Morrwen: I don't know about marathon, but I'm pretty sure they're showing all three parts. It was fun thinking of a name-- I couldn't find anything that sounded like "Malchior" so instead I put it as a last name and used Drakeisntead Dragon...Draco...Drakeand then I just shortened it. Malchior...Machoir...McChoir.

Mystyre: It means stunned in a good way. I can go on and on and on about how good it was-- but I'm just supposed to be answering review here and not go into a rant about the best episode of all time, so I'll just leave it at that it was very, very good.

vinnie the geek: Thanks for the offer, but I don't think I need to-- that's what siblings are for. Anyways, it's not hard to think of lines for him, it's sorta like he's just saying it himself and I'm the mere recorder. Malchior (or my interpretation of him) is really fun to work with-- he's smart, but not psychotic, self-centered, but still empathic enough to manipulate others, and as a bonus point he can work magic.

Chapter 4

Raven groaned-- once again she had the pleasure of awakening to blaring sirens and flashing lights. She pushed herself up groggily, taking a few gracious moments to compose herself as she slipped on her cape and made her way to the door. The small clock on her bedside table read 2:28am. She was a light sleeper, or, at least, she had learned to be one. Criminals didn't wait until the Titans were all nice and rested before acting. Actually, she had trouble remembering times when the Titans actually got a full night's sleep.

Raven was the second to last of the Titans to reach the meeting room, the last being none other than Beastboy. The shapeshifter stumbled drunkenly into the room, managing to trip over a discarded controller for the Gamestation before reaching the rest of the group. It had been over a month since he had snuck into her room, but even so every now and again she would catch him looking at her and flinching as he did so now.

"What's up?" Cyborg was the first to ask. Robin stared into his communicator, furrowing his brow like an old man before replying.

"It's a break-in to a warehouse in Quarter 7."

Starfire tentatively raised a hand. "What was the house of storage containing?" Generally unnecessary questions were left unasked-- seconds wasted meant lives lost in this line of work-- but her curiosity was unbearable.

Beastboy stood on tiptoes to see over Robin's shoulder. "Just lumber and steel. A couple-" he broke of and yawned like a cat, exposing his pointed canines in the process. "of engines. Ship stuff."

Robin swung the communicator away from Beastboy, sparing him an annoyed glare. "The police force would normally handle this sort of thing, but there was alot of loud noises and flaring lights. It looked just potentially dangerous enough so that we were called instead. There wasn't any known motivation for the explosions."

"It's a trap, then." Raven flexed her fingers. This would be interesting.

Robin nodded. "Most likely. We'll go in anyways, of course."

"Of course."

Some time later... time later... later...

The Titans gathered around the entrance to the warehouse. It was not the original doorway, but instead a gaping thirty foot in diameter hole that looked like a crooked mouth in the darkness. Cyborg shone a light around the edges, exposing places where the steel was actually twisted in it's place like half-melded putty left to harden. Everybody let out a collective breath.

"Way too flashy to be Slade's style." Beastboy shrugged under the eyes of the rest of his teammates. "What? You were all thinking it, I'm just saying it."

"I almost wish it was Slade." Raven murmured. "Then we'd know what we're up against."

Robin started making his way carefully forward. "Doesn't matter. Go carefully."

They went carefully, to the point where they were so quiet that Cyborg's footfalls sounded like hammer blows in the darkness. The small cone of light illuminated half-burnt jumbles of wood that had once been neat stacks as well as piles of steel beams melded into eachother. It was just as they were making their way around the corner of one such steel pile that a gunshot split the darkness. Starfire muffled a scream as she saw the bullet smoking, embedded into the steel barely three inches from her head. Raven reacted instantly, created a black wall around her friends before any more shots could be fired. Her hands were shaking as the realization of what had almost happened came through.

"T-turn up the light." Robin stuttered slightly, as shocked as the rest of them. Very rarely had the Titans been outright fired upon-- usually the villains preffered stun rays, small explosives, or fancy lazer beams, and thought that using such commonplace weapons was beneath them. Apparently this new enemy wasn't as stupid.

Cyborg spotted a fringe of a black sweater hood ducking behind a pile. Raven switched tactics instantly, knocking aside the pile with her powers just moments after disabling the shield. Starfire let fly with a torrent of starbolts, illuminating the room green at the same time Cyborg shot his sonic cannon and Robin hurled a few birdarangs in the gunman's general direction. At least one of the projectiles made contact, as they all heard a muffled cry of pain and something muttered. If she didn't know better Raven could have sworn it was a curse in Gaelic, something about the wolves goring one's firstborn and desecrating the remains, but that wasn't possible.

The burglar limped up, revealed in full force by Cyborg's light. The only thing that could be instantly found out about the character was that he could have been in his late teens or early twenties. He was wearing black jeans, combat boots the same color, a cotton jacket with hood attached, and up. He raised his gun again, but Raven was ready this time. She created a black shield just inside the nozzle and waited. When he pulled the trigger the gun exploded into a thousand painful shards in his hand as the bullet ricocheted backward off her energy wall. Before he could draw in breath Robin had a metal bo staff pressed not-so-gently on his windpipe and Starfire had wrapped his wrists in a particularly painful lock behind his back.

He grinned and spoke in a heavy, thick, typical ruffian tone. " 'ey, you can't blame me for trying, can ya mate?" Raven hovered uncertainly. Something about the voice was familiar.

"Actually," The tip of the bo staff quivered against his throat. Raven was glad, for the thug's sake, that it had been a missed shot. "I can and do." The gunman seemed quite unconcerned that he was surrounded on all sides and unarmed.

After a few moments he broke the silence. "Well, Wonderbread, aren't you going to read me my rights?" He grinned, teeth glinting in the LED light. Raven scrutinized him. She knew they had met before, but when? The most likely explanation was that he was a former detainee, but that didn't seem right, somehow. Robin forced himself to begin. Before he had completed a full sentence, however, the figure made direct eye contact with Raven and winked. She drew in a breath-- she knew those eyes.

"Robin-!" But it was too late. Malchior connected his foot to Starfire's kneecap with enough force to shatter human bones, dropping as a dead weight to the ground almost simultaneously. The result was that Robin's bo staff connected not with human windpipe but a Tameranian jaw. Malchior winked up at Raven again as he murmured an incantation, apparently enjoying himself immensely.

"Azara-" The words were shoved back down her throat as a shockwave blasted her straight out of the sky and knocked the air from her stomach. In truth, she could never be sure if it was the curse that pounded the wind out of her lungs or the mountain of metal and flesh that dropped upon her from above. Apparently she was not the only one targeted. Another spell rippled through the air, making it suddenly very hard for Raven to hold on to her consciousness. Her vision blurred like oil dripping off a canvas, her eyes refusing to snap into focus. The last thing she heard was a slightly aristocratic voice, no trace of a thug's slur now, from some feet above her.

"And these are considered warriors nowadays? Tsk tsk. How the mighty have fallen..." And then everything went black.

Now for Malchior... for Malchior... Malchior...

Malchior stretched and shook his arms vigorously-- for some reason they had been trembling. This had been the one part of his plan that he had dreaded-- having to verse the Titans in actual physical combat. He found that as a human he was not the most coordinated person in the world, at best, and would be instantly subdued by the team in a fair battle. Not that that mattered, of course. Humans seemed so intent on blowing eachother's brains out that they had come up with the most ingenious little devices for making even the clumsiest, stupidest brute more deadly than any trained swordsman. Malchior winced and picked a sliver of steel out of the heel of his hand. And just when he had gotten really good at using it, too. Not that using the gun took much brainpower-- you just point the hole end at the fleshy things that scream and bleed and pull the little curved hook thingy for it to work. A far shot from the noble sword, which, if used correctly, could be about as dangerous to one's enemies as it was to oneself.

Malchior paused, his hand outstretched above the half-breed, or at least, he assumed that she was somewhere under that mountain of a teen. He hoped it hadn't crushed her lungs before he could have his revenge. Then again, was it really wise to indulge himself further? He had all the Titans at his feet, with at least two dozen ways on hand to bump them off before ten minutes had passed. If he let them live, there was always the chance that they could bounce back and somehow defeat him. Superheroes had an annoying tendency to do just that, as the news had proclaimed time and time again. Malchior tightened his hands into claws, a habit he found himself doing whenever he let his mind wander. It was not wise to risk it, he decided, but he would do it all the same. At the moment all he wanted was revenge.

Now the real problem. How was he going to shift that walking hill off of the girl? Simple physical force was out of the question-- Rorek had always been a stickler for magic, refusing to lift anything heavier than a crystal ball as a sort of trademark, a flaunting of his prowess. Magical methods would have to get the job done. Malchior knelt beside the robot and placed both palms, with utmost care, on its arm. Then, taking sure to pronounce the incantation precisely as it should be, he used the same delicate grace that a dancer would barely dare to claim to blast the teen with a level ten detonation and knock him into the far pile of wood. It fell ontop of it with a crash and clang. Malchior grinned-- it wouldn't hurt to have a little fun every now and again.

Malchior plucked the red broach off her cape, examining it in the dim light provided by a small illumination spell. It was a marvel, technologically speaking, being hooked into several satellites so that it could project its precise position on the globe at any given time as well as receive and return both video and audio. All Malchior knew or cared about was that it was a little doohicky the team would follow in hopes of finding their friend. Good. Maybe he would have a little more fun before he set his plan into further motion. Malchior jammed the priceless locator unceremoniously into his jacket pocket and hefted her over his shoulder. It had begun.

---

I decided to be lazy and skip ahead to the action part... it turned out well, I think. /scratches head/ I had fun writing Malchior in this one-- I'm beginning to suspect I'm modeling his character off Bartamaeus, (from The Bartamaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stoud) which isn't a bad thing. Um...

Here's a word puzzle: Return - turn + rearview - rear ?