AN: Yeah, we know, we said four days… and it's been loads more… and this chapter sucks. Sigh. We are WORMS! UNGREATFUL, UNDESERVING WORMS! Forgive us! Seriously though, we can't promise when the next update will be, could be tomorrow, could be a week. We lost our internet connection so we have to worm our way into other peoples houses and use theirs… This story WILL get finished. It's just around the bend. Just don't know when. So, we beg your forgiveness one more time and thank you for your continuing support! Because of the delay you get TWO chapters for the price of one!

Tenshi: Finally, we got some plot out of the way.
Bob: Yeah, plots are boring, plotting on the other hand, that's fun.
Tenshi: Riiight. Anywho, excited we're wrapping it up?
Bob: Not really… now what are we going to write?
Tenshi: Dunno… maybe we can try some drama or angst.
Bob: HAHAHAHA! You? Do drama and angst? Oh, that's rich.
Tenshi: Oh shut it you! I could if I wanted to.
Bob: Uh huh, well, I'm not holding my breath, I would die.
Tenshi: If only…

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Breaking Point
by TenshiJaki
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"When women go wrong, men go right after them." - Mae West
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Many things about the Titans were common knowledge, available to the public for their consumption. Things like Beastboys tofu fetish or Starfires love of all things fluffy. One thing that was not public knowledge however, and for good reason, was that certain Titans had phobias.

Raven, go figure, possessed one of these said phobias.

It was a silly little thing really but it had caused her much difficulty as she went through each day, never knowing if the trigger of this fear would show itself.

You see, for as long as Raven could remember, the mere sight of an eight-legged arachnid could freeze the very blood in her veins. Naturally she didn't want this information to be common knowledge, and since the other Titans weren't troubled by any kind of bug issues, as it were, they never bothered with having pest control done on the tower. Well, that and because they didn't want Beastboy poisoning himself, he was prone to licking the baseboards on occasion.

It was because of this that, from time to time, Raven would find herself in a rather difficult situation.

And so it was, late Monday night, that Raven found herself in a Mexican-style stand off inside the guest room.

She had spent most of the day planning with Beastboy, finally sending him off to bed when it looked like he might start drooling on her covers. After showering and changing for bed she double checked her supplies for the next day. That was when she saw it.

It was ugly!
It was hairy!
It was huge!
It was staring at her as though it had designs on her brain!

Very simply, it was the biggest freaken spider Raven had ever seen.

At first Raven couldn't move. She could feel the scream get stuck in her throat, begging to be realized, but she would never allow it out. If anyone, and she did mean anyone, ever found out about her little 'issue' she would have nothing but trouble. Villains could try and use it against her, or worst, there was Beastboy.

No, screaming definitely was not an option.

Now, as anyone familiar with the Titans knows, Raven possessed the ability to lift anything within her reach with her powers, so she should have been able to simply lift something and smash the spider. Heck, she could have simply lifted the spider itself and disposed of it, but her mind wasn't working with logic at this point.

As so often happens with phobias rational thought went right out the window. In fact, Ravens rational mind not only went out the window, but it continued down into the bay and burrowed itself down into the deepest recesses of the ocean.

Staring at the spider she waited to see what it would do. The spider in return stared back. Neither opponent moved, both waiting for the other to take the first step.

It was the spider that broke first. It lifted one of its front legs and moved it an inch in Ravens direction.

Ravens eyes got wide. The spider was coming for her. She franticly looked around for something to use to defend herself. Seeing a large book, not caring if she damaged the tome (that was how far gone she was in her panic), she threw it at the spider and saw the huge thing disappear under it.

Taking farther precautions, just in case, she proceeded to jump up and down on the book, to make sure that the spider was well and truly smashed.

Satisfied that it was done, and not daring to look under the book in case it wasn't, she cast one more distrustful look at the spot and continued to make ready her preparations for tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes later she was satisfied that all was ready for her plans for the Mayor, knowing the stupid idiot would never see it coming. Just as she was pulling back the covers on the bed she saw something move out of the corner of her eye.

Ever so slowly she turned her head in that direction, the bottom of her stomach feeling as though it were about to fall out. She had a feeling she knew what that something was though she clung to her delusions like a fat kid clings to a bag of Doritos.

It couldn't be. She had smashed it! It was dead!

At first she saw nothing, though she felt no relief. Her instincts were too good. She knew she had seen something.

Watching the spot she didn't move for several minutes. Then finally, something moved again. And this time she saw it clearly.

It wasn't dead.
It wasn't smashed.
It was in fact sitting on the wall waving one leg in her direction as though to taunt her.

Raven saw it and froze completely. Then that little part of her took over, that little part that made her 'loose' it from time to time.

How dare that thing live!
How dare it taunt her!
How dare it invade her living area, no matter how terrible said area was?

She looked at it, eyes red and full of hostility. Smirking a bit in its direction she simply said, "You're dead!"

And as if it could understand that its hairy, multi-legged life was in serious jeopardy, it did the only thing it could.

It ran.

Raven saw its frantic, panicked movements and didn't bother to try and hold in the evil laughter that bubbled to the surface.

They would see who was in charge now! All spiders around the world would hear the name 'Raven' and wet themselves for fear!

Seeing the arachnid wiggle itself under the door and out into the hallway Raven smiled even wider.

How cute, it thought it could escape.

Practically skipping out into the hall she started the hunt. The monster would not escape her. Not this time. It would meet its hairy maker!

As she reached the hall she looked both ways before she spotted one disgusting, multi-jointed leg disappear underneath Robin's door.

Perfect. It was trapped.

Walking up to the door to Robins room Raven entered in the override code that was only supposed to be used in emergencies. Well, this counted as an emergency in her book.

The door opened with a quiet hiss, showing the inside to be dark. Raven could hear a faint snore occasionally breaking the quiet from within, indicating that the rooms occupant was sound asleep and not aware of the warring duo.

Looking around the dimly lit area Raven didn't see her quarry immediately. After staring into the dark for several seconds she finally saw movement above the headboard of Robin's bed. Smiling she slowly approached, grabbing one of Robin's boots as she went.

Steadying herself she took aim when she thought she was close enough to make the shot. Aiming carefully she pulled back her arm and let the boot fly.

Thud.
Smack.
"OWW! WHAT THE-"

Raven let out a curse as she saw her prey dart from its previous position right before the boot would have made contact. From there physics took over. The boot proceeded to bounce off the wall and land hard, directly onto Robins sleeping face.

Doing her best to look innocent at the now fuming boy wonder Raven just waved at him a little and slowly back towards the door. That was until she saw something else making a break for it as well.

Completely forgetting about Robin she shrieked at the fleeing spider, "OH NO YOU DON'T – GET BACK HERE AND DIE LIKE THE BUG YOU ARE!"

Robin, who had been ready to scream and yell at who ever dared enter his room in the middle of the night and assault him stopped short. It was Raven. Somehow that didn't surprise him. Groaning he got up and went to the comm. He decided that he might as well give the others a fair warning. Raven was on the warpath and it looked like it was going to get messy.

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Raven hadn't even bothered to open Robin's doors. She simply used her powers to tear them from the wall and dashed into the hall after the arachnid. Seeing her prey run down the hall she proceeded after him, not paying attention to the damage her powers were causing in her mad dash to kill the bug.

When she finally managed to corner the insect in front of a large bay window at the end of the hall she had managed to damage every wall in the hall, not to mention destroy two doors and shatter several windows in the process.

Finally she had it.

The spider looked up at her as though begging for mercy. It had the pleading look of 'Don't kill me, I have a wife and 800 children to feed!'

Raven however had no mercy for the invader. Using her powers she encased the spider in a black bubble and lifted it off the ground. She was about to send the bubble, spider and all, into the nearest wall at top speed when Cyborg and Starfire came down the hall yelling something about 'tearing down the tower'.

That was all it took for Raven to loose control of the bubble and drop the spider. Sensing that its freedom was a one time only deal it did the most intelligent thing it could, it ran for the open bay window.

Before Raven knew what happened, and before she could recapture her enemy, the spider had made it out of the window and, using the wind and some webbing as a sail, it floated far, far away, thanking the spider gods all the way.

Glaring at the now empty window Raven turned back to see Cyborg, Starfire and Robin, boot-print and all, staring at her and the destroyed hall in bafflement.

Shooting them all dirty looks she snarled, "I hope you're happy now! It got away!" With that she stomped past them and went to the guest room, leaving a befuddled trio in her wake.

TBC…

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Bob: What the hell was that?
Tenshi: A nice break from actually having to come up with a plot line?
Bob: Yeah, that's what I thought.
Tenshi: We are WORMS!
Bob: We're worms?
Tenshi: Uh huh. It's because we've become inconstant. We don't update on time no more.
Bob: Yeah, well that's because life is unpredictable.
Tenshi: You read a philosophy book?
Bob: Nope, soaps.
Tenshi: But soaps are predicable. You're either in love, having a baby, cheating, getting framed for murder or stealing someone else's baby and/or man.
Bob: YOU LIE! You have been watching soaps!
Tenshi: sigh. Whatever Bob.

AN2: Review responses will be in the next chapter… for the last one. I thought you all would like to know what this chapter was based on… true story… hehe – enjoy:

One day I was on the floor in my room playing on my laptop. I wasn't really paying much attention to anything but the mesmerizing blue glow coming from the screen. That was until I felt something brush my leg. Now, I was wearing a skirt at the time so I simply assumed that it was the skirt brushing against my leg so I simply reached down and brushed the area with my hand to smooth the skirt down and went back to the computer.

But it bothered me. Now most people who know me well are aware of one fact, I have EXTREME arachnophobia. I only fear two things, spiders and heights and heights have nothing to do with this story. So, now knowing that you can see why it bothered me a bit, this light 'brush' against my leg. After thinking on it for a few seconds I decided that I'd better be safe than sorry and I sat up looking down towards my leg. I think you can all guess what I saw.

The biggest, hairiest, ugliest freaken spider on the planet. Ok, so maybe not the planet, but since it was by my leg, in my room, it was to me. It was a 'wood' spider; they get about the size of your hand and are big, thick and hairy. They are also aggressive, they will actually charge you if given the right incentive. Back to the story.

I look down and there is this huge spider looking back at me. So naturally I freak. I moved which caused the spider to run for it. It ran in between a small trunk that I have and a nightstand, assuming it was hidden. So I did the sensible thing, I smashed the two items together, and heard a crunching sound. Ha, spider dead. Life was good. Naturally I didn't check to make sure, I mean really, who wants to see smooshed spider. So I went back to lying on the floor and working on the computer.

After about five minutes I saw something out of the corner of my eye. All I could think was 'no way… no freaken way!' I looked over and didn't see anything at first but I knew for a fact that something had moved so I waited a bit longer. Sure enough, after a minute or two I saw IT. I had a large candle on top of the trunk and the freaken thing was sitting on the side of the candle watching me!

I knew I couldn't get it where it was, those little buggers are fast. So I waited, and waited and waited some more. Finally it moved, all the while watching me. I swear it wanted to eat my brain! It started to crawl towards me and I looked around franticly searching for something to smash it with. I couldn't get to any shoes, not without sending it into hiding again and I couldn't find anything else. I thought about using the laptop but thankfully common sense won out there.

The only thing I had on hand was a can of spray adhesive. I think you can see where this is going. Naturally, being the bright person I am, I never thought of smashing the spider with the can. Nope, I decided that I could spray the spider with the stuff, killing him with glue. All I knew was that I had to kill it; I wouldn't be able to sleep in my room with the thought of that thing running around, alive.

So as it came closer and closer to me, looking like some kind of menacing demon, I grabbed the can and started to spray. Within a minute the spider was coated in the glue and couldn't move to save its life. It was like what one would suspect cryo to look like. It was frozen mid-crawl, coated in the clear gel like stuff. Naturally, this wasn't good enough for me. Once I was sure it couldn't get away I proceeded to take the top of the spray can and grind the spider into the floor.

I have carpet. Ugh.

After ensuring that the thing was dead I lifted the lid and sure enough, there were little bits of the spider ground into the carpet. It was about then that my brain kicked in. I had just glued a dead, ground up spider into my carpet. I spent the next hour trying everything to get it out and for the most part you can't see any spider bits left. I do have a big freaken glue spot left there however and to this day every time I look at it I shudder, then laugh.

I'm just messed up that way. Let this be a lesson to you however. No, not to overact and let your fears get the best of you, but to never, ever use glue to kill a spider, at least on carpet.