The weeks passed quickly for Raven, who soon settled into the routine at H.I.V.E academy. She learnt to enjoy the lessons, the friendly competition with Gizmo to get the highest scores and the evenings and weekends studying with Mammoth – when Jinx wasn't putting them through their paces in the gym.

She accepted the change in diet and began feeling comfortable. No one judged her when her powers went wrong during combat, and she lost some of her fear about using them. Raven noticed changes in other areas as well. During History class she shattered her pen with a mere distracted clench of her hand. In combat practice she broke a boy's leg while practicing a counterattack. On the running track she overtook the class and finished first. On the school's obstacle course – a large space full of things designed to attack students using it – she took out the entire circuit. As she tutored Mammoth on their studies, he taught her how to control her strength.

More often than she would have liked, Raven found herself thinking back to Azarath, imagining what the Monks would say to her if they could see what she was doing, but she tried to distract herself instead with the feeling of pride when Mammoth passed a test she'd helped him study for, and the easy acceptance she got from Jinx. And, of course, her reason for being there in the first place.

Between strategy class, combat training and every other subject the school offered, Raven felt like she was being trained for war. It was training that would come in use – training that should leave others around her capable of standing a chance against the things to come.

Raven reflected on all of this as she stood facing the Headmistress with her friends. She doubted she was the reason they had been called to the office – she had done her best to improve quickly, not wanting to see Jinx disciplined for bringing her here in the first place – but couldn't help and wonder if she had done something wrong.

Jinx, Mammoth and Gizmo all fidgeted nervously as they waited for the woman to speak. Jinx hid it the most, standing tall and keeping her eyes fixed on the woman.

After what felt like an age, but couldn't have been a few seconds, the woman handed an envelope to Jinx, before giving a second one to Raven. "I have a contract for the four of you. The job is simple. Remove the threat known as the Teen Titans from their base in Jump City. How you remove them is down to your discretion."

There was a moment of relief before Raven felt the pangs of anxiety from her friends. Looking down the line at her teammate, she quickly gathered they had never been asked to do something like this before.

"The envelope concerns details supplied by your contractor, including his instructions. He is paying well, so I expect no mistakes. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Jinx nodded quickly for the group.

Raven had questions, but she didn't want to upset the group by voicing them.

The woman nodded, happy with the response. "You will leave today, after dinner. I would suggest you take the rest of you time today to look at the information provided and begin planning your strategy. You will be starting tomorrow. I will expect you back by the end of the week and no later." She changed her gaze to Raven. "Miss Roth, inside the envelope I handed you, you will find a passport, birth certificate, national insurance number and a few other important documents. Don't lose them. Dismissed."

None of the hesitated the leave the room, the team quickly making it down the corridor before anyone said anything.

"This could be our big break," Jinx's voice started out quiet, but confidence leaked in as she continued, "I mean, if we pull this off people will be asking for us when they contact H.I.V.E Academy. We'll have a client base before we even leave the school!" She looked at Raven, grinning. "And you're in! No more probation period!"

"That's not exactly what she said," Raven replied wearily.

"Do you really think they're gonna spend all that money on creating an ID if they don't want to keep you? You passed – she's happy."

"That was happy?" Gizmo asked before trying to snatch the envelope Jinx held. "So, what's it say?"

Jinx moved it out of his reach. "Wait until we're somewhere quiet, yeah? The Headmistress just told us to skip our lessons. I don't want Angel to hear about it this quickly – I wanna see her face when we come back, and everyone hears how we took out a group of superheroes."

"Do you really think it's going to be that easy?" Raven asked quietly. "If there's a superhero group in Jump City it's going to be those who fought the Gordanians. That means the boy trained by Batman and the Tamaranian."

"Robin's just a normal human – piece of cake," Gizmo grinned, only for Jinx to frown at him.

"You're a normal human, idiot."

"If I'm an idiot I feel sorry for whatever the hell you are. You really gonna lump me in with that lot? I'm much smarter." The short boy argued.

They found a quiet social room – one of many such common rooms that littered the school in regular intervals. Jinx chose a sofa, dropping the envelope on the table. Raven sat next to her, Mammoth quickly bringing over two more chairs for him and Gizmo.

They watched Jinx open the envelope in silence. She tipped the content out onto the coffee table in front of her. Several sheets of paper fell out, some full-page photos, along with a circular black and orange device, an 'S' engraved on it's front. Gizmo grabbed that first, studying it as the others went through the paperwork. There were eight photos in total, covering four subjects. Jinx lined them up on the table.

The first was who Raven assumed to be Robin. His bright uniform – a mix of green, yellow, red and black – had an 'R' emblazoned over his right breast. It was a casual shot of him walking through a crowd. The next photo showed him in action, a bo-staff drawn. His target was one of the lizard aliens that had invaded Jump City. The next photo was of a boy who was very green. His skin, hair and eyes were all a slightly different shade of emerald. Like the first set, it followed the trend, the next picture of a green tiger. The Tamaranian was next. Last was a boy who was part human and part robot.

Gizmo glanced over at the pictures, briefly pointing towards the green boy. "He was with Doom Patrol. They must have kicked him out."

"Who?" Raven asked, not having heard of such a group before.

"They're heroes. Kinda. Not like your usual bunch – they stay way under the radar."

"Since when did you keep up with all the heroes?" Jinx frowned.

"Why the hell not? Easier to avoid them that way," The boy shrugged, going back to the object in his hands. "It's a communication device. Kinda like ours. Speaking of which." Gizmo dropped the item back on the table before going to his backpack, unclipping something before holding his hand out to Raven, a bright yellow device sat in the centre of his hand.

"Welcome to the team," Jinx grinned. "We were waiting for the Headmistress to confirm your place in the school."

Raven took it silently, not sure what to say.

"You can call us if we ever get split up," Mammoth told her. "And there's a map, and if you're ever in trouble hit this-" He leaned over, carefully opening the device and showing her a small button on the inside, next to a large screen that took up most of the inside, "It'll let us know where you are. It's a communicator."

"Made it myself, last night." Gizmo chimed in.

"…Thanks." She looked down the device in her hands, allowing a small smile.

"Thank god, she's not emotional. Alright moving on then, what does the rest of it say?" Gizmo pointed towards the papers they had otherwise ignored.

Jinx flickered through them. "Alright, so this must be the person's original request. Calls himself Slade. Request to H.I.V.E Academy to hire out a team…" Jinx scanned the text, throwing out the odd sentence to the others, quickly deciding the rest of it was useless information. "to remove the group known as the Teen Titans. No preferred method. Once complete, the team to use the communicator to inform me. Holy crap he's paying the school double the usual fee."

"Why would he do that?" Mammoth frowned.

"He probably think's they're tougher than they are," Gizmo laughed. "Maybe he's local and run afoul of them a few times? Who cares?"

"We all should care. Not only is this our first real chance to prove ourselves, if we can get the Academy more money than it's usual fee… Don't you understand?" Jinx looked round at her team, frustrated by their lack of enthusiasm. "This is big."

Raven certainly didn't share their enthusiasm. In controlled environments she had made some improvement over the control of her abilities, but there had still been accidents. This was talking about fighting four people at once – not the one-on-one situations she'd practiced with so far. No one questioned Raven's silence, accustomed to it.

"Yeah, yeah. So, what's the other sheet?" Gizmo asked, the boy only getting excited over two things – technology and high scores.

"This Slade has been kind enough to list out these guys abilities. He's done half our work for us," She grinned. "Robin. Previously seen working along Batman. Martial artist. Uses a mix of weapons and gadgets. Favours a bo-staff. Beast Boy. Shape shifter. Evidence to suggest he can take the shape of any animal. Changes instantaneous with a few seconds delay between form. Starfire. Alien. Flight, abnormal strength. Able to release green bolts of energy. Cyborg. Hand turns into a cannon. Uses sonic technology."

"Hah! All we need to do is a little observation, come up with a plan, and job done," Gizmo grinned.

"I'll fight Starfire," Mammoth quickly told them. "If she's strong like me, it'd make the most sense."

"No, it wouldn't, because she also has ranged weapons. They all do, apart from Beast Boy." Jinx frowned. She put everything back into the envelope. "Apparently Jump City is their turf now. They live there – we don't. That's gonna give them an automatic advantage. We need to take them out quickly. That means no splitting up if we can help it. If we needed to, I think I'd put Rae against Starfire, you against Beast Boy, and Giz against Cyborg."

"I'm not sure I'm ready," Raven told them quietly, looking at the yellow coordinator in here hand.

"If this is about your powers again-"

"I don't want to accidently hurt one of you. So far, I've only been fighting one-on-one with people. That means I've only had one focus, with no teammates nearby to worry about."

The team went quiet. They had all witnessed the shockwave of black energy earlier that week, an accident that had destroyed all the electrics in the Academy's simulation course and shattered a few of the mechanical opponents. Raven didn't want to know what that would have done to a person.

"If we plan this right, you won't need to be in that kind of situation," Jinx eventually told her. "Like I was saying, we need to do this quickly. Play to their weaknesses. They're the good guys, so they should have plenty."

"We've been told to remove them – that doesn't mean we'll be expected to… kill them, does it?" Raven could barely bring herself to say those words.

"The details said there was no preference, which means no. We have a clear record in that regards and we don't need to start now. We just need to make them hurt enough to leave. Damage their pride. Doubt this Slade character will care so long as they're not in Jump City."

She let out a small sigh of relief but couldn't stop herself from questioning the girl. "I thought this school trained mercenaries and the like – isn't that part of the job?"

"I mean, probably. But we're not there yet – or even close. How you graduate goes by grades. That's towards the top. Even if you get the grades, you can always go down an option. We're not quite sure that's what we want to do."

"The prison sentence is too long if you get caught," Gizmo told her, as though it was his only reason to be against it.

Jinx stood, taking the envelope. "Get packed. We'll meet back here. We've only got a few hours before we need to leave. Might as well grab food before we do, and that'll be one less thing to worry about."

(…)

"This is gonna be more trouble than it's worth," Gizmo muttered unhappily as he tried to finish setting up the computer in their base.

"Oh, we'll make it worth the trouble," Jinx grinned before turning her attention back to Raven. "Throw the damned box already."

"What you thought of?" Mammoth asked as he took a seat on the sofa. It had been pushed up against the wall, out of the way of the two girls.

Jinx had cornered a very reluctant empath into sparring, though so far it had been on-sided.

"They're got that big tower, right? Out in the bay? Once we removed them, it's pretty much ours."

"I don't think that's such a good idea. It is an obvious target," Raven told her, taking the excuse of a distraction.

"Oh, I don't mean moving in – though it'd be fun to customise it a bit. You know, make a point that their heroes are gone. Giz can strip it for anything he can use." She motioned at the box she'd put in the middle of the floor. "I'm dying of old age here. Hurry up."

"I can't do it," Raven muttered quietly.

"What, move a cardboard box? I've seen you move heavier things with your powers."

"No," Raven glared at her, the look enough to get a small flinch from the hex caster. "I can't fight these Titans."

"Blah, blah, something, lose control, blah." Jinx rolled her eyes. "You'll punch through a wall. Maybe a Titan if we're lucky. Big deal." She quickly grabbed the box before throwing it at Raven. The black shield construct was automatic, and the box bounced off and hit the floor.

"The controlled fights at the Academy aren't the same," Raven argued.

Frustrated, Jinx released a hex bolt without warning, aimed at the empath. She panicked as she quickly tried to raise another shield, a rogue blast of dark energy knocking Jinx off her feet. Gizmo looked round from the computer at the sound of his leader smacking into the floor and Raven rushed forward.

"I'm sorry! I didn't-" She paused just short of reaching her, Jinx laughing as she sat up.

"You're the only one who see this as a bad thing Rae."

Raven crossed her arms stubbornly, no longer wanting to help Jinx to her feet. "You haven't seen what can happen."

"Couldn't predict it either, which means the Titans won't be able to either." She stuck her hand out. "Now help me up."

"Will you two quit it before you damage something?" Gizmo told them angrily. "If you've not going anything better to do be useful. I need this computer running or we don't be able to do anything!"

"Electronics don't like me," The two girls spoke simultaneously before sharing a small smile. Raven grasped Jinx's hand and pulled her to her feet.

Mammoth stood to help his friend, Gizmo quickly pointing at him. "Not you. This is a delicate task. You'll only make it worse."

He sat back down, before looking at Jinx. "So, what is the plan? The Headmistress said we only got a week."

"I want to see if we can observe them fighting first, get a better idea on how they're working as a team."

"I can do that," Raven told her. "From the air, it will be easy enough for me to do a couple of sweeps of the city. I can stay hidden.

"We can't wait all week hoping they'll get into a fight," Gizmo pointed out.

"Which is why – when you've got that computer working – you're going to look online. I imagine someone would have recorded them at some point." Jinx said. The boy turned back to his machine, having nothing to say back to that. "Mammoth, you fancy getting us some groceries in? Rae, you might as well do a fly round now, then another tomorrow morning."

"What are you gonna do?" Mammoth asked her.

"Get some other stuff sorted around base while I try and think up of ways we can approach this. Why, you want company to the shop?"

"I'll be back in a few hours," Raven quickly cut into the gap. She was more than happy with her designated task and ready to get moving.

She let herself out of the building, the exit leading her to an older area of the city. Most of the surrounding buildings were factories, some in use and others – like theirs – sat bordered up and rotting according to their outward appearance. There weren't any civilians around to see her take to the sky. Between the hours of 6am and 5pm the area was mostly void of activity.

Having no idea where to start she decided to move first to the outskirts and work her way in, being careful not to fly too close to Titans Tower. It was easy enough to do, the large 'T' shaped building visible in the skyline from most of the city.

The empath had covered most of the city and was ready to call it a night when screams caught her attention. She flew towards the sound, eventually able to see dozens of people running out of a building onto the darkened street. She drew closers, picking a perch on the roof of the building opposite as she tried to figure out what was going on. The building had a large sign – lit up – labelling it as "Jump City Theatre".

Police cars pulled up, civilians quickly moving out of their way, the red and blue lights casting long shadows in the street. She watched several police officers file out of the cars, guns in their hands.

One brazen citizen stopped them from entering, Raven only just able to hear him. "Those Teen Titans are inside!"

Not sure if it was supposed to be a warning for the officers, or a sign that everything was alright, but after a few glances the cops kept around their cars, guns lowered. She waited, then happy that they weren't going to interfere - information she could take back to Jinx – Raven took to the sky again, almost invisible against the night, and went to the building. She quickly made her way down one side, looking for a point on entry she could use, or even better, a window where she could see what was happening. Raven didn't have any look until she rounded the back of the building, finding a door labelled 'private'. She didn't bother with the lock, phasing straight through the mental into a room filled with feathers, mirrors, gems and over-the-top garments.

Raven could hear the sounds of a fight, interjected by loud screeching noises that made Raven's head ring. Against her better judgement she followed the noise, finding a curtain that, when she carefully looked round, gave her a view of a stage and a man in a very orange jumpsuit, his hair white-blonde and gelled into spikes where it hadn't been shaved.

She quickly figured out what was making the horrendous noise, that man holding a guitar in his hands. Slowly Raven moved forward, careful not to reveal herself but not interested in watching this man. She wanted to see the Teen Titans and watch how they fight.

She was only able to catch glimpses of them as they tried to approach the guitarist before they were pushed back with soundwaves, out of her view. They didn't coordinate their attacks, the alien – Starfire – flying forward as she released a torrent of green energy bolts. Some of the projectiles scorched through the curtains close to where Raven stood, and she tried not to flinch away. All of them missed the teenager in orange and he faced her, strumming his guitar, forcing her back.

"You can't hope to beat the sound of chaos?"

"Yeah, well how about you try this on for size?" Cyborg pushed forward, pointing his hand, the metal folding back and transforming into a weapon that quickly released a blue beam.

Unfazed, the villain dropped to his knees and strummed several chords, Raven able to see the sound waves as they approached the teen titan. The blue beam was deflected back toward him, and he was forced to dodge his own weapon. The sound waves reached Cyborg and Raven watched as some of his circuitry failed.

"That looks a bit dodgy now, doesn't it?" The teen on stage laughed. "And we haven't even reached the main show!"

He pulled on a chord and Raven was forced to move quickly as the curtain pulled back. She travelled up, sitting in the shadows the top of the stage offered. It revealed the speakers back stage, and Raven watched him plug in his guitar. She couldn't say she was impressed, the four heroes continuing to approach one at a time, each getting pushed back before they could do any damage.

Eventually, the green changeling faced him on his own, still in human form, taunting him. The empath winced as the villain upped his sound, watching with wide eyes as the young teenager continued forward, the rest of his team more focused on protecting their hearing than engaging in the fight, the Cyborg losing more of his circuits.

The guitarist continued to increase the sound until Raven heard a loud bang, able to smell burning. She watched as the speakers sparked and smoked, going out one by one until they crashed to the stage. Seeing her chance, the alien rushed forward and restrained him. While two of the team members celebrated a victory they hadn't really won – had the equipment not failed, Raven had no doubt they'd still be attempting to attack, only to get pushed back again and again- Robin walked past them, backstage.

Raven tried to pull the shadows closer around her until she was well and truly hidden. The changeling followed him.

"What's wrong?"

Robin looked around before answering. "We were being watched."

"I didn't see anyone. You sure?"

"Certain."

The young green boy joined him for a moment in looking before losing interest. "Not here now. Maybe it was backstage staff?" He didn't wait for an answer, going back to his friends.

Raven didn't dare move, hoping the teen titan would neglect to look up, waiting until he eventually dismissed it. She teleported as soon as she felt it was safe too, only going as far as the roof of the building, determined to get as much information as she could about them before heading back.

She watched as the villain was transported outside, escorted to the police by three of the titans. It took Raven a moment to realise one was missing and quickly spun round to find herself face to face with the masked hero. She stared at him, shocked she hadn't felt him approach. She didn't back up, silently trying to feel for him with her empathy, frowning when she realised she couldn't feel him.

She hadn't seen him use magic, and doubted he was telepathic. Silently she realised Batman had felt similar and scowled.

"Why are you watching us?" Robin wore a frown to match her own as he studied her, bo-staff in one hand. "It was you backstage, wasn't it?"

Raven didn't answer – didn't know how to respond. She had told her team she wouldn't be seen. Realising she didn't need to answer she slowly took a step back from him, then another, not wanting to trigger a fight. She called on her dark energy and tried to summon a portal quicker than she ever had before, leaving the hero stood watching the space she had been in.

The portal took her to the sitting area in her team's hideout. She stepped out and quickly looked round. Gizmo was still sat at his computer, the screens working, quickly typing away.

"Where's Jinx?"

The small boy yelped, jumping from his seat before spinning the chair round to glare at Raven. "When the hell did you get back?"

"Just now." She brushed aside his anger. Gizmo never stayed angry for long, too busy moving onto the next thing.

"Then use the front door like everyone else. I don't know where she is." He turned himself back to the computer. "We gave you that communicator for a reason. Bloody use it."

She had forgotten about the device, pulling it from her belt and flipping it open. "Is there a button for that?"

Gizmo sighed loudly, wanting her to hear it, before reaching for his own. "Jinx, Raven's back. Apparently, you're wanted." He snapped the device shut before putting it aside, not saying another word to the empath as he went back to typing.

Raven waited silently until the hex caster came into the room, giving Raven an odd look. "You wanted me? Don't know why you didn't just come find me. You can like, sense us, right?"

"I saw the Teen Titans."

Gizmo spun around; computer really forgotten this time. "You what?"

Jinx grinned. "I didn't think we'd ever be this lucky. On the first night too. You saw them fighting?"

She nodded, but before she could say anything more Jinx had cut in.

"Hang on, let me go find Mammoth."

She turned to leave, Gizmo angrily telling the girl's back, "What the hell did I make the communicators for if no one's gonna use them?!"

(…)

"I don't know who they were fighting, not that it really matters," Raven told them, accepting the cup of tea Mammoth passed her, the giant having insisted on drinks and snacks before they talked. "They're not working together as a unit yet. They were attacking one at a time – I didn't see them trying to fight together. The Tamaranian, Starfire, missed every shot with her energy bolts. Either she's reluctant to hit people or she has terrible aim. Cyborg should be easy enough to remove – a few of his circuits shorted out and it left him almost unable to continue fighting."

"What caused the shortage," Gizmo asked excitedly. Raven didn't need to ask to know he would want to try and replicate the reason into a weapon of his own.

"The sound, I think. The guy was creating sound waves. Big ones."

"And the other two?" Jinx asked.

"The changeling was somewhat… surprising. He doesn't seem to have a limit to how many times he can change, and what form he uses. No limit that I saw, anyway. Robin… I mean his fighting wasn't anything special but…" She hesitated, not certain she wanted to tell her friends she had been seen. Realising she didn't want to lie to them, she said, "He felt me watching. His file didn't say anything about him being psychic. I moved to the roof of the building they'd been fighting him afterwards and he saw me. He didn't attack and I didn't say anything – I teleported here."

"Great job, newbie," Gizmo told her harshly. "So much for not being seen."

"It doesn't matter that much – he doesn't know who we are, yet." Jinx quickly defended her, glaring at Gizmo.

He glared back, before asking Raven, "So, what do you think? This going to be tough?"

"No." She didn't need to think about her answer. "They only won because their opponent's equipment faltered. They weren't making any progress with the fight until then. And we wont have to worry about anyone else joining in. The police stayed back until the Titans had detained the man."

"That's a bonus," Jinx nodded, before deciding, "We should hit them tomorrow, while they're still recovering from the fight."

"But we don't know what we're doing," Mammoth spoke up, alarmed.

"You want to wait until they're recovered?" Jinx asked him sarcastically. "It shouldn't take us long to think of a plan. We get them while they're out in public. Gizmo found out they regularly visit a local pizza joint. We pull at the heart strings all heroes have – you know, create a 'victim' that needs rescuing – then jump 'em."

"I doubt they eat pizza every day," Raven observed dryly.

"If they don't turn up we go to their tower. Come on, we're not going to get a better chance than this. Cyborg could still be out of the fight if he was hurt that bad.

"I'll do you one better," Gizmo suddenly grinned, leaning forward in his seat. "We send them a voucher for free pizza. One day offer. Then we know they're gonna turn up."

"You can get something put together before tomorrow?" the hex caster asked eagerly.

"Of course. It'll be waiting for them tomorrow morning.

"Nobody would turn down free pizza," Mammoth nodded. Raven didn't hold their optimism but bit her tongue. "So we get them to the pizza place and then what?"

"We need to draw them out, on the street. It's nice and busy round there. If we beat them up bad so everyone's talking about how they lost, they'll never want to step foot in the city again." Gizmo told him.

"I don't know. If that was me, it would make me more intent on hunting us down and getting us back twice as hard," Raven muttered.

"Yeah, well you're scary. They're not. They'll be too embarrassed, for sure."

"Babies," Mammoth said, the single word causing the entire team to look at him.

"What?" Jinx eventually asked when no-one else did.

"People like babies. If they think a baby is in danger, they'll leave their pizza."

"You want us to endanger an infant?" Raven asked unhappily.

"Yeah, I mean that's kinda dark, even for us." Gizmo added. When Raven frowned at him, he stared back. "What? I'm anti-people. I'm not completely heartless though."

"Who said it needs to be a real one?" Jinx asked slowly. "All we need is a pram. Something that makes the same noise as a baby. Push the pram down into traffic and they'll flock to towards it."

"It wont take four people to stop one pram."

"So, we make another distraction." Gizmo told them. "The buses use that road – it's a hill." He turned back to his computer, quickly bringing up satellite images. "See this is the pizza place and here, this goes downhill to a junction. First, we roll the 'baby' down the hill. Then the bus stop is here. Get a bus to follow down after it, and they'll be forced to split. One to reach the pram before it hit's the junction and the others to stop the bus."

"So, we wait until they arrive, then wait for a bus to pull up at the stop. We remove the driver, start the pram rolling, wait until they're on the move and then set the bus rolling." Jinx slowly smiled. "That's not bad, Gizmo."

"I know, I'm a genius. When they split, we attack. Even better I could make the pram a weapon! Maybe make it explode or something so when a titan grabs it, I can trigger a bomb. Or maybe make a baby robot with lasers!"

"If we're gonna pull this off, we need to finish all the prep tonight. Gizmo, get started on the food voucher. We'll go 'find' a pram. You need anything else?"

"I got loads of stuff I can use," Gizmo grinned, happier than they had seen him in a while.

"This is going to be a long night, isn't it?" Raven asked Mammoth, the giant nodding.