Chapter 10;

The Boy Behind the Mask

Author's Note; I realize it's been months since I've updated, right after I promised I would. I'm not going to promise anything, but I really am going to try this time before school starts back up to update more frequently. I think my writing skill has improved as well!

"Yes?" Beast Boy asked, pulling the team's leader out of a slight gaze into the closed lids of the close to dead girl. Robin held the back of his head, where the tie of his mask lay, the knot hadn't been undone in a long while. He sighed, removing his arms back at his sides, after ruffling his own ravenous hair.

"Do you all remember a villain we had fought some time ago? Malchior…" Not long after he hissed the name, Cyborg broke in,

"Dude, are you nuts! We vowed never to intentionally let out a captured villain; I don't care if it were me lying there on the floor. Raven's a strong kid, she can manage!" Robin turned to BB for support, but the emerald teen sighed a bit,

"I'm gonna have to side with Cy on this one…Malchior's a guy we just can't trust, even if it means…" He stopped, even thinking about the sentence slipping of Beast Boy's tongue set Robin off.

"YOU'RE SUGGESTING LEAVING HER TO LIVE OR DIE ON HER OWN WILL! WHAT THE HELL? What…we can't!" Robin fell to the floor, breathing deeply, "We….can't…this is…Raven…" Robin's only support, being his arms failed, and he hit the ground hard, unconscious. The Boy Wonder could hear the other's still…bits and pieces at least…

"Oh my god-is he dead!"

"No….tired…on the ground …"

"Grab his arms…"

The pressure on his limp body hurt…Robin could feel his self on the brink of Consciousness and dream world as his team lay him on the cold ground somewhere else. What felt like seconds was apparently hours, seeing as his next glimpse from open eyes was one surrounded in darkness, behind a large boulder. The team leader rubbed his eyes and-wait, his eyes! Robin scurried his arms a bit, wailing them around at the ground beneath him. His mask wasn't with him.

"Relax Boy Wonder…" he heard a male's voice hiss at him. Robin jerked up at instinct, only to see a pale figure with gleaming eyes before him, twirling the mask in his own possession. Though he had never seen his human flesh form, Robin knew immediately who this was.

"Malchior…" he chimed hastily, "I presume you know why I need you." The fiend smiled wryly,

"I sensed a help of someone who has knowledge in Dark Magic. Well, here I am, escaped out of the book because your intentions are pure. Don't you love loopholes?"

Robin was ready to knock him down there, he didn't believe that fairytale excuse for a second, but instead reached out an open palm, "Firstly my mask."

"This mask?" Malchior's voice taunted, ripping the material in two. "I look my 'colleague' in the eye." Colleague? This was at the matter of Raven's life-not a business meeting. Robin held back all his rage that he felt he humanly could. "And I promise not to run off afterward or kill anyone yada yada…shake on it?" Robin felt his face flush with anger, Malchior treated this like it were just any other day, and it were some kind of joke. But, none the less, Robin grasped Malchior's hand firmly. "Quite a temper hm?" The dark figure, who seemed more of a shadow, now spoke,

"So this is the Boy Behind the Mask…"