1

Goth slowly entered the hotel room. Of course, Raven wouldn't have invited him to the tower. While her powers could get him past the other Titans, he couldn't expect her to take him into her old life. The act of cognitive dissonance required a lack of her (now former) friends. She couldn't very well pretend that taking Goth back was a good thing if her friends were there to yell at her about it.

So he agreed to come to this stereotypical "I'm on the run" motel. The Red-X was more than missing-no X-shaped gear, no hyper athletic combat readiness and no element of surprise. Simply Goth walked into the room: a slender male with too pale skin, more zippers on his pants than Marylin Manson and a fixed emotionless expression.

That quickly changed. He had anticipated a long discussion of why his being here with her was the right thing. What was waiting for him was Raven wearing only her cloak.

The girl floated up from the bed and over to him. "I've missed you so much.", she said. Her feet still didn't touch the floor. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and kissed him. Her cloak encouraged his arms around her.

He didn't need all that much encouragement. She wrapped her legs around him and he went through the motions of carrying her over to the bed. When his shins touched the bed, they collapsed onto it. With a single nip of his teeth, her cloak fell away leaving her perfectly natural. She tugged at his shirt, leading him off of her for the moment to pull it over his head. She writhed against him. The rest of his clothes fell away.

"Penetrate me.", Raven crypticly whispered. She rolled over under him. "Hurt me, Goth. I need it."

And he did. His hands clawed at her. He committed all the acts every authority figure denied young teens in love.

"Wait" was thrown away. "Make sure you're in love" went unheeded in his heart. He even signed an abstinence pledge just before to compound his ideology. His rebellion wasn't one of weakness, acts done at the beckoning of pleasure. His rebellion was deliberate, viscious and unyielding. And he smiled, for she danced this dance of daring with him. He had succeeded. Raven and the ex-Red X would live on happily ever after-dragging one of the most powerful future superheroines on the planet away from those heroics. After all, what could an artificial contrivance like morality do against the promise of happiness?

And he was happy. So he wrapped his arms around his expectant bride-to-be (if he didn't exclaim that during, he would when he awoke). His hushed whispers assured her of the good...er, happy times to come. And they slept.

2

When he awoke, the first thing he noticed was that Raven wasn't in bed anymore. The second thing he noticed was her nude form in a chair across the hotel room. "Thank you for letting me sleep.", Goth said in typical monotone.

"It was a small mercy.", Raven replied. "With what I'm going to do to you, anyone-even you-deserve at least that."

"Wha...?", Goth asked.

A small smirk crept on her lips. "Remember when I told you every girl has to have her secrets?"

"Yeah. You never did tell me your birthday.", Goth replied cautiously.

"Hmph.", Raven dismissed. "I also never told you about my empathic abilities."

Goth's heart dropped. "If you were empathic, you would have never let me get this far."

"If I could do it on the fly, probably not.", Raven agreed. "However, it's not like I'm a telepath. The darkness that festers in me calls to itself. The only way to use that lingering longing without becoming overcome by every sickening perverse thing hiding in the all too real shadows of everyone's mind is in a state of nigh-perfect relaxation. Thank you for the orgasms by the way."

"You're welcome?", Goth asked.

Raven continued. "Also, the only sentient thoughts that come across are the most intense darkness that clouds a mind. I could track necrophilic pedophile in the throes of passion anywhere in the world. I can never guess where Starfire's going to appear. I guess the H.I.V.E. brats aren't all that bad."

With what I was expec..., hoping from you, I would need you in a dream state. When you were asleep I was right here with you. Observing your heart through the tinted lenses of the eyes of rage within me. I was hoping for the same nagging guilt of abandoning our lives to be together. Remorse for pulling me away from a future with the Titans. Sadness, anguish, something."

Something human."

"All I found was your gluttonous rejoicing over my fall. You felt accomplished on subjugating me by my body. You marvelled over your defeat of 'morality' in the same sick thrill a toddler rejoices at pulling the wings off a fly. Your hatred for all that was good and holy validated by my sins."

Goth was going to open his mouth but Raven held up a finger. "I think you're going to want to save your breath."

"Because, you see, you were right. My emotions are much, much more powerful than my honor. I hide among the Titans, just like you already know. That's why I could only track Robin by his thoughts of the deaths of his parents, his ideas about the great Batman, his obsession with Slade-and none of his quiet dignity, self-sacrifice and eternal discipline. That's why I was the one who was prepared to kill Terra when she turned against us and threatened Beastboy. That's why his Man-Beast form fought for me."

"I may somewhat resemble a human being. A person who can choose to be good or evil. But I'm not. I am Raven, the herald of Trigon, the child of fate prophesized to destroy Allworlds."

"What would someTHING like me do to someone who emotionally manipulated me out of my carefully constructed charade of superheroine for his own perverse ideals? After he defrauded me of my virginity. After he made me hurt my friends. After his dreams were filled with his victory over the weaknesses of my soul."

Raven seemed pensive for a moment. Sarcastically pensive.

She snapped her fingers. "Oh, I know."

The walls and cieling of the room blew away into nothingness. Revealed was a bleak, rocky landscape populated by Ravens in cloaks of every color. A handful stood to the still seated, nude Raven's right. More beyond sight stood to her left.

"They...", Raven gestured with her right hand. "...were really rooting for you. Happy hoping to be happy. Love looking to be loved. etc. etc."

"They, on the other hand...", Raven gestured with her left. "Haven't had so much fun since you've entered their life. Rage is particularly looking forward to your eternal damnation within the darker recesses of my mind."

Goth's mask of apathy entrenched itself. "I have a last request."

"But of course.", said entirely too many Ravens in an entirely too earie chorus.

"If I could manipulate you this far, why did I fail now?", Goth asked the last words he would ever speak without screaming.

"I'll field that.", Raven in a sopping wet, see-through cloak stated. This one somehow appeared more erotic than the naked actual Raven lounging in a sleazy motel arm-chair.

"I have issues with my father. More to the point, I have issues with males that are supposed to love me only enjoying me through my enslavement. You pushed to far asking for my forgiveness of you and myself. I probably would have let you survive, even live if you had headed for the hills. But that phone call forced me to confront myself."

"But the most sexy thing about you was my forgetting myself. And self-confrontation is a big turn off for me."

"I still wanted you, the life you offered. Unfortunately, I convinced myself to secretly test you. And you failed."

"So now you'll subsist here. With them."

A Raven with a blood red cloak and four glowing red eyes broke in. "Enough with this melodramatic semanticism. Gimme, I want bone marrow." Her call was echoed in various curses in the crowd to the 'actual' Raven's left.

"Of course.", Raven stated. "I'm going back to my room to get dressed."

"Good-bye, Goth."

"Good-bye, the Red X."