Chapter Seven: A Battle for Everything
Robin listened to the alarm going off, knowing what it was going to be long before he actually made his way down into the living room. "What's going on?" He asked anyway, trying to get confirmation of his suspicions as he skidded into the room and grabbed Raven's arm to keep himself from falling onto his face.
"Past, Present and Future have finally shown their face in public with Slade. The attack is going on at a local shopping center about twenty miles from here. I think they may just be trying to call us out... This seems too small for one of Slade's plans, man." Cyborg was clicking his fingers off the keyboard, struggling to get more information as he blew up the pictures on the screen for Robin to see- There was no mistaking the three girls, or Slade, even from the distant, fuzzy pictures of the police report they had been sent.
"Well, then what are we waiting for! Let's go!" Robin, feeling much better than he had in weeks and wanting to prove to Raven that he had learned something from their training sessions and all their time together.
"Hello? Dude? Even I heard Cyborg say it was probably a trap!" Beast Boy pointed out, waving his arms around in an almost comical manner. "I mean, these girls could be space monkeys or something!"
Raven rolled her eyes. "While I do think we should use caution, I highly doubt there are any space monkeys involved..." She paused. "Robin, what do you think we should do?"
"We have to go after them!" Robin said, finally letting go of Raven's arm, his resolution to try to show her his actual feelings for her, to spend less time with Starfire and try to be kinder to her, disappering. It was forgotten in the heat of the moment, in the heat of the chance to catch the villans responsable for his injuries almost two weeks before.
"Perhaps we should take the time to think this through?" Starfire asked slowly, trying to keep from offending Robin. "Perhaps we should consider the possiblity of a trap..."
Robin wasn't listening. Instead, he was looking at the blurry photographs- And into the faces that had mocked him for so long in the feverish nightmares he had had while he had lay under Raven's care. "Even if it is a trap, we're stronger now than last time. We can take them."
"So you're saying you want to attack?" Cyborg asked Robin in an undertone, trying to keep anything that might have made it sound like an insult to their leader out of his voice and facial expression.
"Of course I want to attack! Didn't you just hear me say we can take them?" Robin asked, his voice and temper rising through his throat as he spoke. Cyborg sighed- So much for not angering their overly-sensitve leader, who now had a fist clentched at his side.
"Then I guess we should take a few minutes to plan this out..." Raven said, not trying to sound overly-critical, but wanting to let Robin know that rushing into this mission in the same fashion as last time was another practically suicide. "We need to have a form to counter-act their consistent flight."
Robin fought down the urge to blush- Raven had mangaged, once again, to make him feel like a fool. I always mess up, I just want to please her and I mess up... "Good idea," he forced himself to say, trying to keep his voice from wobbling or letting out a sign of his embaressment.
Several minutes were spent in deep discussion over the tactics that would be used, but Robin wasn't really listening to his team. Starfire and Beast Boy didn't appear to be much help to Cyborg and Raven- Starfire was suggesting unreasonable tactics and Beast Boy still insisted that the girls were monkeys from outerspace. Robin could hear the irritation in Raven's voice, but instead of stepping in to help her, he was staring at her face.
"Is something wrong?" Raven suddenly asked him, catching his intent gaze, which was falling on her face. "We were asking you about what you think of this." She pushed a complex looking piece of paper toward him, but suddenly, even in the heat of the moment, of the chase and the catch he would normally live for, the x's and o's reminded him more of a football team's playing drills than anything he could actually use.
"I think it looks fine, but are you sure we can pull this off?" Robin asked, trying to pretend he was absorbing the whole of the plan instead of trying to get another look at Raven.
"Friend Robin, why are you unconfident that we will be victorious?" Starfire asked Robin.
"That's not what I meant. I just wanted to make sure... To make sure we're ready. We have to take down Slade and the Time girls."
"You're calling them the Time girls now?" Beast Boy asked in random confusion.
"Better than calling them the space monkeys," Raven replyed in a lofty voice, taking the plans back from Robin as they looked at the new scenes of destruction Cyborg was pulling up- The foursome was moving quickly, and the damage being done to the city was extensive.
"Titans, GO!" Robin called out. Time to prove that I'm not just another guy, he thought to himself, and then sprinted out the door, leaving his team to follow him, wondering if their leader truely had been hit too hard in the head in his accident.
The team made their way to the sight of the small red dots moving across their communicators, following the villans as they made their way downtown in a whirlwind of destruction. Strattling the R-cycle, Robin couldn't help but have feelings of misgiving and doubt- What if his friends had been right and this was just a trap meant to call them out and expose them, expose him, as failures?
However, there was no time to hesitate once they reached the site of the battle, for there, in a perfect formation, were the three girls, floating above a man Robin reconized at once as all his hatred boiled up inside him. "Slade! I knew you were behind this!"
The girl known as Present tossed her brown mane and laughed at him. "So the little birdie who's wings we clipped is back for more? That's sweet, Robin, very much so, but you really can't defeat us and I don't understand why you bother trying."
"Those with a troubled past will do anything to prove their worth in the future, sister," the girl known as Past pointed out, pulling her hood further into her eyes as she watched the Titans.
Robin could feel his temper mounting. "You don't know anything about my past! Your assumtions aren't going to get you anywhere!"
"I forsee a defeat," Future whispered. "You are far too worked up to fight correctly, and you will be the downfall of a team member in your current state."
"You're a bunch of fakes!" Beast Boy called. "They don't really know all that stuff, Robin! It's all a bunch of fakes, unless they really have powers from..." Beast Boy's statement was cut off when Starfire slammed a hand over his mouth to keep him from saying anything that might further worsen the situation.
"Well, Titans, I suppose you'll just have to see for yourselves the power of my new help... Attack and destory the Titans." With a lazy flick of his wrist, Slade sent the girls forward, in a formation that the Titans had not seen last time, to attack them. Robin could feel the team moving into postion behind him, but the words of the girl known as Future troubled him- Would someone really be hurt because of him?
He wasn't given much time to think about it, however, because Past glided over to him with a look of pure menance on her face. "You do intead have a troubled past- You try to atone for it with good deeds, the same as the truth of the girl you love most, but..."
Robin tried to throw a punch at her, but she blocked it swiftly with her left hand and continued talking. "You cannot deny that you do love Ms. Roth more than anything..." She caught a second punch and evaded a kick, dropping him back to the ground in a heap. "I really wish you wouldn't try to hit me while I'm talking to you."
Robin gritted his teeth against the pain. "What do you know about it, anyway? How can you possibly know anything about me when all you are is a girl from somewhere who's shown up and tried to make a name for herself as one of Slade's goonies?"
"You fail to understand the power of time, Robin. One would assume one such as yourself would understand it's passage... The Past will haunt, the Present will be a time of Trail, and the Future will keep us all from fully understanding the light and mystery of love and death." Past hovered over him, keeping him down, and he could feel the pain bottling up inside him, could feel his anger coming back to the surface.
"Shut up," he managed to force out. "Just shut up right now, and..."
His words were drowned out by the sound of Raven hitting the pavement less than ten yards away from where he lay. He looked over in time to see the deep battle cuts on her body but tried to ignore them, tried to think only of getting up and rushing to her aid. The girl knocking her around was Future.
"I told you you would not rise," Future whispered. "It is written out that you will not make it past this battle. Your past was one you were not meant to live through, but it matters not now. Even fate can be wrong..."
That was when Robin stood, pushing Past aside as he moved toward Raven. "You're not going to hurt her!" He looked around for someone that could help them, but Starfire, Beast Boy, and Starfire were all engadged in a fight a long distance down the street with Present, who appeared to have no trouble at all dodging their attacks or keeping them back, laughing all the while she won.
As he knocked Raven to one side, however, an attack unexpectedly came out of nowhere, an attack Robin should have been able to see coming, were he not so blinded by a quick anger to save Raven. Slade jumped, bo-staff out, and caught Raven in the chest, narrowly missing Robin's shoulder.
Robin tried to think of something to say as he lunged at Slade, but nothing came out but a cry of rage. Starfire, amazingly enough, had made it under the line of Present's attacks to Raven's side- The deep wound seemed to have already begun to bleed rapidly.
Slade laughed and moved out of the way. "So, the rage in you will lose you the thing you love the most. I like it, Robin. You're shaping up to be a person I never could have forseen." He surveyed the scene with a smirk- They had obviously defeated the Titans yet again. "Let's go."
With that, the three girls resumed a formation and left the area with Slade, laughing in a way that Robin was already begining to hate. He raced to Raven's side and watched as the other two found him. He crouched over her form as Starfire began to check the wounds. "It is deep..."
Onlookers were frightened of the look on Robin's face as he lifted the body in his arms. He was prepared to run, but Cyborg held him back. "Just put her in my car, man. We can handle this better at home."
"She saved me, and now you're just going to take her home to die!" Robin yelled. "You heard them! Past, Present, and Future don't lie, and fate is going to cost me the one I love the most to my anger!"
Starfire just looked at him in slight pity, unable to believe that Robin was standing here calling Raven the thing he loved the most. I am his girlfriend...
Raven's body was placed across the back seat of Cyborg's car as the aurgement came to an end and the Titans made their way toward their home at lightening speed, leaving Beast Boy and Starfire struggling to keep up with the vehicales.
The battle for everything had been lost, and the score weighed on Robin's mind heavily: The Time Sisters, two, The Teen Titans, zero. All that really matters now, though, is saving Raven.
I won't lose anything else to time.
Raventhedarkgoddess: Nice little angsty chapter, although pretty bad. Feel free to R+R, band season has started, though, so try not to expect new chapters TOO reguarly anymore.