Slade stood before Crow, his little self-test finished. Crow looked at him, considering what he didn't know about the man.

"You've spent time in the darkness, I should know everything about you now. But I don't, you remain an enigma to me. You are the second man to have spent time in the dark and remain shrouded to me. And now that I think about it you do seem to share quite a few qualities with that man, though I suspect that the two of you are quite different." Crow said to Slade.

Slade looked down on Crow from his throne. It wasn't his concern really. He stepped down from the throne and walked passed Crow.

"I have work to do, you may do as you please until I call for you." Slade said. "You are correct, the Batman and I are very different people."

-----------------------

The Teen Titans, in far better straits than they were previous sat in the lounge of their tower discussing tactics and strategy for when they next fought Crow, as well as his possible motivations.

"Argghhhhh. This isn't getting us anywhere!" Beast Boy complained. "We need to take a break, so lets go out for supper or something."

"Sounds good, what do you guys think?" Robin asked.

"It is a very nice day today, perhaps we should d some of the 'hanging out'." Starfire said cheerfully.

"We have been at this for a while, a break could do us some good." Raven said in her usual dour monotone.

"Booya!" Cyborg exclaimed as he jumped from his position on the couch. "I'll drive us to a place."

Cyborg never lost an opportunity to drive his 'baby'.

"Hey I know a tofu place we could go." BB piped in.

And Beast Boy never lost an opportunity to suggest tofu as a meat product substitute. The group got up and went to the immense garage where all there vehicles were.

"Alright, tell me where it is so I can avoid it." Cy smirked.

"Would it kill you to eat tofu?" BB asked.

"It would kill my taste buds." Cy replied as they piled into the car.

The day was lovely, no vandalism to stop, no fights to break up and no crimes to stop; all in all, it was a very good day. The gang had went to a pizza parlour and after ordering enjoyed their food and the time spent with each other; even if that time was spent with Cyborg and Beast Boy arguing over what to order, Starfire making some naïve yet cute comment and Robin explaining things to her. Raven kept to herself in her own little corner, she never felt truly a part of the group and therefore she kept herself slightly apart from the group. She had much to think about, what she knew about Morgan Crow, his abilities, his knowledge and his seeming interest in her. He seemed to steal only to see her; the things he stole seemed unimportant to him, so why did he take these things? Was he working for someone? If he was, was it Slade? Who was Morgan Crow? She had so many questions and so few answers.

As the Titans enjoyed their little break, Raven spotted something just out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see Crow, exiting a store, something in hand, heading for a dark alley, trying to keep to the shadows.

"Raven? Something up?" Cyborg asked, noticing Raven's sudden movement.

"It's him..." She said flatly, leaving no question as to whom 'he' was.

Robin, Starfire and Raven immediately got up to pursue leaving Cyborg to grab Beast Boy who was in the middle of enjoying a vegetarian slice.

"Doooooood!" He shouted in protest. "I wasn't finished!"

"We'll put it in a doggy bag for you." Cyborg said, hauling Beast Boy by the collar of his costume.

They caught Crow at the end of the alley: it was a dead-end. He seemed almost completely unconcerned by their pursuit of him and had not run or attempted any sort of escape.

"Don't you have anything better to do than to chase me?" Crow asked.

"What have you done now?" Robin said in an aggressive tone.

"All I've done is legally purchase this bottle of water." He said showing them the bottle. "And if you ask me, the criminals are the ones who charge two bucks for this. Shouldn't you be off somewhere making the world safe for the weak, the pitiful and the spineless?"

"You have already caused great wrongness." Starfire said. "And it is for this you must pay for your crimes."

"What should concern you more is who I did this 'wrongness' for, spark- child. You really are no match for me, haven't you learned that yet? You should just give up."

"I guess you could say we're slow learners." Beast Boy laughed.

"Well, maybe you are BB, but the rest of us aren't and that's why we don't give up." Cyborg said, his arm converting into a cannon.

Blue light emitted from the weapon as he was about to fire, but Crow only smiled a dark, knowing smile. Shadow creatures came out of the darkness of the walls and grabbed Cy's arm, pulling it upwards, so that the blast would be harmless. The shadows pulled Cyborg up to the wall and held him there as others emerged from the darkness and began to pummel him mercilessly.

"Cyborg I am coming!" Starfire yelled as she powered-up, preparing to blast his shadowy attackers of him.

She never got the chance as she was suddenly basted into the wall. She turned and saw a shadowy copy of herself hovering before her. The shadow grabbed her and threw her upwards hitting her, propelling her further upwards, until she was above the roof of the buildings, then it blasted her once more sending her crashing to the roof.

Below, Robin was not having much more luck as he battled his own shadow- clone and its fighting style, which seemed to incorporate his own, Batman's and Slade's particularly disturbed him.

"And then there were two." Crow said as Beast Boy and Raven stood before him.

Beast Boy looked back at his friends and then back to Crow. He surmised that the shadows, the darkness itself must be under Crow's control and the only way to really help his friends would be to take him out. He shifted into a tiger form and leapt at Crow. His ferocious snarling expression was turned to one of shock as a shadow-tiger leapt at him from Crow's side. The two impacted and went crashing to the ground. They rolled around, scratching, biting and clawing, each trying to tear the other to shreds. Crow stood before Raven, his expression totally calm.

"Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" He quoted.

"Why are you doing this?" Raven demanded.

"Why? They attacked me first, I am merely defending myself."

"Of course they attacked you, you're a criminal."

"Criminal, danger to society... It's hardly surprising I've been branded as such, all things considered."

"What are you..." Raven began to ask.

"Aren't you coming to get me? The only way for you to save them at this point is for you to either stop me or to convince them to leave me alone and I doubt you'll be able to convince them of the latter."

Raven seemed to hesitate for a brief moment, but suddenly leapt out at him. The sudden move almost caught Crow by surprise, but the darkness around him darkened, growing, writhing, much like a living thing. It engulfed them both and Raven fell into an infinite dark void.

She floated there and the atmosphere seemed to be absorbing heat and light. She could see nothing, feel nothing and, after yelling for help once, found she could hear nothing.

I imagine you must be getting cold now. Crow said in her mind. You can't hear anything either. Your body will start to grow numb soon too.

Raven began to loose feeling in her hand and she looked at it: it was dissolving in the darkness or perhaps being consumed by it. The numbness started in her feet and she looked down; her feet, her legs were being consumed by the dark as well.

Soon you wont be able to see yourself at al, you'll have to remind yourself that you do exist. Try talking to yourself, count the seconds as they pass anything to confirm your own existence, for if you stop, if you rest, even for a millisecond, you will cease to exist. I spent, what seemed to be an eternity in this prison. J'onn J'onz, the Martian Manhunter had used my own powers to imprison me here...

Raven felt a chill cold at her spine and realized she was afraid. She couldn't be afraid, if she was, if she lost control of her emotions 'it' might get out.

Outside the darkness the rest of the Titans fought with the shadows to the best of their abilities, but it seemed that it was a lost cause: Cyborg was pinned and pummelled, Robin squared off against himself, Beast Boy fought with the shadow-cat and Starfire was wrestling with her shadow-self. She was pinned down and struggling with her shadow as its hands approached, dark energy flaring, preparing to turn her head to ash. In frustration, righteous anger her power flared, green light emitting from her hands became intense and the shadow-thing became transparent and its weight upon her lessened. Starfire then knew what she had to do; Tamaranians absorbed solar energy in order to fly, she and her sister had been modified to use some of that energy as a weapon. She let loose that energy, that light and the shadow faded and vanished. Never loosing that intense glow, she jumped down from the roof and as the light lit up the alley obliterating the shadows. Robin caught her as she fell, exhausted and depleted.

"Wow, I didn't know Star was that bright." Beast Boy said in awe.

"No wonder they wouldn't let me use my blaster, if I'd gotten off one good shot, it would have vaporized 'em." Cyborg said.

"W-what about Raven?" Starfire asked weakly.

"She's still trapped in there." Robin said looking over at the impenetrable darkness.

It was the one place where Starfire's light could not have reached. Cyborg approached it.

"I'd shoot into that thing, but I might hit Raven..." Cyborg said in frustration.

"What can we do?" Beast Boy asked.

Suddenly the black mass pulsed, grew and then began to shrink rapidly. The darkness parted and there Raven hovered just above the ground, the darkness was being absorbed into the palms of her hands. Once it was gone she floated down to the ground, her back to the Titans.


Teen Titans Facts: Raven has had romantic relationships before, the most notable one was just after she started being able to freely experience emotions. She was the girlfriend of an Eric Forrester, a meta-human. When they were about to consummate their relationship with a little pre-marital hanky-panky, Forrester's dark secrete was revealed: his meta-human ability forced him to drain people of their souls so that he could remain human. Raven's soul-self was, to him, an irresistible treat, but fortunately she was saved by Jericho (Joe Wislson, Slade/Deathstroke's son). Shortly after this, current and former members of the Titans (including Raven) were hunted and captured by the Wildebeest Society, for unknown reasons. Deathstroke, Nightwing, Troia, Pantha, Phantasm, Arella and Red Star joined forces to track them down. Upon locating the captured Titans, the heroes were shocked to learn the identity of the leader of the Wildebeests was their own teammate, Jericho!