Hey everybody. Good to see you again. In this post we look a little at a certain character that will start to play a more active role in the future. A few notes for those of you that decided to come back to this story. First, thank you, especially to those that reviewed. Second, if your the type that likes instant gratification, give me a little time with this story. My beginnings are a little slow but they pick up eventually. Remember, if you read it drop me a little line about what's good, what's bad, and what type of peanut butter you like.

Disclaimer: Balkoth does not own the Teen Titans.

The Raven

Nobody in their right mind would have assumed she was a thief. That was what made her so good at it. She was twenty-two and in the best shape of her life, both in mind and body. Rachel Roth was currently walking around the basement floor of one of Jump City's so called 'secure' storehouses. Technically, Rachel wasn't even there: The Raven was. The security in the building was laughable. There were a few cameras, a single security guard who might or might not be asleep, and a standard three-combination safe when those failed.

A little known secret of Rachel's was that she was very interested in demons. The whole idea behind Heaven, Hell, fallen angels, and other such subjects fascinated her. She had been six when she discovered books. Rachel has started reading mythology when she was seven. Rachel's mother had fueled her daughter's newfound love of literature with new books she picked up and by showing an active enthusiasm for her daughter's growing hobby.

The strange tales of different gods, all vying for extra power or lovers, gods or otherwise, held a mysterious appeal to her. Rachel dismissed the possibility of a single, all-powerful, merciful God a little less than four months after she discovered mythology. If her mother had survived the car-crash Rachel might have stayed true to her childhood faith, but her mother hadn't lived. Arella had been a wonderful person who should have lived many more happy years. Instead, she ended up an exploded mass of so much mangled tissue and bodily fluid in the middle of the road. Polytheism just made more sense. An all-powerful God wouldn't let the world be the way it was.

A God described by the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran wouldn't have let her mother die. If there were different gods, each with different abilities and degrees of power, then her mother's death could be explained. There could have been a conflict that distracted her mother's guardians just long enough for the crash to happen.

After mythology came Rachel's interest in demonology. It was that interest that had led her to discover Satan, Jeearr, Nathrezim, and finally Scath. Scath was only a code name though. Most people only recognized Scath as Trigon, the root of all evil. With a surface discovery of these monsters Rachel had also discovered a part of herself. Who was to say that gods were the ones that deserved worship, especially when they had proved time and time again that they were incapable of doing anyone any good?

Rachel Roth was a member of the Brother's Blood, an underground cult that worshiped Trigon. Rachel wasn't much for worshipping Trigon, she wasn't that stupid, but she had been promised answers by the cult's leadership. Above all else, Rachel wanted answers. The real reason that Rachel was sneaking into the 'secure' storehouse was so that she could get her hands on the gem. The gem in question was a small red stone the size of a marble. Rachel currently had a replacement stone clutched in her right hand. Alone the gem was useless but she would get the rest sooner or later.

Rachel had come through the front door and even taken a doughnut from a slumbering security officer's box of glazed delicacies. Nobody would recognize her if they saw the security footage. This was mainly due to the blue cloak she was wearing. The heavy blue fabric was fastened at the base of her neck by a blood red clasp with a raven inside. Rachel had made sure she was always clutching the inside of the cloak so that it was closed. The garb covered every inch of her body, with the exception of the lower half of her face starting just under her nose. The result was a sweeping blue figure with extremely pale, yet beautifully milky, skin and piercing violet eyes that reached out from the shadows of the hood covering its head.

At long last, Rachel arrived at the safe she was looking for. A camera was positioned to see the safe and when Rachel approached she was careful to avoid giving the lens a chance to see her directly. Her face might have been obscured by the deep shadows of her hood but anything could be done nowadays with a computer: five minutes in Adobe's PhotoShop and the shadows would disappear.

The safe was easy enough to crack open. She had been able to feel the cogs falling into place. The heavy lead-lined door of the antique safe swung open at Rachel's touch and the contents lay bare for her to take. Before Rachel rested shimmering pieces of jewelry, each sparkling with not only it's own light but also the fire that erupted in the heart of every creature that caught a glimpse of the priceless ornaments. Rachel didn't even spare those a second glance.

On the security tape that was replayed once the theft was discovered, the viewers watched as a figure dressed in a heavy blue cloak reached in and took a small blue velvet box from the safe's interior. The figure then reached into the safe with the other hand and put something in the box's place. After that the cloaked figure walked away, not even bothering to close the safe behind it.

The thing that the cloaked figure had dropped off was currently in the Jump City forensics lab being tested for prints and DNA. The object was small and red. An exact replica of the gem that was stolen, save for one difference. Inside the gem there was a black bird. As it would later be determined – a raven.

There were three people currently watching the security footage. One of them was the storehouse's chief of security, a man whose skinny pale face had long lost the ability to show any emotion other than varying degrees of anger. Another was the guard who would probably be loosing a job when this was all settled, and finally a behavioral analyst who had been called in by the local police. She was playing and replaying the tape for analysis under her critical brown eyes. Eyes that missed nothing, or so her reputation announced with a great deal of certainty.

The guard from the previous night had the common sense to stay quiet and out of the way. As long as he managed to make his rosy bulk of a face look ashamed enough, he might be allowed to keep his job. It was a faint hope but he clung to it with every ounce of his willpower.

"What have you figured out?" the chief of security demanded of the woman playing and replaying the footage. The woman didn't respond for a while as she played the tape again from the beginning. The footage showed the cloaked thief taking a doughnut from the security booth. That pretty much destroyed the glimmer of hope that had been floating in the guard's mind.

"You sent this to some of your tech boys?" The woman asked in a clipped tone that hinted at an ill concealed mocking. She rewound the tape and played the part where the thief had cracked the safe open again while waiting for a response.

"Sure did. Vic is a master of the trade. Give him three minutes and we'll have a clear picture of this person."

"I doubt it," the woman muttered as the tape played again before her eyes. All she had been able to gather during the time that she'd studied the tape had been that the person was looking for something very specific, knew the security layout, and intentionally avoided looking toward the cameras, and that, more likely then not, the person had already known the safe's combination.

"What was that?" the chief snapped, after hearing the woman talking to herself.

Thinking quickly she said; "This person already knew the combination. They didn't even bother pressing their ear to the safe or anything."

Now it was the security chief's turn to think quickly. He knew that the safe in question was actually an ancient excuse for security that was so old that you could hear the cogs falling into place. Unfortunately for him, his quick mind wasn't what had gotten him his job. Instead of trying to say anything he changed the subject, blatantly. "What do you know about them? Gender, age, weight, don't you get paid to figure that kind of thing out?"

The woman was unfazed by the outburst. She specialized in interrogation tapes, not security footage. If you wanted her to tell you when somebody was holding back or lying she could tell you easily, that was why she knew that the safe subject made the chief nervous. "With that cloak I can't say anything for certain. On a guess, you're looking for a female about 5'6" between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five."

"Weight?"

Tired of seeing the footage the woman turned off the VCR. "No clue. If it helps, she seems to like ravens." So it was that The Raven was born.

Next Update At The Latest: Wednesday, July 5, 2006