Let me guess, you're probably expecting another witty comment about how I don't own the Teen Titans. Yeah, well…I'm out of them. So just enjoy the story:

'Have you ever felt...

The future is the past,

But you don't know how?'

-Dream of Mirrors, Iron Maiden

Titan's Tower was an abandoned ruin. Its once gleaming walls of crystal glass had long since been shattered, the beams that were its skeleton exposed and rusted like the rotted wounds of a corpse. The thrashing wind playing with her cloak, Raven stood in what had once been the Titan's living room.

Toes gracing the edge of the absent window, she stared vacantly at the lashing black waters of the bay. It was not the fiery hell her father had created when he had arrived.

In her opinion, this was far worse.

A thick blanket of clouds eternally hung over Jump City, shutting out the sun and damning the city in an everlasting night. The once grand skyscrapers were nothing more tombstones now for a dead, silent city. Lightning blacker than midnight- obviously the work of sorcery- sporadically burst from the sky to the horizon; the clouds grumbled their thunder.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" a familiar voice asked.

Arrayed in elegant armor of ebony, Malchior approached Raven from the deeper ruins of the tower. A grin creased the black veil of cloth that masked his lower face; slanted eyes of emerald jade were bright with wicked delight as his long silver hair writhed as a thing alive in the wind.

Horrorstruck, Raven glanced to the remnants of the city back to the treacherous dragon that had broken her heart. "Malchior…you did all of this?"

"You flatter me," he laughed. "But it is not I who is responsible. All you see before you, Sweet Raven, is your doing."

"What?"

Standing beside her, the dragon swept out a pale hand, indicating everything that could be seen to the horizon. "This is your world. This is your kingdom of corruption and darkness."

Raven shook her head; tears of dismay blurred her violet eyes. "No…no…no! This can't be happening! This can't be real!"

"What's done cannot be undone," the darkness stirred behind her.

The speaker was a lithe thing cloaked and hooded in black. It leaned back comfortably, imperiously seated in a regal throne of carved wood. Raven beaks and raven faces grinned from the throne's armrests.

"Who are you?" Raven asked it.

Its face may had been hidden beneath the shadow of its cowl, but Raven could tell it was smiling knowingly. "I am insidious, impartial, deep inside your chromosomes. I am the cancer in your bones…"

Raven's eye widened when it raised its head. Four thin, crimson eyes flashed underneath its hood. "The Titans are slain by my hands; more men have died to me than all the nation's wars! This world is mine!"

Raven stumbled back from the thing, feet dangerously close to the edge.

Like looking through a twisted looking glass, Raven recognized herself seated on the raven-throne.

"I am the prison for your soul."

Losing her footing, Raven tumbled over the edge. Titan's Tower seemed to grow taller as she fell, the unseen ground racing closer to her back.

And then the world shattered.

She stood in a clearing of white marble, the crumbled remains of Azarath slept around her. The Great Elder Priests of Azarath perched themselves in a semicircle before her in the form of aged white birds.

You have returned, a large owl said.

Welcome back, said an eagle.

Why are you here? Growled the hawk with an annoyed puff of his feathers.

"I don't know," Raven admitted.

Trigon the Terrible is no more, the eagle said. Be glad, little raven, for you are at last truly free.

Indeed, a falcon agreed.

You called upon the name of the Monks of Azarath in your battle with your Father, the eagle said proudly. You may have been odd and different amongst us, but we still raised as one of us.

The hawk craned his head irritably. Trigon is not the True danger here! Even without her father, this girl remains a danger to us all!

Trigon not the True danger? A sparrow gasped.

Trigon decimated millions of worlds in his realm! The owl dissented. She saved the Sphere of mortals from the same fate!

Exactly! Replied the hawk. Raven banished Trigon herself! If her power is great enough to defeat him, what else can she be capable of?

True, the falcon concurred.

Even when they were dead, the Elders were still annoying. "You know," Raven put in monotonously. "They have this strange custom on Earth where it's rude to talk about someone like she's not even there."

Impudent as always, the hawk grumbled.

Raven narrowed her eyes. "I am not my father," she insisted.

We have reason to believe otherwise.

The branches of your destiny are thin and perilous, said the owl grimly. Too easily can your thread spin into sorrow and death.

" 'And oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths. Win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence.' " Raven quoted.

The owl tilted his head in puzzlement. Earth literature?

"Macbeth," Raven explained. "It warns against trusting too much to prophesy. The prediction I would be Trigon's doorway may had come true, but in the end, my friends and I still defeated him."

You have grown wiser, the sparrow observed.

"Oh, but come now, Raven. Do you really think you'll slip past your destiny so easily?"

Raven spotted another bird above her. A vulture dug his talons into the broken peak of a dilapidated tower. Above Raven and the elders, it stared down at her, its right eye gray and blinded by a long, jagged scar that ran down it. Raven's gaze met the vulture's working eye; a wide, dark pupil that gleamed shrewdly.

"When the time comes, you will betray your friends," Slade hissed. "And you will be helpless to stop it."

"NO!"

Raven shot awake, sweating and panting heavily. The birthmark from the Order of Scath still burned on her forehead, the blazing pain already spreading into a massive headache. It was then Raven realized she was sitting in an unfamiliar bed, the nauseating smell of antiseptic chemicals immediately pointed to the infirmary. There was no sign of her friends in the dark room, most likely they had left her alone to recover. Shoulders feeling uncomfortably bare, Raven spied her cloak draped over a chair near her bed.

Swinging her feet off the bed, Raven teetered as stood up. The Mark seemed to be slowly smoldering itself out, but her head still throbbed.

With a light flourish, she swung the cape on her shoulders and fastened it. Pulling the hood up, Raven considered it an improvement, at least. She had always considered the cloak a kind of barrier, something that separated the world from her; it helped the sorceress kept a proper grip on her emotions.

Resolving to bear through her headache, Raven left the infirmary in search of her friends.

The door silently slid itself open as Cyborg stepped into the Titan's living room. Starfire and Beast Boy sat tensely on the couch as Robin paced the room with his hands behind his back.

"I checked up on Raven a little while ago," Cyborg announced, the Titans glancing up as he spoke. "She's still sleeping."

"What about the disk?" Robin demanded.

"Did a thorough diagnostic, no signs of a computer virus or any suspicious files. It's just a pre-recorded message." Tossing the small disk to Robin, he snatched it out of the air without looking. The Boy Wonder's eyed narrowed at the disk's 'S' insignia.

"Three guesses who sent it."

"Slade…" Robin growled.

"Well come on, dude!" Beast Boy urged. "Play it!"

Feeding the CD into a slot on their TV, Robin crossed his arms as the rest of the Titans gathered around the screen.

The static snow flickered away, Slade's enlarged face glared down at them. "Hello Titans," he greeted evenly. "It's simply been too long."

"What did you do to Raven, Slade?" Robin shouted at the screen.

"Chill out Robin," Cyborg said. "It's a recording, he can't hear-"

"Don't worry, Robin," Slade assured him coolly. "I wouldn't go so far as to permanently damage such a promising girl. Raven will be perfectly fine, soon enough."

The boy's eyes narrowed behind his mask's lenses. "What are you planning to do to her, you maniac!"

Slade chuckled. "And ruin the suspense? Not likely."

Cyborg gawked. Slade was having a conversation with Robin through a video recording. "Oh this guy is good…"

"Enough formalities," Slade said. "This is an invitation to a party I'm hosting, celebrating my Grande Retour. I'd like to let the Titans know you're all invited."

"I've got a feeling Slade's idea of a party doesn't involve tofu-cake," Beast Boy remarked.

"We're not playing your games, Slade," Robin said defiantly. "No thanks."

The video-Slade shrugged. "The choice is yours, Titans. I so do hope you attend; if not for me, than for Raven's sake."

The Titans stiffened at the veiled threat to their friend.

"You have three days," Slade informed them.

The screen went dark. Message delivered.

Unnoticed by her teammates, Raven stood in doorway, eyes apprehensive.

"We will see each other again in three days," Slade had told her. "When the time comes, you will betray your friends, and you will be helpless to stop it."

Wearing her expressionless mask, Raven's cloak rustled as she sharply turned and stalked to her room.

Meh. Admitingly not my best writing, but this chapter was a tad more difficult to write than usual. Ironically, that thing with the birds was actually from a dream I had, even the whole one-eyed bird thing. Except a few of the birds wanted to eat me, I flew in clouds high above the mountains….then I shot all the geese I could with a rifle, 'cause the other birds don't like geese.

Yeah……there's a reason I'm in therapy.

heh.

Alright then, I'll see you guys next update. Feel free to include any questions or comments in your reviews if you wish, I'll be sure to answer best I can.

Thanks for reading,

-Cy