Debts No Honest Man Can Pay

by AMZ-C-Raven

The Titans are called to the scene of a bizarre crime, and encounter a powerful magician. But Raven suspects that there may be more to this man's actions than meets the eye.

3. The Revelation

Here you go, Chapter 3, and things are getting interesting. I'd like to take this moment to thank everybody who's commented/reviewed so far! It's so great to hear some positive feedback!
I don't own the Teen Titans, etc. etc. etc. Enjoy!

Chapter 3: The Revelation

It was the middle of the afternoon in Titan's tower, and tension had crept into the room like a black cat.
Cyborg and Beast Boy sat on the couch, watching television and saying nothing, occasionally exchanging glances.
Robin sat before a computer screen, endlessly analyzing data. There was a glint in his eyes so hard it could shatter glass.
Starfire sat at a table reading a book of traditional Tamaranian poetry, trying to be as oblivious as possible to the uncomfortable silence in the room.
Raven sat by the countertop, sipping a cup of herbal tea, her mind miles away. The television was the only sound anybody heard, but nobody was really paying attention to it. It was white noise, static, sounds in the background.
After an hour of awkward apprehension, Beast Boy stood up and turned to face the rest of the room.
"Isn't anybody going to say anything?" he asked, scanning the room. Nobody looked up from their work. "C'mon, guys! We can't just be like this! We're a team, remember?" "Some of us remember better than others." muttered Robin under his breath.
"What was that?" shot Raven, an edge to her voice.
"Nothing. I didn't say a word."
"Fine. Be that way."
Beast Boy gave a nervous chuckle. "Uhhh... I've got an idea... we can play a game. Maybe that'll help?"
"No team sports. Raven doesn't like those." Spat Robin, looking up at Beast Boy finally.
"Nothing involving strategy. Robin doesn't seem to like to think outside the box." came Raven's retort.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Come on, guys..."
"What was that supposed to mean, Raven?"
"What was your little comment supposed to mean, Robin?"
"Guys..." Beast Boy felt like a referee in a boxing match.
"Maybe if you'd worked with us instead of on your own, we wouldn't have to wait for this mystery man to strike again before we could do anything."
"Maybe if we figured out who's really behind all of this, we wouldn't have to stop the "mystery man" in the first place! And his name is Grendel, for your information." Raven's eyes briefly shone red. She was doing everything in power to keep her anger in check.
"Will you guys..."
"Give up, BB." offered Cyborg.
"I don't care what his name is! He's an illusionist, Raven! He specializes in deception. Didn't you ever stop and think maybe it's all a lie? He's turning you against your own team!" "He's not turning me against my team. The only person who's "turning me" against anybody is you!"
"I won't stand for this!" Robin stood up quickly, knocking his chair over. "If you want to entertain conspiracy theories, that's okay. Just don't get in our way. Right, gang?" His mouth switched to a cocky smile.
The silence that followed was unsettling. Robin's features twisted into a scowl.
"Well, uh, Robin, man... we're not taking any sides. We just, uh, just think maybe you guys should cool off." came Cyborg's timid comment.
"Yes, Cyborg is right. We are all working towards the same goal, protecting the city. Maybe this period of remaining mildly cold will allow us to pursue this goal in a better manner." Starfire stood up and walked over toward Robin, putting her hand on his shoulder. Robin didn't move for a moment, then put his hand on Starfire's.
"Yeah, you guys are going psycho. Sure, Raven didn't follow orders. Sure, maybe this Grendel guy is being blackmailed or whatever. You guys are taking this wayyy too seriously and..."
"We're taking it seriously because this is serious, Beast Boy. I can't take this anymore!" screamed Raven, cutting him off. She promptly stormed out of the room.
Cyborg, Starfire and Beast Boy's eyes fell on Robin.
"What?" he said finally, clearly not pleased.
"Robin, man... Star's right. We're all working towards the same goal. Cut Raven some slack. She's just trying to help." Cyborg tried to sound as neutral as possible, not wanting any more tempers to flare this evening.
Robin was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he sighed. "Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. I get a little... obsessed sometimes. I'd better go apologize." He quickly jogged out of the room to find Raven.
Beast Boy clapped his hands together. "Thank God that's over with! I think we all need to relax. Let's start the game! I'm going to do an impression, and you guys have to guess who it is..."
"I am sorry, Beast Boy, but I am afraid I am not in the proper mood for guessing what human's identity you are stealing." confessed Starfire, floating off in a random direction.
"Yeah, sorry man. You wanna just watch some TV and chill?" offered Cyborg.
Beast Boy rolled his eyes. "Fiiiiine."

The sun was just beginning to set when the soldier spotted a man approaching the west gate. The man was approaching the chain-link fence that divided the military base from the rest of the city. He quickly trotted towards the figure, rifle at the ready.
As he approached, the man's appearance became more clear. He was thin, and had a long black-and-red cloak and a tall hat. Nervousness began to knot the soldier's stomach. He didn't like the looks of this guy.
"Sir, this is government property!" the soldier barked, aiming his rifle at the man in the cloak. "You must leave now, or I will be forced to detain you!"
Despite the threat, the man did not stir.
"Step away from the fence, sir!" he repeated, rifle aimed squarely at the thin figure's head.
The cloaked man raised his hands quickly, and the soldier's rifle shot from his hands and disassembled in midair. The pieces of the gun rained down harmlessly from the sky and onto the soldier's helmet, making soft 'clinking' noises as they bounced off and plopped on the ground.
"Go away." was all the figure said before turning his hands towards the fence. Within seconds the fence began to glow orange and split apart in a circular pattern, making a neat hole. The soldier stared in utter disbelief, first at the man, then at his own rifle in pieces on the ground, and finally at the hole in the fence. He turned and began to run.
"On second though, I can't have you alarming the others just yet." Grendel called to him, pointing a spread hand in the soldier's direction. A telekinetic aura grabbed the man and pulled him back to Grendel.
"Sleep." Grendel blurted when the man was close enough, and the man's eyes closed instantly. The thin man placed him gently on the ground.
"Now, to get this over with."

Alone in the darkness, her hood up and her eyes closed tight, the only sound Raven could hear was her own breathing. She had been on her bed meditating for several minutes now to calm down after the altercation with Robin.
Somewhere along the line, however, the line between meditation and dreaming became blurred. She felt strange, one moment feeling like she was falling, another like she was suddenly in a crowd of people. She heard weird voices that would change without warning. Above all was the continuing feeling like she was moving towards something, but what exacly it was she did not know. Maybe it was the lack of sleep due to last night's battle, maybe it was her achieving another state of consciousness. Whatever it was, Raven opened her eyes to find herself somewhere other than the Tower.
The only sound she heard now was the drip, drip, dripping of water droplets into a puddle. She examined her surroundings. She appeared to be in a muddy basement somewhere. The walls and ceiling were cracked and marked with holes of varying sizes. The dripping was coming from a cracked pipe slowly leaking water onto a slab of concrete in the corner. There was an opening directly across from her that she presumed had had a door at some point. Curious, she made her way into the hallway.
Fading sunlight poured through a window immediately to her upper left. In the left hand corner was a rotten wooden door. Raven tried the knob, but it was locked. She was tempted to simply destroy the door, but something in her pushed her to move along. She turned to her right, examining the corridor which stretched a good ten feet in front of her. At the end, there was another window, more signs of dusk, and another opening in the corner. This time, there was no door... but there was a light on inside. She decided this was where she was supposed to be going, so she made her way to the opening. She was more than surprised to see what was inside.
She could not figure out exactly what it was she was looking at. There was simply a large ball emitting an eerie yellow light. She entered the room and made her way towards it, feeling intensely drawn to the glowing sphere. As she got closer, she could make out a dark shape inside of it. By the time she was directly in front of it, she realized that the vague image was a human being. It looked to be a woman, her hair an incredible shade of red, her face slender, her body petite. She stared in awe at the figure, wondering just who she was looking at.
Suddenly, the woman's eyes opened, looking directly into Raven's. Raven gasped and heard a voice inside her head.
"Aeschere." was all it said.
"Is that... is that who you are?" Raven queried, her voice low, her eyes squinting against the light.
Without warning, three loud thumps were heard. Raven stepped back, maintaining eye contact with the woman inside the sphere. Everything began to become hazy and grey, and the image inside the yellow glow began to fade. Three more thumps were heard, louder this time. The entire building seemed to shake.
"I'll find you." Raven whispered as everything vanished before her gaze into a pure white void.

"Captain, this is Private Samson. I think you oughta come take a look at this." A soldier's voice crackled over the radio.
Captain Falconer picked it up and pressed the button to talk. "Where are you?"
"Up by the west end. There's a hole in the fence and we've got an unconscious soldier here."
Falconer swore under his breath before pressing to speak again. "I'll be right there. Don't move." He stood up from his desk quickly, stepping out the door and pointing to two nearby sentries. "You two, come with me." Weapons drawn, they climbed into a nearby jeep and made their way northwest.
Moments after their departure, a blue flash briefly lit up the Captain's room. Long fingers grasped a map on his desk, picking it up and unfolding it meticulously. Violet eyes scanned the paper before finally locating something.
"East Building Five, Sub-basement Two." muttered Grendel before returning the map to the desk and teleporting away once more.
Captain Falconer and his men arrived to find Private Samson propping up a dazed soldier.
"What happened, Private?" Falconer questioned the man laying being held up by Pvt. Samson.
The soldier coughed before looking up. "There was this man, this creepy looking man, in a cloak. And he... well it's kinda fuzzy, but..."
"Just spit it out, soldier!"
"Well, uh, he, uh, took my rifle apart without touching it, grabbed me without using his hands, and knocked me unconscious without touching me."
Captain Falconer blinked, a disturbed look overtaking his face. He scratched his chin for a second before finally speaking.
"I... see." He droned before picking up his radio and relaying the story to General Herman, the commander of the base. After telling him everything, there was a noticable pause on the other end of the radio.
"Sir?" asked Falconer, his voice loaded with nervous timber.
"Lock it down, lock everything down! Put everybody on full alert!" came the voice from the other end.
"Sir, yes sir!" replied Falconer.
"I'm not taking any chances, Falconer. Not with the project underway. I'm calling in some outside help. Herman over and out!"
"Over and out." replied Falconer. He turned to the two sentries. "You heard the man, let's GO! GO! GO! Lock down, people! Lock down!"
As the men above scrambled to secure the base, Grendel was cautiously making his way through a dim corridor in the second sub-basement.
'All this teleportation tires me out. Too much conflict, too much tension.' He thought to himself, coughing.
Grendel had had little trouble making his way to his target. A few unconscious soldiers lay hidden behind him, stuffed in closets or simply placed out of the way, the only evidence that anybody had been there. A few feet ahead was a large steel door with a large sign on the front of it--"PROJECT 42." Grendel smiled at his good fortune.
'I will be out of here in mere moments.' He thought. 'He will get what he wants, and Aeschere will get her freedom, and I will not have had to kill anybody. Especially not Raven.'
Grendel unconsciously bit his lip just thinking that name.
'This nightmare will have ended.'
Suddenly, the corridor went pitch black. Within a few seconds, eerie red lights came on. A low buzz pulsed every few seconds. A heavy steel wall fell in front of Project 42's door, sealing it shut. Grendel's hands balled into tight fists.
"No!" he whispered hoarsely before a blue flash enveloped his body and he disappeared.

Three more thumps. Raven's eyes shot open and she found herself back in her room, cross-legged on her bed. Just as she remembered.
"Raven?" came a voice at her door. Robin. She took a deep breath, and stood up.
"I'm coming." she said in a dull monotone, making her way across the dark room towards the door. Her hand touched the knob, and stood there for a moment. She took another deep breath, still shaken by both the fight earlier and the vision she'd just received. She opened the door as slowly as possible.
"What do you want, Robin?" she demanded, a bitter tone to her voice.
Robin looked taken aback. "Well... I... I..."
"You what?"
"I... I've come to apologize, Raven. I said some things out of anger that were uncalled for. I'm sorry I was so hard on you. I... I guess I got a little too obsessed. I was just... bothered by the fact that you acted on your own in such a dangerous situation."
Raven looked at the ground. She was still bothered by the way he reacted, but he seemed to be sincere in his words. "Yeah, well, I was okay, alright? I'm sorry I didn't act according to plan."
"I, I know that. But, please... blackmailed or not, we should be working together to solve this case. It's like Star said, we're all working towards the same goal. We're all trying to right a wrong. We were just using different methods." With that said, he smiled.
Raven's eyes quickly met Robin's before looking back at the ground. A brief smile flickered across her lips. "Star has an interesting way with words sometimes. But she's right. This isn't me saying I was wrong, though. This man is being blackmailed. It's the only logical explanation."
Robin stared at Raven's face, her eyes locked on the floor, her mouth a simple pursed slit. He scratched his neck, uncomfortable.
"Robin, I don't care if you don't believe me. Just promise me that... when we capture him... we listen to him. We give him the chance to tell his side. I don't think that's asking the impossible of you."
Robin gave a sigh. "Okay, Raven. You have my word. We'll give him a chance to explain everything. But if he is lying..."
"If he's lying, then I will be more than accomodating to whatever it is you want to do to him. Lock him up, throw away the key, let him rot. But I know, I just know, that someone has taken something very precious from this man. And that's why all of this is happening."
"Raven, how can you be so sure of all of this? Did he tell you?"
"No." For a brief second Raven could picture the eyes of the woman inside the glowing yellow sphere staring directly into hers. "It's just a feeling I have."

Grendel tried not to be distracted by the flashing lights, the alarms, and the sounds of the men trying desperately to open the solid sheet of steel he'd been able to easily teleport past. Well, not as easy as he thought. He was tired, and it was getting harder and harder to take the easy way out. He'd have to be careful.
Every now and again he'd hear a voice over the loudspeaker: "I don't know how you got in there, but you can't escape now! Come out with your hands up!"
He replied in the only way he found fitting. A demonic voice.
"GiVE mE WhAt i wAnt ANd I WIlL Go awaY!" he bellowed, more than loud enough to be heard on the other side of the steel slab.
He had no idea what kind of reaction he was getting, but he was hoping they'd just leave him alone. He knew they wouldn't just give up as easily as the police did. At this point, he didn't care. He was too close to his goal to just quit.
Like a man possessed, he searched the room, tossing filing cabinets this way and that, lifting boxes, breaking desks open. Finally, he found exactly what he was looking for.
A tiny blue crystal encased in a special clear box sat on a metal table in the corner of the room. Smiling, Grendel picked it up, admired it briefly, and placed it in his leather pouch.
"It is over. Finally." In a blue flash, both he and the crystal were gone.
Suddenly, he was seized with tremendous pain. Already tired, he completely lost control, and was overcome with a free-falling sensation. Disoriented and nauseated, he felt himself collide with something solid. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but a grey haze. He heard only one sound.
"Do you have it?" came the voice inside his head.
"Gahh... yes... yes..." he mumbled, barely audible. A hacking cough shook his body.
"DO YOU HAVE IT?" screamed the voice, the noise piercing inside his head, causing him to cry out in agony.
"YES! God, Yes!" he bellowed back, slowly trying to regain his senses.
"Good. Get it back here immediately." was all the voice said, and with another, shorter jolt of pain, the communication ended.
Taking several deep breaths, Grendel opened his eyes once more. He found himself outside, two blocks from East Building 5. He began to stand, wobbly at first, but he quickly regained his composure. A few more deep breaths, and he was ready to go. He knew he didn't have the energy to teleport, but he'd run back to the abandoned building if he had to.
His contemplations were interrupted by the sounds of heavy footsteps and shouting voices.
"There he is!"
"Don't move!"
"HANDS ON YOUR HEAD! NOW!"
Grendel turned slowly, coming face-to-face with eight heavily armed soldiers.
"I don't know how you got past us, mister..." began the man Grendel recognized as a Captain from his uniform.
The thin man exhaled and cut him off. "Gentlemen... you picked decidedly the wrong time for this nonsense."
His violet eyes glowing, he raised his hands, knocking soldiers into each other, flinging them to the ground, and tearing their rifles from their hands. He tossed the Captain into the wall of a nearby building, and sent the man directly behind him flying backwards twenty feet. Taking the opportunity, Grendel turned and sprinted towards the hole in the fence. It was his only chance.
Captain Falconer lay unconscious on the ground. His men were slowly getting to their feet, groaning in pain. A surly corporal, having just finished standing, surveyed the scene.
"That 'outside help' the Captain was talking about better get here soon." he grumbled.

Raven and Robin walked back into the main room together.
"Well, well, well. Have you two finally settled this?" queried Cyborg.
"Yes, have the hostilities ended?" asked Starfire, hope heavy in her voice.
"Yeah, we're cool. Right, Raven?"
Raven bit her lip and managed a smile. All she could see were those eyes, that flaming red hair. All she could hear was that voice. She knew this was the right thing to do for the team. But deep down, a tiny part of her felt almost like she was selling someone else short.
"Yeah. We're cool." she droned.
"Uh, you sure about that?" asked Beast Boy, scratching his head in confusion.
'Maybe it'd be easier if I just told them...' thought Raven, nodding briskly at the green-skinned lad's question.
"Is everything okay? I thought..." began Robin, a hint of fear underscoring his words.
"Listen, uh, there's something I feel I should tell you guys..." she began. Her words were oblierated by the loud blare of an alarm.
"It's gonna have to wait, Raven!" bellowed Cyborg as everybody made their way to the T-Car.
"Looks like our friend has struck again." yelled Beast Boy.
Moments later everybody sat in their proper seats, the tension and energy coursing through their bodies and seemingly radiating into the air.
Raven felt only butterflies and uncertainty. She had to talk to Grendel. Alone. Without disturbing her team mates. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and put on the best image of a heroine ready for action she could.
Robin slapped on his seat belt and pointed towards the windshield. "Titans! Go!"
"I thought you'd never say it!" yelled Cyborg, laughing and opening the garage door before zipping off into the night.

There you have it, Chapter 3. Chapter 4 will be coming soon! And, hey, keep those comments/reviews coming! Always appreciated. Thanks for reading!