Ok, so this is NOT the final chapter. I had been planning to make this the final chapter, but I fell behind due to work and school. Therefore this 'final chapter' is only half finished. But I'm posting it now since I'm a week late already and I know anyone who had read this far wants to know what happens next. So the next chapter will the the last for the first part of my epic story.

Teen Titans: Half Life

Chapter 26 – The End of the Teen Titans. (Part 1 – First Meetings)

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There was a fire burning inside him, it cried for release but he would not allow it respite. His breathed in ragged gasps, and his legs grew heavy with lead weights. His lungs burned from lack of oxygen and from the musty atmosphere. Sweat poured in large drops from his forehead, creating damp spot on his shirt as they fell.

Finally he could endure no more and dropped heavily to his aching knees.

In the temporary safety of the railway's warren, Knives gently lowered his charge to the moistened earth. At first Alexis had protested, but they too, like her strength had long since left her. She had lost a lot of blood from the wound on the side of her head; even more critical was the potential for extensive head injury.

Trigon's apostles, they called themselves; they attacked like berserkers. No mercy, no stopping, it was all Starfire and Beast Boy could do to defend themselves.

Even from this far into the passageway, Knives could her the sounds of battle. Explosion like rumbling thunder detonated and shook the whole foundation like the shockwave from a massive quake. Loose particles of sand and dust fell from the ceiling, raining down highlighting his clothes in a fine layer of grime.

Checking where he had left Alexis, she breathed softly, dead to the world; a dreamless sleep. The shadows that danced upon the walls fell upon Alexis, unless you looked very carefully one could not see where she was.

The echo of battle soon began to grow fainter by the seconds. They were either moving away from the entrance, or one side was winning. Taking into consideration the strength of the 'apostles' Knives didn't hold out much hope that it was Starfire and Beast Boy who were kicking ass and taking names. They fought allowing him and Alexis to escape to safety. He would feel grateful to them, but he knew that BB and Starfire's intervention back at the warehouse, and continued support, was no coincidental meeting, act of kindness, or true concern for his wellbeing..

Slade, Trigon's followers, even the people he wanted to believe were his friends, they wanted him for some reason. He could only conclude that it was something he had lost in his amnesia. It was something that someone had taken the utmost effort to prevent coming out.

They say that when one has lost something of value the best way to find it is to re-examine everything you have done, said, and anyplace you have been, starting from the most recent event and going backwards.

Using this simple idea as a map Knives closed his eyes, ignoring everything around him, he sought to find these memories by focusing on the most recent thing he could remember, Raven.

Raven, her face was recognizable from the first moment he saw her back at the City Hall incident, but that hadn't been the first time he'd met her. Where did he know her? He felt a memory slip through the barrier between him and his past. He saw Raven, sitting alone, and dirty next to a dumpster, like some discarded piece of trash, then the memory slipped from his hands. He concentrated harder, grasping for this image, but it eluded his desperate fingers.

Despair rose to the surface, telling him it was a useless endeavor, but he didn't want to be ignorant any longer, he wanted to know the reason he was being hunted and stalked, what the others wanted from him.

"Raven!" the scream reverberated inside his thoughts; it was his plea for release from this prison, a bullet to destroy the barrier. He pressed his closed eyelids together, tighter, willing the image to return.

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In the cold chill of night, Xavier took measured steps down an empty street, the distant sound of alarms breaking the otherwise perfect silence.

Xavier felt quite proud of himself; the mission had gone quite smoothly and in fact it was easy to say that this had been his greatest accomplishment to date.

"Master Slade will be most pleased with this." He congratulated himself.

But no matter how content he was with himself, he would not let it go to his head. No, he was a professional, and would never allow himself to get sloppy.. He ran his way through several backstreets and then doubled back to throw off pursuit. Even though he knew no one had followed him, he wouldn't take the chance. He waited at the entrance to yet another passageway, listening to the night air for footsteps. Finding none, he turned the corner, formulating the best way he would tell Slade about his success.

When he saw a shadowy figure, down by the ground, ready to pounce, his feet froze in place, but his hands immediately went for his weapons. He wanted this finished quickly; drawing a knife from his belt, he raised it to strike. In truth he preferred to use his inner powers when handling his foes, but his master insisted he train in the use of several diverse weapons.

His eyes searched for a vulnerable point to strike; the head, heart, or throat were the best areas to cut. As he searched for these vulnerable areas, he noticed that the targets body was not positioned right nor was it moving with aggressive intent.

It had been a trick of the shadows, what he thought was an assailant ready for leap on the offensive, turned out to be a small girl sitting in a fetal position, her back propped up against a dumpster.

She stared at him in silent fear, her eyes seemed too big for her head. She could see the gleam of the knife in his hands, the streetlight proving adequate enough for that. She had the look of a homeless street urchin; her clothes were filthy and torn to rags. She looked to be around eight or nine years old and thin, but not emancipated; she hadn't been living on the streets long. How pathetic and helpless she looked.

Xavier stood above her, like a cobra ready to strike ready to kill, from the way she silently contemplated him, despite the fear in her eyes, it was possible she even wished for him to kill her. Xavier's training said he should kill this girl; she was close to finding, most likely by accident, the very thing that he took great measures to hide. The hidden entrance was close by, not a stones throw from the dumpster.

The knife did not move, no matter how much he strained or willed his arm to move, he simply could not. He didn't understand why he couldn't kill this girl. She was of no consequence to him, or anyone else, he figured. More importantly Slade would be most displeased if he disobeyed his training.

He could not deal the fatal blow.

"Are you going to kill me?" her voice didn't quiver but she clearly was afraid, if only a little bit.

Xavier was dumbfounded, was he right? That she did want to die? Speechless he studied the child not sure how to answer, or even what to answer.

The girl mumbled something incoherent to his ears; it sounded foreign whatever it was. He thought she was praying, but in truth she was weaving a spell.

A cyclone erupted from the dumpster as a hundred pounds of trash erupted like a volcano. Trash and decaying food flew everywhere some in his face, with a wet slap. He tried to protect himself but he'd been caught off guard and there was just too much junk to fend off.

But the trash geyser was short lived, when it was over the girl was running down the alley trying to escape. It was easy to catch her. He wrapped his arms around her tiny frame, pinning her arms in place and covering her mouth to prevent any further mischief. For a minute she struggled diligently in his grasp, kicking and wriggling, but her malnourished body could not overcome. Her protests slowed till they had stopped completely, but still she remained rigid in his arms.

He hadn't anticipated this turn of events. She was not a normal human child; she had some power in her, different, yet very similar to his own. In truth he hadn't caught a respectable glimpse of it to be certain, but he could feel the energy residue lingering in the air and it felt right.

If he was right, she would be of more use to Slade, alive. But in her current physical condition Slade would most likely reject her, enforcing the fact that Xavier should kill her.

It was at that moment he made a decision, a decision he risked regretting for the rest of his life, but he would not kill this little girl. Instead he swore to make her his own apprentice. He would nourish her back to health and teach her everything he knew.

And when the time was right, he would convince Slade to allow her in as part of their organization.

"No I am not going to kill you." He answered. He could feel the girl's body relax against his body. He removed his hand from her mouth allowing her to breath easier.

"My name is Xavier Kage and what's yours?"

He waited for an answer, but she didn't answer.

"I won't let you go until you tell me." To prove his point he tightened his hold slightly. It did the trick, she sighed in defeat.

"Raven," she responded

"If we're going to trust each other you have to tell me your real name, not an alias," he tried to speak in a soothing tone, but he came off as whispering unnecessarily soft.

"It is my name, so will you let go already," no-nonsense.

"Sure," Xavier did as he promised. With his arms now free, he checked the time. Fortunately he had time to spare since his mission had not required as much time as he had originally planned. He didn't have to return to Slade for a while.

"I'm sure your hungry, want to grab a bite to eat." Xavier offered.

Raven turned to her benefactor and looked him over with a critical eye.

"How old are you?" she asked

"Why?"

"Just curious." Raven shrugged her tiny shoulders, acting like it was no big deal whether he answered or not."

"I'm ten, you?"

"Eight," Raven said proudly.

They shook hands in mutual agreement, despite their unusual maturity for their age, and unique, and strict Xavier's strict upbringing, they became quick friends. Finding comfort and security in each other's company. Although not related by flesh and blood, they became more family than friends.

In the end Xavier didn't turn Raven over to Slade, but shortly after meeting with Raven, he abandoned his master to take care of her, someone who had become far more important to him.

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The flashback wavered with the onset of a headache. It started with a slight pressure on Knives temples, but then it spread and increased in intensity. His eyes closed involuntarily from the near overwhelming pain. It was like being tied to the inside of a massive cathedral bell as it was struck irregularly with a sledgehammer.

The irregularity soon developed a rhythm, bang… bang… bang…, the ringing and throbbing grew in pitch until it was more of an eek…eek…eek. Deep within the medical science knowledge stored within the part of his brain that understood it recognized the developing rhythmic sound possibly emanating from an electrocardiogram, a machine commonly used in hospitals to monitor heart palpitations.

The pain had subsided slightly, but still maintained a noticeable presence. The stench of disinfectant assaulted his nose lightly; he became away of a slight breeze to his left and the sound of singing bird. Opening his eyes, he found himself standing next to a sterilized medical bed. There was a young boy lying motionless on the bed, the covers pulled off from his body.

He winced in visible disgust at the object before him. Massive patched of both second and third degree burns covered almost all of the skin that he could see from around the surgical gown, so much so it was impossible to judge the child's sex or even natural skin color. The unfortunate child looked like a cadaver that some funeral home had attempted to cremate, but failed. Yet, somehow, the child managed to retain some spark of life, the ECG monitor beeped its rhythmic song, as if the child was trying to repeatedly say, "I'm still here, I'm still alive."

They acknowledged their presence as an afterthought, but there was a couple sitting in a pair of chairs behind him. He only knew they were there because the woman was silently sobbing, while the man, he assumed they were the parents of this child, tried to consol her saying that the doctor would make things better, that the doctor would be able to handle the situation. Knives would've rolled his eyes, were he not at risk of being seen by the grief-laden couple. Even he knew, with his limited experience that this child was doomed.

Knives turned to look at the couple. Thankful to be relieved from viewing the disgusting object on the bed, he also became aware that he did not move under his own will. Further proof that he was viewing this drama through the eyes of another, or of an old memory, he began to speak, but the voice was of a man in his late forties not of a teenager.

"Mr. and Mrs. Logan, I can sympathize with your grief, but there is simply nothing I can do for your son. The radiation has nearly caused your son's DNA to collapse."

"But Doctor surely there must be something you can do, we'll do anything, pay any price to have our son brought back to us." The husband pleaded as the mother's crying grew increasingly vociferous.

"Hmm…" Knives though, or at least he hoped it was him thinking these thoughts. It was impossible for him to tell. It was more like the sensation of eavesdropping on a telephone conversation marred and interrupted with constant noise and frequent signal drops.

"There is an experimental procedure that a colleague of mine, Dr. Intou, is the head researcher of."

"What is it?"

"A medical procedure where using the DNA of select animals we can extract the necessary strands and string them together and 'fill' in the holes in your son's own cellular information."

Out of his peripheral vision, he scanned the outlines of the child's face, it was difficult to pin down a definite age, but Knives found in believable to say that the child could've been somewhere around his twelve birthday.

More than the Boy on the bed, but the name that was mentioned, Dr. Intou, had caught his attention. He knew where he'd heard it before. It was way back when they took an uninhibited saunter through Raven's mental environment, Nevermore or so everyone had unofficially decided to name it. It had been Green Raven, the tomboyish, 'let's kick-some-butt,' side of her personality had asked the question Knives referred to.

"Your pretty good with medicine and stuff, have you ever heard of a guy named Dr. Intou?" she had asked.

Once the pounding vibrations of combat died down further, he could make out the sound of two pairs of footsteps, one of them mechanical, making their way down from the opposite directions he had been running for.

He assumed correctly whom it was charging down the tunnel. He sighed, 'why had they all come after him? Couldn't they just leave well enough alone?'

Knives felt the sensation of someone shaking him roughly by the shoulders; it felt like being awaken from some long slumber, but it was enough to pull him back into reality.

Robin's face was positioned mere inches from Knives'; Robin's hands roughly grabbing Knives' shoulders, shaking him like a maraca. Knives perceived this, he knew what was happening, but his mind had not fully awoken. His five senses disconnected; the primal instinct overrode his sensibility, he grabbed Robin's arms, cast them off with overbearing strength. Jumping to his feet he readied for a fight.

"Get Back!" he barked, pushing Robin back. Robin retreated a few steps, unsure of Knives' anger.

"Cool it guy," Cyborg said defensively trying to calm the frustrated teenager. "We're trying to help.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins in nearly poisoning amounts, every part of his body told him to fight; his mind still caught halfway between reality and dream, yet aware enough to know whom he was facing. He didn't want to fight Robin, or Cyborg, but like the second flashback, he had no control over the body he inhabited. He watched from his back row seat as Robin and Cyborg took up flanking positions.

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Sorry for being late, a lot of stuff kept getting in the way, mostly school stuff. I had to make an emergency run home in order get the money I needed to pay for school. Those rat bastards keep hounding me for more money.