An Author's note: And now, my original tale of how Azarath came to be, what it really is, and who the heck is Azar! Oh, and I'm going under the assumption that Azar was female. You really can't tell form the name what the gender is, so I guessed (through the brilliant coin method!). It is probably so far off what happened in the comics that it will not be funny, but hey, this is originality, people!

Oh, remember back in chapter eight when I said I might be visiting grandmother for Christmas? Turns out the date was pushed to this week. I'll be going on fourth of January and be back on the fourteenth. So don't panic when I don't update with my usual frequency. I just learned that no she does not have internet. On the upside when I return to civilization I will update any and all chapters I write during this period. That is if I get any done without her trying to "improve" them (everybody! Shiver in horror at that prospect! It's not good!).

On with the show!

Chapter Twelve

Home

"You are not coming with me." Raven stated firmly. She was standing in front of her door after packing a small bag for her trip. Mithrah had been saddled as well, it was clear she was taking him with her. She had emerged to find her four friends and Jinx standing at her door, also ready to go.

"Yes we are." Robin said with his best I-am-the-leader-so-obey-me voice. It never really worked on Raven, for some reason. She glared at all of her assembled friends…and Jinx. They all had determined looks on their faces. It was clear she was not going to get far without getting past them.

"Robin, this is Azarath, not Tokyo. It's a purely magical dimension. Cyborg, how do you expect to survive there? What if you lose power? They don't have computers, they don't even have typewriters!"

Cyborg grinned and pulled out a small cylindrical device. "I made this portable power source, Rae! Complete mobile and state of the art! Enough here to last me a year!"

Okay, he had her there, but she kept trying with the others. "Beast Boy, Azarath does not have tofu. How will you eat?"

"Salads." Beast Boy said simply. There was no WAY she was going to leave him. If he had to live off carrot sticks he would stick by her side.

"Star-"

"No matter what you say I am coming, Raven. You are my friend and I will not leave you to face this alone." Her expression, usually so gentle looking, was now completely and utterly determined. Even Raven could tell that she would not be swayed.

"Robin, what about your duty to the city," she was sure she would get him here "what happens if Slade attacks and you are out playing in the Azarathian fields?"

"Kid Flash is staying, and some of the other honorary Titans have agreed to keep an eye on the city for us." Robin said. He did not even twitch at the mention of his arch nemesis.

"And don't even try to convince me not to go!" Jinx said "You're going to Azarath. Azarath! I always wanted to go there, and now I have a good reason."

"I don't need your-"Raven started, but Robin cut her off.

"Don't even start with that 'I don't need your help' garbage!" Robin grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a little bit, not violently, but still firmly. "You always do this every time you are in trouble. You start with these I don't need anyone attitude and you go off and try to handle everything yourself. Not this time! I'm tired of standing back while you try to go and do everything yourself. We are your friends, Raven. It's time you stopped being so selfish and let us help."

"Selfish!" she almost screamed.

He went on as if he did not hear her. "When one of us has a problem who is always there for us? You are. But you never let us be there for you. That's not going to happen now. We are going with you even if I have to handcuff you to Beast Boy to keep you with us!"

Raven glared at him. She could tell that this was a battle she was not going to win. Admitting defeat, she looked down at her feet she muttered something that might have been the word "Fine." Accepting that for what it was, Robin let go of Raven and smiled at her.

"So, when are we leaving?" he said.

"Now, since I can't teleport anymore we'll have to take a different route to get there. But we have to get there by noon. Unless you want to wait for midnight?"

"Huh?" Cyborg looked confused.

Raven signed. Honestly, did she have to explain everything? "Right below this tower is a portal that can lead us to Azarath," she said "but in only opens at noon or at midnight. Some sort of weird magical rule."

"Oh." Cyborg still looked a bit puzzled and he had a feeling that he would be getting more puzzled for the entire trip "I'll bring up the T-car and-"

"No cars." Raven said with a scowl.

"What! Why not?" Cyborg looked appalled.

"One: because the car won't fit in the hole we have to go down. Two: no gas stations. Three: there is no way you are letting that gas-guzzling thing into my nice pollution free dimension." Raven replied as she started walking down the hall toward the elevators.

"Hey! My baby doesn't guzzle gas!" Cyborg objected loudly, but Raven paid him no attention. "I don't believe this! She gets to bring her vicious, bloodthirsty horse with her and I have to leave my baby!"

Cyborg grumbled and grumbled, even when they had exited the tower he was still grumbling. No one paid that much attention to him. They were to busy wondering what Raven's homeland was like. They had already seen Starfire's home, but no one really had any clue what Azarath would be like. Would it be as dark and foreboding as Raven herself was? What exactly was a magical dimension like? And for that matter how were they getting there?

The answer to the last question came when Raven approached a large bush that grew against the side of one of the seaside cliffs near their home. She gently pushed the bush aside to revile a cave. She was right about the T-car, it would never have fit through this hole, and in fact it was barely big enough for Cyborg himself. The cave looked dark and nasty, so Cyborg switched on his shoulder light. Raven went in first, followed by Cyborg so she could see where she was walking. Mithrah was beside them, growling at Cyborg in warning at various intervals. Then came Robin, Beast Boy, Jinx and Starfire took up the rear. After a moments thought she lit up her own hand with her starbolt energy, for better visibility.

As they walked in the darkness the unicorn's words came back to Robin. Finding out more about Raven's past would be difficult, because of her closed nature, but he thought if he handled it right he could do it. Maybe he should start now, but with a question that was not to intrusive.

"Raven?" He began "What exactly is Azarath, anyway? You keep saying it's another dimension, but I don't really understand what you mean."

For a long moment there was silence, and Robin was afraid that she was simply going to ignore the question, but then she spoke.

"You know what a binary planet system is?"

"It is two planets that orbit each other around a common center of mass not within either planet." Starfire said, confusing Beast Boy and Jinx, neither of whom where science majors.

"Well, Azarath is kind of magical binary planet with Earth. The place is literally right next to us, like the moon, but you can't see it with radar or scanners because it is placed just a bit off of this Earth's spherical border."

"Earth's…what?" Robin asked, now completely confused.

Raven sighed "Let's just go with the fact that it is closer to Earth than you think, alright? I really don't want to try to explain magical theory right now. I'll just tell you how Azarath came to be. Rember back at the musem when you asked me about the Purging, Cyborg?"

"Yeah." He replied.

"Well, the Purging was a period in magical history when the Order of Scath tried to drive of the independent magic users of Earth, and any magical creature that did not follow them. They were basically trying to "purge" the world of anyone who did not worship Trigon as they did. Opposing them was Azar, one of the last First Dragons to live here. She had many followers as well, and they opposed Scath along with her. And no, he was not in Flario's body at that time, then he was in the body of a huge sea serpent.

I'll not go into every single detail, but basically over time Trigon's followers turned most of the normal people of the world against magic users and magical creatures. Fearing extinction they begged Azar to send them away to another dimension. You see they had been fighting Trigon for a long while, and even the most violent among them wanted peace.

One of the most ancient and powerful artifacts the First Dragons left behind were the Worldgates, a system that allowed the Dragon's access to each and every world they had ever been to. Azar proposed to send the refugees through this planet's Worldgate. Unfortunately Trigon got wind of the plan, and attacked Azar just as she was opening the gate. The two items necessary to open the gate were destroyed and gate was closed forever.

Azar was pretty old at the time, long past the age where she should be fighting, but she knew if she did not than the people gathered around her would be murdered by Trigon, so she fought to defend them. She managed to destroy his sea serpent body, and banished his spirit to the Demon Dimensions, where she hoped he would be trapped for all time. She was wrong, but it worked for a while.

However, during the battle she was mortally wounded, and was dying. The Order of Scath was still determined to destroy those who opposed them and she knew that the people she had saved were still in danger. With her last breath she…darn I don't know how to explain this! She used her own soul to create a new dimension connected with Earth for the magical beings to live in peace, Azarath."

"How…how did she do that?" Beast Boy asked his eyes wide.

"I'm not to sure. People say that dying First Dragons can do amazing things at the time of their deaths. It's not something that most people understand, so I'm not even going to guess at it." Even in the darkness they could see Raven shrug.

"So Azarath was created from a dragon's soul?" Robin asked.

"Yes." Raven replied.

A long silence, then Cyborg asked. "What happened to the Order of Scath?"

Raven grinned sarcastically "They were destroyed by a new religion, Christianity. Strangely enough the Spanish Inquisition actually managed to do some good, even though they killed a lot more innocent people than they did evil ones."

Nothing more was said as the others pondered this particular irony.

(An Author's interruption: Yes I am a Christian. No I do not approve of the Spanish Inquisition. I just thought it would be a cute irony if I put that in here.)

Finally after a few hours walking around in a dark cave amongst the bats they finally arrived at a circler chamber with a large silvery pool of water in the middle. Robin guessed that this was their destination. It looked mystical enough. He was relived. The only good thing about a cave was the bats. Robin had a special reason for liking bats. He had seen several of the cute little things, harmless fruit bats, on the way there (A/N: no matter what anyone tells you bats are cute! Bats are nice! I love bats. Bats eat a certain bloodsucking insect that spreads malaria; you know what I'm talking about! Now Batman is not my favorite superhero, but I love the creatures he is named after.). In his eyes it was always good to have a few bats around. However he could tell that there were no bats roosting in this part of the cave. They must know something he did not.

"Cyborg what time is it?" Raven asked.

"11:50" he replied, checking the clock on his arm.

"Okay, everyone gather around the pool. In ten minutes the portal will activate and we'll be pulled into Azarath. Nobody struggle or try to fight it. It won't do any good and you will just hurt yourselves."

Robin approached the pool, looking into it with fascination. He could see his reflection and the reflections of his friends in the deep pool. It looked bottomless, and just a bit ominous, but at the same time beautiful and entrancing. Again Robin wondered what Azarath would be like. He did not have long to wait. Suddenly the pool's calm waters began to swirl like a whirlpool, slowly at first, but faster and faster as the minutes passed. Then the water burst up from the pool in a huge swirling column that stretched to the ceiling. The water ran along the ceiling, then the walls, the pushed the Titans into the icy depths of the whirlpool.

It felt like a giant hand had gripped Robin and was pulling him through the water portal. He tumbled and rolled and twisted as the water rushed him toward Azarath. He tried to follow Raven's instructions and go with the flow, but soon the instinctive fear of drowning set in. Desperately he tried to at least right himself, but soon he felt something hit him on the head, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

Robin groaned. He could feel the sun on his face and grass beneath him, but he was a bit confused from the blow to his head. He guessed that he was alive, even though his head felt like Cinderblock had sat on it. He felt…a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes and stared into the gentle brown orbs of…

A squirrel?

"You idiot." Said a familiar voice. Robin looked over and stared at Raven. She was giving him a disgusted look. All around her were various small animals. Birds, mice, squirrels, weasels, cats, and a few others. Some of them were even perched on top of her. She didn't seem to mind them, and acted like this was a common occurrence.

"Next time I tell you to do something when it has to do with magic pay attention." She growled. "You could have gotten yourself killed, not just hurt."

"Raven? Why is there a squirrel on my chest?" Robin asked, not paying attention to her scolding.

"My mother. She's a Beasttalker. She makes friends with animals. These are some of them." Raven shrugged, sending the little sparrows that had perched there fluttering.

Robin looked at the squirrel, which cocked its head and chattered at him. "Umm, how do I get him off?"

Raven rolled her eyes and shooed the squirrel off Robin's chest.

"Where are the others?" he asked as he climbed to his feet.

Raven pointed behind them. Robin turned and saw the rest of his team…playing with the animals. Jinx was stroking a cute little fawn with a look on her face that Robin had never seen before. It was the type of look that all girls get when faced with sheer cuteness. Beast Boy had turned into a wolf cub and was playfully wrestling with some real wolf cubs. Cyborg was feeding grubs to a pair of sleepy looking badgers, and Starfire was holding a huge skunk and was petting it like you would a cat. Robin's mouth dropped open as he looked at all of this. They were supposed to be a superhero team, not kids at a petting zoo!

"Taking up a fly collection?" Raven asked. Robin closed his mouth.

Starfire was the first to notice that Robin was awake. She bounded over to him, the skunk still in her arms.

"Oh, Robin! Is this not the most adorable little creature! Robin what is wrong?" Robin jumped away from his girlfriend, his eyes glued on the skunk.

"Star, that's a skunk!" he said.

"Oh stop that." Raven rolled her eyes. "That's Thorn. I used to play with him when I was little. He won't spray you."

Robin was not convinced. He stared at the little black and white thing, who looked right back at him and yawned. Robin noticed the way Starfire was gazing at the skunk, and he did not like it.

"Robin," she started "can we-"

"Star, we are not taking that skunk with us!" he said with an appalled look. First worms, then horses and now skunks? It was not going to happen.

"He is right we are not." Raven said firmly "Star, that skunk is one of my mother's familiars, we are not taking him back to the tower. Familiars should stay with the people they are connected to."

"Oh," she said, disappointed "Still he is very cute."

"I suppose he is." Raven said with an odd look in her eyes. It looked like…guilt? And sorrow? "Well we better get going. And bring Thorn, Arella will want him back." She said and she did not look at the skunk again.

"Um, where are we going?" Cyborg asked.

"The Temple. It's not far from here." Raven replied as she started walking away, Mithrah trotting beside her. Robin and the others followed her, taking a moment to survey the scenery. Robin had expected a dark and dreary place, but what he was actually in was big forest. He could even see a nice bright sun out peeking through the treetops. It had almost the same feel as the one that the unicorn had lived in, an untouched and unspoiled feeling. He could not help but like the place.

"Careful of the edges." Raven said.

"What edges?" Robin asked, and nearly fell over one himself. At one point the trees and the grass and the earth itself just kind of…stopped. At first Robin thought he had reached a cliff, but then he looked over the edge and saw nothingness. A gigantic void that was completely black and empty except for stars (A/N: think Nevermore, only with sunlight and none of Raven's emotions running around.).

"That" Raven pointed downward "is the Void. When Trigon came inside Flario's body he caused a lot of damage. He created huge holes in Azarath itself. The place is still kept together by magic, but if you fall you'll end up going down forever. Be careful."

Robin gulped. The possibility of falling into THAT did not appeal at all. He would defiantly have to watch were he stepped.

Raven walked along the edge toward what looked like a big bronze bridge. Robin saw that it connected to an asteroid shaped and sized rock with a city on it. A huge building dominated the place. The whole city looked like it was made out of bronze. Robin was impressed. Was this where Raven had been raised?

"Raven? Is that?" he asked.

She nodded "Yes, that's where I was born."

Cyborg was in awe. This place was cool! The buildings were just as big as the ones in Jump city, but they looked as if they were all made from bronze instead of concrete! Did magic make all of this? The thought made him both uncomfortable and impressed at the same time.

The city itself was nice, the people inside the city…that was a whole other story. For one thing Cyborg had never seen so many different races in the same place at the same time. People with horse bodies and the upper portions of a human (Centaurs), people with the head of bulls (minotaurs), short little guys with goat legs (satyrs), thing with the head, wings and talons of an eagle but the body of a lion (griffins), bipedal bird people (made them up, no name for em yet), cat people, dog people, people with pointy ears (elves), small guys with beards (dwarfs) and even some normal looking humans. It was not the strangeness of the people's appearance, however, that made Cyborg a bit angry, it was their attitudes. To be specific it was the attitudes directed towards Raven.

Now a few people seemed nice. They kind of nodded at her, said how nice it was to see her again and walked off without really looking at the others or commenting on their presence. A few simply nodded at her politely. However, there were a few of them who literally crossed the street to avoid her, and most of them had disgusted looks on their faces, as if they were looking at a dog that had just peeded the carpet. Cyborg's mechanical hearing picked up some really nasty comments as well, even though the people making them were whispering. Said comments went something like this:

"Filthy half-breed, what is SHE doing back here?"

"Trigon's bastard, why did she come back?"

"The Matron was a fool to let that THING live!"

Cyborg's big metal hand balled into a fist. How dare they say those things about Raven! As if she didn't have it hard enough! He wanted to go up to some of those jerks and teach them a lesson and right now. And Cyborg was not the only one who heard the whispering and wanted to do something about it. Beast Boy looked ready to shift back into the Beast and tear someone up. His ears were laid back like an angry dog's. He was grinding his fangs and his eyes burned with anger. Raven noticed this.

"Don't pay attention to them, they aren't worth it." She said to both of them.

"Don't pay attention! Do you know what they are calling you?" Beast Boy stared at her, still angry.

"Talking does not bother me, just as long as they don't go into a mob." She said. "I've heard all of this before."

Far from making him calm, this statement instead made Cyborg all the angrier. How much of this did she put up with before she came to Earth? The need to hit some of those jerks was almost overwhelming, but he did not succumb to it. He didn't want to get in trouble with the local authorities, even though secretly he thought that it might be worth it.

Finally they came to the gates of the huge building in the middle of the city. Cyborg assumed that this must be the Temple. It was certainly big enough. At the gates were two armored guards who looked extremely bored about their jobs. On of them was human, while the other looked a bit like a two legged human sized weasel. The human paid them no attention, but the weasel guy smiled, at least Cyborg hoped it was a smile.

"You're back Raven! Welcome home. Who are these people?" the weasel guy said.

"These are my friends, the Teen Titans. I've been working with them since I left. Care to let us in, Orlus?" Raven replied.

"No problem." Orlus nodded, then a look of concern crossed his face. "Although you probably should not stay long. Dralor has been getting more and more upset with your actions by the day. He's not here now, but…" the weasel guy trailed off and gave Raven a significant look.

"So he still hates me?" Raven asked. Orlus nodded. "Should have expected that. Oh, well, we should be gone by the time he gets back. Where is the General?"

"Where he usually is at this time of day." Orlus said as he opened the big gate "Nice to see you again, Raven!"

"Friend of yours?" Cyborg asked.

Raven shrugged. "Not really. We trained together a little bit. He's okay, but I don't know him that well. He's more like an acquaintance. We know each other but we are not close."

The inside of the fenced compound looked like a grassy park. Randomly dotting it were large trees, not enough to make a forest. There were just three or four of them, but they were pretty big.

Cyborg heard the sound of metal clanging against metal. They were approaching a small circular dirt field. Inside the dirt field was a group of young people apparently practicing swordsmanship, and they did not seem to be doing to well. Standing outside the circle was a tall skinny looking guy with sharp pointed ears and a disgusted expression. Cyborg had been around enough coaches to recognize that this guy was one, and the people he was training were not living up to expectations.

Raven walked up behind the coach guy and said "Wow, how many years have you been trying to train Yurel over there? And I've been away for how long? Either you are losing you touch General, or that boy is just dumb."

The General looked at Raven from the corner of his eye. "Hmm, is that a ghost talking to me? Must be; after all Raven is supposed be dead. That's what everyone kept telling her for years. Or can it be that the idiot General was right instead of the high and mighty priests?"

"You don't have to rub it in." Raven growled.

"Oh yes I do. I'll be rubbing it in every time I see you from now on." The General said. His voice kind of reminded Cyborg of Slade's, but it did not have the evil menace in it. It was just a calm, cool voice that didn't sound like it was easily agitated. It was what Slade would have sounded like if he was not so evil.

The General finally seemed to notice the others. He looked at them as if evaluating them for weaknesses. "Who are these…Earth people?" he asked Raven.

"The Teen Titans, my friends." Raven said.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" The General raised an eyebrow, for a moment looking exactly like Raven herself when she made that particular gesture. "Did you just say what I think you said?"

"I believe I said friends. You're not losing your hearing are you?"

"Let's see, and you once said you would never have more than three friends. Here I am counting five of them." The General gave Raven an amused look.

Raven opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a voice that said "It's that half-breed again! What are you doing here, half-breed? Come to finish the job daddy started?"

Raven winched, and the General stiffened in anger. He turned to the owner of the voice, one of the people he had been training and snarled "This is not your conversation, Yurel. Stay out of it."

"I just wanted to know why she is showing her ugly face here again. Dirty little bastard half-breed shouldn't-"

Cyborg and Beast Boy had had enough. Both of them shouted in anger and then punched Yurel in perfect tandem. The guy went flying, and might have made it all the way to the other side of the city if the wall had not been there. Unfortunately he was wearing armor, so he was not hurt to badly. In fact, now he was mad at Cyborg and Beast Boy, as well as insulting towards Raven.

"That was not fair, they ganged up on me and laid a sneak attack-"

"And do you expect every opponent to nicely tell you when they are about to strike? You are a fool, Yurel, and this proves it. Why I even bother with you I will never know." The General shook his head in disgust.

"You two! I challenge you!" the insulted young man bellowed and pointed at Cyborg and Beast Boy. "Let's see how you Earth scum do in a fair fight!"

"Bring it on Captain KKK!" Beast Boy said, driving his left hand into his right fist.

"Wow, that one was actually somewhat amusing." Raven said in perfect monotone.

"If that was his best I would hate to hear the worst ones." The General replied in the exact same monotone. Raven nodded.

Yurel picked out a wooden sword and squared off with his two enraged opponents. Cyborg decided to be nice and let the moron make the first move. He discovered that, while Yurel used the same style as Raven did, he was not even close to as skilled as she was. After fighting with Raven for a few days Cyborg was familiar with this way of fighting, and he knew that he could kick this guys butt, even if he had only been fighting with one arm and no legs. With Beast Boy by his side there was no question that they would win.

It was, in fact, very sad. First Cyborg gave Yurel a shove, and then Beast Boy turned into a kangaroo and kicked him back to Cyborg who would shove their victim back to Beast Boy. They repeated this pattern until Cyborg grew bored, then he grabbed Yurel in a headlock and dragged him around the dirt circle with Beast Boy biting at his legs in the form of a wolf. Then Cyborg rearranged Yurel's face with great joy, while Beast Boy gently chewed on his arms.

"Hmm, absolutely no elegance or grace at all in their styles, but still they are so effective." The General said.

"You should see them when they are not playing around." Raven replied.

In the end Yurel was tossed out of the dirt circle, not really damaged, but so bruised and battered that he could not move. Cybog and Beast Boy left the circle, dusting off their hands with satisfied expressions on their faces. Beast Boy paused for a moment and leaned down to look at his fallen foe.

"And the next time you insult Rae like that, I'm going to show you why part of my name is 'Beast'" He then lifted his lips exposing his fangs, leaving no doubt to what he meant. No one was dumb enough to mistake that for a smile, Beast Boy was bearing his fangs and everyone knew it.

He approached Raven, a look of both pride and trepidation on his face. Pride in the fact that he had struck back at one of her tormenters, trepidation because he had a feeling that she would not like being treated like a damsel in distress. Raven for her part was confused. This was the first time anyone had done something like this for her. She did not know what to do about this. For some reason she felt pleased that Beast Boy had tried to protect her, but she had no idea why this thought sent little tendrils of joy throughout her entire body. She stared into Beast Boy's eyes and felt a sudden urge to hug him, or kiss him…

Or…

But before either of them could say anything one of those goat legged people ran up with an excited look. He ran straight up to Raven and panted "High Priestess Raven?"

She nodded. She knew what this person was. A messenger from the Council. The thought made her stomach churn.

Just as she thought, the messenger's next words were "the Council wants to see you."