Disclaimer: Welcome again Ladies and Gentlemen, to the fifth installment of Crimson Darkness. Teen Titans are the copyrighted trademark of DC comics and Cartoon Network. Enjoy the show.

Chapter 5: Shadows of the Mind

The roar echoed through the entire facility shattering glass and crystal alike. Garfield, in the form of a cheetah, bolted as fast as his legs could carry him as the monstrous beast that was once Julian crashed through the wall behind him in pursuit of its first meal, him.

"What are you waiting for? Run you assholes! Run!" He shouted at the others as he streaked past them. Victor transfixed by sheer terror opened fire on Demi-Julian, pulling the other titans along with him in a tactical retreat.

"Haul ass!" He roared opening up with another round of hot lead and mini-missiles. Demi-Julian paused as the barrage hit him with full impact and screamed as it was blown back by the force. The barrage continued as Demi-Julian was blown into a wall at the far end of the hall. Victors continues fire racked the hall with explosion after explosion until his clips ran dry.

"Oh, Shit!" He cursed, running at top speed away. The creature bursting forth from the ruble looking extremely pissed off tore off after him. Because of his bulky size Cyborg was never as fast as he wished he could be and this posed as problem as Demi-Julian caught up to him. It grabbed him around his waist, its wick claws biting deep into his titanium body armor, and slamming him repeatedly into a wall. It reared its arm back ready to shove the struggling Victor through the concert floor when an orb of black energy encased the robotic teen and pulled him from the monsters grip.

"Thanks for the save Ray you better get out of here to." Still encased in the black orb Cyborg was thrown out of the museum and into the others, who luckily caught him. "Raven what the hell do you think your doing! Get out of there!" Tim cried.

"Go! We can't let him out into the public! I'm going try to return Julian to normal! If I don't make it, destroy him or he'll destroy the city!" She shouted, black energy pulsing on her hands.

"You herd her spread out, we can't let him escape into the public!" Tim ordered and his team obeyed. Pulling back her hood, Raven approached Demi-Julian her eyes filled with fear and determination.

"It's me Raven, I'm your friend do you recognize me Julian?" A brief flash of recognition crossed his demonic eyes before it was replaced with demonic rage once more. With a scream it reared back and brought its clawed hands down at Raven who barely blocked the attack with an energy barrier.

"Get out of here Raven! I can't control this form! I could kill you!" A voice screamed in her mind.

"Julian?"

"I can't control my self! Get out of here, before I kill you!"

"No I won't leave, I can help you!" The creature reared back again and brought its claws down once more with such force it shook the complex, shattering Raven's shield and driving her to her knees.

"Go now! If you live then your world will still have a chance! There's nothing you can do for me now!"

"In my dream you said that this world needed both of us to survive and that's exactly how I plan to keep it!" Demi-Julian swung another claw at her, which she dodged.

"Hey big ugly follow the pretty birdie!" She shouted and ran for the exit all the while gathering up energy from her body. She reached the exit just as the beast's head nearly snapped hers off. Wiping around she began chanting a spell that she had learned from Malkeor.

"Azarath emperior demento encase!" A massive cage of violet and black energy encased the entire museum leaving only Demi-Julian's head sticking out of the totaled entrance. The demon thrashed about and snapped at Raven as she levitated up to eye level with it. The beast glared at her in bloody contempt almost as if it was daring her to try anything. She reached down to her belt and removed one of the orbs in it. Bringing it up to her chest she chanted again.

"Dark minds, dark hearts, dark souls, feel the light! Embrace the beholder!" The orb morphed into the mirror she used for meditation and glowed with her energy. She turned it so the glass faced her, the glass glowed a darker, richer black, which began to encase Raven and pull her in. She disappeared into the confines of her mirror, which remained floating where Raven had once been and began to drift over to Demi-Julian's trashing head. It glowed brighter again as it pressed its self into his head. He roared in agony as it, like the cross-had done, burned its way into his forehead. The mirror to disappeared, leaving the beast's head to hang limp.

"Oh, no she didn't just do what I think she did, did she?" Garfield asked worried.

"She did what she thought she had to do, lets just hope she knows what she's doing," Tim replied going over to check on Cyborg and Starfire.

'She's here. She's in our mind."

"Who is she, can she help?"

"It's Raven, of course she can help that's why we came to her, why she came to us."

"Let us pray the dark ones do not find her first."

"Yes let us pray."

Raven heard several voices whisper these words in the dark corridor she walk, the corridor of Julian's mind. One of the first things she had noticed when she had entered here was that his mind seemed to be divided into two parts. One side to the left emanated a cryptic, almost evil feel. While to her right the passage opened into chambers that released a carefree and happy feel with an undertone of worry, most likely because she was there or maybe it was the dark ones that the voices she had heard mentioned.

"What is your business here!" A voice snapped breaking her out of her thoughts. In the center of the passage stood one of Julian's emotional sides except if he were he would have been in one of the chambers on ether side, this she found was profoundly shocking.

"I said what is your business here!" He snapped again.

"Who are you?"

"I am what you would call Julian's superego," he responded.

"If your one of his emotional states why are you not in a chamber?"

"My appearance should answer your question," he gestured to him self. Indeed it was a strange sight. Though his eyes where the same as Julian's would appear as the same for his hair, the rest of his body though, was divided. The left side of his face held a shadowy overturn and a large skeletal bat wing protruded from his left shoulder, his cloak on that side too, was a shadowy pitch as his face was. Like the chambers to the left, this dark side, emanated an evil and foreboding air. On his right side, however, was an angelic wing, his face was paler, and his cloak on that side was snow white. Joy and righteousness hang about his right side like a halo.

"Because his soul and mind are divided, his ego is as well, you are caught in-between the good and evil sides because you represent both and therefore have no place, but in the middle am I correct?" Julian's superego nodded.

"Now you must answer my question, what is your business here Raven?"

"I came here to find out what changed Julian and turn him back to normal." Superego scoffed.

"Foolish girl, he has not been changed into something he is not, you have merely witnessed him as his he should be by his birth right."

"His birth right?"

"You understand nothing of us do you?" Raven raised her eyebrows in a confused manner. Superego sighed. "Well then I must explain, the man you know as Julian is no man or even a mortal for that."

"I figured as much being that he just turned into a giant rampaging snake thingy."

"Sarcasm is anger and jealousy's evil little cousin," superego snapped and a head of another of Julian's personality traits popped out from the dark side of the corridor.

"Someone call my name?" It asked. Superego glared angrily at the intrusion.

"No one has called you Jealousy!"

"Sorry," the head apologized and disappeared back into the dark side of the hall

"As I was saying," superego continued. "Julian in the culmination of the extremes of both good and evil, thus why these two sides are so extreme," he gestured to the two sides of the hall.

"Julian is the child of an angel and the devil?"

"Do you think us cliché as that? " Superego snarled. "Foolish mortal did you not here me say the greatest extremes of good and evil?"

"The greatest extremes? Then you me mean God and the fallen archangel Lucifer? That's not possible! Is it?"

"Indeed my child it is. Julian was born the same fashion this world and this universe was, fashioned from the great creator and the great destroyer, Julian is the true embodiment of humanity, he is the first child of creation and now he has embraced the side of his father."

"Julian didn't want this! He tried to warn me about the destruction an evil would wrought on this plane, why would he embrace the ultimate evil!" Raven cried out. Superego shook his head.

"This vessel, like you once did, has no choice, he, unlike humans, was not given true free will, like it or not he was destined to join his father by his side."

"Can we stop it? Can we stop this evil before it completely consumes him?"

"I have no real say in this I am only one part of Julian, but if he wishes to stop what is inevitable I will allow you to try," with a sigh Superego pulled out a cross that was covered with blood, which he held upside down. " Take this cross and destroy it, this will change him back to his human state." Superego reached into the light side of his cloak and produced a silver and gold cross. "This cross will allow Julian to control his current form until the time when he must join his father."

"Do you know when that will be if it will happen in this time period?"

"My dear child we have never known, but it is inevitable and when you least expect it, death will come and the end of days will begin."

"What do I do with the silver cross?"

"Place it upon his forehead along with his heart's greatest desire."

"What is his heart's greatest desire?"

"That is something that you must discover on your own."

"I don't understand.'

"Dear, Raven must I spell everything out for you? You will find what is needed in soon enough time, now take the crosses." Raven picked the crosses from Superego's hands, the blood from he sacrilege cross flowing out over her hands. With her power, Raven tossed into the air and crushed with a blast of dark energy, showering both her and Julian's ego in shards of wood.

"It is done, I suggest we leave before the dark ones become enraged and attack us, farewell Raven, until next time." Superego began to walk away, into the further reaches of Julian's mind, his form fading away the farther he got, until he completely vanished. Resisting the urged to run after him and force him to answer the rest of her questions, she turned to leave. Passing several of the darkened chambers, Raven heard horrible screams of rage and hate. Gnarled hands shot from the dark, reaching out to pull her in, as their domain seemed to recede away as the light side expanded. Quickening her pace, Raven tried to dodge the screaming hands, but she tripped over several chains that stretched across the corridor into the dark side and landed on her chest, the wind being knocked out of her.

Scrambling to her knees, she managed to evade the hands and dove into one of the chambers in the light side. Once she was in the safety of the chamber, the screams ceased and the hands retracted.

"Do not worry, you are safe in this chamber, the dark ones cannot leave their haze with out Superego's permission," a voice said from behind her. Turning around, Raven saw a pink and red-garbed emotion sitting up against the chamber wall. Looking closer she noticed that he had several chains around his neck, wrists, and ankles.

"Why are you chained like that?"

"I came into existence like this, therefore I shall remain," the emotion replied pulling on the chain around his neck. After several moments of trying to remove the chain, the emotion dropped it with a sigh.

"Let me try," Raven offered, approaching the chain with her hands a glow with her energy.

"I appreciate your kindness dear Raven, but it is a moot point for love was destined to be forever bound by rage and resentment."

"Your Julian's love?"

"I am," Love answered with a sigh again yanking on one of the chains. "Though I am I do not know how." Raven stared at the emotion confused.

"How do you not know how to love? You are the embodiment of the emotion itself." Love looked up at her, his down cast eyes filled with a deep sadness.

"It is something that Julian has never felt, therefore I have no point in my existence, I am to deeply rooted to rage and resentment to feel what I desire or fulfill my propose."

"Why are you rooted to those such evils?"

"Isn't all love rooted to evil, after all love is merely a modern form of animal instincts, such as lust or desire, if love is not given or received, it merely is repressed into hate and resentment to the people who do not give what they should and becomes bound to its creations."

"Can you love? Or is your existence just a cruel falsada of Julian's inherent evil?"

"You tell me, fair maiden, you tell me, perhaps Julian was never meant to feel love maybe I am just a cruel mockery of false humanity. Is love really all that good to begin with? From what we have seen in our existence it only seems to cause more pain then joy or happiness. What I have always wondered is why am I not on he other side with the dark ones?"

"The answer is simple, it is better to have love and loosed then to have never loved at all, humanity craves companion ship, love is what makes us all human, love is humanity at its greatest. If Julian truly is the first of humanity then you truly are human, it isn't how we are born or who gave us life that makes human it's the choices we make and the people we love that makes us what we are," Raven replied softly, gently placing her hand on Love's shoulder.

"Have you ever felt love for your self? Can you really claim that you had experience in what you seem to know so much about?"

"No, because of my father's hold on me, the people who raised me never showed any emotion toward me to prevent my strongest tie to him become uncontrollable, it was in my mature to be emotional, my emotions were the key to setting him free from his prison, so I repressed them, but when my friends helped me destroy him, I was set free from his hold and was free to express my self. I am free, but I have never felt that emotion to any one."

"We have both suffered for the sins of our fathers and we will continue because we are chained to what we hate."

"Yes we have suffered, but that doesn't mean that we have to keep on suffering. Humans were meant to love, it's what God intended us to do. Julian came to me in my dreams, he told me that our world, your world, was endanger of destruction, he said that we were the only ones who could save it. And I'm not going to sacrifice the world because one its saviors is destroying himself from the inside!" Raven shouted shaking his shoulders

"Why do you care if I destroy myself? I have no purpose. My father wants me to destroy for him and my mother won't take me."

"Because earth needs you! I need you!" Love looked up at Raven socked and confused.

"What did you say?"

"I said I need you," she repeated sounding shocked her self. "Did I just say that?" She asked her self. "Yes I did, because its true, Julian and I have a common bond, he's probably the only one who can really understand me."

"Is that really the truth? Or simply another lie to consolidate more of my pain?"

"It's the truth."

"Why?"

"You said you never loved, do you want to know what it feels like to, is it your heart's desire?"

"It is the purpose of my existence, is it not?"

"Then there's something that both of us want then," she replied, moving closer to the bound emotion.

"What are you…."? Raven cut him off in mid sentence, pressing her soft lips against his. His eyes widened in shock, but closed as he returned the Goth beauty's kiss. The chains that bound him began to shatter and a vibrant light exploded forth, engulfing the to in brilliance. When the light faded, Raven opened her eyes and pulled back. She was back out side of the museum, her mirror lying at her side. Looking up at Julian, she saw the silver cross sinking into his forehead. Though his body was severally injured, he had a look of sheer bliss on his bloodied face.

"Thank you," he whispered, collapsing into her arms unconscious.

"You welcome," Raven replied patting the back of his head affectionetly. "Let's go home."

(A/N): Sorry for such a long update time, school and work have been piling up. Mistress of the Moonlight is back in the running so be looking out for some new updates and Ending Sanity will be started soon enough. Untill next update so long and good night