A.N. I am so sorry I didn't update this for so long! I promise that this fic will be finished. Please review! (Even though I don't deserve it for being such an awful updater.)

Disclaimer: Don't own Teen Titans. Darn it.

"The Bloods are running a tight schedule. We need to get out as soon as possible."

"Wait! They have my gem. My powers-"

"We can come back for that. Right now we're getting-"

"Stopped in your tracks, I believe you were going to say," interrupted Father Blood. The old man didn't look so over-confident when there were a dozen guards behind him.

Slade

Raven didn't look at all scared by the situation, and Slade thought he understood why. This was a fight, plain and simple, or at least it felt like one. This was what they did regularly; it wasn't some demonic ceremony or uncharted dimension.

"Do you have a plan?" she asked in her usual monotone.

Slade thought for a second, then raised a hand and shot a blast of fire at Blood and the guards. "Run," he replied.

She was smart enough to comply.

Predictably, the guards didn't take long to recover, especially since when Raven had returned him to life it seemed to have weakened his powers. Slade could hear an angry Father Blood shout the clichéd, "After them!" Factoring in Raven's condition, he knew they would be caught far more quickly than he wanted to think about. The guards were thugs, but Blood was another story, and again factoring in Raven's condition...

Look at you, worrying about her.

I'm equally worried about myself. This is Blood's territory and he has numbers on his side.

Slade could undeniably hear thudding boots approaching way too fast for comfort. Beside him, Raven was clearly running on a waning supply of adrenaline. They couldn't escape by just running.

You can't get revenge by just running, either.

There was something they could use: a door open to an empty corridor.

Grabbing her wrist, he pulled Raven inside and quickly sealed the metal door shut with the power he could hardly believed he had ever lived without at this point. It had really been a bad decision on Blood's part to give it to him.

"Do you know how to get out of here?" Raven asked, leaning against the stone wall for support.

Slade noticed for the first time how dark the circles under her eyes were. "Only from the way I came in."

"Great." Her sarcastic attitude was undermined by her startled jump as the guards started pounding on the other side of the door.

"Your lack of confidence in me is insulting," Slade said. He held out the red gemstone he had been carrying in his belt. "They left it on the edge of the pit when they took you. Will it give you your powers back?"

"It should," said Raven. She took the stone from his hand and raised it to the hole in her forehead. "Only one way to find out."

The half demon took a deep breath and forced the gem into her forehead. Almost immediately her entire body began to shake violently. Slade grabbed Raven's arms to hold her up; a seizure on this floor would probably fracture her skull. When he touched her, she stared up into his eyes. Her own had turned bright white and radiate light and a power older than the universe.

Raven steadied herself by gripping his arms. Suddenly, a searing hot pain flooded through Slade, and he could see tongues of flame writhing their way into Raven's arms. He realized she must be draining his power. Was she really the same person, or had the rush of power transformed her into what she was truly meant to be?

"Slade," she said in a voice like a hundred echoes of herself, "Thank you for helping us. You have done more good than you could ever know. Now we must repay our debt."

The door Slade had sealed turned black and sunk into the ground. The guards who had been trying to pry into open or break it down looked shocked as Raven's dark energy consumed them as well. Mouths open in silent screams, they sank into the void she had created.

Father Blood backed against the opposite wall of the hallway. Obviously terrified, he still tried to maintain his confident, sneering demeanor. "Come now, Raven. You know we were only doing what we thought Trigon's message as. Clearly you know something we don't. If you would only enlighten your Church-"

Raven did not grace him with a final statement. Father Blood was there was second, and the next he was gone, though his scream echoed after him in the corridor.