A/N: Why hello again all my readers. I know it's kinda been awhile since I've updated and I was feeling sorta guilty. I have been super-duper busy it's unreal, and I'm working a lot more hours at work. Not to mention the whole college thing is starting to loom around the corner!
But, enough about me and all my problems. I made sure that this chapter was good and long, so I hope you all enjoy!
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Chapter 3: The Snake Strikes
There was a loud slam below the common room as the heavy punching bag was knocked again into the wall of the training room the Titans used as part of their conditioning. It was no secret who was causing the din, but not one of the Titans wished to go downstairs and try to speak with their leader when he got like this. It's not to say that the Titans weren't brave, they just knew that their reclusive friend wanted nothing to do with them right now, not even comfort from his beautiful alien. So, the members of the crime-fighting group did a number of different things to try to keep themselves occupied as long as they could, and try to keep themselves from remembering the grisly display they had looked upon earlier that day.
As Cyborg and Beastboy continued their ritual of race car driving via a game station, the two winced as they heard the bag crash again, and shared a look that told the other that he did not know the answer to their newest problem. Cyborg glanced over his huge shoulder to get a glimpse of how Starfire was faring, and his heart nearly broke to see her looking so forlorn. It was unnatural for someone like her to be so depressed, and he could see worry etched all over Jinx's face as she tried again, hopelessly, to get the alien to laugh. Heaving a sigh, the cybernetic young man turned back towards the console and the green changeling beside him.
" I just don't know man," Cyborg said quietly as he shrugged his shoulders at his friend next to him. " Jinx as been trying for the past hour to get Star to smile, and she hasn't even cracked a grin! I mean, I know she's upset, but she needs to realize that we always face threats once in awhile. We'll get through just fine, like always."
Beastboy noticed the definite doubt in his friend's voice in the last statement before he grew silent once more. He was more than just worried, Beastboy discovered just then, he was scared…they all were when he thought about it. Beastboy's attention shifted to his dark-haired girlfriend as she sat beside him on the couch after phasing out of the ceiling in a black swirl of energy.
" You sure sound confident there Cyborg," Raven said in a monotone voice that chilled Beastboy to the core, even though they had been dating for two years. " I'm sure we'll be just dandy. You've got to be kidding. Our mortal nemesis just unleashed an animal-like woman whose sole purpose is to send the Justice League Robin's body parts in a lunch box, and that woman is now starting to terrorize innocent victims in order to get our leader's attention long enough to accomplish her goal…yea Cyborg, we'll be just fine."
As Cyborg merely chose to glower at the gothic beauty, Beastboy tried to reconcile things before they got out of hand. " Rae, we don't know that's her reason for being here. She might just want to be Slade's apprentice and take over the world like every other bad guy out there. We really don't know anything."
" Why write that poem then Gar?" Raven asked, using his real name in a much gentler voice then before. " Why go through all that trouble of torturing an innocent little girl and then writing a poem on the wall, in the girl's blood, about a robin? That doesn't sound like wanting to take over the world to me, it just sounds like a psychotic murderer trying to get the attention of her next victim."
" What I want to know," Jinx said as she sat beside Cyborg, after relinquishing her former task to Lily. " Is why we weren't told about her escape from prison. I mean, it must have taken Slade and Viper a good amount of time to travel incognito from Metropolis to Jump City, and we never even got so much as a memo. She was our problem first after all."
" We weren't told because they didn't want us to know," Raven said with a hint of anger in her voice. " We aren't being told anything outside of what they think we should know, and I'm pretty sure I know who their representatives are." Raven shot a glare at the brown-haired, lavender-eyed girl seated across from the red-headed Starfire. Lily looked up, saw the glare, returned a composed stare back, and then quietly excused herself from Starfire's company and quickly walked out of the room.
" Dude," Beastboy said as he witnessed the exchange between Raven and Lily. " No way! She can't be a bad guy, she saved Rob's life that one time remember? Her and Ahren are here to help, like last time, why would they keep stuff from us?"
As Raven shrugged her shoulders at his response, Beastboy looked over at the neighboring couple and saw suspicion creep into their eyes. The more he thought about it, even if he didn't want to agree with the theory, the more Beastboy came to see the truth in his girlfriend's words. Even though the odd pair had helped them out before, they seemed to have strange reasons of their own for being in Jump City in the first place. I f Ahren really could see the future, as both he and Lily claimed he could, then why wasn't he able to have more answers for them concerning Viper, a subject that appeared to trigger visions. It all just started to make Beastboy have a headache, and he promptly got up from the couch, walked over to the window, and laid his head against the cool surface.
He felt an arm snake around his waist, and a head rest itself on his shoulder. It wasn't exactly normal for Raven to be so affectionate, but after two years of solid dating, it wasn't unheard of her to act as such…especially when he was upset.
" I know it doesn't help to think of them as enemies, and when you stop and think about, they really aren't."
Beastboy then turned himself around to find only him and Raven left in the common room. He placed his hands on her upper arms as she locked her hands behind his neck, and then Beastboy leaned his head down towards hers to where their noses were nearly touching.
" But," she continued in a barely audible whisper. " It would be worse if we don't realize what they are doing right now. We can't risk it with this one, Viper is much too dangerous to do that with, or we'll end up losing much more than we did last time. This team won't survive without either of them."
He knew of whom she was speaking of, and simply nodded his head in agreement at her statement. " I know," he said softly before he leaned down and placed his lips over hers, for a moment whisking them both away form their troubles and worries for a short while before reality had to whisk them back.
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Slam
Robin merely grunted as he walked over to pick up the fallen punching bag yet again. It had become a ritual for him in the past hour or so, the hitting, the bag falling, him putting it back where it started, and then the hitting again. The pain in his hands was forgotten, his fatigue pushed aside, and the murmurs from outside the gym doors were unheard and unanswered. He was locked away inside himself, and wasn't letting anyone in anytime soon as far as he was concerned. He just kept on hitting and kicking the bag, not noticing the bleeding knuckles or broken toenails he was receiving, until it once again swung into the wall and fell to the floor heavily.
Slam.
This time, Robin did not follow his ritual, to caught up in what he was seeing on the floor where the bag was. He tried to blink the image away, tried to think of anything else he could think of to push it out of his head. But, he couldn't stop.
All he saw was a mangled, flayed, and rotting corpse of what once had been a little girl. That, and a poem written on the wall that was about a robin. A poem that was a message to him from the one person in the world he truly feared. A message that took the life away from the innocent girl who had incidentally been a fan of Robin's as well.
It all was too coincidental; Marna Wimble had not been some randomly picked girl for a psychopathic killer. She had been chosen carefully, after some study probably, and picked because of who she idolized and who she had a little girl's crush on. She had been chosen by Viper to extend a challenge to him, and him alone. Her family had been put through this awful tragedy because of who he was, and a killer's ambition to kill him. It was all his fault, all of it, everything.
He could still see her eyes, wide open and frightened even in her death. They were no longer smiling brown irises, but red ones that spoke of pain and suffering. Her ruined face told stories of what might have been done to her other than the flaying, and it sickened Robin at heart. He sank to his knees, and could not muster the energy to get back to his feet, so naturally, he couldn't stop the person from walking into the gym.
" How did you get in?" Robin asked in a lifeless voice that sounded much to hollow for him.
" Uh, I'm psychic remember?" Ahren answered jovially as he closed the locked gym doors. " Locks don't really stop me, deadbolts will though, maybe you should install those in the tower."
He finished the last sentence with a chuckle, hoping to arouse some type of emotion out of the raven-haired youth. Seeing that it wasn't working, his tone turned serious and he said, " Or you know, you could sit up here and wallow in self-pity over something you had no power to prevent."
" For once in your life Ahren," Robin said as he rose off the floor, the anger in him giving him fuel to move. " Just shut the hell up."
" Oh, someone's got their panties in a twist eh?"
" Just shut up!"
" Okay," Ahren said as he closed the distance between himself and Robin, knowing all to well that the other might punch him. " We now know that saying 'shut up' really loudly isn't going to work. How about saying 'go screw yourself' instead."
Robin's eyes narrowed into slits as his fist curled into a ball, ready to punch the other if he said anymore.
" What, that to crude for you?"
Unable to keep his anger in check any longer, Robin lashed out at Ahren, catching the brown-haired young man with a punch in the head. Ahren staggered back, but when Robin tried to wield a round-house kick to the same area, the psychic was ready and stopped the foot in mid-air. He then threw Robin into the wall using his hold over the hero's leg, causing another loud noise to be heard.
Slam.
" Great," Ahren said calmly as Robin pushed himself gingerly off the floor to face the psychic again. " Now that we've got that out of the way, you ready to talk about why you're acting so damn stupid?"
Robin didn't say anything, just glared at the young man in font of him with his masked, blue eyes.
" No? Well, how about I play psychiatrist and you are my patient? Okay now, let us zee," He started saying in a horrible German accent. " The problem vith you is your inability the let zee past go yes? You see something horrible, and you automatically blame yourself for its occurrence even though there vas nothing you could have done to prevent zee trouble from happening." He dropped the accent, and walked over to where Robin was standing, not touching him, but a comforting presence nonetheless. " I know you think the girl's death was your fault, but it wasn't Robin. She was killed because there is a psychopath out there whose main goal is to weaken you so she can kill you. Maybe if we had known she was so determined to get your attention in the first place, maybe we could have prevented Marna's death, but then Viper would have just selected a new target. There was nothing we could have done."
" Really?" Robin said quietly after a moments quiet. " There was nothing we could've done? I think you could've told us about Viper in the first place, instead of waiting around for the opportune moment. I think both you and Lily are keeping things from us, your friends, things that concern Viper, and for some reason you won't tell us."
" You've been talking with Raven haven't you," Ahren asked sadly.
" What if I have! Does it mean that she was right about you the whole time? That you two are here to achieve some kind of mission for the League, and we are just your pawns in this game? Is that what you think this is, a game!"
" No," Ahren answered smoothly, careful to keep is voice and power under control. " But would knowing she was here really make all that big a difference in what happened here today?"
" It might've," Robin said as he started to turn away from Ahren. " But I guess we won't find out will we?"
" No," Ahren called out angrily and using his power to whirl Robin back around to face him. " It would not have! It would have made no difference at all! You would still be blaming yourself, the Titans would still be mistrustful of us, and Viper would still be in the city. Nothing would've changed! I tell what I know when I can and when it's important to know… Knowledge is not necessarily a gift Robin, it can lead even the strongest down a dark path if they try to seek it. I can't tell you everything I know, because then it could change what could happen, I wish it was different, but it's not."
Robin stood there for a moment, not saying anything to his dismal looking companion. Then, taking a deep breath he said, " Maybe your right Ahren. Maybe we shouldn't know certain things because it may irrevocably affect our future, but you compromised my trust in you in the process. I don't know when you're telling the truth or not now…and I don't know if I can be friends with someone like that. So, now that you've thoroughly pissed me off, maybe you should just leave me alone like I asked to be. You have no idea what the hell I'm thinking about and don't even try to read my mind you son of a bitch."
Compressing his lips into a sad frown, Ahren gave a nod and headed out the door. Pausing in the frame for a moment, he concentrated on the fallen punching bag, and placed it back on its hooks. " I hope one day you understand what I've told you Robin. Before you realize that it's too late to do otherwise." And with that, he left the room, closing the doors behind him.
Robin stared at the door for a while, not really knowing what is feelings were toward the psychic at the moment. He wanted to trust him, but didn't know if he could now due to the present situation. While thoughts jumbled around in his head, Robin wrapped his hands in tape once more and began his ritual again.
Slam.
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The following week passed in uneasy silence for the teenage superheroes that were verging on adulthood. Distrust grew throughout the Tower like a weed in the park, poisoning everything it touched. Everyone had learned of Robin's fight with Ahren, and there was no denying the tension between the two newest Titans and the others. Lily had tried to placate the simmering anger, but was met with a sharp rebuttal from Raven who wanted nothing to do with her and Ahren until they told the truth of all they knew. Robin, while no longer shut in the gym, was avoiding everyone and didn't speak unless it was urgent. Ahren wouldn't even look at the reclusive leader when the team was briefed, and refused to accommodate Raven's demand. Beastboy, Cyborg, and Jinx all ignored the odd guests, and barely spoke civilly to them unless it was required.
Starfire was thanking X'Hal that there had been hardly any crimes that week.
She sat on the roof, her thinking spot, and contemplated how she could mend the broken ties within her home. Problem was, she didn't quite understand why everyone was angry at each other. She heaved a sigh, wishing Robin was up there with her, and fixed her gaze on the city's skyline, hoping to catch a glimpse of where the person who was the root of all their disputes was hiding. She looked up as she heard the door to the roof open, hopeful to a certain black-haired young man, but her smile drooped as she saw it was a lavender-eyed young woman.
" Yeah," Lily said with a heavy voice. " I guess you don't want to see me either. I'll just-"
" No friend!" Starfire exclaimed with a smile and then motioned Lily towards her with a wave. " I do wish to speak with you and perhaps do the 'hanging out' as well. Would you please stay in my presence?"
Nodding her head with a look of obvious relief on her face, the brown-haired beauty walked over to the alien and sat beside her. The two girls, so close to becoming women, sat in silence for a bit, and then Starfire broke it with a simple question.
" Lily, why are all of our companions so angry with each other?"
" Well," Lily said after a moment of contemplation. " I suppose it's mainly because of what Ahren said to Robin. They all think that Ahren's out of line telling your leader what to do."
" I was not aware there was a line," Starfire said with such innocence, it drew a smile from the other girl. " But, Raven was angry before that. She is not the only Titan intune with her feelings, I am also, and can sense when people feel a certain way. She was angry right after we sighted that…display."
Lily held her tongue, aware that Starfire was staring at her, waiting for an answer. Breathing in deeply, she turned to face the princess and said slowly, " Your right Star…Raven was angry with us before the fight…everyone else just became angry with us afterwards. I guess it's because Ahren and I are keeping things from all of you. I wishI could tell you all we know, even all Ahren knows, but we just can't. If what he sees is revealed, it can irrevocably change the outcome. We thought Raven would understand that better than anyone, but the betrayal committed by Terra left her mistrustful of everyone she cannot read. People like Ahren…empaths just can't connect with their minds, they're way to complex! Raven thinks we are using you guys to catch Viper, and will use any methods necessary."
" That is ridiculous," Starfire said in a dismissive voice. " Just because one will not let another read their emotions does not signify betrayal. On Tamaran, there are those among us who have the ability to read the future in the stars. My people know it would be disastrous if they ever revealed all they see…often what they may see can be misconstrued into meaning something that it does not."
" Exactly," Lily said in happiness that at least one Titan realized what Ahren was doing. " That's absolutely right! I used to pester Ahren to tell me everything of what he sees, especially if they had something to do with me. Well, he once divulged to me one of his visions, and I interpreted it as something different than what it actually meant, and needless to say, I messed up and Ahren got terribly hurt. I remember asking him why he didn't stop me, and he told me that I needed to learn the lesson the same way he had…that we can't ever possibly predict the future by what a picture may show us. They are only possibilities."
" Is that why you did not aid us last time until Robin was damaged?" Starfire asked, finally understanding the circumstances around one of Ahren's fateful visions.
" Yep," Lily said, impressed with the other's intuition. " I thought it meant that we needed to help you, I mean Ahren had the vision. But, he wasn't so sure about the whole thing, he thought that if we revealed ourselves too soon that Slade and Viper would change their plans, and we would lose our chance to help out." Lily then fixed Starfire with a gaze and said, " We were not using Robin as bait to lure out Viper Star. No matter what anyone thinks, we would never do that."
Starfire nodded, believing the words even before the other spoke them. She reached over and gave Lily's hand a squeeze of reassurance, and then directed her gaze to the sky again. " Everything is all 'shot to heck' is it not Lily?" she asked in a whisper.
" Maybe it is," she answered. " But that's why we're here after all, to make everything clear again. It may just take a little longer than we hoped."
Starfire smiled a sad smile and then nodded her head, trusting that Lily was right. She was about to comment on how she was so upset by how Robin was acting, finding that she was able to talk about those things with the purple-eyed girl, when the alarm went off, summoning everyone to the common room. She rose, and Lily after her, swallowing her own discomfort to help the denizens of her city.
" I'm happy you understand what we're trying to do Starfire of Tamaran," Lily said as they descended down the stair shaft. " After all, auguries are oft confusing and misleading, meaning one thing and showing something else entirely. I'm happy you understand what Ahren is going through right now."
Smiling, Starfire whipped her head around to face Lily's, sending her red hair whirling around as well. " It is one of the rules after all yes?"
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She smiled to herself as she watched her handiwork take effect, all those times of watching Kindergarten Cop were finally paying off. Soon the screams would start, and then panic would ensue, and finally the police would call to get the aid of the Teen Titans to help the situation. She already knew exactly what she was going to do, Slade be damned as far as she was concerned. He was an acceptable loss if she achieved her goal, a trade in her mind.
The smoke started to rise from the library windows, and the first of the panicked yells began, soon the police and firefighting departments would arrive to help stop every parent's nightmare from occurring. She calmly saw Slade's robots start to fire at the civilians watching the horrific scene unfold before them, and then strode over to the roof door, and headed back down into the school to grab her assurance. She inhaled deeply, her animal instincts smelling the fear in the air, and she felt a wave of satisfaction sweep through her.
It was going to be a good day for Vanessa Bowman.
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By the time the Titans, Ahren, and Lily arrived at the school fire scene, total chaos had enveloped the area as firefighters struggled to put out the enormous, wicked fire from destroying the school, people were screaming to get their children out and running from the robots attacking the streets. Hundreds of children could be seen evacuating the building, but Robin knew that there was more trapped inside, and he concocted his orders in less than a minute of arriving.
" Cyborg, you take Beastboy and Lily to get those kids out of the school. Raven, you and Starfire are going to demolish those Slade bots and stop their march before they start messing with the firefighters, Jinx, you and I are going to track down Slade and stop him, and Ahren, you make damn sure that fire doesn't spread any further than this school! All right, Titan's go!"
And they did, each attacking their task with everything they had, all fights and disputes put aside in an instant. Cyborg led his group into the school, using Lily's spell casting to keep the flames away from them, Starfire and Raven used all their muster to destroy the bots, making a path for Robin and Jinx who tracked down Slade into the center of his robots.
All the while, Ahren used his limited telekinetic ability to keep the fire from spreading, anger at what was happening fueling his lesser gift with enough strength to follow his order. He could feel the sweat dripping down his entire body as he struggled to contain the flames, every ounce of focus he had attuned to the school. He saw Cyborg's group come out with thirty or so students and faculty members, Lily catching his eyes, his strain obviously showing. When they went back into the school, he knew he wasn't going to be able to continue much longer, his brain screaming at him to stop already.
He felt blood on his lower lip, realizing that his nose now bleeding due to stress, and implored his mind to lend him some extra strength, just long enough for the children to get out of the school. As if his mind had been waiting for him to ask, he felt his entire conscious open up, power flooding through his senses in a rush to get out. In a yell of pain, Ahren was engulfed by his own power, a flash of light encompassing him, and leaving a being with glowing white eyes.
The fire was not going to spread, under any circumstances, even its own death, the being decided then. A being that was once a young man named Ahren O'Brien.
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" We need to hurry Cyborg," Lily said as they reentered the fire engulfed school. " We need to go faster!"
" What do ya think I'm doing girl?" Cyborg yelled back at the girl angrily. He found some kids huddled with their teacher in an abandoned classroom, and motioned them to climb atop Beastboy, who was in a gorilla's form at the moment. " We need to check wherever you feel kids, and BB here can only go so fast when he's carrying six kids and a teacher! We getting them out of here, so just be a little patient would ya!"
" You don't understand Cyborg," Lily shouted angrily as they gathered a few more students around them, Cyborg carrying the smaller ones. " Ahren can't keep up what's he doing! It could kill him to try to use this much power for an extended period of time, and I don't care how mad at him you are right now, I am NOT letting him die here today!"
" Well," Cyborg yelled back, a little worried for the boy outside now. " Let's get the last of them now and let the firefighters take care of the rest." They continued for a bit, grabbing stragglers and leading them out through the smoke, before they decided to turn around and get out.
When they finally did, Cyborg directed the children all towards the emergency workers while Beastboy changed back to his human form. He looked up towards the school, finding the furious fire perfectly contained.
" Yeah, way to go Ahren," he said happily gesturing to Cyborg the spectacle before them. " I guess he's more powerful than we thought uh Cyb-"
The words caught in his throat as he turned around to Lily's gasp and saw something, that was surrounded by what looked like white fire, where Ahren had been standing when they last entered the school. The eyes, which had once been a warm brown color, were now cold and white, showing no compassion or pity to the scene in front of him. Beastboy felt a sharp pang of fear as he stared at the being that once was their friend.
" Oh Ahren," Lily said desolately as she saw the one person she loved in the world nearly lost to the power he feared so much.
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Raven and Starfire, oblivious to the catastrophe over at the school, continued to blast away at the robots, zigzagging and dodging through the red lasers shot up at them. They could see Robin and Jinx encounter Slade as stood confidently in the midst of his robots, and they could see the confrontation begin in almost this slow-motion dance.
Raven, suddenly aware that something was horribly wrong, felt a sharp pain in her mind, a sharp pain that was coming from the school. She looked over, and saw immediately the white flames in the distance, and knew instinctively what was wrong.
" Starfire, you need to immobilize as many of these robots as you can, I need to head over to the school!" Raven hoped she shouted loud enough for Starfire to hear, and then plummeted down to where Jinx was tackling on Slade, giving Robin a reprieve for the moment.
" Raven," Robin said, startled by her sudden appearance. " What are you-"
" I have to head over to the school Robin," Raven said, her fear echoed in her voice, causing Robin to rock back on his heels. " Something horribly wrong is going on with Ahren, and I think we might have a bigger problem than that fire. He's lost control of his power, and he could kill himself and others if someone doesn't reach him. I need to go help him or everything we've done is for nothing."
Nodding in understanding, Robin yelled for her to go, but send Cyborg to help Starfire out. He then focused his attention back on Slade, about to finish what he started two years ago when he suddenly heard a high-pitched scream, whirled about to face the school, and saw two young children banging on an upper floor window. Slade forgotten instantly, the jet-haired youth ran away from the fight and towards the school, determined to save these two children by any means necessary.
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Starfire saw all this from her spot in the sky, as well as the fact that Jinx was starting to falter against Slade's relentless attack. She knew unconsciously what she needed to do, and flew down from the sky, and blasted Slade with a starbolt as she landed beside Jinx.
" Star, what the hell are you doing?" Jinx asked angrily, but with confusion etched in her eyes.
" You are no longer able to combat Slade effectively Jinx," Starfire said in a calm voice. " Our friends have needed to adapt our strategy due to complications, and now I am doing the same. I am undamaged, and most eager to administer the kicking of butt to our foe, and you must now join Cyborg and help destroy these pesky robots."
Jinx stared at the beautiful alien for a moment, realizing that arguing would get her nowhere, and nodded her agreement. " Try not to hurt him too bad Star, bird-boy would be cranky if he didn't get to hit him a couple times," Jinx said with her trademark smirk as she bounded off to try her luck with the Slade bots.
Starfire smiled at her pink-haired friend, and then turned back towards to Slade, as he rose off the ground to get back into a defensive stance. "So my dear," he sneered calmly to the red-head as her eyes glowed a dangerous green shade. " Are you going to fight for your beloved songbird now? If so, let us begin, I am starting to grow a bit bored."
" As you wish Slade," Starfire answered sweetly back. The two foes rushed at each other, a green haze meeting orange and black, thinking they both were deciding the fate of one boy.
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She smiled to herself again as she saw everything snowball like a huge avalanche before her view from an upper level window of the engulfed school building. Everything was happening better than she could have hoped, and soon she finally would have him in her grasp again.
Viper looked over at the two terrified, huddled forms against the wall, her assurance, her leverage to get what she wanted, what she needed. It would all be as she had wished soon.
Soon.
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A/N: Okay, you guys know the drill…please review, I promise to not have the next chapter up a month later! You see, I was suffering from a horrible case of writer's block. I knew what I wanted to happen, but I had no idea how I wanted to write it. I am happy to say I'm over it, I got the best idea when I was sleeping, no joke, so I'm good to go!
Oh, and you guys can also thank Rob Thomas, because I wrote this chapter to is CD ( so friggin awesome by the way) and it really inspired me…I WOULD have written the song This is How a Heart Breaks into this chapter, but sadly, I cannot, so sorry!
See you guys next time!
Osco
P.S. Oh, if you guys want to get some major spoilers for my upcoming TT fics, check out my newest DP fic, I'm introducing characters in there that will be in future fics here. I have this belief that everything is connected, so that's why they'll be there!