CHAPTER THIRTEEN

On the outskirts of what used to be Jump City, Collin landed, tired from his earth-moving exertions. But a sudden warmth urged him on, and he looked down at its source. The Dark Catalyst. Looking at it through his threat assessment goggles indicated it had recharged to fifty percent; more than enough for him to safely jump out of this universe.

Enough for him to leave this place behind and start over somewhere else. He pondered the thought. How easy it would be to run again. But…

No. He could not. Not this time. NEVER AGAIN! Delirium had what he wanted. Collin would not be followed if he up and left. But his conscience would not permit it. Not after he's seen all the Titans die, except Beast Boy, at the hands of that monster.

The sounds of battle resounded again, and Collin dashed over to the edge of the ridge and looked down at what Delirium had made of Jump City. He could see the fight, figures clashing in the ruin of the city, but he couldn't make out what was happening. It's funny how much smaller Cyborg looks from up here, he thought.

And suddenly, he knew what was happening, because a red beam of Dark Catalyst energy shot from the figure in the center of the Titan's circle into the atmosphere. And when it hit the sky, it spread out all over the planet, consuming it in the reality-bending will of Delirium.

He was no longer after the universe; he just wanted the planet. But Collin wouldn't let him have that, if he had the choice. Flashes of red and blurs of DC energy burst through the sky, and in the blink of an eye, things changed…

0000

The crew of the International Space Station of this universe was used to peculiar phenomena on the Earth, but rarely was there something as odd as this. Light and shadow and red lightning flashed over the earth, and it began to changed shapes, the northern pole becoming like a giant field of spikes, a mountain, enormous in scale arose in the center of the world, and two huge basins above it and two the sides… and a giant cavity below…

Another series of flashes… And when the light show was over, Earth looked like a human head—Delirium's head!

0000

It was suddenly rather cold and dark, so Collin made a cloak shape out of the dirt, and then used a small bit of his DC energy to morph the dirt into leather, and wrapped it around himself for warmth. The brief lighting that the burst had provided allowed Collin to ascertain that he was in a cave.

He used the Dark Catalyst again, to teleport some flashlights from the nearest Wal-Mart to his hands, and looking around, he found a passage. He followed it, and it eventually emptied into a large room, this one considerably brighter, lit by a source he couldn't see. And in the center was something very familiar.

Terra. The girl he had been unable to revive from her self-made tomb. And on the other side of the room, a collapsed figure. Garfield Logan! He is breathing, Collin observed. So Beast Boy was alive. That was good. He ran over and tried to wake him, and got a response that sounded like a cross between a mumble and a snarl…

Then a thought occurred to him, and he began to walk over to the statue of Terra.

"You touch her, you die, traitor!" Gar said dangerously, standing up.

"No, wait, Beast Boy!" Collin tried. The lame cliché came next: "It's not what you think! I'm not Delirium!"

"Yeah. Sure. Now GET AWAY FROM HER!" and when Collin didn't obey immediately enough, Beast Boy transformed, snapping and becoming The Beast Within, and lunging at Collin, extremely quickly.

Collin used his rock powers to dodge, hurling himself away from the attack, and hurling some rocks as a warning. "Stop it! Stand down! I can explain!

But Gar was in no mood for listening to words, and the only actions Collin could think of would just add injury to insult… And he was running out of time.

0000

The Titans, finally back to normal, staggered to their feet. And gazed upon the remade Delirium, who was now fully drawing on the powers of the Superboy he had absorbed. He looked little different, except increased muscle mass and the red glow around his body. But the look in his eyes made all the difference, and it scared them.

But Robin wasn't one to let that show. "I don't care what you make yourself look like, we're still going to take you down!"

Kori stepped up beside Robin, her hands and eyes glowing, Starbolts aimed at Delirium.

Cyborg readied his sonic cannon.

Raven summoned the power of her demon's blood. The final battle was about to begin. Robin, as always, struck first, smashing Delirium with his staff, and reversing into a kick from his steel-toed boots, but neither had any effect on the new Delirium.

THWACK! Robin went flying, and Delirium pursued him through the air, smashing him in the stomach and then hauling fast to get below him and punch him in the back when he came down.

"Oh, now he can fly too?" Cyborg complained. "That's just great." Victor charged forward too, basting at the sadistic teen with his cannon, but Delirium dodge him every time, not even using the Catalyst, but doing so with only the Kryptonian super speed he'd stolen from Superboy.

SCRAAAN!Went the crunch of twisting metal. His fist flashed forward faster than even Cy's electronic eye could track and tore trough his chassis, and Cyborg felt his vision go blurry as he deactivated. And all became black. Starfire flew up and launched some starbolts, which hit their mark and knocked Delirium to the ground, where Raven, thankful to be the daughter of the eighth devil for the first time in her life—but only as opposed to the son—stood, her spell ready.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Dark energy flew out of her palms, but Delirium blocked her attack with his forearms, blowing through the power as if were nothing. He kicked Raven in the stomach, and then grabbed her in a loose bear hug from behind.

"I have something special planned for Trigon's little girl," he said. In a flash, they were gone.

"Where are we?" Raven asked, surveying the city they had teleported to.

"This is High Rise City, Texas." Delirium said. He placed a hand on her head and Raven felt her brain being scrambled by DC energy, and then it was over.

"What did you do to me?" She demanded, her violet eyes fierce.

"I just replaced your Medulla-Oblongata with a crocodile's," Delirium said. "If you've seen Water Boy, you'll know why that's a bad thing." And in a flash Delirium was gone.

And Rage began to take control of Raven…

0000

Meanwhile, Gar and Collin continued to clash in the cavern under Jump City, bloodying each other up. Well, Gar was doing most of the bloodying, as Collin wiped another rivulet from the scratch on his forehead. He placed his hand on the nearest rock and felt an odd shape… A boot. He looked to the side and saw the statue of Terra, and remembered what he had been trying when this scuffle started. He only hopped it was enough to calm Gar down.

Placing his hand on the stone girl's shoulder, he sent White Catalyst energy coursing through her…

"No, Stop!" Beast Boy roared, charging at Collin, transforming into a Triceratops.

And suddenly the unbelievable happened.

Terra began to change, her stone skin and frozen blood becoming flesh and plasma and living tissue once again. The energy of Tamaran's ultimate power coursed through her body, turning the stone back to organic.

And Beast Boy saw this and tried to stop. Collin shouted at him to stop, but Gar could not. His inertia was too great, and he collided with the base of Terra's statue, knocking her off and into the pit below, her clothes, still stone, crumbling to dust under the impact and falling unprotected into the abyss.

"NO!" Collin and Gar both screamed. Gar tried to move and found a rock stabbing through is foot, sending shutters of pain, and he couldn't save anyone. But Collin could, and he hurled himself into the abyss as well, hoping that he could reach the girl…

0000

Beast Boy couldn't believe what had just happened. The traitor could have killed him or Terra at any time, but instead, he had held back… and saved Terra. Or had he been holding back? He hadn't used a single reality blast the whole fight…

And why had he dived into the pit after Terra? Suddenly, his questions became elation when Collin came flying back up over the edge of Terra's former tomb, cradling Terra's body, having covered it with the leather cloak he'd been wearing.

He continued to carry the girl down the ramp to relative safety, and Beast Boy dashed over to join him. "What's going on here? What gives? Tell me why you helped her, Delirium!"

"Gar," Collin said, "Calm down. I'm not Delirium. It's me, Ragnarok."

Indeed, his suit was back to normal, an X in the middle of his chest plate instead of an upside down Y. His hair was back to normal, too, and the scar on his face was gone.

"Then… who is Delirium?"

Collin told a brief version of his story, and finished it out with an apology. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you all about this. I thought, I don't know, that if I didn't acknowledge my past, it would all go away. But I was wrong. Nothing but death will stop him. Get Terra to safety. I have to go confront Delirium."

"Are you sure you don't need my help?" Beast Boy said. As if Irony was sentient, it responded by sending a jolt of pain through his injured leg.

"Let me help you." Collin held his hand over Gar's wounded ankle and white energy pulsed out and repaired the gash.

"Thanks," Gar said. And then, in a flash of DC energy, Collin was gone.

Beast Boy looked down at Terra, who groggily half-opened her left eye.

"Beast… Boy?" He held her all the more tightly.

"You're safe now, Tara. You're safe."

0000

Starfire gasped in horror as Delirium reappeared below her. "I guess it's just you and me left, Tamaranian. You always were the most fun to kill."

Starfire's eyes widened, and she felt that the man's evil would make her sick. "What… What did you do to Raven?" Kori demanded.

"She's out of the picture." Delirium answered. "Shall we begin this fight?"

Starfire lashed out and punched him, knocking him back, he stuck too, but she blocked and span around, kicking him in the center of his armor, where the Golden Catalyst was, damaging it. But it still ran, so it only served to anger Delirium. "You'll pay for that!"
The two collided, exchanging blows, blasts of solar and DC energy, and every time it seemed Starfire got the upper hand.

This made Delirium very angry. He blurred forward and grabbed her by the neck and started pounded her face with his right fist.

"WHY"

THWACK!He hit her again.

"WON'T"

TWHACK

"YOU"

THWACK

"DIE"

TWHACK

"TROQ?"

"I am not the Troq here!" Kori responded, spitting up some orange blood. Then, she surprised her enemy blasting Delirium's visor with eyebeams. "You are the worthless one!" She shot again, shattering the visor and nearly burning Delirium's eyes out.

And then, in a burst of DC energy, Delirium hurled her away, and landed, rubbing his wounded eyes.

"DELIRIUM!"A new voice came, though similar. And Ragnarok suddenly materialized on the ground behind him.

Delirium tuned around. "So, the coward finally shows himself, eh? I don't know how you survived the desert, but I swear that won't last much longer." Suddenly, Delirium smirked, as if an epiphany had come to him. "Let's get this over with."

(Music! Linkin Park's starts playing in the background)

The two Collins stood each other down. One had been raised with family values; the other by a broken family. One was a decent human being; the other was pure evil. And now, they had to fight. To fulfill their destinies.

These were the thoughts running through Ragnarök's mind. Then the time for thinking was over. It was time to do or die. He dashed forward, rolled under a reality blast and blasted some rocks from the ground at Delirium, some of which actually made contact, cutting into his flesh. Delirium countered with blasts of rock himself, but Ragnarok moved them out of the way and hurled them back.

Delirium raised his hands and a giant sphere of DC energy formed. He hurled it and Ragnarok, and Rag made a wall of rock for protection. The DC blast turned it into a wall of scalding hot water, which fell to the dirt and became steam.

Delirium blurred out of existence and the burst forth from the steam, punching and kicking Ragnarok. Rag tried to block, and finding his efforts futile, tripped Delirium and launched himself away, cradling his aching arms.

"You think you're a god, right?" he yelled at his evil counterpart.

"Of course. I can remake the world however I want it. What's your point?"

"You know what Ragnarok means? The destruction of the gods and the end of your world!" It felt like the whole city was shaking as Ragnarok launched himself into the air and summoned a huge amount of his power. "This time you won't survive, Delirium! RAGNAROK BLADE!"

And a gargantuan chunk of rock burst forth from the ground, and assumed the shape of a gigantic sword, which Ragnarok directed at Delirium. The latter brought his super-powered limbs up to shield, and the rock sword broke against them, stabbing the very tip in deep. Ragnarok took advantage of the breaking sword's debris, and caused it to lash around Delirium in a tornado, cutting him and bruising him.

When it was over, Ragnarok stood. Delirium did not.

0000

Starfire blurred forward, wishing she had been able to follow up and finish Delirium off, but when she finally got back to where Delirium was… there were two figures clad in Tamaranian armor.

"There are now two Collins?" Starfire gasped as she approached Ragnarok.

Then the bloody broken youth in the dirt gasped. "Help me! He is the evil one!"

"I see what he's done to you," Kori said somberly. And she turned and blurred towards the standing Collin, her fist pistoning back to punch him.

"NO! KORI I'M…!" But before Ragnarok could finish, Starfire spun around and blasted some eyebeams at the prone figure on the ground, who barely rolled away to avoid getting cut.

"I am not stupid, Delirium!" Starfire stated emphatically.

"Oh," He sighed, obviously in much pain, staggering to his feet. "I was—" he coughed up some blood. "…Afraid of that."

And suddenly, things went from not good, to really bad. A blur of Dark Catalyst energy washed out over Kori and Ragnarok, and echoed back over Delirium.

Delirium stood up, not wounded in the least. Totally healed.

And Starfire collapsed, cut, bruised, and bleeding. He had transferred his wounds to her body.

"You planned that you flog'nard!" Ragnarok bellowed. "You sick twisted—"

"Victor." Delirium cut him off. "You can call me whatever you want. It doesn't matter. I've won. I knew I couldn't beat the Tamaranian in a fist fight. So I improvised. And I am the victor."

Ragnarok staggered backwards, tripping like he had before. But this time, he was not a coward. Afraid? Yeah. But it didn't matter.

He snarled, lunging forward, coating his fist in rock before he punched Delirium in the jaw. Delirium's faced snapped backwards. But when he looked around, his face looked like it hadn't been hit at all. Even his scar was gone.

But before Ragnarok could ponder this fact, Delirium pistoned a fist out and punched him in the gut, and then back handed him, and dashed over and stomped his leg into the ground. It didn't break, but it probably would have been less painful if it had.

A small rock lifted off the ground and formed into a dagger, which pointed at Ragnarök's throat. "End game. All I have to do is kill… myself." He smiled at his putrid joke. And Ragnarok prepared for the end.

It didn't come.

Because in a roar and blur of green, Beast Boy's inner beast lashed out a claw and destroyed the dagger, and then tackled Delirium, and while it seemed from what little Rag saw of the fight that Beast Boy was out classed, that didn't matter, because like John F. Kerry, Ragnarok had a plan.

And his plan was the Tamaranian…

0000

Gar and Delirium continued to clash. Gar swiped his claws down, so furious that even Delirium didn't feel like quipping in this fight. Gar slammed him into a building, but he burst out at and punched him in the gut. Every wound he should have received wasn't there.

Gar roared and curled into a ball, leaping at Delirium… but the evil youth treated the now-spherical Beast Boy as a play toy, kicking him around. And shortly, not even the inner Beast could stop Delirium, and a final well-placed kick to the solar plexus disabled Gar, forcing him to resume human shape.

Delirium, once again winning returned his attention to Ragnarok. This was getting tiresome…

0000

Collin stumbled over. He had to revive Kori. Only Starfire could win this battle… But he looked down at his hand and realized the White Catalyst was gone. That's why Beast Boy couldn't seem to hurt him!

Delirium had the Ultimate Catalyst! So Collin decided to do what Delirium would have done: cheat.

"DELIRIUM!"Collin bellowed, standing over the wounded Tamaranian's supine form.

"What now?" he asked, not at all amused.

"I've been thinking. You never called Starfire by her name, did you? She was always 'the Tamaranian' to you, wasn't she? Never 'Kori'… To you she wasn't even a person; just a tool, someone to be used to get what you wanted. Well guess what Delirium! 'The Tamaranian' was my friend—my best friend! And you murdered her right in front of me!" Collin sighed. He dreaded what he had to do next like a convict dreads the chair… But it had to be done, because only Kori could defeat this monster in human flesh. "She may have been just 'the Tamaranian.'"

Collin took a deep breath.

"But she knew you could be beaten. And this is her legacy!" Collin showed his hand to Delirium—the one with the Dark Catalyst in it—"The legacy of 'the Tamaranian' is your defeat, Delirium!"

Collin held up his hand, the Dark Catalyst glowing, now charged to 60--and extended his hand to Kori. In a flash of DC energy, he began to draw all her wounds, her cuts, and bruises and abrasions into himself. Pain shot through him as blood leaked out, her misfortune becoming his…

And Collin collapsed, the pain too much for a Tamaranian, and far, far too much for him. As his consciousness faded, he heard Starfire's voice. But he couldn't even make out what she said.

0000

Starfire stood up and gasped in horror as she saw all her wounds now afflicting the body of Ragnarok. "Friend Collin," she whispered. "I understand what you're telling me. No more holding back." Bending down, she quickly grabbed the Dark Catalyst from Collin's gauntlet and inserted it into her own.

Starfire exploded forward, driving her fist into Delirium's face, and he dashed back through the air and began launching reality blasts at her. Starfire dodged the attacks and countered with eye beams that smashed into Delirium, and he changed direction, blasting upwards. He formed more DC energy spheres and hurled them down at the pursuing Starfire.

One whizzed by her head and she almost lost her nerve. But she couldn't. And a chain of eye beams lashed out from her corneas. Delirium dodged them, and sent a wave of reality energy towards Starfire.

Kori dodged, pulling her gut in, the wave passing mere millimeters from the orange skin of her midriff. But the positions they were in left Delirium wide open, and she blasted him with a starbolt and dived on him in the air, pounding him with punches and knees, and preventing him from countering. She raised both hands, cupped together, and preformed a hammer-smash down on his abdomen, right on the Golden Catalyst, damaging it.

She flipped over and followed him down.

Delirium, finally free of Kori's restraint, hurled more reality blasts at her, but the Tamaranian was too fast, dodging them with seemingly minimal effort. She turned upright, and plummeted down, and slammed her foot again into the Golden Catalyst.

It shattered, a ring of energy escaping as the pieces fell to the earth, and their power died away.

"NO!" And the sudden loss of so much power threw Delirium off, causing him to slam hard into the ground. Kori even cringed at the bone crunching noise she heard from the impact.

But because the White Catalyst was still attached to his suit, he stood up, unharmed, instantly healed. And he raised his hands into the air.

"OH! You glomping troq! You just made the biggest mistake ever." He raised his hands and a ball of surreality formed in his hand, and grew to an enormous size very quickly. Delirium held it high over his head. "This entire universe will collapse in on itself, and I'll just go to another one and repeat this whole process… It's all over, you hear me! OVER! If you had just died like I told you to, Tamaranian, you would have saved a lot of people! But you just had to fight, had to prevent me from getting what I desired. How do you feel now?"

0000

Angry. That was the only way Robin could describe the look he saw in Kori's eyes, which were glowing with a solid green light. She was full of rage, more so than he'd ever seen her before. He crawled over, and shrugged back the pain of the wounds that Delirium had inflicted on him.

Starfire stared the monster down. She walked, and then hovered when the terrain became too rough to walk, over towards him until she was right in front of the evil youth, and landed. Her eyes never left him, and she spoke not a word.

"Why don't you say something?" Delirium blurted, clearly crazed and waiting for a response. "I'm going to destroy the universe! Doesn't that bother you? That you could have stopped it by standing down? WHY DON'T YOU RESPOND?"

"Delirium," Kori said. "You are a pathetic creature. You kill, and steal, and then blame your murder and theft on those who tried to stop you. If anyone was ever a troq, it is you."

And her eyes flared; lasers lashed out from them, striking Delirium in the wrists, super-heating blood and bone and flesh. And Delirium screamed in agony as his hands were literally blasted off his arms by the Tamaranian.

Delirium howled in agony as he staggered back and fell over, the power of Superboy, the power of the Catalysts—all his power—leaving him. And he became nothing more than an ordinary—albeit psychotic and excessively evil—human.

Starfire crouched down and picked up his severed extremities, removing the Dark and White Catalysts from the inserts on the backs of them. She placed the White Catalyst in her own gauntlet and flew over to Collin, bleeding and dying from the wounds he'd absorbed. And with the White Catalyst, she healed him. The white energy coruscated over him, and the wounds disappeared.

"Welcome back, Friend Collin." She hugged him.

"AIR, KORI!" He gasped.

"Starfire!" Robin yelled, and pointed to the giant ball of surreality Delirium had created.

It was falling to the Earth and getting dangerously close.

If Starfire had ever moved as fast as she did then, Robin hadn't seen it. She was a blur, and skidded across the ground underneath the giant ball of DC energy, and using Ragnarök's Dark Catalyst, she lifted the ball up.

"Oh, X'hal," she whispered. "Make the universe the way it should be. Make it back to normal!" And with her Tamaranian might, she hurled the ball into space, infusing it with both Dark and White Catalyst energy. It hit the edge of the atmosphere and exploded, filling the world with light.

0000

Jump City, California was back to normal, its streets and buildings pristine, its population returned from wherever Delirium had sent them while the world had been his. And its protectors, the six youths known as the Teen Titans, were back on their small five-acre island in the middle of Jump City's bay, as was the most recent victim of their justice seeking.

Delirium, an evil youth from another dimension, sat cradling the cauterized stumps where his hands had once been, cursing the universe for the turn of events that had taken place. Robin walked across the lawn where the other five were gathered around Delirium. No words were exchanged…

And then, Delirium spoke. "I suppose I always knew something like this would happen." But his tone of voice was hardly resigned to his fate, and he leapt up with his feet and struck with his stumps at Robin, who blocked, parried, and twisted Delirium into a shoulder lock, forcing his arms behind his back.

"Get that armor off of him," Robin said to Cyborg, and the million-dollar teen complied, tearing the suit off of his body.

Then Robin pistoned his hand out and punched Delirium in the gut, and removed a pair of restraints from his belt. As Delirium began to lose consciousness, Robin said something…

"Collin Roberts, you're under arrest for the murder of Galfore, Emperor of Tamaran, and the attempted murder of the Teen Titans. You have the right to remain silent…"

And all went black for the evil teenager.

Author's Note: Delirium is defeated, but it's not the end! One more chapter, the epilogue and closing credits. See you there!