Robin lay on the ground; he was just waking up and was moving a bit sluggishly.
"Ughhh… What happened?" He asked himself.
He rose shakily to his feet and looked around. He was standing on a narrow earthen path that was suspended over a void, seemingly unsupported. The void was an eternal twilight, black and filled with stars, endless in all directions. He could see small, floating islands, some closer to the path; some further away, some had old withered trees others did not. Fascinated by these trees he tried to get a better look, but turned away as he saw disturbingly human faces on those trees. He remembered Crow in the ruins, and all the Titans being swallowed by that dark; had Crow teleported them all someplace?
"Gotta get moving." He said to himself.
He looked around him, there were only two ways to go: backwards or forwards. He started walking the path before him.
"STARFIRE! BEASTBOY! CYBORG! RAVEN!" He shouted.
There was no reply; there wasn't even an echo. He turned on his communicator only to hear static. There was no way he could find the others like that, the only choice he had was to keep walking.
Starfire, due to her alien strength and endurance, had not been unconscious for long and had begun to search for her friends. It hadn't been going well so far she hadn't seen them, or much of anything for that matter. She was terribly worried and it wasn't helping that she felt as though she were being watched. She continued to fly cautiously, her eyes darting everywhere, looking for an unseen enemy or one of her friends.
A sudden motion caught her attention. She turned and saw a withered tree. It hadn't been there a moment ago, was the world changing round her she wondered. Something in the branches moved and shuffled. She approached cautiously. As she approached she saw that there were black birds sitting on the branches, watching her intently.
"Ahh… Hello, perhaps you can aid me. I am currently searching for some friends of mine, perhaps you have seen them?" She asked of the flock.
It stood to reason, to Starfire at least, that this was obviously not anywhere on earth so who was to say that they could not speak. Perhaps they could help her; she figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. Simply put, she was wrong.
The carrion crows opened two pairs of glowing red eyes and took on a far more demonic aspect as they took wing. Starfire uttered a small 'eeek' as they descended towards her.
Cyborg, who had been closest to the all-encompassing shadow of darkness, was relatively undamaged, but it had still taken him a bit of effort to get up. He took in his surroundings and gaped. He recognized them, or rather, recognized what they resembled. This place was similar, if not identical to that place that he and Beast Boy had entered through Raven's mirror: it looked a lot like her mindscape. And he dreaded being here again; not that it hadn't been interesting, but one could only stand so much apologizing from Timid Raven. Well, there was that and the birds and giant demon, Angry Raven, which had been trying to kill them. That too was kind of a downer. He also noticed that it wasn't exactly the same as Raven's mindscape; it seemed like it had been made by someone with its stone walkways, whereas Raven's had seemed to have a more natural feel to it. As natural as it was that is.
He had his blaster ready to fire at any moment. He was also constantly turning around, trying to aim in every direction. He stopped; he heard a flapping noise behind him. A cawing from right behind him caused him tom jump in fright. He turned around and aimed his cannon… right at a grinning Beast Boy.
"Hey, Cy. What's up besides you?" BB chuckled.
"DON'T DO THAT!" Cy shouted. "What're you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?"
"Chill, Cy. It's just a joke. Besides, isn't your heart electronically regulated or something? How could I give you a heart attack?"
"It wasn't funny." Cyborg admonished.
"Yeah, I guess it was for the birds really." BB chuckled again.
Cyborg was about to scold Beast Boy again when he heard the sound of flapping wings behind him. He glared at Beast Boy.
"I'm not falling for it this time." Cy growled.
"Wasn't me." Beast boy replied defensively.
"Then who… oh… no…" He said as it suddenly dawned on him.
Cyborg slowly turned around and his eyes widened as he saw the huge flock of demon crows flying towards them. The birds shrieked out a war cry as they rose into the air, preparing to dive bomb Cyborg. Cyborg turned back, only to see that Beast Boy had turned into a cheetah and fled. Following his friend's example, Cyborg too ran as fast as he could. The birds pulled out of their dive at the last possible second, paused to regain altitude and continued their pursuit of Cyborg and Beast Boy, Cyborg covering their retreat with blasts of his cannon.
Robin was not having a pleasurable time of it either. It had seemed like forever since he had started walking, although his sense of time was skewed; it could have been only a few moments, it was impossible for him to tell. He had decided to take a break by a withered tree that stood on the path, except that the tree decided it did not like that and began to attack him. Robin had no idea how to fight a foe like this; all of his weapons seemed to have no effect and turning back would have been pointless, as he had come far. He could only go forward. He was at a loss as he parried the attacking branches with his staff. He was growing tired and this was getting him nowhere. He was almost ready to give up when he hear a shriek. He jumped back and saw Starfire flying overhead, the demon crows hot in pursuit. He suddenly saw a way out of this, to kill tow birds with one stone, so to speak.
"STARFIRE! BRING 'EM THIS WAY!" He shouted.
Starfire turned her head and nodded briefly. She then began to make a wide turn, the birds following her every step of the way and headed straight back towards Robin. Robin reached for his utility belt; timing was everything now. As Starfire passed overhead, Robin tossed some small silver balls in the air in front of the birds. The orbs exploded in bright light and the birds halted and shrieked in rage, the tree too reacted to the light as it thrashed about. Robin gave a little smile; he'd been right, these things, this place had something to do with Morgan Crow and as Star had herself observed, they did not like the light.
"Starfire, give it all you got!" He shouted.
Starfire twirled around to face their enemies and fired off a barrage of starbolts. When the dust cleared all that was left of the tree was kindling wood and all that remained of the birds were some burnt feathers. Starfire flew down and tackle-hugged Robin from behind.
"Oh Robin, I was so worried about you." She said as she squeezed him.
"I appreciate the sentiment Starfire… but you're crushing me…" Robin gasped.
Starfire let him go, whereupon he collapsed gasping for breath. She picked him up, helping to dust him off, with a slight embarrassed expression.
"You are undamaged, Robin?" She queried.
"I'm fine, Star. Lets just go find the others." He said, starting to walk off.
Cyborg and Beast Boy were still running from the crows, Cy blasting away with his cannon, though it appeared to be ineffective as the birds dodged the shots.
"I'm getting some serious déjà vu here, dude!" Beast Boy shouted.
"THAT'S IT, I'VE HAD IT WITH THIS!" Cyborg yelled, coming to complete halt.
He turned, aimed his cannon and fired. The birds nimbly dodged Cyborg's shots, scattering in all directions. Cyborg did his best to hit them, there were just so many and he had to worry about BB too. Beast Boy was using a duck and cover method to protect himself, but he felt certain he knew what was going to happen next. Cyborg fired, barely paying attention to where his shots were going, being more interested in hitting his targets. One bird passed beneath him and Cyborg fired, destroying the very path beneath them. The two went up for a brief moment before falling down through the hole in the path Cyborg had made. Cyborg was barely able to grab hold of the underside of the path and Beast Boy clung to his leg.
"Yep, major déjà vu…" Beast Boy said in absolute calm. "Hi, Robin, Star."
"Huh?" Cyborg looked down.
There Robin and Starfire stood on the underside of the path, seemingly unaffected by Cyborg's perception of gravity. And then, Cyborg's perception changed; he was looking down at Robin, he was looking up at him and he could feel gravity start to pull him towards the path.
"You've got to be…" Cy never finished the comment as he and Beast Boy came crashing down on the suddenly whole path.
"Owww…" BB groaned as he'd landed beneath Cy's leg.
"Are you two okay?" Robin asked as the two got up.
"I don't want to talk about it." Cy grumbled as he got up.
"Wondrous! Now we must find Raven and we shall be together again!" Starfire exclaimed excitedly.
"Yeah, so where do we go?" Beast Boy asked, dusting himself off.
"We were thinking of checking that out." Robin pointed.
Beast Boy and Cyborg turned to see a stone arch, just a little ways away.
"Doesn't look like we got much choice." Cyborg said.
"Does anybody else have a bad feeling about this?" Beast Boy asked as they entered the arch.
As they passed the arch, the world around them rippled and changed, becoming a village. The Titans looked around, but saw neither Raven, nor Crow.
"If some weird personality thing of Crow's comes up to us, I'm gonna beat it up, even if it is the timid one." Beast Boy growled.
"THERE THEY ARE!" Someone from behind them shouted.
The Titans turned to see a mob of people standing there. The Titans readied themselves to fight and the mob charged, but passed right through them, as though they weren't there, as though they were ghosts. The Titans turned again to see where the mob was headed and then they saw the mob's quarry: A young woman and a boy. The boy clung to the woman's skirt with a look of terror on his face; it was obvious that the two were related.
"Get the demon child!" Someone from the mob screamed.
"Please… no… we've done nothing wrong." The woman begged.
"You brought that abomination into our village, it has to be destroyed." Someone else shouted.
Starfire took a step forward, her temper flaring, but Robin stopped her.
"This isn't real, Star. There's nothing we can do… this is a memory of things that already happened." Robin said to her.
The Titans continued to watch as the woman begged and pleaded for her son's life, but the villagers refused, saying 'it's a demon child' and 'its an abomination'. Things got steadily worse, Starfire no longer able to watch this vision turned away and then, someone from within the mob threw a stone. It struck the woman and she fell.
"Mommy!" The boy cried out. "Wake up… please wake up…"
He shook her, but to no avail. The mob began to close in on the boy, intent on putting an end to his life. The boy's face contorted in fury and rage and he turned to the mob; a second pair of eyes had opened on his forehead, eyes like the demon Trigon's.
"Disappear…" The boy growled.
His shadow seemed to grow large and began to engulf everything around him; the people, the buildings, all of it were consumed by shadow. The people shrieked and tried to escape, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The Titans were soon surrounded by darkness. However they could hear someone or something whispering in the dark.
"Monster… Demon Child… Abomination… Destroy it… Kill it… Burn it to ashes…" Something whispered from the dark.
Suddenly Starfire began to freak out, shrieking in rage, she rose into the air and began blasting in every direction with starbolts.
"SILENCE! Be quiet… stop it… please!" Her rage evaporated into sorrow and she fell to the ground sobbing.
Robin dashed to her and his face twisted in anger; he whipped out one of his birdarangs, as though to throw it at some unseen foe.
"I will make them pay…" He growled in a tone that he usually reserved for referring to Slade.
"Robin what're you…" Cy began to say.
Bestial growling interrupted him and he turned to see Beast Boy had turned into some species off wolf and was apparently foaming at the mouth. Cyborg could hear a buzzing in his ear, something telling him to be angry, to destroy everything. Was that what was affecting the others? Were they feeling what the shadows, those people, that boy, the woman had felt? The fact that he was half machine seemed to have spared Cyborg, but he needed to get the others out of here, that much was obvious. The question was how? There was darkness in every direction and no sign of an exit. There were suddenly rays of light coming from somewhere and Cyborg turned to see what was going on. It looked like a door had been opened. By the door stood a shadow of a person. Was it Raven? Was it someone else? Was it a trap? He reasoned that they couldn't be any more trapped than they already were and so he began to herd the other Titans towards the apparent exit.
Raven Fact's: The Titans were able to destroy evil Raven utterly, and restore good Raven into a new spiritual golden body. Raven, Minion and Garfield Logan elected to remain in space as traveling companions to Victor Stone, Cyberion. Frightened by Cyberion's total embrace of technology, Raven left her friend and returned to earth, not the brightest move in my opinion considering what happened next. Raven aided the Titans again during the Technis Imperative conflict, which involved the Justice League as well as all Titans, past and present. The two teams eventually worked together to save the earth and former Titans teammate, Victor Stone (Cyborg). Following that, Raven's golden spirit form went on a journey to reassess her place in the world.
