Author's note: I would like to thank the acad… er… my reviewers!

CrazyDeafGirl: Thank you soooooo much. I'm glad you thought I did well. And thank you for your offer to help out with information. I'll probably only end up using what is known in the show, but I do know a lot of the comic backstory (though I have yet to pick up one of the comics 0.0; ) In any case, I'll certainly ask you for whatever help I may need. Thank you.

Invader Johnny: Yeah, I was trying to foreshadow a bit. Thank you for your review. I did check out your profile, but didn't see the story you were referring to. Could you perhaps E-mail it to me? The address is in my profile. I hope you enjoy this next installment!

Neoinean: Thank you very much. I'm anxious to see what happens too…

Now that that's settled, I'd like to thank everyone who read my story, but left only a hit number with their leaving, please know that I appreciate you checking out my work. From this point on, I will thanking people through direct replies, so you won't have to suffer through my babbling.

Chapter two:

Previously:

"…We must accept her loss and move on as best we can."

Year 1 month 3

"BB, where's the remote? Did you lose the damn thing again?" Beastboy sighed from where he stood at the small table in the kitchen area, looking for his tofu.

"Dude, I haven't touched it! Why don't you just build one into your arm?" He resumed his search by looking through the refrigerator, and what he found depressed him further. Blue mold had grown all throughout the appliance, making all their food nearly unrecognizable. He nearly called out for Starfire to blast the fungus away with starbolts, but stopped himself and sighed again.

"Hey Cy! Where's Raven?"

"In her room man. Like always."

And it was true; Raven had barely left her room, save for the occasional confrontation with crime, in the three months since Starfire's mysterious disappearance. She spent hours on end doing who knew what. Every so often she left her room, looking pale and drained, and brought some food from the kitchen into her room, where she would remain for another week.

Robin, after three weeks of relentless searching had finally decided to give up for the time being, but had set up a reward for anyone if they found the missing alien. So far, no one had stepped forward to offer any information, or even a body they claimed to be hers.

Cyborg had retreated into the garage beneath the tower, struggling for days to get one more horsepower out of the T-Car. New converters, a specially designed carburetor, and yet more rocket fuel, all of it went into the vehicle to make it fly across the pavement.

When not pampering his "baby" he was in the operation center of the tower, watching television, and often ended up watching World of Fungus, what had been Starfire's favorite show, when she was still with the Titans.

The one who it appeared had changed most drastically seemed to be Beastboy. No longer the ever jovial green elf-boy; he almost never made a failed attempt at a joke any more. In the wake of her absence, Beastboy had taken to cleaning; the tower was spotless under Beastboy's newfound obsession. No more "blue-furry-food" had residence in the small refrigerator (except for the last remnants that he had yet to get off of the remote.); the clothing that littered the floor of Beastboy's room was now hung neatly in his closet. Cyborg worried that the fumes from all the cleaning supplies would fry the younger Titan's brain, but shook his head and went back to his simulation of the new engine he was designing for the T-Ship.

The Titans it seemed; had fallen.

TtTtTtTtTtTt

Inside the room that no self-respecting Titan would dare to enter under threat of death, Raven was meditating. Black energy crackled around the room as she stretched out her conscious mind, probing strands of time that were now visible in her trance-like state. Her brow furrowed as she attempted yet again to find the time-line of Starfire. Her soul-self blasted through the various threads of blue, green, and black. She concentrated instead on the oranges and yellows, looking for the color Starfire's aura had taken during the "switcheroo" situation with the Puppet King. Finding one that appeared to start far from earth, Raven nearly leapt for joy inside her mind. She followed it.

It ran all the way to earth, then around the planet. The older, more brown-orange part faded into the vibrant yellow that was Starfire's present essence, this aura led to what, in her mind, Raven knew as Titan's Tower, but in this realm of time alone, it was empty space. Raven followed the thread into the city, here black and gray shadows with no substance. It lead into a black building, and it was here that Raven saw where the line ended, a bright swirling vortex of white light. She looked around the other side; it did not exit the vortex in this timeline. Starfire was truly in the future.

Raven began to retreat to where she had entered this world of time, floating in nothingness towards the tower, taking the utmost care that she would not touch another beings timeline. Long moments passed and Raven found herself hovering over where her own time line lay: the blue thread with just a hint of demonic red in it, lying innocuously in mid air. If Raven were anyone else, she would have been elated at the uniqueness of this, but Raven knew that it only hinted at the impending doom her father would bring upon the world. She shuddered inside her mind and decided to not dwell on that right now. Her soul self floated down into her body and Raven opened her eyes as she came out of her trance.

She saw the walls of her room, so dark.

"Maybe I should open a window…"

TtTtTtTtTtTt

Robin was sitting at the Titan computer, looking for something, anything, that may be wrong in his beloved city. There was a minor robbery at a liquor store, but the police were already there, and there was no Meta-Human activity, so it did not fall under Titan jurisdiction. Today, as for the last three weeks, had been mostly silent. There had been an incident with an alien named Soto that seemed to think Beastboy was his pet, but that had been quickly put under control, despite a madcap romp throughout the city chasing the creature's real pet. The report was already filed away in the basement, with the other closed cases.

To put it simply, Robin was bored. Without Starfire, life at the tower was lonelier than he had ever imagined. When she was there, he always had someone to talk to, someone who would listen if he ever had a problem, an in turn, he would listen to her questions about earth life. Robin smiled in remembrance of those times.

BEEEP BEEEP!

The Titan's alarm had gone off. Robin glanced at the screen to see just where the disturbance was. Apparently, there was a giant scorpion making its way to the borders of the city. His teammates quickly ran into the ops center, awaiting orders. Robin felt that there was someone missing, Starfire, he thought bitterly. He raised his gloved hand in the air and shouted with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

"Titans, GO!"

TtTtTtTtTtTt

They arrived at the lip of the gorge that ran along the outskirts of the city to find that there was indeed a giant scorpion reeking havoc down below. Indeed, the only thing that was shocking about the situation was that there was a petite girl running away from the mutant arachnid. Just as they were about to swoop, jump, fly, and teleport in to save the day the girl raised her arms and brought down a rock bridge that crushed the monster.

"She wasn't in trouble!" Cyborg almost shouted in excitement.

"She was leading it into a trap." Raven finished, her eyes shining with mild excitement from under her hood. Robin nodded.

"Question is…"

Before Robin could finish his sentence, Beastboy had jumped in.

"Who is she?"

To be continued.

A.N.: Once again, I apologize for the length of this chapter, but I felt that this was as good a place as any to leave you. I promise to try to make these longer. As you have probably noticed, I'm borrowing very heavily from the dialogue of other episodes, and that scenarios without much Starfire influence are being cut out. There is a method to the madness here, and foreshadowing abounds, you just have to look for it. Now that you have read: Review!

Rugsrat