Well, my beta had a few things to say about this. One was that this post needed to be read twice so that the first could just be to enjoy the writing and the story and the second time to place some distance between the story so that areas for improvment could be identified. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Really, this was fun.

Disclaimer: Okay. Balkoth has yet to aquire the legal rights to Teen Titans. Believe it or not, DC comics and Cartoon Network have proved very reluctant to pass ownership of their wonderful creation to me. Thus, here I am. The plot is mine. Any characters you do not recognize as cannon are mine. But this is fanfiction for a reason: Alas, I am but a humble fan.

The Portal

Garfield jogged across the red earth, trying to get to the car but running into person after person. By the fifth time he ran into somebody Garfield was convinced that they were getting in his way on purpose. The idea was completely ludicrous, even by Garfield's standards. Still, there was something about the amount of people he hit that didn't seem natural. There was something wrong, something else, in the air. It was not city smog, though that was present, but a feeling. Garfield felt tired and kept tripping over small things. He kept trying to remember something but forgot what he was trying to recall.

Once Garfield reached the car he started to pat down his pockets, looking for keys. He realized too late that they were in the house with Richard. Garfield heard an engine somewhere turn over as a car came to life. Garfield took off at a sprint down the gravel road for the nearest intersection. He needed a taxi or else he couldn't do anything.

Garfield couldn't really explain why he felt that following Rachel right now was so important. It didn't seem like the notion completely belonged to him. Usually Richard was the one who obsessed about Rachel. There was something in his head telling him it wasn't important, but another part of his brain insisted that it was.

A car drove past him as he ran. Garfield didn't bother to look at it. It was obvious that the car was Rachel's purple rental. Garfield continued to run until he reached a more trafficked street. "Taxi!" Garfield yelled as soon as he saw one of the yellow cabs. None stopped. "TAXI!" Garfield yelled again, becoming desperate for a reason he couldn't quite grasp. There was something slipping through his fingers. He could feel his mind groping for it but not quite connecting the dots and Garfield knew that he would soon lose the moment forever in the mist that had sprung up in his head.

Garfield started to panic as he pivoted on the spot, looking for any way that he could follow Rachel. He needed to follow Rachel; there was something important that Garfield almost knew and Rachel was involved with it.

An old man, supporting himself with a cane and walking as if with a bad hip was opening the door to a taxi nearby. Garfield didn't bother stopping to think about what he was doing. "Drive!" Garfield shouted at the driver as soon as he had roughly pushed the man out of the way. "I'll tell you where to go but drive!" Garfield felt as if possessed. This was his body, his voice, his general mind set. He did, after all, feel guilty that he'd needed to push down that old man to get the taxi. But there was something off. Something not right.

Garfield felt like there was something in his head that wasn't supposed to be there. As the terrified driver steered the cab through the crowded streets of Jump City during rush hour, Garfield tried to figure out what was going on. Pieces started to click together in Garfield's head as the lights flashed by the window and the sound of screeching brakes of honked horns registered with his ears only after the sounds had long since passed.

Garfield had devoted just as much time to The Raven case as Richard had – even if it didn't always look like it. The Raven was a woman in her early twenties, was athletic, liked blue, liked ravens, had a reason to want to collect things for a cult, and the rest slipped away before Garfield could pinpoint it. He knew that right in front of him, right where he had never bothered to look before, was the answer Richard and he had been searching for all along.

Garfield continued to give directions to the shaking driver in a loud growl that he had used on Halloween as a kid. The voice was his but at the same time there was a darkness to it that fun-loving Garfield Logan could never have managed. Garfield was giving directions to Rachel's apartment, all the while struggling with the fog that had sprung up in his mind and was saturating his most basic thoughts until they were too heavy to bother with.

Garfield was wrestling with himself but at the same time he was wrestling something much larger than he could ever be. Garfield continued to tug back and forth with his thoughts, searching for a secret that he'd missed the first and second time through.

Suddenly it all made sense. Garfield's hand flew to his belt where he usually kept his cell phone. Instead of closing on metal Garfield was left holding only air. His phone had fallen off at some point during his rushed exit from Miquel's home. "Do you have a cell phone?" Garfield asked, his voice now more his than it had been for several minutes. The fog was withdrawing from his head, leaving Garfield feeling hollow. Garfield shook off the empty feeling as best he could. There was something very wrong with this entire situation.

The freckled driver held out a small black phone in a trembling hand. Garfield grabbed it but instantly felt hurt by the fear in the driver's eyes. Nobody should ever be afraid of him and here he was terrifying somebody.

Garfield flipped open the phone and punched in Richard's cell phone number. After two rings a voice spoke from the other end. "Hello, Dick speaking."

"Dick," Garfield spoke in a rushed voice, eager to get all of this out in case the fog came back before he finished. "Where are you?" Garfield didn't wait for a response. "It doesn't matter. Look, you need to check the artifact right now!"

Richard's voice came back hesitant and slow. "Gar, I've been keeping an eye on it for the past twenty-five minutes. There is no way that anybody has gotten in."

"DICK!" Garfield shouted back in his hysteria, "She leaves replacements! Every time she leaves a replacement; make sure you're guarding the right thing!"

The call was dropped but Garfield continued to talk to emptiness, unaware that he'd been cut off. Richard rushed into the bedroom and scanned the wall that housed the safe. The painting was crooked; somebody had moved it and put it back into place. Richard felt the dam that held back his annoyance crack and begin to leak. What Richard didn't realize was that he had noticed the crooked painting earlier only to have the memory mysteriously altered.

Richard barreled into the bathroom, threw off the tank covering and plunged his hand into the water. When he took the clear container out, Richard tore the top off. Inside the Tupperware box was a granite hand, ornately carved with sharp fingernails and beefy fingers. Where on the original artifact there had been a way to screw it to the other pieces, this one had a painted black raven.

Richard cursed loudly and flung the stone to the porcelain floor tiles. It shattered on impact and for the briefest of moments Richard had a glimpse of what was going on. All the pieces fell into place as the hand shattered on the spotless floor. Some force pushed it to the side but the thought sprang back, fueled by fury. Rachel was The Raven. It all made sense. Thoughts swam to the surface, unbidden, but all too clear.

Dialog began to echo in Richard's mind as he remembered his first date with Rachel. The first clue of many had been right there.

ooooo

Richard breathed heavily through his mouth as he hoisted himself off the sidewalk and brushed the rocks off his skin from where they had dug in and tried to make a temporary home. Rachel took his hand and helped him to his feet, never once losing her balance.

"This," Richard grimaced as he put pressure on his battered limbs, "is not fair. How in the world did you get so good at this?" As Richard asked this, a small girl sailed by, showing Richard that even a seven-year-old was better at this than him. After all, this was his sixth unexpected trip to the pavement while Rachel (and even the little girl who had just started skating backwards) had never once looked off balance.

"Don't be such a baby," Rachel joked while circling around him backwards and rolling over the leaves on the ground. They crackled softly as she slid over them. "Believe me, years of gymnastics is not worth being able to stay on your feet on the off chance that wheels are attached to them."

"Gymnastics?" Richard snorted. Then he saw the serious look Rachel was giving him. "Gymnastics," he quickly rectified, this time leaving out his laughter.

"Yes," Rachel rolled her eyes. "And you were right the first time." Rachel continued in reference to Richard's reaction to the sport.

ooooo

The scene was clear as day to Richard: He knew the location of every leaf Rachel had rolled over, but as the words played in his ears the image that accompanied it was one of a woman hidden in a blue cloak leaping through trip lasers. Gymnastics. The Raven liked blue and so did Rachel. The Raven liked ravens and they were Rachel's favorite animal. All the time, things had pointed to Rachel as the suspect. But Richard had never seen it because Richard hadn't wanted to see it.

The Raven was in her early twenties and so was Rachel. Rachel was The Raven. Richard never noticed the fog that had entered his mind and tried to prevent these thoughts and he never realized it when it left.

Richard was running down the stairs of Miguel's house and out to the car just as Garfield exited a car and started running up the fire escape. The rusted metal ladder supported Garfield's lean frame easily and he quickly crawled up the rungs until he was outside Miguel's old apartment. That just meant that Rachel was one floor up.

As Garfield climbed up the last few feet of ladder a voice drifted down to him. It was a murmur at first. Rachel was talking to somebody. But if Garfield had guessed right, Rachel was actually talking to a something.

Garfield reached Rachel's window and peered inside. Before Rachel sat the completed artifact. Rachel was pacing and talking in hushed whispers to a stone in her hand. A red gem. Garfield tried to call out to Rachel but his voice caught in his throat. He tried again but nothing came out.

Rachel sat crossed legged in front of the artifact, her eyes glazed over and crossed. Garfield watched in stunned silence as Rachel extended her hand until she held the gem above the palm of the clawed hand. "The gem was born of Evil's fire," she spoke in an echoing voice devoid of all the wit and sharp-tongued humor that usually graced her tone.

Garfield tried to move but found he couldn't. The same fog that had surrounded his mind was back and soaking up every electrical current that Garfield tried to send to his limbs. "The gem shall be his portal," Rachel continued in the same dead tone. "He comes to…" at this point Rachel paused and shook her head. Garfield saw Rachel's eyes clear and for a moment the fear in her violet eyes shot out and stabbed Garfield in the heart. He tried to move, to help, but could do nothing but watch as the violet was consumed by a swirling gray fog. "Claim," Rachel continued as if she'd never stopped.

Garfield felt himself go numb. Things in the room started to flutter in powerful gusts of wind. "He comes to sire," Rachel blinked away the fog once more and for a moment their eyes met. She was trying to speak to him – trying to say anything when there was so much to say. The fear in Rachel's eyes made Garfield realize they were going to die here – tonight.

Rachel's eyes went gray again and she continued. This time Rachel spoke in a voice that was anything but her own. "The end of all things mortal!" Rachel thundered in a rumbling voice that shook Garfield to his core. A beam of red light shot out of the palm of the artifact before Rachel and pierced her hand. She cried out in pain as blood fell to the floor. Every finger lit up and shot similar yet smaller beams into the same place, splattering more of Rachel's blood on the floor and eliciting more screams. That flash of light was all Garfield knew… and then there was nothing.

Next Update: Wednesday, October 18, 2006