Final Destination

By

Teen Tyrant

Chapter 3: Cheating Death

Raven awoke with something she had never had upon awakening before: a feeling of anticipation. She and Beast Boy were going to go to the café by the park this morning. For some reason, she was really looking forward to that. Not only so she could talk about the weird feeling she'd had all day yesterday and the vision she'd had, but also because… well, because she would technically be on a date. With Beast Boy.

Only a few months earlier, the idea would have made her cringe, or maybe even chuckle at how ridiculous it sounded. So why should she actually feel a little excited about it now?

Getting up out of bed, she realized that the weird feeling she'd had in the pit of her stomach all day yesterday was still there. That feeling that something was coming. She had no doubt that what she had felt coming yesterday had been the terrible fate she had seen befall her and her friends in the vision she'd had, but she had managed to stop that from coming true. The fact that the feeling was still there made it even more ominous.

Raven decided not to let it bother her for now. She had an appointment to keep. Opening her closet, she took out an extra leotard and cloak and headed for the shower.

------

In the living room, Beast Boy was pacing nervously. He couldn't believe that he had asked Raven out yesterday, without even knowing that he was doing it. And she had agreed, that was the most amazing thing!

Raven had been getting a little more lenient with him lately, but he just figured that she was starting to soften up after the whole thing with Trigon. Having been afraid of her destiny all her life, she had now passed what was supposed to be her destiny and was now free to do with her life whatever she wanted. So of course she wouldn't be quite as irritable as she was in the past.

But thinking back on it now, he realized that she had only started to soften up with him. With the others, she still behaved in the exact same way that she always had. But she had stopped threatening to throw him out a window so often, had stopped insulting him on every occasion and had even listened to a joke or two, here and there. She didn't laugh, but at least she paid attention to him. Saying yes to a technical date yesterday had been the latest example. What did it all mean?

He stopped his thinking and pacing as the living room doors opened and Raven stepped out. She looked at him.

"Are we still going to talk over that cup of tea?" she asked.

Beast Boy nodded nervously. "Uh, sure. If you still want to."

Raven stared back at him for a moment. "Okay, lets go." she said, walking to the elevator. Beast Boy followed her, still amazed that she was again agreeing to go, just like that. She was definitely acting un-Raven-like. As he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor, a little bit of the Raven he knew spoke up.

"You're buying."

------

About twenty minutes after Beast Boy and Raven departed the tower, Robin and Starfire entered the kitchen. The first thing they noticed was that their friends were absent. They didn't know where Beast Boy and Raven were, and Cyborg had run into Robin in the hall, telling him that he had already eaten breakfast earlier and was going to work on the T-car down in the garage.

With his friends gone, Robin felt that this was an opportunity that he should take. If what Raven had said was true, then his whole team had almost died yesterday. With this thought in mind, Robin had begun thinking about life and death last night. Having dealt with the death of his parents, and the death of the Gotham City official that had occurred because of his actions, he knew that life was quite a fragile thing.

There was something that he had wanted to do since the team had formed, and now, realizing that his life was fragile and could end at any point, Robin knew that he did not want to die without doing that one thing. He wanted to show Starfire that he loved her. He had kept that a secret, not only from her, but from himself in a way, since they'd met.

But after yesterday's events, he didn't want to waste another day that he could have with her, and he wanted to be with her. So he was going to take that opportunity and use it. Today. Deciding that now would be as good a time as any, he cleared his throat.

"Starfire?". Starfire ceased looking through the cupboards for something to eat and turned to him.

"Yes Robin?"

Swallowing his nervousness, he continued. "Would you like to go out for breakfast this morning?"

Starfire tilted her head to the side. "But Beast Boy and Raven are absent, and Cyborg has already had the breakfast." she said, confused.

Robin cleared his throat again. "I know. I meant, just me and you."

Starfire's eyes went wide. "You mean… like a date?"

Robin's pulse went up to phenomenal levels. "Um, if you want to think of it that way… yeah."

Her eyes started to sparkle. Helen of Troy's beauty may have launched a thousand ships, but Starfire's smile at that moment would have brought them all back. Robin almost melted.

"I would love to accompany you one a breakfast date, Robin." she said softly.

Heart rate climbing even higher, Robin smiled in return. "You would? Cool. Uh, we could go now, if you-". Before he could finish, she had grabbed his arm and interlocked it with hers.

"Yes, I would like to go now." she said, giggling that wonderful giggle of hers."

Robin nodded, and the two walked, arm in arm, to the elevator.

------

At the café near the center of town, Beast Boy and Raven sat at a table near a window. Since neither of them had eaten breakfast back at the tower, they had both just gone ahead and ordered breakfast.

Having now finished, they sat in silence for a moment, both just staring at their empty plates. Beast Boy finally decided to be the first to bring up the subject that this little "date" was about.

"So Raven, exactly what happened yesterday?"

Raven took a deep breath, preparing to tell him the whole story.

"Well, when I woke up yesterday, something seemed… wrong. I didn't know what; I still don't. I had this feeling. This weird feeling, like something was off with the world around me, but in some unperceivable way.

I tried to meditate, but then my bedroom curtains started to blow from a breeze. There was something weird about the way they were blowing. Like hands reaching out for me; like something was coming. Something bad.

Then, when I went into the kitchen to make some tea, and I started to drink it, for a moment…" She trailed off.

Beast Boy was leaning forward, totally caught up in what she was saying. He tried to get her to keep going.

"For a moment… what?" he asked, anxiously.

Raven looked up into his eyes. "For a moment, it looked like the bubbles in the tea formed a skull." she said, watching his eyebrows shoot up in surprised reaction to this, and she held back a giggle. That actually looked kinda… cute, his eyebrows going up like that. She stopped that thought, wondering where it came from, then she continued.

"I went into the living room and tried to watch TV, but everything that was on showed planes crashing in mid-air. Pearl Harbor, King Kong, it was freaky. And every time the planes hit, I felt that weird feeling again. Then you and Cyborg threw those paper airplanes and they hit each other, right in front of me. And that's when the feeling was strongest.

When we went to go help Titans East against that robot dragon, it was like everything was normal at first. Then, when we got close to the amusement park, and the seagulls flew off of the boardwalk, that's when it happened. I saw the dragon change course, and so did the Titans East ship. It flew right at us. I saw the wings hit each other. Starfire and Speedy died. Then I saw Robin get hit with a piece of metal. Your compartment's bubble shattered and it… cut you. Cyborg's display exploded. I detached my compartment and tried to get away, but the T-ship exploded.

My ship started to fall. I saw the East T-ship hit the Merry-go-round and explode. I was about to hit the haunted house, when suddenly, everything was back to where it was before the seagulls took off. And that's how I knew it was going to happen." She took a deep breath after finishing this and looked at Beast Boy.

His eyes were really wide and he looked a little pale. He gulped and spoke.

"Dude. That is the freakiest thing I've ever heard in my life. And you know I've heard some freaky things."

Nodding, Raven continued. "And this morning, that feeling was still there. Like whatever it was, it isn't over yet."

Beast Boy looked back at her, trying to show some hope on his face to brighten her up.

"Hey, everything's going to be okay. You saved us once."

Raven was about to respond, when suddenly the music for a news report came on over the television that was mounted on the wall over the counter of the café. They both turned to look at it, since it probably had something that they might need to hear, being superheroes.

The news anchor lady began her report. "It is a tragic time for those who lost their loved ones yesterday at the tragedy of the amusement park. But three families that were also at the park yesterday and did not lose anyone are suffering their own bizarre tragedy today. Early this morning, local cabinet installer Charlie McDean, awoke after an explosion rocked his home. Upon entering what remained of the kitchen, he discovered the charred body of his wife, Cheryl, who appears to have accidentally ignited a gas leak in the kitchen stove.

Mr. McDean then rushed into his room to wake his three-year-old daughter Elizabeth, only to receive another shock. Young Elizabeth appears to have had a seizure during the night and choked on her own tongue. Both Cheryl and Elizabeth McDean were present at the amusement park yesterday and had witnessed the calamity from the Merry-go-round, but sustained no injuries.

In a bizarre coincidence, two young boys also met tragic ends this morning at Jump City West Elementary School. Matthew Thomas and his best friend Jake Berkerski died this morning in the school library room when a large bookshelf mysteriously fell on top of them as they were walking by. The school's librarian states that nobody was climbing on the shelf or that anyone pushed it, stating that the shelf just seemed to fall all of a sudden. Young Thomas and Berkerski were also witnesses to the disaster at the amusement park yesterday, but were also unhurt.

This unusual case of amusement park survivors dying the following day has local authorities baffled. Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased."

Raven and Beast Boy stared at the TV with their mouths hanging open in shock. Beast Boy turned and looked at Raven.

"You said that you saw Titans East hit the Merry-go-round, right?" he asked.Raven nodded. "What if this isn't over? What if you were not supposed to change the T-ship's course and save us? What if we were supposed to die yesterday… and that by cheating death, we've angered something? Something that wants to make everything right. Finish off everyone who should have died yesterday and lived. The people at the carnival. The Titans East. Us."

That all made sense to Raven. She now a something to apply this weird feeling to. The feeling that Death was coming. Not death, but Death,a cosmic force, the cause of death that resulted in the effect of life leaving the mortal body. Raven had made them all cheat Death yesterday; the Titans, the Titans East, those people at the park.

Four of them had already died and- Wait! Raven took out her communicator and dialed up Titans Tower East.

"Titans East, this is Raven of Titans West, are you there? Please, pick up?" No answer. She looked up at Beast Boy, seeing the realization dawn on him. Without saying a word, they both stood up from their table and left the café. Outside, Beast Boy turned into a hawk, but Raven wrapped him in a bubble of dark energy.

"This is faster." she said. Enveloping herself in the bubble, she commanded it to take them to Steel City. The bubble zipped off, changing into a shape like a giant bird, a raven.

------

Robin and Starfire were walking along the sidewalk. They had gone to breakfast and after finishing, had decided to walk through the city for a while until they reached the bay again. Coming to a bench bolted into the sidewalk, Robin decided that he could hold it back no longer. He had to tell Starfire how he felt. Having made the decision to do so earlier that morning, the urge to do it had grown stronger seemingly every minute, until now he could no longer take it. He stopped walking.

"Hey Star, would you like to sit down for a minute?"

Starfire nodded. "Yes. Let us rest for a moment." she said, sitting down on the bench.

They both looked away from each other, despite wanting to look each other in the eye, both of them nervous, yet sensing that something important was about to happen.

The two apartment buildings behind the pair on the bench separated into an alley directly behind them. Stretching across this alleyway, from one building to another, was a clothes line. One end of the line was starting to break.

Finally, Robin looked over at Starfire. Summoning his courage, he decided to make this the moment.

"Starfire?" She turned to look at him.

"I… just want to tell you… um, you're really pretty." he said, feeling like he couldn't possibly be more lame.

Starfire's eyes shined like diamonds. "Really!" she asked in awe.

Robin nodded. "Yeah. In fact, you're… gorgeous. I've always thought so. I know I've never really said it, but I care about you. A lot. In fact I… uh, I…" He just couldn't get his mouth to say it.

Starfire was staring at him, reading his nervousness and anxiety like a book. He loves me! That's what he's trying to say! He's going to tell me he loves me! Seeing that Robin was uncomfortable saying whathe wanted to, she decided to make it easy for him and make him put it into action instead of words. Closing her eyes, she started to lean in towards him.

Robin's eyes widened in shock upon seeing Starfire's action, but after a moment to collect himself, he too started to lean in, closing his eyes as he did so. So this was how it was going to be. He was going to kiss her!

Behind them, one of the ends of the clothes line snapped off. With no clothes hanging on the line at the moment, it was very light. A sudden strong breeze came out of nowhere, blowing only through the alley. The other end of the line snapped and the whole length of twine came free. The breeze blew it out of the alley and into the open.

In the air, the twine coiled on itself once, making a loop in the center of its length. One end of the clothes line blew out over the street, slowly settling towards the ground. The other end came down sooner, having gotten out of the path of the breeze blowing through the alley. This end came down on the far side of the bench, where Starfire was sitting. The very end of it landed in the spot where the side of the bench met the seat, and it wedged itself in securely.

The other end was close to landing on the street when a car went zooming past and the twine got caught on its back bumper. Just before the laws of physics caused the car to pull the clothes line tight, the loop in the center settled itself over Starfire's head. It fell down over her head, past her lips, which were only half an inch from Robin's. With their eyes closed, neither of them saw this happen.

As the twine loop settled on her neck, the car that the line had got caught on pulled the line tight, cutting off Starfire's head in one clean tug.

No longer attached to her body, Starfire's head fell into Robin's lap. Robin opened his eyes and looked down, only to see Starfire staring up at him. Her eyes blinked once.

"AAAAAAHHHH!" Robin shrieked, flinging the head from himself and jumping up from the bench. As Starfire's headless body fell to the sidewalk, Robin backed into the street in shock and horror.

HOOONNNK! Robin turned in time to see a large truck coming right at him. He dove out of the way in reflex, landing hard on the sidewalk. The truck, which had tried to swerve and miss Robin at the last minute, smacked into one of the telephone polls that ran along the sidewalk on this street.

The pole shook and one of its cables broke away, falling to the sidewalk below. Raising himself to his hands and knees, Robin looked up in time to see the sparking cable fall toward him. The cable landed on his back, and Robin began to fry.

------

Arriving at Titans Tower East, Beast Boy and Raven set down on the tower roof. Opening the door to the inside, they both walked down the stairs and entered the hallway. As they walked to the living room door, they both saw something, two somethings, laying on the floor by the door.

Then the smell hit them. It wasn't a bad smell, really. It was bad, but not bad as in awful. The bodies had not been dead for even twenty-four hours yet. No, that smell was blood. Without ever even having to smell it, some human instinct instantly tells us what that smell is. And Beast Boy and Raven had both smelled blood before.

As they slowly approached, it became clear that the two things on the floor of the hallway were part of Mas Y Menos. The size made that clear. It was also clear, from the stain on the door, how this had happened. The door had sliced their bodies in two, sideways. The other half of them was beyond that door.

The question was, did they want to see the rest? If the two Spanish speaking brothers were just laying here dead and nobody had bothered to remove the bodies, didn't it stand to reason that the rest of the team was too?

Raven raised a hand and used her power to open the door, which was without electricity. Stepping carefully around the two dead young heroes, Raven and Beast Boy stepped into the living room, the horror beyond making them both grow cold and pale.

The front halves of Mas Y Menos, laying face down.

Speedy, also laying face down, several nails lying around him, appearing to have been stuck with others that were in his front side.

Aqualad, laying on his back, an arrow going through his forehead and poking out the other side.

Bumblebee, laying on her stomach, her head turned to the side, a large tear in her throat.

And the carpet stained deep crimson, all around the five bodies.

"Death came for them." Raven took a deep breath, tried to hold her gorge back, then lowered her head and said a silent prayer.

Beast Boy looked away from the bodies, his arms and legs quivering.

"We're going to need to tell the authorities. Get some people here to… remove them." He said, hoping his stomach would hold his breakfast which he now regretted eating.

"I'll go see what's wrong with the generator. Maybe we can get the air conditioning going, get some air flowing through here to get rid of that smell." With that, Beast Boy went to the elevator, turned into a cockroach, and slipped through the elevator door.

Raven looked around at all of her deceased friends. She stared at Aqualad. He didn't look so handsome now. Shaking the thought from her head, she turned away.

Flash-

Beast Boy was examining the generator, not understanding a thing about it, so not knowing what was wrong. He reached over and pushed the start button, keeping it pressed down as the generator started to crank. It sputtered three times, then the portion right in front of Beast Boy exploded, sending metal shrapnel into his face, ending his life in an instant.

-Flash

Raven's eyes snapped open. It had happened again. Another premonition. And in this one, she had seen Beast Boy die!

Not wasting another moment, Raven passed through the floor and down to the cellar level, where she passed through the basement ceiling and landed behind Beast Boy, who was holding down the generator button.

"Beast Boy, no!" she screamed. Knowing that it was too late, she put up a shield of her energy in front of his face, just as the machine exploded with shrapnel in front of him. The metal shards bounced harmlessly off of the black energy around Beast Boy's head.

The energy retracting, Beast Boy turned to look at Raven with horrified eyes.

"Raven! You saved me!"

Raven wasn't listening to Beast Boy. She was looking at the ground and she began talking more to herself than Beast Boy.

"I saw it again. I saw it happen. If I see it happen, then I can intervene and prevent it! I saved you, so now maybe it has to move on, to the next part of the plan. The next person in line for the design, before it comes back around to you again. I don't know how I know that, but it makes sense. It must be my sorcery, giving me insight into this thing."

Beast Boy put up his hands. "Whoa, Raven, hold on. It came for me, Death tried to take me? And you think its going to go after the next person now? Who's that?"

Raven looked up at him finally. "Cyborg. Then me."

Beast Boy's eyebrows went up. "Isn't that the order you saw us die in yesterday?" Raven nodded. "Then, if it just tried to kill me, and next is Cyborg and then you, then what about…"

Raven's eyes went wide. "Robin and Starfire! In the vision, they died first! First Starfire, then Robin. So if Death just tried to get you-" she stopped in mid sentence and took out her communicator again. Dialing the tower, she prayed for a response. She got one.

"This is Cyborg. Oh, hey Raven. What's up? Didn't see you or BB this mo-" she cut him off.

"Cyborg, where are Robin and Starfire? It's urgent!"

Cyborg checked his sensors. "That's funny. They're not in the tower. Looks like their signal is coming from somewhere downtown. Well, Star's is. Robin's communicator isn't putting out any kind of signal. Must've got damaged somehow."

Raven and Beast Boy both looked at each other an almost succumbed to panick. Raven looked back at her communicator.

"Cyborg, go find them. Now! Beast Boy and I are heading back right away!" and she ended the connection.

That's all for this chapter. I know that they are figuring the whole thing out rather quickly, but the only point of this story is to kill some of the Titans, and since I've lost the Final Destination obssession that I had at the time when I first started this story, I decided to skip on details and just get to the death scenes so that I can get this story over with and move on. Next chapter is the last one, and with Death all around, I'll have Raven decide to just go ahead and admit that she likes Beast Boy. What's to lose, right? It won't be anything too romantic, since this is a horror story, but I'll try and make it warm and fuzzy enough to warrant at least one "awww" before the end. I'll try and do the next chapter this week and finish this story soon. See you then.