Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

Author's Note: Okay well, this time, I've got ALL of the chapter up, promise. As always, I'm sorry it took so long. I intended to have this up on the 24th as an early Christmas present, but that didn't work out. However, you'll be happy to know that this is the longest chapter yet. Not only did I break the 5,000 words mark, but I even went over 6,000. Most of you are probably sitting there thinking "Yeah it better be long". Well trust me, it is.

I might have said this before (my memory sucks), but thank you guys for giving me over 100 reviews! You all rock! Thanks! And while I'm talking about reviews, I just want to say that if you reviewed this chapter before I added the finishing part, then you don't have to submit another review if you don't feel like it. Well, to be honest, you're not required to submit a review at all. You get the point though.

For those of you that read this chapter before I added the next part to it, I've added a big marker rightat the point where the new material starts so you don't have to read through something you've already read. For those of you who are just now getting to this chapter, just ignore the big break a third down the page.

Now, onward to the FULL chapter 7.


Chapter 7

The T-car dashed around a corner and sped through the street in search of the five escaped criminals. The Titans had used the map function in their communicators to find the general area, and simply used logic to find the exact location of the villains. Everywhere, people were frantically screaming and running away. The teens simply went in the opposite direction of the civilians until they were able to find the towering figures of Plasmus and Cinderblock.

"But Robin, there are five of the villains this time." Starfire reminded him. "If their numbers are the same as ours, what are we to do?"

"I don't know" replied Robin. "We're just gonna have to fight them one on one until one of us can help. It may not be a good strategy, but it's the only option we've got."

"I think I see 'em." Cyborg exclaimed, acknowledging the direction of the villains.

"Okay team, it's just like I said." Robin began as final instructions before the battle started. "Each of us will have to fight one on one with one of them until we can help one another. When we get there, everyone just pick a criminal and go."

The T-car quickly skidded to a halt and the five teenagers inside it hastily rushed out. "Titans, GO!" Robin shouted as they ran off to combat the villains. Cyborg hurried in and began attacking Mammoth. Starfire dashed into Jinx and began attacking the witch with a barrage of her starbolts. Robin rushed in to fight Gizmo after nearly being struck by one of the boy's explosives. Raven flew up off the ground and began striking Cinderblock with her powers.

"Great, I get the giant, gross one." Beast Boy sighed as he went off to face Plasmus.

Cyborg and Mammoth were currently locked up in a power struggle. Both had their arms and fists up against each others, and neither would allow the other's strength to outlast their own. In a brief moment of balance-shifting, Cyborg managed to break the standoff and toss both his and Mammoth's hands away from each other. Without hesitation, both the large teenagers began attacking the other with a flurry of punches. Cyborg threw his fist at Mammoth; Mammoth moved his head aside and retaliated. Cyborg dodged too and threw another punch at Mammoth. This time though, the colossal criminal broke the cycle and caught Cyborg's fist in his hand.

Again, the two found themselves in a conflict of force, neither willing to relent. It seemed their strengths were equally matched; however, Cyborg had something Mammoth didn't. Within a second, Cyborg turned his fist into his sonic canon blaster. Mammoth didn't even have time to react before being knocked down the street by a full force blast of sound and energy.

Meanwhile, Starfire was attempting to defeat Jinx. Starfire tore through the air around the witch, sending large amounts of starbolts at her whenever given the chance. However, it seemed Jinx's skills weren't limited to ill-behaved magic; she also possessed a profuse amount of speed and flexibility, allowing her to dodge Starfire's attacks with infuriating ease.

Starfire continued her strategy, hoping to eventually get lucky and strike Jinx when she wasn't concentrating. However, as Jinx continued to evade the Tameranean's attacks, Starfire found her own energy draining from attacking so much. She glided away from the witch and turned to face her. Breathing heavily from fatigue, Starfire simply glared at the girl, hoping her staring contest would bide enough time for her to catch her breath. Jinx however, wasn't daunted by the menacing look on Starfire's face. She knew the girl was tired, and took the opportunity to attack. In a maliciously astounding display of power, Jinx sent a wave of dark magic out from her, damaging everything in front of her. Starfire tried to dart out of the attack's way, but couldn't escape its ever-growing radius. The hex rammed into the girl dead on, sending her plummeting into the asphalt yards away.

Dust and debris shot into the air and clouded the area where Starfire had hit the ground. Jinx waited to see if her enemy would rise or not, but remained weary. She was right to be expectant, because just moments later, Starfire burst from the impact site with newfound fury. Starbolts, ready, she shot toward Jinx and ran her burning fists straight into the girl's abdomen. Jinx was knocked into the adjacent building with a loud crack! Again, rubble shot up all around her once she collided with the surface, concealing her from view. Starfire, like Jinx seconds before, waited to see if another attack would come her way. When it finally began to seem the witch wouldn't rise again, she darted out of her previous location, readied with a fist with Starfire's name on it…

Just down the street, Robin had taken out a few of his bird-o-rangs and was preparing to hurl them at Gizmo. Seeing the attack coming, the ingenious villain prepared by activating his defense pack. Large metal spider legs spurt from the metal box on Gizmo's back and boosted him up a few feet from the ground. Robin flung his weapons the criminal, hoping to defeat him before he had the opportunity to cause any damage. However, now that Gizmo's movement system was activated, he was much more mobile and dodged the projectiles with great ease.

Now going on the offensive, Gizmo briefly took a crouching position. In one swift movement, he used his spider-like appendages to propel himself high into the air. Robin knew exactly what the young villain was up to, and immediately turned his gaze toward the sky in an attempt to foresee Gizmo's location and dodge him. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the afternoon, and the midday sun blinded Robin's vision and concealed Gizmo's position. All of a sudden, a dark form faintly appeared in the sun; it appeared to be coming down toward the earth. Before Robin had time to react, Gizmo, with all of his equipment had tackled him and knocked the boy wonder to the ground.

Robin attempted to stand up, but before he had the opportunity, a giant metal leg swiftly descended upon him. With exceptionally impressive reflexes Robin rolled out of the way just before being struck. Another leg came down upon him in a second attack; again, he managed to elude its damage. Gizmo continued attacking in this manner, and Robin continued dodging, until unexpectedly, one of the great spider-like legs contacted with another metal surface. Robin had his bo-staff raised just above his head and had used it to stop Gizmo's barrage of assaults. Using a large amount of arm strength, the boy wonder raised his staff and shoved Gizmo off of him. Quickly rising, Robin flung his staff at the criminal with a vast amount of force. Gizmo dodged, and then swung back again to avoid a second swing from the metal rod.

They continued this 'dance' until Gizmo concocted an idea. He took out a small device and, on Robin's next swing, attached it to the staff. Immediately, electricity shot down the rod, shocking the unsuspecting teen on the other end. Robin fell to the ground, momentarily paralyzed. He was completely helpless to defend himself as Gizmo raised his menacing limbs to attack…

Down the street a bit, and up in the air a few stories, Raven was flying in circles around Cinderblock. He was attempting to swat her away with his oversized stone hands, but was unfortunately much slower than she was (as well as unintelligent). Whenever Raven found the chance, she would blast a large beam of her powers at him, but was left aggravated every time. Though her blows always seemed to bother him, they never appeared to cause as much damage as they normally did. Raven resolved that if she wanted to end this battle today, she would have to use attacks of a larger scale.

Building up her powers, Raven rose high into the air, far out of Cinderblock's reach. He made an attempt to grab and pull her down by her feet, but was again too slow to catch her. Once at a safe altitude, Raven took on her meditating position and focused her concentration entirely on the task at hand.

"Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos!" she spoke, shouting the last word. Two great beams of dark energy ruptured from her hands and went soaring outward. The beams majestically curved downward and plummeted toward the unsuspecting criminal below. Before they struck however, the two beams slowed down a bit and began breaking apart. By the time they reached Cinderblock, they were merely a cluster of small, weak bolts of magic, fraying out in all directions. A few of the bolts struck Cinderblock, pushing him over a bit. Most of the others darted away into the surrounding space and ran on until dissipating. Some however, turned straight upward and quickly made their way toward Raven.

"What?" Raven called out in confusion, right before her own powers struck her out of the sky.

Before she could recover, Raven found herself impacting the dense, unforgiving street. She skidded for a bit, then just lay in her spot for a moment, resting. That had hurt! Her entire body now ached with newfound pain. She would have bruises for weeks just from that!

Just then the ground shook, reminding Raven that she still had a job to do. She looked up to see Cinderblock, still relatively undamaged, making his way toward her. Her physical pain was suddenly replaced by anger; she had just used one of her most powerful attacks on this guy, and for some reason, it wound up damaging her more than it did him! She decided to end this once and for all.

"Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!" She shouted her mantra again. This time, her eyes glowed white, and her entire body was enveloped in black energy. The energy broke away from her and manifested itself into the form of an oversized raven behind her. Once the giant incarnation had fully materialized, it darted away from the fallen girl and made its way toward Cinderblock. Within a second, the great bird was upon the villain. Cinderblock never had time to react; the attack plowed right into him. With one last bellow, the massive rock-man fell down into the surrounding asphalt and shook the area.

For a moment, Raven watched Cinderblock's struck-down figure with bated breath. When, after a minute or so, he still didn't stir, Raven conceded that he was officially down and out. She looked around to see where she could provide aid. Her eyes first set on the towering shape of Plasmus, who happened to be locked in combat with Beast Boy…

The changeling, in the form of a pterodactyl, was flying around his enemy trying not to be dissolved by the streams of acid erupting his mouth. So far, the only offensive plan Beast Boy had come up with was to graze Plasmus's gelatinous body with the tips of his wings. Though these attacks served to cause a bit of pain, as well as momentary inconvenience, they never resulted in lasting damage. As time went on, Beast Boy became increasingly aware of this and decided that he needed a new strategy, and quick.

The green pterodactyl swooped down to the ground, resuming the human form of Beast Boy once it landed. The comparatively small teen glanced up at the Plasmus's gargantuan body. Beast Boy concluded that it would not be advisable to remain his current size. Taking on the form of a large rhinoceros, he let out a roar and charged at one of Plasmus's lower legs. By putting in a great amount of force, Beast Boy managed to obliterate what part of the creature's leg he could reach. Red goop splattered everywhere, and Plasmus began to lose his balance. However, he managed to remain standing by using the nearby buildings as a temporary support system.

Beast Boy began to charge at Plasmus's other leg, hoping that by doing so, he would put the criminal at a great disadvantage. To his dismay though, before he even began moving again, the scattered clumps of slime started reassembling themselves. Within seconds Plasmus's leg had completely reassembled itself. Beast Boy grunted, realizing that his idea wouldn't work as long as Plasmus could rebuild himself. He had another plan, but it could be risky if not executed properly, not to mention gross.

Morphing into a pterodactyl again, Beast Boy took to the sky. He quickly made his way behind Plasmus so as not to be seen. Then, he glided away from Plasmus at a distance that he judged would be appropriate. His plan was this: fly straight at Plasmus's midsection, hopefully gaining enough speed to go straight through and knock out the small man within, thus ending the battle.

Turning around, Beast Boy flew straight at the unsuspecting Plasmus, who fortunately still had his back turned. As he continued gliding, he gained more and more speed. It looked as though his plan might just work. All of a sudden though, Plasmus became aware of the changeling's impending presence. He screeched and let out a long jet of thick acidic fluid. The suddenly surprised Beast Boy had no time to react. The fluid came straight into contact with his left wing. He slowed down dramatically and his flight pattern was significantly altered. He plunged into the horrible beast, but because of his decreased speed, did not have enough momentum to get back out again.

"Beast Boy?" Raven murmured, having witnessed most of the battle up to this point.

Stuck inside Plasmus's sticky body, unable to move or breathe, Beast Boy began flailing about rapidly in an attempt to escape. His efforts proved futile however; his enemy's body would not relent. Becoming pressed for oxygen, the frantic teen began changing into random shapes. An elephant, a walrus, a lion…none of them helped him. As his lungs strained for air and his consciousness finally began to leave him, his flailing slowed, as did his shape shifting. It seemed there would be no getting out.

"Get out" Raven said to herself hopefully. "Come on. Get out of there!" Settling that Beast Boy really was stuck, Raven began hurrying over to the towering Plasmus to help.

Beast Boy, in his final moments, attempted one last method of getting out. If it didn't work, it would be up to someone else to get him out of this mess. Right before passing out, the changeling shifted into the form of an electric eel. Apparently, the usually dense teen knew at lease something about science, because his plan worked out admirably. The electric current spread from his body into Plasmus's like a wildfire. The gel around him was instantly repelled away by the electric current and Beast Boy's dazed, nearly unconscious body was flung out into the air again. Plasmus went reeling as his pained body fell to the ground in a paralyzed state. Beast Boy, in his disoriented state, mechanically resumed human form as he plummeted toward the solid ground.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Added 10/26/05
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raven, who had finally arrived, immediately took to the air to catch the fallen changeling before he could hit the tough, unrelenting surface of the street. Just in time, she caught his falling body, and gently lowered it to safety. He was conscious, but just barely. His breathing was very light, almost inaudible, and a good portion of his body was covered in red slime.

"Beast Boy!" Raven shouted, shaking his body lightly.

"R…Ra…" Beast tried to utter before coughing up a mess of red slime. Raven concluded that he must have inhaled part of Plasmus while being stuck inside him. Using her empathic abilities, she mentally felt around in Beast Boy's body. There was a foreign liquid in his lungs, and a lot of it, explaining why he was having difficulty breathing. Placing her hands on the boy's torso, she prepared to help him.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" Raven uttered softly. With that, black sparks engulfed Beast Boy's midsection. In one swift movement, they shot up from there, past his lungs and throat, where they dissipated. Immediately, Beast Boy shot up from the ground and began retching masses of crimson goo. After a moment, he ceased vomiting and was merely coughing. Raven took this as a good sign, because if he could cough, that meant that his airways were, for the most part, cleared. When Beast Boy had finished convulsing, he opened his eyes and turned toward Raven. His vision was a bit blurry, but he could tell that it was her.

"Rae?" Beast Boy spoke, a bit out of breath. He gently shook his head to settle his eyesight. When he looked up, his eyes locked with Raven's and he noticed an unfamiliar look on her face. She looked concerned, and even more noticeably, scared. "What…what are you doing?"

"I was…healing you," she spoke with unintended tenderness.

"Yeah but, your hands…" he said, looking down. Raven followed the direction of his eyes. Indeed, her hands were exactly where she had placed them in order to heal him, gingerly wrapped around the changeling's stomach.

"Oh! Sorry!" she said suddenly, pulling her hands away from Beast Boy's abdomen. "I didn't mean…"

"It's okay." He said calmly. His voice sounded significantly less exasperated, as though he was regaining his energy. Slowly, he maneuvered his lower body around to face Raven. She was no longer touching him, but they were still quite close. "Uh, thanks…for healing me, I mean." Beast Boy held his hand out to her.

'Oh great, BB. That's not awkward at all' Beast Boy thought to himself once he did so. To his surprise though, Raven put her hand in his and shook it, seemingly ignoring the lack of grace of the gesture.

"Heh, yeah…" Beast Boy laughed embarrassedly as he removed his hand.

"Wait! Your hand, it's—"

"Yea, heh, sorry, I know that was kinda dumb"

"No, I mean, it's clean. There's no slime on it, or anywhere."

"Oh. Dude, you're right! Where'd it all go?"

"I don't know…" Raven trailed off. Suddenly, there was a screeching roar and a loud rumbling sound throughout the air. The two sounds seemed to be coming from different sources and their mix made it hard to decipher what or where they were. However, the two teen heroes didn't have to look long. Both broke the gaze they had been holding with one another and looked up. Behind Beast Boy, Raven saw, Plasmus was reassembling himself and rising. Likewise, Beast Boy saw that Cinderblock too had risen as was running at them behind Raven.

"Lookout" they shouted simultaneously, both pointing at the villains they could see. They both darted up and ran in opposite directions. Raven readied her powers and flew at Plasmus. Beast Boy, essentially healed, morphed into a falcon and sped away to attack Cinderblock.

While all this was happening, Robin was still regaining his state of mind. Gizmo's previous electric attack had left him dazed and paralyzed. His vision was blurry, and the only thing he was really aware of was the fact that he was on the ground. He groaned and shook his head, trying to regain what he could of his vision. After doing so, he became vaguely aware of a figure looming over him. Though he was unable to completely make out what exact details of the figure, it was enough for him to realize that he was about to be impaled by Gizmo. At the very last second, Robin did what he could to swiftly roll his body over and out of the way. Gizmo's sharp limbs came down, but missed Robin and slammed straight through the asphalt.

Gizmo tried to pry the suit's appendages from the ground, but couldn't. Also unfortunately for the villain, Robin had now fully regained consciousness and was more than capable of attacking. From his utility belt, Robin prepared a set of bird-o-rangs. After taking careful aim, he thrust them at his stuck adversary, slicing right through the protrusions of Gizmo's suit. No longer attached to the supporting appendages, Gizmo fell to the ground, almost completely disarmed. With no useful weapons left, the boy was left with only one option: run. Gizmo didn't get very far though before Robin had pulled out his grappling hook and shot it at him. The rope shot out, and before Gizmo knew it, his body was wrapped up in rope, and he wasn't getting out.

Meanwhile, Cyborg was close to defeating Mammoth. He had already knocked the giant man down the street with his sonic cannon, and intended to knock him out quickly before much more time passed. Cyborg ran up to the stunned villain and, before he had time to stand up from the previous attack, punched him square in the face. Cyborg attempted to punch him again, but had his fist blocked by Mammoth's hands. Using the power struggle their hands were in as a distraction, Mammoth reached his foot up and forcefully kicked Cyborg away. Cyborg landed on the ground a few yards away. Once he got up, he was met by a punch from Mammoth. Luckily, it was the metal side of his face, but it still angered him.

"All right, that's it! I didn't wanna do this, but now you've pissed me off!" Cyborg shouted, charging his sonic cannon again.

"You already shot me with that thing. It didn't work." Mammoth taunted.

"It will this time!" replied Cyborg. Satisfied with the weapon's power level, Cyborg shot it right above Mammoth.

"You missed me" Mammoth laughed.

"Yea well, I wasn't aimin' for ya." Cyborg taunted back, a smirk building on his face. With that, the large sign on the building behind them came crashing down. It landed right on Mammoth, squashing him into the ground.

"Ya don't mess with the king baby! Yeah!" Cyborg cheered as he walked away from the hopelessly knocked out villain.

Down the street a bit, Starfire was laying on the ground after being struck by Jinx. The witch, having the upper hand for the moment, raised her hands and sent a wave of hexes at Starfire's fallen form. Starfire let out a scream as the attack knocked her further down the street. Rather than staying down though, the Tameranean girl rose and quickly flew into Jinx, tackling her to the ground. Jinx grabbed Starfire's arms and flipped her over so she was being pressed into the ground. Starfire struggled a bit, then prepared her starbolts and blasted Jinx off of her.

The witch was flung nearly a block away and crashed into forcefully into the ground. Before she even had a chance to get up, Starfire was above her, flinging starbolt after starbolt at the villain. She never stood a chance. When Starfire ceased attacking and the debris cleared out, Jinx was officially out.

With that, the only villains left to defeat were Cinderblock and Plasmus. Raven was able to combat Plasmus much more efficiently than Beast Boy given her powers and the fact that they didn't require her to touch her enemy. She conjured a shield in front of her to block a spew of acid from Plasmus's mouth. Once the stream of liquid ended, she compacted the shield into a projectile of sorts and flung it at Plasmus. It went straight through his head. Like most other attacks aimed at the monster though, it was more of annoying than effective. His body was completely reformed within a second.

Deciding that the only way to defeat Plasmus would be to knock out the human at his core, Raven prepared to unleash her soul self. Dark material appeared all around her body, then shot out toward Plasmus. On its way, the dark energy materialized into a shape similar to that of Raven's body. Raven's soul self connected with Plasmus's body and drove into it. When it came out, it was carrying a small, sleeping human. When it laid the young man down on the ground, Plasmus withered and shrunk until he was completely disappeared.

All the while, Beast Boy was taking down Cinderblock. He was doing considerably well considering the condition he had been in just moments before. In the form of a pterodactyl, he was darting through the air around the giant villain, attempting to confuse him. Once Beast Boy had sufficiently perplexed Cinderblock, he flew high up into the air. At an adequate altitude, he ceased flying and took on the form of a whale. Immediately, his now large body began plummeting toward the ground. As Cinderblock noticed the increasingly large shadow appearing around him, he looked up, only to be crushed into the ground by a large, green whale.

Beast Boy resumed his human form and surveyed Cinderblock's unconscious body. Concluding that he was indeed out cold, Beast Boy ran off to find the others. From the relative silence in the area, it appeared that all the other villains had been defeated, including Plasmus. He turned the corner and found Cyborg doing the same thing he was.

"Hey Cy! Where is everyone?" Beast Boy called out as he approached Cyborg. The metal man turned around.

"Oh, hey BB. I dunno. I've been tryin' to find one of y'all. You found anyone yet?"

"Nah. Just you." The changeling replied. "Robin and Star are probably off makin' out somewhere. Heh."

"Haha! Wouldn't surprise me." Cyborg laughed. He then cringed and covered his nose. "Man did you use any deodorant today?...or this week?" Beast Boy scowled.

"Dude! It's not my fault Plasmus smells like ass!" he protested.

"Ah, say no more." Cyborg conceded, immediately understanding at the mention of Plasmus. "Let's go find the lovebirds, and hope that when we run into 'em it'll be PG rated."

"Wait, is that them down there?" Beast Boy asked as he pointed to two people down the street. One looked like a tall girl with fiery red hair, and the other looked like a boy who had been on fire.

"Maybe." Cyborg replied. "Could just be the civilians comin' back. Let's go check it out." The two boys ran down the street to the other two people. Sure enough, it was Robin and Starfire.

"Dude, what happened to you?" Beast Boy asked Robin. His clothing looked charred and his hair was standing on end as though full of static. "You look like you tried to go swimming with a toaster."

"Gizmo." Robin sighed. He took a sniff of the surrounding air and winced. "What happened to you?"

"Plasmus." Beast Boy sighed. Nobody further questioned the matter. "So where's Rae?"

"Hm. My scanners say she's three blocks and a left turn after that corner." Cyborg replied. "Let's go get her."

Down the street and left of the bank, Raven was in her meditative position waiting for her soul self to return from Plasmus and back to her body. However, there seemed to be some problem (as was apparently the norm lately). Her soul self didn't seem to be responding to her control; it simply wouldn't budge. This served a great problem. A great part of her consciousness was contained in her soul self. Therefore, she didn't have sufficient control over her body to move the two back together. And because of whatever problem was occurring now, she couldn't move her soul self back to her body either. If she was unable to gain control over either part of herself, she would either have to wait for one of her friends (who would be clueless as to what to do) or stay separated this way forever.

All of a sudden, Raven's soul self dissipated and shot back toward her body. She reabsorbed the entity and gently floated to the ground. When she fully regained consciousness though, she found that she had a splitting headache. It felt as if a piece of her mind had been ripped out. When she looked over at Plasmus's human body, she noticed another entity walking toward her. It was a translucent silhouette of herself that was emanating a sort of purple-violet glow. The silhouette approached her and held her hand up to the light, evaluating its reality. Putting its hand down, the silhouette then stretched her arms out, as though it had been cooped up for quite a while and was glad to finally be free.

"What…what are you?" Raven questioned. The entity before her didn't answer. It merely turned its head a bit and stared intently at something behind her. Soon after, unbeknownst to Raven, Beast Boy came from around the corner behind her, followed by the others. The silhouette began smiling, almost beaming. Noticing the changed emotion on its face, Raven turned around to see what had brought it about. All she could see though was the other Titans, Beast Boy at the front. She turned back around to question the entity as to why it was smiling at them, but then found that it was gone. Dually noted, so was her headache.

"Friend Raven! What is it that you are staring at?" Starfire called to her. Raven shook her head and turned around, deciding to add the previous occurrence to her growing 'things-to-figure-out list'.

"N-nothing. Can we go?"

"Yep." Cyborg replied. "The T-car's just over that way."


The Titans were in the T-car, driving back to the tower. Cyborg was driving, with Robin in the passenger's seat. In the back, Starfire was seated in the middle, with Beast Boy to the left and Raven to the right. Starfire was constantly chatting with Robin, while Beast Boy was being mysteriously quiet. Raven, silent as usual, was gazing out the window, lost in thought. Her powers had been screwing up all day and she was getting extremely tired of it. Not only could it indicate a serious problem within her mind, but if left uncorrected, it could hurt people. And now, she had the added problem of the entity that had been left behind when her soul self dissipated. Plus Beast Boy…

Raven was snapped out of her thoughts when the car jerked to a stop at a red light. Already looking out the window, she noticed that the streets were already packed with people again; it never took long for people to come back out once the villains were defeated. On the sidewalk next to them, Raven noticed a couple sitting on a bench. The young man had dark blonde hair and well-tanned skin. The girl he had his arm around had nearly black hair and much fairer skin.

As Raven watched them, she couldn't help but feel a bit jealous. She had never really pictured herself as one to have a boyfriend, but ever since she experienced the feeling first hand with Malchior, she decided that it wouldn't be that bad. It wasn't exactly her first priority, but as long as she managed to keep her powers under control (and make sure he wasn't really a dragon), she could at least give it a try. However, with her constant job as a superhero, she never really had time to meet anybody. It wasn't like she was Starfire, with a potential boyfriend sleeping under the same roof as her. At the current rate, the only guys she would have a chance with were Cyborg and…. She wouldn't even entertain the thought.

The light turned green and the T-car continued its journey home. As Raven spared one last glance at the couple on the sidewalk, she, for some reason, imagined small fangs protruding from the lips of the smiling young man as he held his girlfriend in his arms…


The doors to the Titans' common room opened and the five teenagers entered.

"Okay, I get dibs on the shower, and nobody is saying otherwise" Beast Boy protested. Nobody argued. It had become an unofficial agreement in the tower that whoever dealt with Plasmus was automatically allowed first shower. Plus, everyone had just had to ride all the way home in a car with Beast Boy, and had no desire whatsoever to smell him anymore.

Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg exited to the hallway to go to their respective bedrooms. Beast Boy followed in order to retrieve a change of clothes. Raven however, chose to stay in the kitchen. She had left one of her books lying on the counter and decided to catch up on some of her reading while making some tea.


Twenty minutes later...

Raven poured her now finished tea into a cup and took a sip of it. She sighed in relief at its subtle taste and warmth. Placing it back on the counter, she picked up her book and resumed reading where she had left off.

After a few moments of blissful silence, the doors from the hallway opened and Beast Boy, smelling clean and with still dampened hair, exited. He had changed into a fresh uniform and felt completely cleansed of all filth. Raven however, sighed inwardly, knowing that with him in the room her chances for further silence were now slim to none.

"Oh, you're here." Beast Boy startled upon entering the kitchen.

"Yep" Raven replied, not even looking up from her book. "So, are you…okay?" she asked, not wanting to be completely rude.

"Huh? Oh, yeah…fine. Good as ever." Beast Boy answered awkwardly.

"Great." She said, returning to her reading. To her dismay, Beast Boy didn't move from his current spot. "Did you want something?"

"What? Oh! Yeah. I just came to get a…uh, sandwich. Gotta eat, ya' know."

"Uh-huh."

Beast Boy took out the bread from one of the cabinets and placed it on the counter. He took out two pieces and put it away. After retrieving the peanut butter and jelly, all he needed was the silverware, which happened to be in the drawer behind Raven.

"Uh, hey, Raven? I kinda need a uh…knife." He said, walking over the Raven. She wordlessly conceded and scooted over toward the sink. Beast Boy opened the door, only to find that there were no knives left.

"Crap!" he said.

"What?" Raven asked.

"There's no more knives." He replied.

"Oh." Raven said, uninterested. Beast Boy leaned across her to check the clean side of the sink for a knife. In his haste to get his hands on some silverware, he was completely unaware of how close he was to Raven, as well as the fact that he practically had his arms wrapped around her; one was hanging on to the counter by his bread, and the other was on the her other side, in the sink. Raven scowled at how he was crowding her and moved her book out to a position away from him.

Finally, Beast Boy found a clean knife and took it from the sink. He leaned back over and moved to go back to the plate where his sandwich-to-be was located. On his way back though, he bumped his head into Raven's book, knocking it out of her hands. This caused him to drop his knife as well. The two objects struck the floor in a loud, staccato 'bang' and a resonating 'ding'.

"Beast Boy!" Raven protested.

"Sorry! Sorry!" He said. He picked her book up. "Here." She accepted it, but was still annoyed that her reading had been interrupted. To make sure it wouldn't be knocked away from her again, she grasped the book in both hands and held it out away from her at a distance where she could still read it, but Beast Boy wouldn't bump into it.

Beast Boy bent over again to pick up his knife. Once he got it, he rose again and found himself in between Raven and her book, surrounded by her arms.

"Oh…" he said, taken entirely off guard by their positions.

For minutes, neither of them dared to move. They simply stood there, staring at one another. At one point, they simply lost themselves in each other's eyes. Again, Raven found herself overcome by that inexplicable desire to be as close to him as possible. Every one of her other senses was completely overridden, as she pulled closer to him. He moved his face towards hers too, tilting his head a bit.

Their faces met. She moved her lips against his own. He placed her hands in her hair. Neither of them had any idea why they were doing what they were, or why they wanted to so badly. All they knew was that it felt good.

In the heat of moment, Raven wrapped her hands around his neck, completely forgetting about her book. For the second time, it struck the floor, resulting in a quick, resounding pop.

Instantly, the two were brought back to reality. They flung their arms off of each other and pulled away, gasping for breath. For whatever reason, something finally clicked inside Raven's mind. All the puzzle pieces put themselves together. The mystery emotion she was suppressing, the strange emotion in the purple robe, her powers, the purple, glowing entity from her soul self and that feeling she always seemed to get whenever she was close to Beast Boy.

Everything that Knowledge had said to her made sense. Raven had finally figured it out. And she was mad. She was going to have a talk to end all talks with her emotions. She stormed off toward the hallway leading to her room, leaving her book on the ground beside Beast Boy. She was extremely frustrated with her emotions, so she didn't notice that as she left, an onslaught of black sparks and destruction was left in her wake…


Author's Note: Well, I think I basically covered everything I needed to say in the AN at the top. Merry Christmas, sorry it took a while, thanks for the reviews, and CYA.

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416