Chapter Five: No Time for Words

Back at Titan's Tower Starfire and Robin had discovered that they were the only two Titans left in the tower. But that was five minutes ago…

They fell on the bed, rolling and hugging, lips on lips, breath on breath, tongue on tongue, skin on skin.

Love's sweet embrace, more beautiful than a flower, but like all things golden, can last only an hour.

The two mouths disconnected as their lungs cried for air.

"Tim" gasped the fair flower, "So fortuitous are we that the tower is empty."

"Couldn't agree more." The unmasked Titan grunted.

A kiss stolen from a set of lips, the same sin returned.

Long holding, rolling, flashes of sheets and skin.

Sweat.

Two smiles.

And a lack of air oh so sweet.

Their faces next to each other as their dance continued, hearts pounding, eyes met. Green on blue.

And all was right with the world as a strong golden silence settled over the young couple.

And then the crime alarm rang.

Kori sighed.

"Shit!" Tim grunted and threw off the sheets.

H

Time slowed as his green eyes widened. Murakami High was burning, and it was burning furiously as if some demigod of grace and tragedy had bestowed a loathing gesture upon it and now it was glowing ablaze to show it's anger.

Firemen and their oxymoronic wielding of water was in vain and they new it, they persisted in any case. The building was nearly down to its frame and the firemen had stopped going in. Many charred, burnt, and soot-blackened high school students and faculty were strewn about the schoolyard, many were somber, some were crying, a few looked on in silent disbelief.

But a select few were yelling and causing a commotion, there was still someone in there.

Whether it was his enhanced animal hearing or the tides of fate or the power of love Garfield never knew, but he heard whom they were yelling at the firemen to rescue.

And for his whispered words the world fell silent, "Tara…"

Time resumed its normal rate as Beast Boy opened the door to the moving T-Car and flung himself towards the doors of the school.

"BB! WHAT THE HELL?" Cyborg looked up and saw what Beast Boy had seen. The difference, however, was that Murakami High had no significance other than it was burning. He didn't know whom it held captive.

Cyborg was about to get out and follow Beast Boy when the panic light went off on the dashboard. Somewhere there was trouble, and it was his duty to follow it.

He looked at the screen displaying where the signal was originating from, then back up at Beast Boy who had just rushed into the building. Then back down.

"It's all you, BB."

And the tires squealed off into the city, leaving the green teen to his own devices.

H

Beast Boy rushed recklessly into the building, forgetting all his training in a furious rush of impulse and emotion; and for this he was met with a rushing wall of black smoke to the face.

It covered his eyes, swam stinging up his nose, jumped in his mouth filled with it's taste of burnt life and home and sickness. It dove down his throat and into his lungs where it proceeded to squelch out all the air and saturated his body with its foul course stench.

But he staggered forward, only for her.

His eyes watered, his lungs gasped only to be met with more smoke, and it was only then did he feel the sweltering heat. He couldn't see it, he didn't even dare open his eyes and if he did all he would see is black, black smoke.

He got down low, on his hands and knees, choking, blind, boiling, and dying.

Between coughs of smoke and crawling he mumbled, "Tara... I won't let you die."

His lungs heaved, his body sweat, his eyes grew unfocused and lulled back.

And then, as a pious flood purging a world of sin and malice, the smoke, the flames, and the awful smell of burning schoolbooks, locker photos and teenage notes of gossip, all rolled back and for a moment there was only white…

Peaceful, glorious, silent… white.

And then there was her, all of the memories of every moment they'd shared flashed before him in an instant. And a great power flowed thru him, an intense longing, he wanted her to live dammit, he wanted her to live…

And there was white… then there was smoke… then there was a Hell of flames, dying and crawling…

Then there was her…

H

Gun shots.

Yelling.

A flash of black magic.

A mute warcry.

Hazel eyes turned black and a panic stricken thug possessed and beating his teammates.

"H-Help! I CAN'T STOP IT! HE'S MOVING ME!" a thug shrieked as he involuntarily pistol whipped one of his buddies in the back of the head.

"Tony! What the hell are you doing?" Tibolt growled in the middle of the fight with the two Titans.

"I-I CAN'T CONTROL MYSE-"

BANG!

FSHING!

Tibolt had fired on his own (seemingly insane) man, only to have the bullet stopped by a small circle of ebony.

Then there was a stygnant flash and men flew thru the twilight air accompanied by the same obsidian energy.

The Ice Queen stepped up coldly, "Excuse me… he and I were talking." she levitated a nearby trash can and hurled it mentally at Tibolt.

The Kapulit smiled as his red eyes flashed and jumped ten feet in the air only to land back down behind the mystic girl.

"EAT HOT LEAD!" He fired his high caliber pistols in rapid succession, his red eyes wild with bloodlust.

"Fool." She held up a meditative gesture and blocked all the bullets in mid-air.

Tony, beaten down by his own boys, laid on the ground unconscious. His thoroughly confused friends stood looking over the body in a circle. Comically forgetting about their leader in their enthrallment.

"Did… did we stop him?" Asked one of the thugs looking over the body.

Cold, crimson silence…

A bright flash of green.

"AH!"

"WHAT THE!"

"MY EYES!"

Our golden crowned hero appeared in thin air, and fell on the blinded crooks in a flurry of martial arts and pure ass-beating skill.

After a few punches, kicks, and throws from the mute warrior subdued the invaders he glanced over the many unconscious bodies at the duel between Raven and Tibolt.

In desperation he whistled sharply.

The Kapulit's eyes moved off Raven for a moment and turned towards Jericho.

And Jericho's green eyes made contact with his red ones.

Time slowed.

Jericho's hazel irises glowed and the rest of his eyes turned black… there was a bright flash of emerald light.

FLASH!

Time resumed. Jericho was no more. And Tibolt stopped firing.

"H-Hey! What's going on? WHAT THE SOAKED-IN-BLOOD-FUCK IS GOING ON?" Tibolt bellowed frightened as he watched his own hands holster his guns.

Raven stared cold, stoic, and emotionless at the man and said, "You messed with the Titans… that's what's going on."

Tibolt didn't have time to give a look before his own fist flew up into his face.

"AGH!"

His elbow flew down on his groin.

"ECK!"

He slammed his face hard into the brick wall of the alley with a sick CRACK!

And the villain slumped down, unconscious.

Raven stared at the body with a cold, eerie calm.

There was a bright flash of green and Jericho stood over Tibolt's motionless body. His black eyes shook and focused, then faded back to white with green irises.

The pair stood silent.

The tow-head grinned sheepishly and hand signed, 'We just had a date broken up by gangsters… I pretty sure that's a record or something.'

Jericho had kept Raven in warm company all day in order to melt down the walls of icy solitude she constantly kept around her emotions, but when that first gunshot went off, shattering the warm comfort the two had forged, the emotional walls returned in all their frigid and stoic glory.

And they weren't going to be melted down again with such a simple joke.

In response she simply raised a brow, though if one observed closely a small curve graced the edge of her lips.

That's when the butt of a shotgun smacked across the back of her blue head-

CRACK!

-and her immaculate pale face fell with a sick thud to the concrete ground.

Jericho's eyes widened, his heart pounded, and a fury like no other festered, grew, and exploded deep in his chest. His hazel irises glowed malevolently, the whites of his eyes turned black.

CH-CHUNG!

"I wouldn't try anything, unless you want her brains to go 'splat' all over the place." Some random thug with a shotgun (who somehow managed to escape unconsciousness) grinned rottenly.

Jericho snarled and took a menacing step forward.

He pressed the cold barrel of the shotgun against Raven's pale neck, "Watch it, Titan." he said menacingly.

Jericho stopped, his eyes went halfway back to normal. His heart burned with rage but his mind was flooded with sorrow and worry…

THWACK!

… and that's when a mechanical fist flew into the thug's face, sending him flying into a brick wall of the alley.

Jericho's jaw comically hung in confusion.

The mechanical observer who had been watching turned around slowly, he had a tall, muscular form of sleek metallic black. A black trench coat filled with all sorts of gadgets that Jericho could not identify, a long face, a bald head with two gray mechanical eyes, and a thick stripe of pure white down the middle of the machine's face.

The tow-head hand signed in confusion.

"Who I am is not important." Came the digital grown from deep within the black figure, "What does matter is that I saved you, and my master wishes audience with you."

Jericho looked uneasily at the figure.

"My Master… Your Father."

His eyes narrowed and thoughts ran thru his head at a mile a nanosecond.

The… the machine had saved them, but at his father's orders? It made little sense, but still…

He hand signed his reply swiftly.

"Very well." and the mechanical figure walked down to the end of the alley.

Joey ran up to Raven's body and turned her over, his eyes darting worriedly over every single abrasion and physical transgression against her perfect beauty.

He felt her pulse.

'Strong…' he mutely wheezed with immense relief.

She'd be alright.

He bent down and put his face close to hers, he smiled with relief and stroked her soft cheek.

"Master Joseph." came the call.

His brow furrowed and his face frowned.

He put his arms underneath the small mystic and lifted her precious body up against his warm chest and arms.

The mechanical figure turned, "Please, Master Joseph, this way. Your Father wishes to see you at his new home."

But Joey didn't hear the digital abomination of a voice. He stood large, warm, golden, holding her small, cold, and precious body.

Two ends of the same spectrum… together.

Their aura's filled the air and mingled and in that moment a bond grew between the mute Titan and the mystic girl in his arms.

It was a crime against the world that the only person there to witness such a sight was a simple machine, ignorantly unaware of the significance, "Please, Master Joseph, this way."

Joey turned, Raven asleep in his arms, and followed the machine.