If it is possible for a Tower to literally shake and jump by power of one individual's mouth, I swear I saw my teacup leap a meter in the air.

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH, RAVEN?" Beast Boy spat out at me.

I peered into my tea and took a sip. "Because you have a mouth," I said nonchalantly.

I've never seen someone's aura fire up quite so quickly as Beast Boy's did right that moment. It was like putting the end of a thermometer up Magma's ass. Interesting.

"You just think I'm an annoying little monkey idiot-"

"-Ooh, you just hit the spot, but missed a few adjectives. How about we add in that you are a naïve, ignorant, half-wit, simpleton, twit, pathetic, petty, immature, gullible, insufferable, annoying little monkey idiot who is a complete and utter jackass. I'm sorry if the last one hurt your feelings."

Flames danced behind Beast Boy's eyes, and I could see him quake with silent fury. "Huh, so that's all I am in your eyes? Stupid? Well, guess what? You're a lonely, depressed, cruel, twisted, creepy little sob story, who has no life except to make smart comments about everyone and everything around you. Dude, you're so…so…-"

Starfire hovered nervously between us, her hands spread out, as if trying to keep our insults away from each other. "Please, friends," she said in a distressed tone, "Why don't we calm down and forget about the process of fighting and instead skip to the process of proclaiming one's pardons?"

Of course, Beast Boy ignored her, and trudged right along in his little hate speech. "So…MEAN. And rude, and cold and dark, a-and creepy, and …"

He was running out of adjectives. 'Creepy' had already been used twice. My tea was quivering.

"…And at least I have a life, and I have friends, and I don't understand how anyone in this team even likes you, 'cause I sure as hell don't! He lowered his tone, glowering. "I don't understand how anyone in the world could ever like you. No one likes an unfeeling robot."

I froze, staring at him. Beast Boy was breathing harshly, his breath coming out in sharp puffs.

So that's what I am to people?

An unfeeling robot?

By now it would've been humanly, or superhumanly, impossible to ignore this storm of words. Robin took this silence as an opportunity to act as self-appointed mediator, and looking over at us from his seat on the large leather couch, said in a serious tone, "Gar, take that back."

Beast Boy jerked his head over in Robin's direction, shouting, "Why should I? She isn't saying sorry-"

I think I heard Starfire and Robin calling my name as I took off into my room. But I didn't turn to look back, or answer.

--

Once inside the confines of my room, I bolted the door. I floated to a corner of my room, and sat there, my heart pounding in my chest. I hugged my knees to my chest, staring at the ground.

"He shouldn't have said that to you. He had no right to." A soft voice whispered in my subconscious.

"No…he did. I'm everything he said. Everything."

"No, you are wrong. He is the unfeeling one. He doesn't understand what you've been through. Nobody does."

"No…nobody does." I muttered, closing my eyes and pressing my forehead against my pale legs, rocking back and forth slowly.

"You should hate him for what he said."

"I…do."

"He should feel the pain that you have."

"Yes…he should."

"Then let me out, and I will show him. I'll show him, and everybody, your pain. Then they will understand. Then they will finally accept you."

Looking back, at this point normally I would've been perturbed to find a dark corner of my mind was consoling me, and even more that I was agreeing with it. But by then, I was wallowing too deep in self-pity to think rationally.

"Fine. But…who are you?"

Someone very close to your heart.

The next thing occurred so quickly, I can't really describe it all. My eyes shot open, but I saw nothing but white. Without warning, and unspeakable agony began coursing through my body. I wanted to scream, but no sound availed me. I felt as if some part of me was draining out through my eyes, escaping into the vast inky blackness of the universe. In some planet far, far away from where I was, I heard muffled, hollow screams of shock, horror, surprise…fear.

A last wave of anguish rushed through me, and I crumbled to the ground.

The last thing I heard before I died was the same, soft voice snickering in my ear, "Thank you Raven, for letting me go."

--

I didn't really die. I just came a disturbingly feather's breadth to meeting Mr. Joe Black himself.

The door to my room exploded. Hands pulled me up, a voice cried, "Raven, Raven dude, wake up! Please, wake up!" A rough, gloved tapped my face, and my eyes slowly cracked open. Eyes of verdure stared at me, which until recently had been filled with hatred, now housed pure panic.

"Bea…" I croaked weakly. Beast Boy looked like I had just announced to him that he had won a million bucks. He pulled me up, supporting my back. "Rae, are you okay, dude, we thought you had exploded or something…"

Thoughts swam in my head at a trillion miles an hour, and I felt strangely weak. Yet one thought slowed down enough for me to process it and give it voice. I grabbed Beast Boy's shirt and pulled him closer to me so I could whisper in his ear. "Gar, it's gone…it escaped, it's going to hurt people…I let out something horrible."

Beast Boy gave me a strange look, and asked in a hushed and concerned tone, "What are you talking about? What did you let out?" Before I could answer, something white-hot rushed in my veins, and I cried in torment. Beast Boy tightened his grip on me and yelled out "Cy, we need to help – she's in pain!" He turned to me again, yet now I couldn't make out his face. I felt someone – Robin probably, from the feeling of his aura - grab my arm and say in a serious tone, "Raven, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

Beast Boy let me go slowly, and a pair of steel hands pulled me up onto the bed. I felt cool metal across my forehead, and Cy's rough voice said, "She's burning with fever, I could give her something to fix that, but I don't know how she'd react, I've never given her med's before…" I felt Robin's presence next to the bed, his aura filled with anxiety. "Raven, what happened?"

I opened my mouth to try to explain to him, but only a soft groan came out.

Tower sirens cut through the air. I heard Starfire stutter, "Friends, something is terribly, terribly wrong outside."

I heard horrified gasps as the siren wailed. Cyborg swore. "Something is taking over the city. Starfire, Cyborg, you guys come with me, we'll need the T-Car. Beast Boy, you stay here and monitor Raven, and call me when she's stable. I have no idea what's going on, but I sure she might know something. Titans, move!"

I felt Robin, Cyborg's, and Starfire's presences leave the room, leaving Beast Boy stuttering, "But wait, I don't know how to take care of sick people!" Only silence met his cry. He moved towards me, his aura hesitant. "Rae, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean what I said…just get better fast." I felt him place his hand on my arm, then left.

Only then that I found I could move.

I sat up, my head feeling as if I listened to a lifetime's worth of Beast Boy's jokes. Or maybe Cyborg had hit me in the head with the T-Car. Either way, I tried to stand up, but my knees buckled beneath me. I growled in frustration, and a small throbbing had sprung up in my head again. Beast Boy walked back into the room ladled with a small mug of what I figured to be herbal tea, but sent it tumbling to the floor when he saw me up.

"Rae!" he cried, helping me up and back onto the bed. "You're okay…good, don't move too much you might…sprain something."

"I think my brain's sprained," I muttered, putting a hand to my head. The throbbing had been steadily increasing.

Beast Boy once again took a serious tone, his hands on my shoulders. "Dude, what were you talking about…you let something loose? What…better yet, how?"

I closed my eyes. My head was in no condition to think, let alone explain. "Remember, a long time ago, when you and Cyborg got trapped in my subconscious? Rage had been taking over my emotions, so we managed to defeat it in battle and subdue it enough so it became a normal part of my mind. Well…I don't think I subdued her as well as I thought I had."

Gar's eyes widened, and he paled slightly. "You mean that freaky-looking red-coated monster? That's out and running wild in the streets?"

I sighed heavily. "That's what I think."

"But how did you let it out?"

"It just…came out. It's hard to explain, I didn't know it was Rage at the time, I just thought it was another emotion consoling me after our…fight. It…it asked me if I wanted to show people my…pain."

I felt Beast Boy's eyes stare at me with an intensity I had never felt before. I focused my eyes on the ground. "I said…yes. I thought it would make people understand." My hair hid my face as I continued. "It was stupid and selfish and naïve on my part. And now thousands of people are going to die."

"No." said Beast Boy firmly, tightening his grip on my shoulders. "They aren't because we're going to stop it before it gets worse."

I stood up, steadying myself with the edge of the bed, and managed to stumble to the window of my room. I lay my hand on the window and peered outside.

Black energy ran rampant through the streets, destroying everything in its path. Streets broke apart; store windows broke as uprooted trees smashed through them and tumbled down the street. Vehicles flipped over and building glass exploded and scattered. Some of the energy took shapes of incubuses, terrorizing and massacring people with their blinding eyes and sharp claws. Blood decorated the sidewalks and the streets, screams ripped through the rust-colored sky. Screams that echoed endlessly in my head, smothered and overlapping each other, playing over and over in the depths of my conscious…

I put my hands on my ears as I cried out, "Please, stop, shut up!"

I felt Beast Boy's hands wrap around my shoulders and he spoke into my ear. "Rae, what's wrong…get away from the window!"

He pulled me to the ground, and I silent tears streamed down my face. The throbbing in my head was maddening. I buried my head in Gar's chest, feeling frightened and confused for the first time in my life.

"No…" I whispered. "It already is worse."

Gar held me as if protecting me, murmuring steadily, "Rae, you're the only one who knows how to beat this thing. There has to be some way…"

Sense finally decided to act, and I realized that wasting away my time springing tears was simply costing another person's life. I let go of Beast Boy, and wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. "No…there is a way. I just need to find it."

I hovered over to my iron bookshelf, and started pulling out all the scrolls and books on dark magick I owned. "Rage…" I said, throwing a rather heavy book on the medicinal properties of wolfsbane onto the floor, "Since she exists as a figment of my mind, she's going to have my attributes and powers." Guide to Soul-Searching crashed against the wall, narrowly missing Beast Boy's head. "She might even be more powerful than I am, considering she has my father's influence. All the same, she can be defeated with the same thing I can."

I finally found the scroll I was searching for. "This, scroll has an ancient incantation for destroying any sort of malicious spirit. It's one of the hardest spells out there, but it just might work for destroying Rage."

I placed it on my chest, and it slowly sank into my being. A second later, I could have said that incantation backwards standing upside-down on Beast Boy morphed as an elephant drinking a cup of water and juggling sticks of fire with my feet. Not that I would ever do that or see reason for it.

"See, I knew you'd find a way," grinned Beast Boy, pleased with himself.

"Eh…sure." For some reason, I didn't want to disturb Gar's smile with mentioning that I could be killed while reciting the incantation. Well, it's not like that concerned him anyhow.

"Look, I need to call Robin first, tell him we're coming-" muttered Beast Boy, flicking open his small communicator. He tapped it a few times, a frown across his face. "What the hell is wrong with this? It's nothing but static…"

"There's too much magickal interference in the air for any signals to get through, and besides we don't have much time. We need to leave. Now would be good."

Gar latched the communicator on his belt, and then paused, focusing somewhere outside. "Look…Rae…this is all my fault. If I hadn't been such a jackass to you, none of this would've happened. I'm sorry."

I would've enjoyed this apology say the end of the world wasn't leering towards us, but now I felt just as guilty. "No…Rage was bound to get out eventually. It's not your fault. I accept your apology. I…just hope you can accept mine."

Beast Boy didn't have a chance to answer because I was already opening my window. I morphed into my soul self, an ebony raven, and I then Beast Boy materialized next to me, an emerald raven.

"Alright, let's go give you some anger management lessons!" He said, launching himself out of my window.

Perhaps, in another place, another time, I might have laughed.