31.

While Robin searched for Slade and a retribution he'd yet to decide upon, the rest of the Titan's, along with The Batman himself, were at war. The Slade Robot army was almost never-ending, pouring out of the open pit, and soon out of the trees around them. They all, at around the same time, wondered how Slade got so many damn robots, who funded such a thing? They seemed to be coming apart easy enough, though, and so the fighting continued.

"These guys aren't letting up!" Beast Boy yelled over the hacking and tinging noises of flesh on metal.

"Then neither will we," Batman replied. He spoke with a calm that sent a shake up Beast Boy's spine. His pulse probably never went above 80 reps a minute, even if he were being electrocuted or thrown off a building.

Raven flew over the fighting, and instead of throwing punches, she was throwing robots into each other, while stacking the broken ones in front of the pit, making it harder for new robots to enter the fray. She never told anyone when her emotions were out of control, but the Titans always knew, and right now her anger, her rage, her every emotion she'd fought to control for so long were flying completely off the hilt, the needle long ago buried in the red. She could feel her face contorting into a twisted parody of her father, four eyes and fangs, and a murderous attitude to match. She dared not risk being attacked or hit by any of the robots, she was sure it would push her completely over the edge.

She'd left the tower with the rest of the team, and she was dealing, she was calm. They followed Robin's locator to some weird mine, and she was still in control, still calm. She started fighting, and yes, she was still in control. It took so much to sway her, but the last straw was always the nagging rub of her train of thought. While she flew, her mind wandered, while she scrapped robots, she reflected. Her body battled in one place, and her mind battled in another, and her control started to waiver. Finally, her minds eye happened upon a gravestone, with big, carved letters spelling her name, and her control slipped away even more.

She figured that Starfire's funeral (which regardless of Tamaranian death rights, she knew they were going to have some sort of service celebrating her life here on earth) would be nearly impossible to get through without falling into the depths of sorrow, and so help her, she wouldn't destroy herself here. She would corral her emotions, she would be calm, she would get back control. She would not think about Starfire, her broken body laying at the bottom of a flight of stairs... Starfire...death...Starfire is dead.

Starfire is dead!

It was then that Raven boiled over.

32.

It started as a wind, small at first, just enough to kick the stray papers around them a few feet into the air. It didn't feel right, though. It felt unnatural, like a hot breath on the back of your neck. Cyborg knew almost immediately what it was, he'd felt it a couple of times before. He looked up into the air, and saw the black streak rocketing through the air, slowly being surrounded by a blood red aura.

"No, Raven. Stop!" He yelled but it was too late, and he knew it. "Everyone hold on to something!" He ran frantically searched for something to anchor himself to, as the wind quickly rose in intensity. He felt himself being blown towards something, and looked up to see the robots being sucked up off the ground and sent flying into a giant black vortex. His feet were sliding along, and the more he dug into the ground, the harder the wind blew, the harder the vortex drew him to it. As his feet left the ground, a line shot around his waist, and pulled tight and held against the forces working against him. The line had come from Batman, who was holding onto another line, which was wrapped tightly around a tree twenty yards away.

"What is going on!" He yelled over the howling winds.

"Raven!" Cyborg yelled back, pointing towards the screaming vortex. He scanned the area for Beast Boy. He saw a green snake wrapped around a pole which held up a collection of electrical wiring, and hoped that was him. The green was the right shade, but every time Beast Boy changed shape, Cyborg had a creepy premonition that they would confuse some weird breed of green animal for him. It had certainly happened at least once in the past.

The wind, the sucking, spiralling vortex, continued for far too long. All of Slade's Robots – save for the ones that had managed to grab a hold of something – were being sucked into the nothingness, offering no screams or sounds of protest. Soon enough the bulk of them were gone, only a few clinging to whatever they could find. The high winds and the black vortex continued long past that, though. It lasted until Raven's anger was completely spent, leaving her a crumpled mass on the ground, at the bottom of the open pit. When it finished, Cyborg crashed to the ground with a resonating thud. As he lifted his head, he saw that green snake slithering towards Raven's lifeless form. He stood, as the snake turned back into Beast Boy.

"Raven!" Beast Boy kneeled beside her, and found her not unconscious, but crying. She was face down with her head in the dirt, shaking and sobbing to herself. Beast Boy put his hand on her back, and felt himself start to break down too. With the fight so emphatically over, there was nothing but reality left to deal with, and right then reality sucked. When Cyborg joined them, he was already in a similar state, and they all left Batman to clean up the few stragglers left that had avoided the fate of their robot brethren.

Batman handled them easily, but when the fighting stopped, so did he. He was never good at comforting people through the death of a friend, so he left the remaining Titans to grieve. He stood, crossed his arms and waited for Robin to return, hoping that when he did, he was leading Slade in a pair of handcuffs, not dragging his dead body by a pant leg.

32.

"Slade! Where are you!" Robin had reached the end of the wire, where he hoped to find Slade, crouched over and speaking into some cheap set up. In his delerious rage he wasn't thinking straight, as soon as he saw the transmitter – one that allowed for a wireless connection to the ancient PA system – he knew he'd walked right into a trap. Slade had planted a solid punch on the back of his head before his mind could catch up to his reality. He went sailing through the air and crashed to the ground.

"Hmmm, I must have shook you very badly, I had little hope that my trap would work. Robin, tell me, how's the little lady?" His tone suggested he was taking perverse pleasure in his torturous words. Robin knew that Slade wanted him to hear those words, as well. With the kind of opportunity Slade just had, he could have killed Robin. Instead, he just knocked him over, prone and in perfect listening position.

Robin saw red. He saw death in Slade's eye. He felt fire inside him, and knew that the only way for release was to go through Slade to get it. He got up and charged toward him. Slade easily avoided the obvious, slow moving attack and knocked Robin back onto the ground.

"Harder, attack me harder. Show me a real fight, it will make your death all the more glorious." He stood back and let Robin pull himself to his feet, which he did much faster than he had the last time. Robin was going back to instinct. Before it had told him to try to save Starfire's life, and now, since that had failed, now it was telling him that Slade had to die, and die now. He lunged and struck Slade on the chin. It was a glancing blow, and Slade moved with it, causing little damage. The two squared off.

"Why are you doing this to me! What have I done to you! What have any of us done to you!"

"You should know by now that I don't give answers freely, my boy. In this world, you must find your own answers." His monotone drove Robin to action, and so he lunged again, starting a flurry of attacks. Slade dodged or blocked most of them, and waited patiently for Robin to finish. After a time, he got fed up, and muscled Robin away.

"Enough!"

Robin stood slowly, surprised by the outburst, but even more surprised by the rise in Slade's voice.

"Since you are clearly to stupid to ever figure it out, I will tell you." As soon as he finished talking, he lashed out and pounded a stiff right hook into Robin's jaw, he went sprawling onto the ground.

"Tell me, 'Boy Wonder', do you remember a fight with a man named 'The Ravager'?" Robin rubbed a small trickle of blood away from his lips, and thought about that. Yes, he did.

It was shortly after he formed the Titans. They got a report that a high ranking assassin had been dispatched to Jump City to take them all out (to this day they hadn't figured out who sent the assassin, but Robin thought many times that it might have been Slade. Now he was suspecting that it wasn't Slade at all). The assassin, a large mask wearing man who called himself 'The Ravager' had failed in his mission. Actually, he had died mid-battle of what looked like a stroke. Cyborg had him in a rather painful joint lock, and Robin was laying in pretty hard with the punches, and suddenly Ravager's free hand went to his temple, then there was blood coming from his ears. He started screaming in unimaginable pain, and then he went dead weight in Cyborgs arms. Cyborg dropped him, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Robin remembered, because the whole affair had disturbed him greatly. Being trained by The Batman had taught him one thing above all else: take no life. Batman was strict as hell about that one. You can kick their ass, beat them down, be violent and be merciless, but never take a life. He hadn't killed The Ravager, but The Ravager didn't live, and so it stuck in his memory like a splinter. When they got the medical report, the doctors had said that Ravager had a complete metabolic meltdown, almost like his brain had detached from the rest of his body, and then turned to mush. Odd, Robin thought. Odd, but it still didn't change the feelings of regret he had.

"Yeah, I remember. He was an assassin sent to kill us." Robin held his hands in defence, but the tone of his voice had lowered to nearly a conversation level.

"Yes, and you killed him in turn!" Now it was Slade's turn to lash out, only he did it so fast that Robin couldn't react in time. Slade landed a very hard punch that sent Robin to the ground again, and this time he didn't get up so quickly. Slade's next words were yelled with more anger than Robin had ever heard in his voice.

"The Ravager's real name was Grant Wilson! He was...he..." Robin's eyes went wide; Slade's voice had actually cracked, like he was on the verge of tears. "He was my son."

Slade kicked Robin in the ribs and sent him sprawling. "You killed my son!" He aimed another kick at Robin, but Robin moved, and was on his feet in time to feel a brisk rain begin to fall. The would be sunrise had been covered over by clouds, and Robin only now noticed them. The rain they spilled was heavy, large drops rained down around turning the dusty ground under them into a muddy mess.

"You killed my son, so I killed your lover. Now, I'll kill you!" He levelled his finger at Robin, and his one eye had a look of death. He rushed at Robin and grabbed him around the waist, and started to squeeze.

"You know, Robin," he said, with his mouth only inches from Robin's ear. "I really must tell you something. You see, you really don't have a chance against me." He threw Robin down, and walked over and picked him up by the throat. "Our fine government has seen fit to alter my body," he squeezed harder. "Strength, agility, intelligence, they called me a super soldier. Do you know what they call me now?" He slammed Robin to the ground.

"Hgch...huh...huh...Death...Deathstroke!" Slade laughed, long and hard, with more than an ounce of madness mixed in.

"No, no, no. That was my codename. When I was a professional killer, my name was Deathstroke, but after I killed my fiftieth target in a row, they called me..." He balled his fist into the front of Robins shirt and picked him up off the ground, "...Terminator."

33.