(Disclaimer: Prithy, sirra, but ne'er have I owned the Teen Titans, and alas, but I fear that nary shall I ever.)

-CHAPTER SIX: BREAKDOWN-

The Titans were having a team meeting, and for once it wasn't Robin who had called for it. To everyone's surprise, it was Raven who called the meeting, and curiosity, just as much as a sense of duty to the team, caused the other Titans to all come even though it wasn't technically an official team meeting.

The Titans were now all sitting around the kitchen table, staring questioningly at Raven, who had been completely silent as they had settled into their seats. Raven steeled herself to reveal her mistake to the team, and stood up.

"As you guys have probably already figured out, this is about Evelyn," she began. Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire all nodded. Beast Boy's ears drooped a little, and he grinned nervously—he hadn't figured it out.

"Something she said to me recently made it clear that I didn't fully understand what the spells that created her actually did," Raven continued. "So I've been doing some reading, and I've come across something…disturbing."

"Like what?" Cyborg asked. Raven sighed.

"Not only has Evelyn's creation not cleansed my dark emotions from me, but the spells are unstable," she said. "Eventually they will completely unravel and she will cease to exist, but…"

Raven hesitated, but Robin filled in the blank for her.

"But the spell holding her powers in check will fade out first, I presume," he said darkly. Raven sighed again.

"Most likely, yes," she said.

"And then we'll have a psychotic, full-power version of you on our hands," Robin said.

"It's worse than that," Raven said. "Because I don't want to lose control I place restrictions on my power. Evelyn will not. She doesn't care about control."

"Wait, so she's going to be even more powerful than Raven?" Beast Boy asked incredulously. "Raven's already one of the most powerful on the team! Next to me, of course."

"I do not think that now is the time for jokes, Friend Beast Boy," Starfire said. "We might be facing a very powerful adversary very soon." Robin put his head in his hands.

"No, no, it's even worse than that," he muttered, almost to himself. "It's not just that she'll be more powerful than Raven. She'll also know us just as well as Raven does, so she'll be able to predict our movements. And we probably won't be able to predict hers, since she's also totally insane. I know how dangerous insanity can be…" Robin shuddered.

"How will we be able to defeat such a foe?" asked Starfire, worry showing clearly on her face.

"We might not actually have to defeat her," Raven said. "The only good news is that the more she uses her power, the more she'll destabilize the spell that holds her physical form together. If we can delay her long enough she'll eventually just fade away."

"Okay, so that's a plan at least. But aren't we getting ahead of ourselves here?" Cyborg said. "I mean, all this only becomes a problem after she gets access to her powers, right? If we can get to her before that happens, maybe we can figure out a way to contain her, or beef up the spells a little so her powers will stay turned off."

"That's true," Robin said, looking up from his hands. "Raven, about how long do we have?"

"Well, the nature of magic makes that virtually impossible to determine exactly," Raven said. "It could be a matter of weeks, a matter of days…"

Suddenly, the whole tower shook with what sounded like an explosion. The Titans leapt from their seats.

"…Or she could break free right now, I guess," Beast Boy said.

"Shit! Titans, move!" Robin shouted.

OOO

The Titans skidded around the last corner before Evelyn's room, Robin in the lead, only to find that the door had been blown outward into the hallway, along with much of the wall surrounding it. Evelyn stood at the threshold between the wreckage that was her room and the wreckage that the hallway was rapidly becoming as her newly released powers sparked and earthed themselves seemingly at random like black lightning, destroying everything they touched. She was laughing, apparently quite amused by the damage she was causing.

"Hey, you guys are late!" Evelyn shouted when she saw the Titans preparing themselves to attack. "The dust's already settled from when I busted down my door!"

"What?" Robin said as he covertly drew a freeze disc from his belt.

"You should have shown up immediately, through some kind of plot-induced teleportation or something!" Evelyn continued. "It would have been much more dramatic."

"What the hell are you…" Robin began, but Evelyn interrupted him.

"I mean, I even got all dressed up for my big villain appearance—I knew I'd be needing this outfit!" she said, indicating her attire. It was her 'female supervillain' outfit: tight black pleather pants, black platform shoes, and a black bustier that had been very carefully laced up so that it showed a significant amount of the ever-important cleavage, as well as some of Evelyn's stomach. It was topped off with a black and silver choker necklace.

"It does go a little heavy on the black, but it is, after all, the supervillain colour," Evelyn said, seeming quite proud of herself. "Oh, and I hope you don't mind if I redecorate a little, Rae."

"Redecorate?" Raven asked. "What are you on about?"

Evelyn didn't answer her question, at least not verbally. Instead, she closed her eyes tightly and concentrated for a moment, and her raging powers focussed briefly on her own body. When they were done, Evelyn had changed—while her basic physique was still the same, her hair was now shorter and spikier, with streaks of black running alongside the customary purple, and swirling black tattoos ran down the full length of her arms, extending onto her shoulders and centred around a stylized raven design on her chest which was visible just above the top of her bustier, as well as between its lacing down the front. If anything, the stark contrast between her skin and the tattoos made her seem even paler. Raven gaped, while Evelyn casually inspected her handiwork.

"Heh, heh. Pretty good, if I do say so myself," Evelyn said with a grin, then looked up at Raven again. "No offence, Rae, but I figured I could use some sprucing up, what with me being pure evil and all. Besides, we don't want any of my hapless victims thinking I'm you, now do we?"

"I…whu…Wh-what did you just do?" Raven stuttered. Evelyn chuckled.

"I'm made of magic, remember? I can change my look around as much as I want. Oh, and I'm not done yet, babe," she said. "As much as I love the whole inhuman look, I think I'll have to leave the daddy eyes behind—I want to be my own girl, y'know."

Evelyn closed her eyes tightly and concentrated again. This time, when she reopened them, her four glowing red eyes had collapsed into a single pair, which made her look even more like Raven, even despite the other changes she had made—this fact was not lost on the Titans.

"Oh, oh! I have the perfect finishing touch!" Evelyn cried, and concentrated briefly for a third time, causing a pair of slightly curved marks to appear on her face, one at the outside corner of each eye. They were facial tattoos. Raven's eyes nearly bugged out of her head.

"Ha! The Crow, anyone? Not quite the Goth clown makeup, but close enough, right?" Evelyn said, and chuckled to herself. "Seriously though, Rae, you've got to get yourself some ink, girl. This looks awesome!" She pirouetted inexpertly to show off her handiwork.

"Stop screwing around with my body!" Raven yelled. "You still look like me! People will still think you're me, and that I've finally totally lost it!"

"Finally lost it?" Evelyn asked, stopping in mid-twirl and grinning wolfishly. "Is that an admission, Rae? Are you a Goth on the edge?"

"What? No! I just…" Raven stammered, her fists clenched in frustration and anger, but Evelyn interrupted her.

"Don't try to deny it, Rae, I came from inside your head so I know exactly how maladjusted and neurotic you really are," she said. "But don't you worry your pretty little head about that—I won't tell anyone. I'll also make sure I let everyone know that I'm not you, although I don't know how much good that will do when I'm going to be killing them pretty much immediately after that."

"Don't you dare," Raven growled, her voice barely more than an angry whisper. "I swear I'm not going to let you hurt anyone."

"You swear, do you? You swear to whom, or on what?" Evelyn sneered. "What decent holy thing would tolerate you swearing by it, eh, you dirty little half-blood rape child?"

"Shut up!" Raven screamed, finally losing control and using her powers to hurl a large chunk of the debris that now littered the hallway at Evelyn. Evelyn grinned and casually held up a hand, and the huge lump of twisted metal and concrete stopped dead in mid-air before dropping to the floor with a loud thunk.

"Ooh, that was naughty, Rae," Evelyn said, waggling her finger like a mother scolding her child. "I didn't even tell you about how I was going to destroy the city yet! Lucky for you, it's pretty simple—I'm just going to float my little self over there and wreck up the place with my magical half-demon telekinesis of doom! It's going to be fun!"

"Now hang on a second, Evelyn," Robin said, stepping in front of Raven to try to keep her from losing it again—she was still shaking with anger. "Raven told us that the more you use your powers, the faster the spell that holds you together will destabilize—not only will destroying the city mean that you'll die as well, but since you'll have to go through us first you might not even get to the city before you disappear."

"Let me guess: you're going to suggest that I calm down and surrender so I can stretch out what time I have left, right?" Evelyn said, a smirk on her face. "Fat chance, Christmas boy. I'm going to be kicking off anyway, and I'd much rather go out with a bang than with a whimper. This is the way the world ends, kiddies!" Evelyn's smirk slowly widened into a malicious smile.

"And besides," she said, "nothing could be more fun than 'going through' you lot. You've had it easy so far, I've only pulled a few simple pranks because I knew I wouldn't have stood a chance against you without my powers. But now that I've got them back, you idiots can't push me around anymore—I can do whatever I want, and what I want most is all of you dead!"

"Oh, please," Beast Boy said, stepping forward and waving his hand dismissively. "This from the girl whose biggest prank was a striptease?"

"Uh…Beast Boy? That might not be a good idea right now," Cyborg said, eyeing the damage Evelyn's powers were continuing to wreak on the structure of the tower.

"No, no, let him talk," Evelyn said, her vicious smile only getting bigger. "He seems to want to get this off his skinny little green chest."

"Yeah, a striptease, and even then, I was scared of what Raven would do to me, not you," Beast Boy continued. "I'm still way more scared of Raven that I am of you. You're just some silly crazy girl. Do your worst."

Beast Boy put his hands on his hips and smirked triumphantly. Evelyn's smile widened even further, and she showed some more teeth. The Titans noticed that her fangs now seemed more pronounced than before her little 'redecorating' session.

"My worst, eh?" Evelyn said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I would kind of like to keep you as a pet, but I'm going to bite it soon anyway, so I might as well give it a go. Here, try this on…"

Evelyn's eyes glowed black for a moment, and Beast Boy screamed and dropped to his knees clutching at his head in agony.

OOO

Inside Beast Boy's mind…

Beast Boy stood at the edge of a river, lush jungle to his back, staring out over the water. There was a rushing waterfall just a few hundred feet downstream from where he stood, but he could clearly see a boat that had accidentally gotten too close, and was rapidly being drawn towards the swirling maelstrom of white water that heralded the sheer drop beyond.

"No…" he said to himself. Evelyn appeared out of nowhere beside him.

"You recognize this, don't you, Garfield?" she said mockingly. "Of course you do—it was your first big failure, after all, wasn't it?"

"Mom…Dad…no…" Beast Boy mumbled, totally absorbed in the scene in front of him.

"Oh yes. And look," Evelyn continued, pointing to a small green shape detach from the boat and fly to safety. "There you go." Moments later, the boat went over the waterfall and plunged into oblivion. "Oh, and there they go."

Beast Boy was frozen with horror—he knew that he could turn into an eagle, a pterodactyl, anything, and go out there and save that boat, but all he could do was watch. Evelyn grinned and gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder.

"Ah, buck up, Gar, my boy!" she said. "Don't you worry, you'll get another chance!"

Sure enough, another boat, identical to the first one, appeared further upstream, following the same course that the last one took to its destruction.

"Hey, maybe you'll save them this time!" Evelyn said, but once again the small green shape left the boat to its fate and flew to safety while the boat plummeted over the falls, and all Beast Boy could do was stare, rooted to the spot. "Ooh…okay, maybe not."

"No…"

"Okay, okay, maybe this time…oops, my bad. Geez, that's got to hurt. Oh, here comes another one! Oh, that one went over too. Maybe this one…"

OOO

Beast Boy was now lying curled up on the ground, the other Titans gathered around him. He had whimpered for the first few seconds, but had since fallen silent, the only signs that he was alive at all being his shallow but steady breathing and the pained expression on his face. Robin turned to Evelyn, his staff held at the ready.

"Whatever it is you're doing to him, stop it now," he growled.

"Or what?" Evelyn sneered. "You'll fight me? That's what I want anyway, you retard."

"Let…him…go!" Robin snarled. Evelyn chuckled lightly, like she was at some cocktail party rather than surrounded by four angry superheroes in their own home.

"Oh, relax," she said. "All I've done is just set the worst memory in his short, meaningless little life to replay over and over in his mind forever. Nothing a psychic probe to break the loop and a few decades of therapy can't fix. It's a bit of a cheap shot, I'll admit, but it is effective, and I'm guessing you'll be taking me more seriously now."

"Goddammit, I said let him go!" Robin shouted, but Evelyn seemed to ignore him.

"I could do the same to the rest of you, of course, but that wouldn't be nearly as much fun as tearing you apart limb from limb," she said. "For instance, Robin, there was something about a circus…what was it again?"

At this, Robin finally snapped. He charged at Evelyn, screaming wordlessly, and the remaining Titans had to hurry to back him up. Robin swung his staff wildly, but Evelyn managed to dodge each strike, laughing as she floated backwards away from him.

"Dammit, Robin, get out of the way!" Cyborg yelled, holding his sonic cannon at the ready. "You're blocking my shot! Get out of there!"

Robin ignored him and continued to lash out at Evelyn. Suddenly, she stopped her retreat, having backed up against a wall, and Robin pressed his advantage with a particularly powerful swing, but at the last second darkness covered Evelyn and she melted away into the floor. Unbalanced by his unexpected miss, Robin was unable to turn in time to see Evelyn reappear directly behind him, and even his years of training in combat and acrobatics could not protect him from her close-range telekinetic burst, which slammed him into the wall and sent him sprawling. With Robin finally out of the way, Cyborg opened fire with his cannon. Starfire joined in with both starbolts and eye beams, and Raven launched a veritable armada of smaller pieces of debris at something approaching the speed of sound. Evelyn only smiled before disappearing under the hail of projectiles, which the three Titans kept up until the outer wall of what had been Evelyn's room had almost entirely collapsed.

"Did we get her?" Cyborg asked as the smoke and dust began to clear.

"I am unsure. I did not see her move out of the way of our attack," Starfire said, squinting her eyes to see better. The dust cloud cleared away, revealing no trace of Evelyn.

"Whoa! We vaporized her!" Cyborg cried.

"I highly doubt that," Raven said, and pointed. Sure enough, Evelyn poked her head out from behind the large hole in her wall—she was unscathed, and now floating just outside the tower.

"Hey, nice shootin' Texes!" Evelyn said, and an expression of mock thoughtfulness crossed her face. "Texi? Doesn't matter. Anyway, thanks for making this convenient little door for me. I'm going to go have some fun in town now, so I'll catch up with you dopes later. See ya, losers!"

With that, Evelyn flew off towards the city, laughing with maniacal glee. Robin stood up from where he had sheltered against his teammates' onslaught, brushing some grey concrete dust off of his cape, and scowled.

"Alright, Cyborg and Raven, we're going after Evelyn. Starfire, make sure Beast Boy is comfortable in the infirmary, and then catch up," Robin said. "We have to contain her fast, before she destroys the city—there's no time to waste. Let's move!"

Raven lifted herself, Robin, and Cyborg off and headed towards the city after Evelyn, while Starfire scooped up the prone Beast Boy and carried him quickly but carefully to the infirmary.

OOO

Evelyn was on the Jump City boardwalk. Robin, Cyborg, and Raven had caught up to her sooner then they had anticipated—it was like she had just been waiting for them, amusing herself by randomly destroying property and tormenting any unfortunate passers-by in the meantime. She mostly seemed to be scaring people off, though, and it didn't look like anyone had been seriously hurt so far. Strangely enough, she also seemed to be keeping her promise, and was taking care to inform those she attacked that she was not, in fact, Raven. Whether or not her victims were paying any attention to this as they ran for their lives was not immediately clear. Evelyn was currently holding a young couple locked in the black aura of her telekinetic powers, playing with them like they were nothing more than dolls and muttering darkly about a tea party.

Raven dropped Robin and Cyborg to the boardwalk. They landed running, and Robin hurled an explosive disc at Evelyn. While her powers protected her from the brunt of the blast, her concentration was broken for a moment, and the couple she had been tormenting dropped unceremoniously to the ground—they were apparently unharmed, because they both ran as soon as they realized they were free. Evelyn pouted as the smoke from Robin's attack cleared.

"Awww, you made me drop my new toys! Now I guess I'm going to have to play with…" Evelyn began, but she was interrupted by a blast from Cyborg's sonic cannon, which sent her flying backwards. She skidded to a halt on the boardwalk and got back to her feet with an indignant look on her face.

"Hey! I was doing my villain exposition!" she cried. "You can't shoot me when I'm expositioning…expositing…when I'm talking! That's not fair!"

"No more talk, Evelyn. We aren't going to let you hurt anyone," Robin said and threw another disc. Evelyn dodged it, lifting herself quickly into the air, but instead of detonating normally it began freezing the air around it, creating a pillar of ice that grew upwards faster than Evelyn could levitate, catching her legs. She shrieked and smashed the ice apart with a flurry of black energy, but her moment of immobility was all that Cyborg needed to blast her again, at full power this time. As she tried to recover, Raven hit her from behind with a glowing black hot dog cart that had long since been abandoned by its owner, sending Evelyn sprawling forward with a cry of frustration.

"That's it, Titans! Keep up the pressure!" Robin shouted. "If we can keep her from concentrating, we can…"

Robin was cut off by Evelyn's scream of rage, and he turned to see a veritable armada of glowing, levitated cars speed towards him and his team.

"You want to throw things, Titans?" Evelyn screamed, her powers crackling around her in a sinister aura. "Well I can throw things, too!"

-END CHAPTER SIX-

Author's Note: Okay, first I would like to apologize for this taking so damned long. Between exams and me just feeling completely uninspired for the past few weeks (going on months, now), I just wasn't writing anything. These are, of course, merely excuses, but whatever. Here's the update, anyway.

I suppose I should also apologize for leaving you guys with a cliffhanger after all this time, but now that I'm working on this again, I hope it won't be too much longer before I'm done Chapter Seven. I had actually originally planned this to be the last chapter, but between the big fight scene, the end of said fight scene, and some denouement crap at the end, it all wouldn't fit into what I consider a decent-sized chapter. While this one might be a little short, if I had put it all together it would have been quite long. Just having something to post after leaving this for such a long time was another consideration.

Some stuff I'd just like to mention: as far as I've looked into it, I have the death of Beast Boy's parents reasonably correct here. From what I've seen in various places online (I would heartily recommend Titans Tower for research purposes, if I'm allowed to do that—just Google it), it was something along the lines of his parents telling the young Beast Boy to change into a bird and save himself rather than risking his life to save them from the boat. He did, and now he feels guilty about it. As for Evelyn's rather politically incorrect "half-blood rape child" comment, well, that's what Raven is, when you get right down to it. Trigon raped her mother in order to produce the half-demon child that he could then use to help him take over the world/universe/whatever. Of course, I've also seen stuff that suggests that he simply tricked her mom into sleeping with him, but I don't think Evelyn would be one for using the moderate version. Saying "Yeah, well your mom is pretty gullible!" lacks the same kind of punch.

Finally, for all you nitpickers out there: yes, I realize that in Chapter 2 I said Evelyn's 'female supervillain' top was a tube top, but I have since come to the conclusion that I want her to look evil, not like trailer trash. I don't know why, but the bustier accomplishes that better, at least in my opinion (maybe because it's classier?). Anyway, consider that tube top to be ret-conned out of existence—hey, if DC can do it with Superman's origin story, why can't I do it with a stupid tube top?