probably riddled with mistakes...

Chapter 10:

Let's try this again…

That night, after Zero had re-patched his broken knuckles ("Raven, I said I've died twice, not that I'm immortal.") and gotten to bed, Raven stayed awake in her room. She shouldn't try it again, but she was thinking seriously about it.

She almost blew that side of town to hell when Zero said he would stay. She just wanted to do it again. But would involve a weapon of some sort pointed at her head?

"Damnit." She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, then out the window. And after that she went back to the ceiling. She tried not to look at Zero's wall. It might not be there if she did; she might blow it away.

"DAMNIT." She punched the bed.

Raven stood up and paced around. She wanted to, but what would the consequence be? Would she end up loosing it, or would it end up like last time, or could something great happen?

She tried to think about earlier in the day for some help.

"Damnit! Zero, how the fuck do you do that?"

"I go by the saying a good friend once told me."

"Hey dude, have you ever the one about the ex-mercenary and the rocket?"

"Have you heard the one about the green kid and the 14.5mm bullet?"

"Uhh… no I haven't- DAMN YOU!"

Another game of Halo, and Zero was destroying the guys. Raven sat in the corner and pretended o read a book and drink tea. She kept looking up at Zero then the screen. She would shake her head each time the score revealed that Zero had more points than all of the other guys' points combined, times two. She would then sip her tea and go back to pretending.

The guys got tired being raped at Halo, so they tried something called Rainbow Six. That was worse than Halo because it was more realistic, so they stopped playing all together. For about 5 minutes anyway, then it was back to Zero's complete domination of the scoreboard.

"So Zero, what was that saying you had by your friend or something- crap…" Robin's body dropped. Another point.

"Yeah, what were you sayin' about-GOD DAMNIT!" Cyborg dropped. Another point. But Beast Boy got intelligent, though this seems impossible. He pinned Zero down with a high caliber heavy machine gun turret.

"The saying actually came from a show, then my friend picked it up. It goes on – shit-" Bullets hailed down from the top of a base. Beast Boy grinned menacingly. "Anyway, it was something like this. 'Nothing happens if you don't swing the bat.'"

Everyone was silent for a moment, but resumed game play. It seemed only Raven understood what Zero said. But he demonstrated it. Instead of hiding behind his cover for something else to kill him, Zero ran from behind his rock and heaved a plasma grenade straight toward the turret emplacement. A little of to the right but it did the trick. Beast Boy saw it coming, and thought he was being a good strategist to run to his left. He caught the grenade in the teeth and the fuse ran down.

Another point.

Raven stood there in her room remembering what Zero had said. "Fuck it," she said. "Let's try this again."

She crept in Zero's room and sat on his bed softly. She did not wake him, so she was in the green so far, until she reached to stoke his hair again.

He twitched, and she gasped and pulled back.

He relaxed again, mumbled and fell back asleep.

She did not gasp because she thought she was getting the "What weapon at my head tonight?" feeling. What she got from his thoughts was catastrophic.

It was a matrix still of a beach on a dark hazy day. Zero was three steps of what looked to be a boat, but with a door at the front, when she saw the damage. He wasn't the scarred, half mechanical Zero she new, but a younger, softer looking Zero.

But that wasn't the shocking part. It was that blood was spurting from his chest and he was screaming. His rifle was falling to the ground and the men behind him in awe of his wound. This was most of Raven's dismay. The rest of the beach was almost as bad. Men were running and dying; one was walking in circle trying to find the arm that had been shot off. One was lying on the floor holding his intestines in. Another was in the fetal position and crying behind a large metal barrier until a bullet made the front of his face blow off. Raven was not just an observer. She was being sprayed with blood and the guts of men, but all in super slow motion.

Then everything became still, and a voice came to her. "This is how it feels the first time you die. You scream, you fall, you bleed. You SUFFER!"

And that was when she pulled away. It was Zero's voice at first, but it became more demonic as the voice went on. More demonic than her father himself.

She stood there and felt such sorrow and misery and exhaustion she staggered backward, clutching her head. She made her way back to his bed and lay on the side next to him. She lay there in cold sweat until an arm fell over her. Zero had rolled over and he grabbed her around the stomach. Not violent and not loving, but more of an accident. It was enough though. She calmed almost instantly, closed her eyes, rolled over, planted her head in his chest, and fell to sleep.

But while they slept, a gateway was opened from mind to mind. Raven and Zero opened a pathway to each other's head without being conscious enough to realize it. They slept peacefully as their minds worked.

Somewhere along the pathway, Raven walked along, and entered Zero's mind, and felt the presence of not only Zero, but something pure and holy, and another demonic and sinister. Something was brewing on the other side of the door she had come to.