. Raven walked out and into the hut that Robin had run into.
He was there, lying on the bed, holding something close to his chest. Silently, tears were pouring down his face. Raven watched him for a moment, and then he stood up. He wiped his face on his sleeve and grabbed a sheet. Raven saw what it was that he'd been holding. It was that blue sparkly pillow that the real Star had gotten for Christmas last year. Raven followed him out of the hut and he went to get Cy. The two men (men was correct, for in Beast Boy's dream, everyone was grown up) walked out towards the tree. Raven went back to the hut where her dream self and Beast Boy were, for she didn't wish to see the dead body of her friend.
Entering the hut, she found her Dream-self doing the unthinkable. She was sitting in Beast Boy's lap, arms around his neck. He was rubbing one hand slowly up and down her arm, and the other hand was on her leg. His face was in her neck, and she was kissing his temple lightly. She still had only the blanket around her upper body, but soon Beat Boy divested her of that and Raven could watch no more.
She left Beast Boy's mind, now standing back beside his bed. A smile was playing at his lips and Raven turned away. According to the clock on Beast Boy's desk, it was after six. She'd been exploring his mind for an hour, and she was tired. Only one mind left to go.
Cyborg was plugged into the wall. Raven entered his human mind, bypassing the mechanical outer-most parts. He was dreaming of cars and races, most likely spurred on by too much Gamestation. Unlike every other dream so far, this dream actually had nothing to do with any of the Titans. His dream focused on the cars themselves, and their futuristic parts and features. Knowing nothing about cars and caring for them even less, Raven exited his mind and went back to her own body.
She could see herself lying on the couch, covered with a blanket. She walked over to the couch and laid down on it, quickly melding with herself.
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In her sleep, Raven rolled over. It was sunrise, and the light coming through the windows was waking her up. She stretched her arms out and breathed in deeply. After a second, she became aware of a strange, slightly familiar scent. Not a bad one, just different. She kept her room smelling like nighttime and rain and somewhat like her herbal tea, but this smell was more like...apples and fresh air and soap. She opened her eyes and looked at her surroundings.
She was on the couch in the living room, and she was still in her uniform from yesterday. Someone else's blanket was pulled up around her, and that was where this new smell was coming from. Her blankets were all black or purple, but this one was red. She knew that Star had white and pink blankets, and that Cyborg didn't use blankets. Since he was electronic, he didn't get cold.
That left Beast Boy and Robin, and she knew that Beast Boy had blue blankets and Robin had a yellow one. She stopped and wondered how she knew that. She'd never been in either of their rooms, and they all did their own laundry. Raven frowned and pushed the blanket off of her. Immediately, she missed the warmth, but rose anyway and headed to the kitchen.
The clock on the wall was saying that it was only about twenty after six, so she quietly made herself a cup of tea. Taking it to the rooftop, she sat down and meditated, feeling calmer than she'd felt in a long time. She'd had another strange dream, in which she visited the other's dreams. She thought about that while she meditated, thinking it odd that the past two night's that's happened, when usually she didn't remember dreaming at all. Also, she had been waking earlier than usual, and yesterday she'd felt tired all day long. She hoped she wasn't getting sick, but really didn't think that that was the problem. It felt like something else. Besides, she didn't feel bad, just tired.
When she heard the others moving around downstairs, she went back to the living room. She had had thoughts of seeing who retrieved the blanket and put it away, but it was already gone by the time that she got there. Sighing, she walked into the kitchen and put her cup in the sink. The others were eating breakfast at the table, and as she walked past she heard a little snatch of conversation.
"They were really awesome, nothing like any cars that really exist. A couple of them were totally mechanical. You didn't even have to steer them!"
"Awesome," Beast Boy exclaimed. "Like in 'I, Robot'?"
"Yeah, man. It was tight."
"Please, friends, what do you mean by 'tight'?"
Robin spoke up for the first time since Raven had been in the room. "He just means that his dream was cool."
'Cyborg had a cool dream about cars?' Raven thought. 'Strange, that's what I dreamed that he dreamed about.'
Raven sat down in an empty seat at the table, surprising the others. "Good Morning, Raven. You are up very early today," Star greeted her, way too happy for the early hour.
"The sunrise woke me up."
"You fell asleep on the couch last night," Robin said. "Are you feeling all right?"
Raven looked at him. "Yeah, why?"
"Something was wrong with you last night." Raven blinked. She did wake up on the couch, but she hadn't stopped to think about why.
"There was?" Even Beast Boy stopped eating and stared at her.
"Rae, you passed out after healing Star, remember?" Raven shook her head.
"You nearly took my head off, do you remember that?" Raven thought for a moment. She did have a fuzzy memory of extreme anger and annoyance at Robin, but that was a common occurrence.
"Kind of..."
"Are you ill?" Starfire looked worried.
"I just don't want to talk about it anymore, okay?" Cyborg nodded and went back to his breakfast. Beat Boy did the same, and Robin didn't ask anymore, but kept looking at her oddly. Star changed the subject.
"I realized this morning that it was midway through the month of September, Friends!"
"And?" Cyborg asked.
"The next month is October, the glorious month of your Earth holiday, Halloween!" Raven looked at her funny. Robin looked at Raven funny because she was looking at Star funny. "I have remembered this because of my dream last night. I dreamt that we were at a Halloween party, and this gave me a glorious idea! We should have a Halloween party here! What do you think of my idea, friends?"
Beast Boy jumped on the idea excitedly. Any chance for a party and a way to meet girls was good with him, and Cyborg agreed. Robin shrugged, and Raven stood up and left the room abruptly. She left the room, not answering when the others were calling after her.
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'So Cy dreamed of cars and Star dreamed of Halloween.' Raven though, locked in her own room. 'That's too much of a coincidence to ignore. It's time to have a chat with my emotions.' Raven picked up the ornate silver mirror off of her dresser and sat on the bed, the mirror in front of her.
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Raven walked through the bright sunshine, looking for one of her emotions. This whole place made her a little bit uncomfortable, since coming here meant facing all of the emotions that she pushed back the rest of the time. There was a rock ahead, and on it sat Knowledge. "I knew you would come," she said as Raven drew closer. "I've already sent Courage to gather the others."
Knowledge moved over to let Raven sit, but she preferred to stand. The others began to straggle in. Sorrow edged up slowly, followed by Happiness in her disgustingly pink cloak. The last to arrive was Timid, making a valiant attempt to halfway hide behind her own brown cloak. They arranged themselves in a lopsided circle on the brass. Raven scowled at the strawberry that floated by, and then she spoke.
"Well, I suppose that you all know why I'm here." They all murmured agreement. "Well, then? Talk to me."
"I believe that you already have a theory on this matter, do you not?" Knowledge adjusted her glasses.
"I had though about it some. The thing that really connects these past two nights together is that I have fallen asleep before meditating. But I can't be sure that it wasn't just some crazy coincidence."
Bravery jumped to her feet, green cloak blowing behind her in the wind. "A test, then. Do not meditate again tonight and see if the dreams come again."
Timid shook her head, wringing her brown cloak in her hands. "I don't think that's a good idea. What if something goes wrong?"
"What could possibly go wrong?" Happiness said. Sorrow burst into tears. She buried her face in her grey cloak. Happiness ignored her.
Rudeness burped loudly, and lay down on the ground and promptly fell asleep. Knowledge, who was also a quite curious girl, thought about it for a moment while the others kept reiterating their individual views.
"I think Bravery is right." The others stopped talking and stared at Knowledge. "We must be certain that this is what is causing the problems. Tonight you must not meditate before sleeping." Raven nodded, reluctantly. Finished with the Emotions, she left through the mirror.
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Raven sat at the kitchen table staring at her sandwich. She was hungry, but felt too worried about tonight to eat. Since it was a large open room, she could see the other Titans in the living room area. Starfire was curled up on a chair reading a stack of some sort of fashion and beauty magazines, and the boy were watching some stupid show that was a parody of some Japanese game show. MXE, or something like that.
It was stupid, but Raven found herself absently watching it from across the room. The tv wasn't turned up loud enough to hear all they were saying from here, but it was kinda funny to watch if you didn't have anything else to do. Raven almost smiled as some poor Japanese woman trying to run up a hill was knocked down by some huge fake boulders.
She looked back at her sandwich before anyone noticed that she was watching the tv. Earlier, she had an argument with Beast Boy about what to watch. He wanted this, but she said it was stupid. It had ended with Cy and Robin coming up from the workout room and taking the remote for themselves. She took a bite out of her sandwich. It was turkey with a little bit of yellow mustard on wheat bread, but it might as well have been cardboard for all that she tasted it.
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It was nighttime and Raven was about to loose her mind. She was incredibly nervous about not meditating on purpose, and she was anxious to get it over with. She was totally ready for bed, and as far as she knew, everyone else had been asleep for more than two hours. The only problem was that she was wide awake. She'd tried reading. She'd tried warm milk. She'd tried turning the lights off and just lying in bed. She tried to count sheep, but that was just stupid. Concentrating on something like that was too much like meditation, too, she supposed.
Raven was now walking around her room aimlessly, looking at her things. There in the corner was the trunk that contained the book that Malchior had come out of. Against this wall was her dresser, on which she kept her Mirror. Here was her desk, and her brand new laptop computer. All of the Titans had recently gotten upgrades, courtesy of Wayne Enterprises in thanks for some recent work. Her bed was pushed up into the corner of this wall and that wall, and she flopped onto it. She kicked the edge of the bed with the backs of her feet. She drummer her fingers on the bedspread. She sighed several times.
Finally, she went out into the living room and watched late-night tv for two more hours until she fell asleep.
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Rising from the couch, Raven looked out the window for a moment before starting across the room towards the halls where the bedrooms were located. Tonight, she went to Cyborg's room first. He was plugged in, as usual, and she studied his face for a moment. Unlike the others, he showed no emotions while he was dreaming. She went to see what he was seeing.
It was a basketball game, and Cy was Victor Stone, high school jock. It was a close game, 39-37, and in the fourth quarter. Raven didn't know which team was winning. Victor had the ball, but he was blocked. He passed it to a teammate, who passed it to another, who passed it back to Victor, who scored. It was now a tied game. The cheerleaders for Victor's team screamed for him, and Raven looked over at them. She was surprised to see that she recognized them. Starfire was there, along with Kitten and Jinx. Blackfire was just behind Star, and there was even a Dream-Raven cheerleader.
Raven shuddered and turned away from them. After realizing that she knew the cheerleaders, she began to recognize some of the others in the gym. Across the back of one of Victor's teammate's jerseys, it said BB. When he turned, Raven saw that it was indeed BB, though not green, and looking much like a regular high school kid. Another one of the teammates was Robin, not wearing a mask, but instead sporting some reflective sunglasses. Raven doubted that he'd have been allowed to wear them in a real game, but she knew that, like herself, Cy had never seen Robin's eyes.
One of the opposing team members looked like Gizmo, without the backpack, and in the audience she saw Speedy, Aqualad, and Bumblebee. 'Cyborg probably knows all of these people,' she thought. 'There's probably people here from both parts of his life.'
The other team made a move towards their goal and Victor's team stopped them by making a foul. One of the opposing team members took two foul shots and sunk them both. There was a cheer from one side of the audience. With only a minute left to go, the ref took the ball out and a player threw it in. BB caught it, and quickly passed it to Robin, who practically flew down the court with it. Someone from the other team blocked his shot, and he missed, but Victor rebounded it. The ball fell through the net just as the buzzer sounded. The game went into overtime.
Just as they were beginning the fifth quarter, something happened. The opposing team suddenly began to change, growing and reforming to become some of the Titans rivals. There was Cinderblock, Cardiac, Gizmo, Dr. Light, and, Cyborg's own personal rival, the Hive.
Raven looked at Victor's team and saw that they too were changing. Beast Boy had turned back into his Titan self, and so had Robin. Even the cheerleaders were getting back to normal. Blackfire and Kitten had disappeared, but her own Dream-self and Star were now in their regular Titans uniforms. Jinx was in her regular outfit, but instead of joining the bad guys, she joined ranks with the Titans. A surprise bigger than this, however, was what was happening to Victor Stone. He was slowly changing into Cyborg, as parts of him were turning from regular human parts to mechanical parts.
His right eye became red and the pupil faded away. His gym shorts became longer and turned to metal and microchips as they molded to his legs. The fingers of his left hand fused into a fist and the metal sleeve of his basketball jersey grew over them to form his blaster.
And he was fighting it all. Hard. He used his other, still human hand to tear at the jersey that was molding to his body. He broke apart the microchips that were slowly moving up his neck. It was a battle with himself that he would ultimately lose, and Raven felt his despair, his anger at being ripped away from his old life, and his fury at the villains who now took the place of his beloved sports.
As he launched himself into battle alongside the other Titans and Jinx, Raven felt that she'd seen enough. She pulled out and left the room, lost in thought. She'd known Cyborg wasn't totally satisfied with his mechanical self, but she hadn't known that the feelings ran that deep. She didn't know about the total despair that he felt when he thought about his former life.
She moved down the hallway to Beast Boy's room and wandered into his dreams. She nearly laughed out loud as she saw him, dressed up as a person from that MXE or whatever, standing in a huge mud pit. There were several other players, and they were trying to catch balls that were shot out of some sort of cannon from the shore. They were, apparently, trying to catch them before they hit the mud.
Beast Boy looked like he was enjoying himself immensely, and Raven grinned a little bit. He wasn't so much catching the balls, as he was playing in the mud. Shaking her head, Raven decided that there was nothing more to this dream and left his room.
Starfire was the next one to be visited. In Star's dream, she was wondering up and down the streets, totally lost. It was raining, and it was cold. The sun had gone down, and Raven could tell that she was in a bad part of whatever town that she was in. There was a crash from an alley, and a huge rat ran out, chased by a skinny mangy alley cat. A dark colored car pulled up and the driver rolled his window down.
Raven couldn't see his face because of the shadow, but she did hear him speak, "Hey baby," he said in a low voice. "Lookin' for a little action? Hop in."
Starfire looked confused. "Hop in?"
The man frowned. "What are you playin' at?"
"I am not playing anything. I believe that I am what you call lost."
The man grinned again, and Raven was filled with dread. "Well, why don't you just climb in here with ole' Ned, and I'll take you home."
"Oh, Glorious day! You know the way back to Tamaran?"
"Uh...Yeah. That's where we'll go. Just get in little girl." Starfire began to walk around to the passenger side of the creepy stranger's car when suddenly something huge and black obscured Raven's vision. There was a whipping noise, and thud, the scrape of metal on metal, something whipped through the air, and then it was silent, and Starfire was gone. The creepy man was tied up inside of his own car and there was a device stuck to the roof that had a blinking red light. Drawing closer, Raven saw the symbol of a bat, and a short, terse not pinned to the man's bindings. She couldn't read the writing from where she was.
'Batman,' she thought, looking up. Sure enough, there he was at the top of the nearest building, talking to Starfire. Raven flew up there.
"Jump City." He was saying. Starfire nodded, and they both went their separate ways. Star flew towards the setting sun and Batman went off into the night. Raven followed Star, and found that she was actually going to a Bus Station of all places. After waiting her turn in line, she told the clerk she'd like to go to Jump City. The clerk named a price and Starfire handed over a fifty. Raven assumed that Batman had given it to her, since the alien girl looked at it oddly.
The clerk handed her change back, and a bus ticket. "Next!" She called, and Starfire moved away. She looked at her ticket for a very long time, and then she looked around the station. Reading over her shoulder, Raven saw that it was bus number 47, and was due to leave in roughly twenty minutes. But Raven could also tell that this was the first time that Starfire had done anything like this - bought a ticket, been to a bus station...it was probably even the first time she'd used Earth money. Raven felt the need to help Star out. Shedding her cloak, since no one could actually see her anyway, she grabbed a light brown trench coat off of a nearby seat. Cinching the belt tight, she pushed her hair behind her ears and put on the matching hat. The poor business man that it probably belonged to would get a real shock when he came back for it.
She looked ridiculous, she knew, in this coat and hat with her purple boots, but Star wouldn't realize that, she hoped. Star happened to be standing near some pay phones, and Raven picked one up. She hoped, that since it was what happened in both of Robin's dreams, that as soon as she spoke, Star would be able to see her. She took a deep breath, summoned up Bravery, and picked up one of the phones. She put it to her ear, ad wondered for a second if anyone else besides Star would even see her there. She had no idea, but she began to speak anyway.
"Yeah, I'm going to Jump City," she said into the phone a little louder than usual. From a few feet away she saw Star half-turn so that she could listen. "My bus, its number 47, leaves in about fifteen minutes, so I'd better go and get on. I'll see you when I get there. Bye."
She walked towards the door to the covered area where you boarded the busses. They were all in a line, and there were yellow numbers painted on the ground in front of the different parking spaces. The door to the terminal was in the middle of the line, by number 32, to be exact, and Raven turned to the left and went up until she hit number 47. She climbed aboard and made her way towards the back. She figured she could go back there, use her powers to go through the floor of the bus, and be back outside again. Her plan worked perfectly.
Star was on the bus, the driver took her ticket, and the bus began to leave after a few more minutes. That was good enough for Raven, and, after returning the coat and hat and retrieving her own cloak, she left Star's dream.
Robin was last, and when Raven entered his room, she knew that she couldn't stay long. She slipped into his mind easily and found that once again she was in Gotham City. Again, Batman was there but this time there was no Starfire. Robin was there fighting alongside his mentor, and they were fighting someone that Raven herself had fought before. Dr. Freeze. Raven had heard stories of their battle in Gotham City, but in all of those stories, another villain was involved. Poison Ivy. Raven didn't see any other bad guys, though. Only the three of them were on the roof. Well, the four of them, if she counted herself.
This was the same Dr. Freeze whom Robin had battle the night before last, and Raven could kind of understand why he was in Robin's subconscious so much. Mr. Freeze was pretty much wiping the ground with him, and Batman, in the end, actually had to give up the chase in order to thaw out the Boy Wonder before he froze to death.
When he was unthawed, Robin was very angry, and he was even swearing, something that he almost never did. In fact, outside of this dream, raven had really only heard him swear on two separate occasions, and never with this amount of fluency.
Raven raised an eyebrow.
The two masked crusaders went off in the Batmobile, and Raven flew behind them. They went into some sort of hidden entrance, and Raven just flew right through the doors when the shut behind the door. They were arguing now, as they Changed out of their costumes. Robin's costume, though it was red and had a cape, was much different from the one that he wore now. Raven had to admit to herself that a guy just looked better in an atomically correct rubber suit than he did in that other uniform he wore now.
And she also admitted that she ought to look away as he stripped out of it inside of a little niche in the side of the...cave? Raven turned around to look at the room she was in as Robin began to take the uniform off of his waist and legs. She thought that staring at his chest and abs was all right, but there was a line that one crossed when they were staring at more than that. And besides, she was already intruding in his own mind. She should give him a small modicum of privacy. Shouldn't she?
She snuck a look anyway.
Robin had a very nice ass.
Raven flushed and flew over to where Bruce Wayne was talking to an older man that she knew had to be Alfred Pennyworth. Yes, they were talking, but Raven couldn't hear a word that they were saying. She moved closer. That didn't help at all. Raven was puzzled, until Robin began to come closer. Their moving mouths began to make words, loud as whispers at first, then the volume grew to a normal level.
"-to go over both the uniforms and make sure they're not damaged."
"Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?"
"Is dinner ready yet? I'm starved."
"It is ready whenever you-"
Robin passed them and began going up the stairs, and their volume dropped again.
' Duh,' she thought, as she went up after him. 'I'm in his dream. I hear what he hears, and see what he knows to be there.' Raven followed him all the way into an upstairs bedroom, where he laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He crossed his arms behind his head and lay still for quite a while, it seemed, before getting up and beginning to pace around the room. He gave that up after a while and turned on his tv. He flipped channels quickly and stopped on a news channel.
"In other news tonight," the news lady began. "Dr. Freeze was spotted earlier, fleeing from the scene of his latest crime. We go now to Samantha Sage in downtown Gotham."
Suddenly, Raven felt herself losing her control over her powers. The dream kept blurring out of focus, and she could only hear bits of what the news lady was saying. "Ice shards and frost-"
The lady's voice was lost. The whole room went out of focus.
"Only reminders of the-" the voice on the tv came back in for a second.
Things began to whir around her like she was spinning rapidly and the bright light from the tv was the only thing that she could make out.
"-to you, Angie."
Raven couldn't even make out the light from the television, and, strangely, all of the blurring colors formed a sort of greenish hue.
Everything went black.
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A/N: So, how was chapter 2? Better than the first? Worse? About the same? What do you guys think about how the story should go? I'd really like some input, because, well, for one thing I always like it better when I feel like I influenced the story a little with my reviews. So in anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
And besides, after I upload this chapter, any reviews I receive from here on out will be responded to in an author note after the end of each chapter. I'm putting it at the end because some people are bothered by long author notes at the beginning, but at the end then can just skip over them if they want by scrolling to the bottom of the page.
And you all want to see your names in print, right?