IV

Connections

There was a distinct lack of lighting in the underground cavern. Some emergency lights still functioned in certain areas, but most places were pitch black. The one good thing was that a lot of the noise in the generator room was pretty much gone. The sudden stop of everything after the explosion had even Raven a little spooked.

When Raven had given her command, Beast Boy was over the intercom in no time. Raven had plugged the generator back in and flipped the switch. As she had gotten back, Starfire let a single starbolt fly into the machine. A split-second later, Raven created a barrier curved around their side of the device. Even with the protection of Ravens magic field, the boom was deafening. The underground room rocked with a massive force that threatened to start a cave-in, one that luckily never occurred.

The electro-magnetic pulse successfully traveled throughout the base. Other generators had blown out, lights went black, and the dull 'thoom' sound from outside the heavy blast door had completely stopped. Raven had slumped to the ground, finally drained.

It had taken another half-hour for Cyborg and Robin to make it to the other side of the heavy door. It was with Cyborg's help that Raven and Beast Boy were able to power the door and get it to crack open. Cyborg probably wouldn't have even been there to tap out—really, pound out—against the door in code the instructions for restoring power to the door itself if Robin hadn't come across him and the pile of malfunctioning drones. It had turned out the drones were E.M.P shielded as well. They just weren't shielded enough to withstand such a heavy and directed blast. Even the ones at the blast door were still whirring and twitching their limbs. One was crawling uselessly into the wall further down the corridor.

As long as they aren't attacking us, I don't care what condition they're in.

Raven watched as Cyborg did his best to try and restore power to the underground base as best he could, but Raven and Starfire had really done a number with the explosion they had caused. After a moment, Cyborg came out of the storage and generator room and made his way to the darkened map inside the control room. Raven could tell her was making mental notes of everything. Then he looked up at Robin. "Got the place mapped out, now. We can scope out the rest of it and see where our boy is hiding."

Raven didn't give a reaction, but Cyborg's comment brought up a thought she had been having since getting to the control room. Everything was organized, functioning and filled with drones. However, there was no ringleader to be found.

There was no Slade.

Even Robin seemed to take to this cue. Why would Slade set all this up and not even be here? Why wasn't he here, especially now that the Titans had shown up? Had he not expected them to find this place so soon? Certainly, the alarm Beast Boy accidentally set off must have been connected with Slade's person. He would have been warned and making his way to the base from wherever he was at this moment. Sooner, even—he should have already been there.

"Normally, I'd say split up," Robin said. "But, it's too dark, and we know too well what we're dealing with. I don't want to blow this!"

Robin began walking to the blast door. Cyborg was right behind him, his shoulder lamp up. Raven and the rest followed suit out into the cave-like hall. There wasn't much else to explore in the control room...now that everything had been shorted out.

They'd gotten out into the corridors when Cyborg turned to Raven and the others. "Just so you know, my electro-magnetic shielding is pretty tough. I would have been able to take that blast without shuttin' down."

Raven nodded. "We didn't know for sure. And we could only talk to you one-way." She looked at Starfire. "We didn't want to take a chance."

Cyborg sighed. "You should'a been in my position." Robin had told the team how he'd found Cyborg and the malfunctioning drone pile. Cyborg filled in with the last image he remembered before shutting down.

Not too pleasant a last memory. Raven suppressed a shutter, keeping her composure as she walked. At least it turned out not to have been the last memory Cyborg would ever have.

"Thanks, though," Cyborg continued, "I appreciate y'all lookin' out for me."

Raven smirked. "Don't mention it."

"Agreed!" Starfire added in. "You would have applied the same reasoning if it were one of us."

"Yeah, what are friends for?" Beast Boy finished. "Um...just to let you know, it wasn't my idea."

Cyborg laughed, the sound echoing down the now-metallic corridor. "Yeah," he responded, "I heard you."

The team traveled through the endless halls, making turns seemingly blind and passing by plenty of twitching drone bodies. Raven was rather thankful for the time to recharge herself, even while being at the ready. It continued to feel as if the team didn't know where to go, but Robin had taken up behind Cyborg like everyone else, letting him lead by his memory of the grid map he had read.

"By the way," Robin mentioned, "anyone else besides me pay attention to those containers in that generator room?"

"I noticed," Raven answered. "Any idea what they were for?"

Robin looked ahead without saying anything for a moment. "Power," he finally responded. "The question is, what kind."

The corridor finally ended. Cyborg checked a reading-unit on his left arm, then put his arm down and looked forward. The door up ahead was sealed like so many others, but this one was marked differently. Raven made an attempt to read the label, but Cyborg blasted the door too quickly. Whatever the tag, it didn't seem to matter.

"Got a life sign," Cyborg said over his shoulder. "Be ready."

The Titans were on a heightened guard entering the new room. It seemed to be a storage room...an actual storage room. Maintenance supplies mixed with metal conduits and old wiring lying around on dusty fold-open shelves. The room was long; Raven could see when Cyborg's lamp shined forward for a moment. Then, the lamp turned against the wall. A small shaft entrance sat about chest-height. Cyborg signaled he was about to open the shaft panel. Had Slade gotten away through here? Raven whispered a quick spell. She reached out with her mind, felt the minds in the small room, extended her reach through the shaft...

…At the shaft!

"Cyborg!" Raven warned, her eyes flying open. "He's right--"

The shaft panel punched open of its own accord, and a form slumped at Cyborg's feet. Robin, right at Cyborg's side, was on him in an instant. He grabbed the large jumpsuit by the back of the collar and flung the man against the opposite wall. Robin knocked over a small set of supplies with the man's body, the sound of clatter nearly muffling the larger man's grunt from his impact. For someone much larger than Robin, the Boy Wonder seemed to be able to throw him around with a lot of ease.

That was when Raven got a good look at their captive. His glowing red goggles, full body hood, audio amps over his ears, the breather jammed up his nostril...and that partially toothless smile. Here he was, caught, and he was still smiling.

Robin gripped at the sides of the old man's collar even tighter, getting right into his face. Finally, he spoke.

"Chang!"

Raven hovered to her right as Robin threw Chang out of the storage room and out into the corridor. He was angry, and Raven wasn't getting in his way. Not yet, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" Robin growled.

Chang clambered to his feet, made difficult by his backpack and heavy jumpsuit. Robin made his way to him, grabbed him by the back of the jumpsuit and hauled him yet again into the wall. Chang grunted.

"You," Chang began, "should not be throwing around such an old man. It is not very polite!"

"I'm fresh out of polite!" Robin spit back. "Answer the question!"

"What good would such an answer serve, boy?" Chang responded, defiantly.

"I want to know what you're doing working for Slade!"

The group crowded around Robin and Chang. It was a standard intimidation tactic for captured criminals. Chang's arrogance needed taking down a notch. It seemed to serve its purpose, as Chang's smile became more forced.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Chang managed.

"You're here in his secret base," Cyborg volunteered. "Wanna explain that to us?"

"I'm going to try this one last time," Robin said, clutching Chang's jumpsuit tighter. "Where is Slade?"

"Slade…he has not been seen since the liberation of Jump City. The last I heard, you, the Titans, you killed him. Why do you ask me of his whereabouts?"

Robin clearly had enough. He jammed Chang against the wall harder, causing the old man to wheeze. Chang began to fight him, but Robin's clutches were too tight. Chang flailed his limbs about, looking at the other Titans for help. They all held their ground.

"I..." Chang coughed out, "…I know…nothing! I sw--swear!"

Robin pulled Chang off the wall, right to his own face. "I don't believe you!" He slammed him against the wall again, causing Chang to make a rather pitiful squeal. It was at that moment, something clanked at Chang's feet. It was cylindrical, and it slowly rolled towards where Raven and Beast Boy stood. Beast Boy squeaked, taking a few steps back. Raven surrounded it in her magic, bringing it up to her own hand. Her face flushed with anger, mixing with shock. Her eyes began to glow white, and it took some effort for Raven to keep from completely exploding.

"Where did you get this!" Raven growled out, her voice altered. Robin still held Chang to the wall, but his attention was now on Raven.

Chang stumbled with his words. "Uh…that is mine! It comes from ancient ancestors. Passed down from generations." Chang smiled as he continued. "Yes...given to me long ago. I...I keep it for luck! It is said that one who possesses such a—"

"QUIET!" Raven shouted. Her voice carried down the corridor and echoed all around the group. The reverberation had just the effect Raven wanted. She walked up and brandished the object in Chang's face.

"This is an Azarath scroll!"

Chang's jaw went from a smile to a full drop. With the goggles over his eyes, it looked comical even to Raven. However, it didn't amuse her in the least.

"I want to know where you got this." Raven said, lowering her voice. It was still just as menacing. Her eyes flared brightly as she displayed her clenched teeth.

Chang was scared. Whatever defiant will he had when facing Robin was now gone. He stuttered horribly as he tried to answer. "I...do...th-the—it wuh...was…k-k…p-pl…please! I..."

"I'd tell her the truth," Beast Boy said from behind Raven. "Like, right now."

"Talk!" Raven yelled in his face. Chang visibly jumped in Robin's hands. His breath rattled as he tried to speak, but all that came out was high-pitched noise. Suddenly, he slumped in Robin's grip. His whole body went limp and slid down the wall until the only thing keeping him up was Robin's hold on his jumpsuit.

"He passed out!" Cyborg noted.

"I don't believe this," Robin mumbled, dropping Chang without regard.

Raven forced herself to calm down. It was extremely difficult. The answer to her question just fainted in front of them. That did nothing to help her mood, but she knew she had too. She closed her eyes, ignoring the conversation of the team to take a moment and collect.

"That still doesn't answer the question of where Slade is," Robin said to Cyborg, answering some prior comment.

Raven lifted her head. "Slade isn't here."

No one argued with Raven once she'd said it. Even Robin seemed to concede to the facts. "Where's he gone?" Robin finally asked.

"He was never here," Raven said. Her gaze looked back on the unconscious Chang.

"Never here?" Beast Boy asked. "So…all this got built by itself? Did you see those robots? They practically screamed Slade! Chang didn't do all this!"

"No," Raven shook her head. "Slade built this. But…he hasn't been here for a while."

Robin looked directly at Raven. "Chang wasn't working for Slade," he said. "He found this place."

"He did more than find it," Raven said. "He improved upon it."

Robin crossed his arms. "Are you saying he's responsible for the drone upgrades we saw? How could he have upgraded all of them? How could he learn what to do in such a short time?"

Raven looked to the scroll in her hand. She held down one of the small symbols on the right. The parchment, limp and pliable around the single cylinder, began sliding out. When it was fully extended, it flattened straight as a board.

"It's called a Rontizma scroll," she started to explain. "Reading the incantation aloud grants the wielder an enhanced intellect, capable of understanding and absorbing information with a far greater ability than normal for a short while."

"Chang used the scroll," Robin finished.

"Woah," Beast Boy interrupted. "Are you sure?"

"Once read, the incantation disappears from the scroll for a time. It's a result of how much magic the spell requires." Raven held the scroll towards Beast Boy. "The parchment is blank. Someone's used it. And it takes roughly two months before the spell is returned to full potency."

"That limits its use," Robin said.

"Which limits its users," Starfire added.

Raven looked to the others. "If Chang is telling the truth, then Slade is not here. Which means, the only one left to have used this scroll is Chang himself."

Beast Boy scratched at his head. "Dude, where's a guy like this get one of these runty-scrolls anyway?"

Raven glared at Beast Boy. "Rontizma. It means, 'momentary insight.' And..." Raven paused a moment. She closed her eyes and collected herself. Again. She had a pretty good idea where it had come from. She just couldn't come out and say it. Not just yet. "...and, Chang may have found it. Here, in the base."

"What?" Robin's eyes widened behind his mask.

"Slade…Slade must have gotten hold of it."

"From when his drones attacked the tower," Cyborg finished.

"We did end up missing some personal items once we had cleaned up," Starfire added. "Once we thought Slade to be dead, we ceased considering the consequences of some of those missing items."

"With the information he'd gotten off us," Raven continued, "he might have even been able to translate the spell. He just never got the chance to use it."

"And then Chang stumbles across it," Robin finished, looking down at the passed-out form under him. "He finds the translation and activates the spell. That lets him get the knowledge to upgrade everything. This place, the drones…those containers seemed newer than the rest of the complex. He was up to something big."

"Whatever it may have been," Starfire said, "we have stopped him."

"So, wait," Beast Boy started, looking at Raven, "you had one of these scrolls? How many times did you ever use it?"

Raven looked away from Beast Boy, away from everyone. They would need an answer to that. She thought of one particular moment in her life. That would do. "Once. When I first came here. It helped me adjust to everything much easier. I'd locked it away ever since."

It was a lie. Raven never possessed a Rontizma scroll. She really didn't know why she told them that. Maybe she simply wanted to deal with this problem alone, and that misinformation would allow her to do so.

"Only once?" Beast Boy asked. "Man, I'd be reading that thing off every time it recharged!"

Raven nodded. "What you must understand is that multiple readings of the scroll puts a strain on the mind. It has the potential of driving the user mad if used too many times."

That much was true. The scrolls were dangerous as they were useful on Azarath. They were closely guarded as a result. Yet, here one was in Raven's hand.

"Well," Robin finally said, "we're done here. We'll call in the police and take Chang where he belongs."

The group walked out, Chang in tow over Cyborg's shoulder. Beast Boy turned to Raven. "So, there's still one thing I don't get. If the scroll makes you all smart, how come Chang didn't know it was from Azarath? He looked pretty surprised when you told him that."

Raven looked straight ahead as they walked to the car. "The scroll grants the ability to gain knowledge. It doesn't give knowledge. The scroll's translation might have been given without an indication as to where it's from. And nothing on the scroll actually states any origin."

"Oh," Beast Boy responded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "So, like…can I borrow it in a couple of months?"

Raven didn't answer. Normally, she might have been in the mood to give him some smart remark back, but she wasn't. Beast Boy got the hint and let it go. It was perhaps forty minutes and a trip to and from the jail later that the team was back comfortably in the Tower.

Raven, however, was anything but comfortable.

-

-

One evening later, Raven found herself in front of one of the quieter computer terminals in the Tower. She had been searching for the better part of three hours through the different online search engines and programs to find the information she wanted. There was no sense in the air, no aura to follow to some out of the way meeting place. Raven didn't expect it this time. That only served to make things harder. She simply had too many questions with nowhere to take them.

It was all of three hours ago she had decided to meditate in the late afternoon when her emotions grew too irritable. She took up her place on the roof of the Tower and began levitating in place. It was perhaps ten minutes when a vision flashed quickly in her mind. A vision of the scroll.

She first assumed it was simply realization that the reason she was getting flustered was because of the questions relating to the Azarath scroll. She sat on it—rather, levitated on it for another moment before deciding to go back down to her room. There, she took the scroll out of her keepsake chest and examined it. The vision and the scroll in her hand didn't seem to correlate. The idea didn't mingle in her brain too well, and Raven's agitation grew slightly worse. She put the Rontizma scroll back into her chest and walked out of her room to the nearest computer terminal with a chair next to it.

Her first bit of luck was that in the last near-three hours she'd been sitting there no one had bothered her. She had typed in local references to ancient artifacts found in or around the Jump City area. When nothing came up in the jumble, Raven typed in a rather specific lone keyword. She found two articles relating to the subject. Both read of a cylindrical object or 'scroll of unknown origin' having been found recently. No information was given in either article as to where it was found, but the writer of the article suggested the object might have been lost by a group of archeologists heading through Jump City. One of the two articles mentioned peculiar markings on the outside. Expert testimony stated that the symbols were of no known language that could be thought of at the time of the article. Neither story stated where the scroll was currently being held. Both articles dated from a month ago.

One month. A decent amount of time to read the scroll and make use of the knowledge gained in the short moment of heightened intellect. Raven continued her search, concentrating on archived video from the news networks in Jump City kept in the Tower database. The subjects were listed based on primary stories, so quick-mentions were going to have to be searched manually. Digging through the closest-relating titles around the date of the newspaper articles came up empty, so Raven spent another hour going through them all again, fast-forwarding through what didn't match. Then, her work paid off.

Sure enough, a minor news report came up about a mystery scroll found in Jump City around the same time as the written articles. She didn't wait for the reporter to finish her introduction and sped the tape up to the on-the-scene video feed. Suddenly, there it was. An Azarath scroll sitting inside a case on a desk for the camera to capture while some so-called expert attempted to explain what he thought it might have been.

On some hunch, Raven searched through news reports made in the recent days. She found one report dated two days ago, stating the mystery scroll was still an unknown and that no one had come to claim ownership. Someone interviewed added his opinion that the thing might have been a hoax to make someone believe it to be authentic. The report ended with the anchorwoman stating that the scroll had been transferred to a series of archaeologists for examination at the Jump City Museum of Science and History. Raven looked up from the screen.

Two days ago! It's not the same scroll as Chang's...

Nothing in the last two days reported any theft from the museum. Good, he hasn't been there. Raven quickly did a map search online, finding the route to the museum. When she had it in her mind, she turned off the computer terminal and got up. Standing near the corridor wall, she closed her eyes to concentrate.

"You are going after him," Starfire's voice sounded from behind Raven. She turned her head to look at the girl from Tamaran. The timing in her arrival was peculiar to say the least, considering the last three to four hours of no one being around. Raven found nothing she could respond with. She looked away instead.

"You said those things inside that base, but you did not mean them," Starfire added. Her tone was not accusatory. Starfire rarely accused anyone except the criminals captured by the team, and even then only under circumstances she was sure of. Instead, the voice was that soft tone from simple fact underlined with a sense of sadness. Perhaps it was disappointment. "The scroll, it is not yours as you had claimed. Do you believe you know of the proper source?"

"I have to go back out," Raven finally said.

"You intend to fight this man?" Starfire queried. This time Raven turned fully around and looked the other girl over. Her arms were at her sides, though her hands fidgeted slightly. The Tamaranian seemed to want to place them in front of her chest, but she resisted.

Raven sighed, deciding to converse. "I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. I'm not sure I'll actually find him. "

Starfire took a few steps forward. "Please, tell me there is a reason you did not speak the truth with us earlier. You would never mislead us like that unless there was a purpose! What is it?"

Raven looked away again. She had a compulsion to simply tell Starfire that she did indeed have a reason. That she had a very good reason why she said what she had. The fact of the matter was, she didn't. Raven shook her head. No. No more lying.

Raven raised her head back up and looked directly at Starfire. "I don't know," she said, simply. "I'm…not entirely sure yet." Raven knew Starfire was not satisfied with her answer. There was no change in her expression at all. She turned away yet again, closing her eyes to concentrate. "I have to go."

Starfire said nothing more. Raven opened the shadows around her and sank into the floor, heading out for the night.