Beastboy awoke. The first thing he saw was Ravens sweet and sullen face, hovering inches above his. He blinked a few times, slightly out of surprise. It had only
Raven was out cold. The dust had begun to settle. The cinders were falling like snow and settled down gently upon her face. Then, she started to stir. Her nose twitched and her eyes fluttered open very slowly. She took her first deep breath within 60 or so minutes and sneezed soon afterward as she accidentally inhaled the dust that clouded the air. Her ears were ringing and her vision was still slightly blurred. She sat up to face the entrance of the tower. It was still mostly intact, save for the monstrous holes that the missiles had punched through the windows before exploding. She turned her head to look behind her, hopeful, that the rest of the tower was in the same shape. She was completely crestfallen. Looking back she saw nothing but sky and piles of rubble. On either side of her the remains of the tower lay. A percussion from the explosion had ripped through every floor and many vital support beams. The tower had been split into two irregular sections that fell away from each other on the left and the right, and one of them was slowly going up in flames. The shield she had created prior to the blast had done its job, but she didn't know what kind of shape the others were in. They could be injured, paralyzed, or even, dead. She shook her head in disbelief and put her fingers to her temples, trying to will away the screaming in her ears. She tried clapping her hands over her ears. Upon doing so she went side eyed when she realized the screaming had not stopped. This meant that somebody really was screaming and that it wasn't just in her head. Raven dropped her hands to her sides and looked about franticly, looking for the source of the screaming. It was slight at first. Her head was still clouded, but suddenly things cleared up. Reality came back into play and her senses sharpened. Everything looked and sounded clear. The screaming had risen to a deafening level. She whipped around quickly and spotted Beastboy splayed out on the ground where the stairs used to be. It was an awful sight. His left leg was in even worse shape than it had been before. It was resting at an irregular angle and a gaping wound plagued the shin from which a completely snapped bone protruded. A piece of pipe had impaled his arm and stuck into the ground pinning him. Various pieces of debris had entered his body and left him littered with wounds similar to that of a gunshot, and a large piece of glass protruded from a bloody slit in his chest. He was wallowing in a pool of his own blood, and it felt as if he were drowning. He was severely burnt in several places, some of the 2nd, some of the 3rd degree; mostly covering his upper torso. The smell of burning was on him like a disease as the smell of roasting flesh plagued the air around him. His jaw lay slack and crimson tears ran down his face. A constant torrent of agonized screaming was issuing forth from his lips, and he could be heard from half a mile away in all directions. Raven continued to stare at him for a moment longer and then she simply just, just broke down. She dropped to her knees with her hands to her head, and just screamed. She screamed and screamed until she could breathe no longer. She pulled her hands away from her head and set them down on the debris littered ground. Raising her head, tears stained her face as she cast her gaze upon the now broken Beast. She stumbled forward, her tears staining the ground as she made her way over to him, collapsing at his side she rested a hand on his cheek. He stopped screaming so much and shifted his eyes to meet hers. She could see that they were filled with many things, such as agony, anguish, worry, anger, but not fear. His eyes in that way seemed almost confident. Raven moved closer to him and rested his head on her lap. He continued to gaze into her eyes, his expression had softened and he started to look somewhat comforted. A warm, compassionate smile spread across his face, and his eyes grew softer right as he passed out from the pain.
He was in terrible shape. Raven realized this. He was most likely in shock, he was suffering from 3rd degree burns all over the upper part of his body, he was now unconscious, and was rapidly losing blood. Raven turned her head and looked in the direction of Jump City. It seemed, smaller. The large skyscrapers in the area had most likely been torn down or blown up. A few useless sirens from fire trucks, or police cars could be heard over the din of the flaming midsection of the tower, billows of smoke were rising from the ruins of the city. "Calling for help will do no good…He won't last much longer," she thought as the tears began to well up in her eyes again. "My healing powers won't do much good… what can I do? Think Raven! This is the one that you have worshiped from afar for so long. Don't let it end like this…" These feelings were indeed true, though Beastboy did not know it. She began to rack her mind, trying to think of some way to keep him alive. Suddenly, as a thought struck her she went wide-eyed "I could perform the ritual… But it would…He would become…I can't" Signs of an internal struggle could be seen welling up in her face." But you have no choice. You have to do it." Raven told herself. After she was finished with that thought she began to look around for some form of sharp object. She spotted a kitchen knife lying under a piece of debris and picked it up. She set it down on her wrist and pressed down firmly. The blade entered her arm and she pulled back, bringing it up the center of her forearm and unzipping the vein, letting the blood spill freely. She set the blade down on Beastboys wrist and performed the same procedure. Being haste so as to finish before he bled to death she took his hands in hers and laced her fingers with his. Slowly she began to chant. " Gore thy wrists and don thy slits. Let thou pass thy juice of life through rain or shine or glee or strife. Let thou deliver purity without fright, and make thy love a creature of the night!" With the incantation complete the blood that poured from her wrists began to take on a life of it's own. It started rise up the bottom of her arm and defy gravity completely, snaking its way into their joined hands, weaving between her fingertips and emerging from his. It traveled down his arm and directly to the wounds that Raven had so recently made and slithered in. She held his hands in hers for a few more seconds then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead lightly. It was directly after she did so that the ritual had started to take effect. Raven had performed a demonic blood transfusion. The healing nature of her blood was taking effect, and healing his wounds. The wound on his leg began to heal around the bone, and bleeding stopped instantly. The bone seemed to turn to ash and simply fell away, leaving behind skin that looked as if it had never been broken. She could see the wounds growing smaller and smaller until they were no longer there, and then, nothing. He simply lay there unconscious for a few minutes. Suddenly his entire body convulsed. His chest rose up into the air and his back off of the ground, his elbows seemed to be digging into the dirt as the upper part of his torso began to rise and fall violently. His eyes had opened and gone white, his fangs, which usually remained hidden under his lips, looked as if they had grown longer as he bared them. Raven could hear his heart beating, beating only once with every rise of his chest. Every time his chest rose he grunted. He grunted out of pain. The pain of his heart shape shifting into the heart of a demon, one that would produce demonic blood. This was the price of life.
It had been about five minutes that he was out, but it felt like an eternity. He sat up, and without hesitation she hugged him. Gripping him in a tight embrace she turned her head and kissed him on the cheek. Upon realizing what she had done she quickly withdrew, blushing furiously. He cocked an eyebrow and smiled, blushing slightly as well, completely oblivious to her innermost feelings. Starfire, Cyborg, and Robin had been standing there the entire time that Raven was performing the bloody ritual, and just watched, shocked and amazed. "What the hell?" Came Beastboys reply. "I was just on the verge of dying, nearly missing an arm, and what felt like most of my blood. How did you heal me?" Raven answered in a slightly soft voice, she lied. " I used my healing powers…" "Whoa I didn't think you could raise the dead." "I didn't," she said. "You weren't dead" " Damn near!" He blurted out, a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Man… I feel great!" He said, hopping up and down lightly" "Thanks…" came his reply. His voice was soft and compassionate. With nothing else to say he simply got up and hugged her. Raven's eyes went wide with surprise, and then, normal. Apprehensive with shyness at first, she returned the embrace, squeezing him tightly as her eyes began to fill with tears once again. "I was so scared… I thought I lost you there…" A single tear ran down her soft, pale cheek. She didn't know why she was so upset. He did survive, but after all even if he did not know it, her heart yearned for him in so many ways. "Raven… I'm not going anywhere" spoke Beastboy softly. He backed away a little and placed both of his hands on her shoulders. They continued to stare into each other's eyes, and then, he leaned closer to her. She leaned toward him as well. Their faces only inches apart, she closed her eyes. Finally their lips met softly, and they engaged in a long and passionate kiss. After what seemed like an eternity their mouths separated. She hugged him again, cradling her head against his chest. " I…" she stuttered. "I love you". Raven smiled lightly as he raised his hand to his chest and rested it on her head, stroking her hair gently. "I love you too…" Beastboy whispered softly. He tilted his head downwards and kissed her on the forehead gently. Suddenly they heard something familiar to clapping behind them. They both turned their heads to see Robin and Cyborg clapping as if they were watching a play, or something of the sort. The both of them were wearing big shit eating grins and Starfire was busy yelling at the both of them, saying that they should be left in peace. "I gotta hand it to ya BB. You are now an official pimp!" said Cyborg with a chuckle. Raven buried her face in Beastboys chest blushing furiously, as if trying to hide from them. "Heh heh Cyborg you asshole!" shouted Beastboy cheerfully, his face turning red as well. "Ain't you guys ever heard of something called privacy?" "Incase you haven't noticed" Cyborg broke in "What privacy we had is in ruins…" Upon his sentence being finished everybody's face took on a heavy and depressed expression. "What will we do for sleeping?" piped Starfire. Robin had a solution, as usual. "We could just pay a visit to the Steel City Titans… I'm sure they'd take us in for the time being." "Oh shit!" Cyborg said franticly. "We forgot all about them! What if they got attacked too? We should head over and see if things are ok on their side!" After a few minutes of silence and thinking, Robin spoke. "Hmmm… Your right, we should check up on them. But we have no means of communication". "Robin." This was the first time that Raven spoke for quite awhile. "They've most likely been visited too. Take a look at the city. Its in ruins, and the Titans East most likely are too" Everybody except for Raven cast their gaze in the direction of Jump City. "Shit! Shouted Beastboy." "How did this happen? Slade died! We saw him die right before Terra! Geeeah…" "He didn't do this," Robin said. He began to explain what he knew about the Slade drones and what he had learned while he was Slades apprentice. "The androids are all controlled by one central computer. Before he died he must have rigged some form of activation device into his body, one that would trigger something inside the central computer in his base to send out attack coordinates and plans to all of his robots and weapons facilities should his heartbeat stop for a certain amount of time, or something like that. With the number of weapons he had he always had the power to destroy us, the tower, and the city. But he knew that we would be of no use to him dead, and that the city would be no good to him in ruins. I think that he figured if he was dead that he would really have nothing to loose, and did not want his name to be forgotten. So he created a program that would be activated some time after the triggering device went off. He most likely did it out of revenge." With this said, Robin was silent once again." "So he was just fucking with us the entire time?" said Beastboy angrily. Raven raised a hand to his shoulder to calm him down, applying just a small amount of pressure. "Well Robin, we should get over there anyway. They might need help" Cyborg said silently. "Right. Starfire you carry Cyborg, Raven, I'll need a lift from you seeing as we have no means of transportation. Lets move" They all began to set off towards the shore, getting ready to take flight towards Steel City when Beastboy started to complain about something. " Guys! I can't morph!". They all turned to face him with slightly annoyed looks. "Well try harder," said Robin. He tried again, and again, and again. They were beginning to grow tired of this and Beastboy started stating that it was giving him a headache. "Your probably just too stressed to morph right now…" Robin stated. "I'll give him a lift," Raven said in a monotone voice. She had decided that now was really not the time to tell him that he was already morphing into something of demonic nature.