Chapter 9: Beginning of the End

"Psy wont stop running my lord, he wont stop fighting, even though Raven is tired of trying to fight back and is ready to face her destiny. Are you sure there's no way we could get her first?" Blackfire asks the fiery eyes on the stone wall in front of her.

"NO! I took away your powers and everything about you as a warning Blackfire! A warning so that you wont defy me again. So do not question me when I say that my son must come first. He is the way my body will be reborn. I cannot come to reclaim Earth unless I have a body. Psy MUST be captured by any means necessary. He cannot run forever."

"What should I do master? I've been chasing them for months. I can't do this on my own."

"You are never alone my servant. Take with you the shadow twins. They are finally finished and ready for use."

"The shadow twins? They're finally ready?"

"Step forward."

Out of the shadows step two teenagers, a boy and a girl. Both are about 18 in age with brown hair. Both are also dressed in plain school uniforms. The boy is wearing blue slacks, a white button-up shirt, and black tie. The girl wears a short blue skirt, a white button-up shirt, and a black tie as well.

"Shadow twins Sam and Raven reporting for duty," the two twins say in unison. Slowly their faces are revealed from the shadows. There stand exact replicas of Psy and Raven, only in a perfectly normal human state with a non-pallid skin tone.

Fade into song

When there's trouble you know who to call

TEEN TITANS

From their tower they can see it all

TEEN TITANS

When there's evil on the attack

You can rest knowing they've got your back

'Cuz when the world needs heroes on patrol

TEEN TITANS...GO!

With they're super-powers they unite

TEEN TITANS

Never met a villain that they liked

TEEN TITANS

They got the bad guys on the run

They'll never stop 'til the job gets done

And when the world is losing all control

TEEN TITANS...GO!

1...2...3...4...GO TEEN TITANS!

Fade out of song

"Psy to Raven, over…," I say to Raven over my communicator.

"Psy, this is Raven. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Yes. If you go stay with Mood Swing and Sector S, and I go back to college and Sector N, we'll be far enough apart that they can't get us both at the same time, but yet close enough so that we can meet up with each other any time we need to."

"I guess you're right. I'm just worried…"

"Why are you worried? There's nothing to really worry about."

"…ok Psy. Still, we should be careful."

"Of course we will. Have you reached your destination yet?"

"I just got here. You?"

"I'm heading up to my dorm room, and then I'm gonna contact Eclipse, Solarflare, and Gale and fill them in on exactly what's going on."

"Alright. Well I guess we should get going. We have a lot of work to do to be ready if we're actually gonna fight this thing."

"Ok, well, talk to you later Rae."

"See ya Psy."

I stand there for a while in silence just thinking about the past few weeks. A knock on the door brings me back from my thoughts.

"It's open." As the door opens I turn to find Eclipse standing there.

"Hey Zach, what's up?"

"Sam, why don't you come with me. We need to chat."

"Is everything ok?"

"Fine…," Eclipse says in a monotone. He opens the door and holds it for me. As I walk past I look into his eyes and see an emptiness that looked so familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. We walk out of my room and down the hall, Eclipse following me, not leading. I turn to ask him where we're going, and he grabs me by the arms. All of a sudden the blue, Trigonic markings all over my body flare to life after being dormant for over a week. Things flash around me. I open my eyes and stare Eclipse in the eyes. A black mark of Scathe burns on his forehead. I reach my hands up and put them on either side of his head and use my powers to knock him out. He crumples to the ground in front of me.

As I look around I notice that I'm in a vast city, with thousands of people around me walking and bustling with every day life. None of them even seem to notice me though. I stand there, my jeans torn, shirt slashed, with blue markings glowing all over my body. I look down to find Eclipse's lifeless form, only to see that it's not there. All of a sudden I notice that all the people are gone as well and I'm standing in the middle of the city, completely alone. I look far down the sidewalk though and see a girl about my age walking towards me. She wears a school uniform of a blue skirt, a white button-up shirt with a black tie. She has brown hair, and looks strangely familiar. As she walks past me I realize who she is.

"Ra…Raven?"

"Oh, Sam! Is that really you? Where have you been? You've been missing for months!"

"I…ummm…Raven, you look…normal."

"Isn't it great? Once you disappeared I made a deal with our father Trigon."

"Our father doesn't make deals, with anyone. Not even us. And even if he makes a deal, he doesn't keep his end of it."

"I was just as surprised as you! I made a deal with him that if I helped him, if I let him take the Earth, that he would let me be normal. And look at me! I'm normal. No more powers, no more having to meditate, no more keeping my emotions in check. I can feel just like a normal teenage girl should be able to feel. And Trigon didn't want to destroy Earth this time in his rule, this is all he wanted. Just look around. Everything is flourishing."

"It…it just doesn't make sense…"

"Don't you see Psy? When Trigon said he wanted to take over the world, he just wanted to make it a better place. All that running we did, all that fighting, it was selfish. We were preventing Trigon from saving this world from damnation."

"But Trigon is an interdimentional demon! He's the essence of all evil! He IS evil!"

"That's what we were always told. Trigon is a leader. He has had to do some harsh things in the past, but that was always to traitors to his rule. The monks of Azarath stopped him from doing to their world what he has done to this one. After Arella, our mother, became pregnant with us, the monks of Azar destroyed Trigon. And when they found out that we were to bring him back to rule this world, they separated us, kept us from fulfilling our true, glorious destiny."

"Can this possibly be true? Everything points to Trigon being completely evil, all the evidence shows him being the incarnation of evil bent on taking over the universe and destroying it. But yet here you stand Raven, perfectly normal and unharmed. Not a care in the world. Wait a minute…if I'm the elixir to bring Trigon back to life, how did he manage to rule this world?"

"Good question my brother. Trigon was able to inhabit a host body once I became the portal. Blackfire was one hundred percent willing to host her master Trigon. The thing is, Trigon still inhabits Blackfire's body, and he still needs you to become the elixir so he can re-inhabit his own body. He has promised that he will do the same to you as he has to me. You'll be normal again. No powers to worry about, you can feel your emotions the way you did before you became dark. Your spirit will be made clean again so that your powers won't be dark. They will be powers of light once again."

I stand in complete shock, taking all this in. Is this truly Raven standing before me, completely unharmed? Have I really been gone for months while Trigon turned the world into a utopia of pure bliss, where everyone's happy, and everything goes right?

"Come with me Psy, and everything will be alright," Raven's voice says in my mind as she stretches out her hand. I stare blankly at her outstretched hand, and slowly raise mine to take hers.

"Raven…"

Raven lies motionless in a vast blackness. Nothing around, no one anywhere, just empty blackness surrounding. Her jeans are torn and ragged, her clothes that were to help protect her identity are in shreds, and the red markings that cover her body glow brilliantly in this eerie dark place.

"Raven…get up,"

A soft moan escapes Raven's lips. Her fingers twitch slightly. She slowly opens her eyes, trying to find the voice that awakened her.

Possibly hours later, Raven continues to walk through the vast darkness that surrounds her. Not calling for anyone, she gave that up a while ago. No, now she just wanders aimlessly, her feet going without a goal, following them to the end of nothing. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a brilliant white light shines in the darkness, a light that's almost blinding. Raven slowly looks up at the light, and moves towards it. As she gets to the light, she realizes it's a door. Cautiously, Raven looks around, and moves through the door. On the other side is the most beautiful field you have ever seen. Green grass covers the softly rolling hills, and wild flowers are scattered in patches everywhere.

As she looks about her, she notices a boy, about her age, kneeling on the ground about twenty yards away. He holds in his hands a small bundle of flowers, and he is crying bitterly. As she moves closer she sees a tombstone in front of the boy. She tries to read the name on the stone, but her presence is suddenly realized and the boy turns around in a start. He looks at her, and she looks back at him. Their eyes meet and they just stare, almost staring into each other's very souls.

"Raven…?" the boy whispers.

"S…Sam?" Raven whispers in response. Tears well in her eyes and she begins to sob. She falls to the ground on her knees. "You…you look so…so normal. Back to the way you used to be. You look…like a normal person."

"Raven…I…I thought I'd lost you," Sam says as he starts to sob as well. He takes Raven in his arms and the twins cry together for what seems like eternity. "I thought I'd lost everyone. After Trigon gave me back my humanity, that's when it really started to hurt. Everyone I loved…was gone. You had disappeared back when we had split up to go be with our friends. You never made it to your destination. You were just…gone."

"I…I remember being gone. I was in…a dark place…a place with no light, no hope, no anything."

"But now I have you, you're back; my pain won't be so hard knowing you're here to bear it with me."

"Sam…I can't. I can't feel like you do now. I'm still the same as I've always been. I still have to keep my emotions under control, they're still dangerous."

"But you can't allow me to bear this pain alone," Sam says between sobs. "It…it's too hard to take alone."

"Sam, you're strong. You're going to have to take this by yourself. I'll be here for you, but I can't feel with you."

"Look Raven! Look at what happened!" Sam moves aside to show the tombstone he was crying in front of.

MOOD SWING

TREMENDOUS POWERS

A PERFECT BROTHER

All of a sudden Raven looks around, and realizes she's not in a field, she never was. It was an illusion. She looks at her surroundings and sees that she kneels in the middle of a graveyard. Normally, Raven would be perfectly at home in a dark place like this, but the tombstones that encompass her slowly come into view.

ICE

POWERS OVER ICE AND SNOW

COULD NOT HIDE HER WARM HEART

WILDCAT

STRENGTH AND SPEED EMBODIED

A TRUE BORN HERO

ROBIN

A NATURAL LEADER

A TRUE TITAN TO THE END

GALE

MISTRESS OF AIR

BEAUTY BEYOND NATURE

"No…" The tears begin to flow from Raven's already swollen eyes. But it's not over; as she continues to look on in horror and shock, more graves begin to reveal themselves.

CYBORG

AN UNBREAKABLE SPIRIT

TRUE TO HIS FRIENDS ALWAYS

SPECTRA

GHOSTLY POWERS

A KIND SPIRIT

ECLIPSE

THE DARKNESS COULD NOT HIDE

THE LIGHT SHINING WITHIN

STARFIRE

ALWAYS JOYFUL

ALWAYS LOVING

"This…this can't possibly be true! This is just a vision! NO!"

BEAST BOY

KEEPING OUR LAUGHS ALIVE

EVEN IN THE DARKEST TIMES

TERRA

A TEEN TITAN

A TRUE FRIEND

SOLARFLARE

A LIGHT THAT ALWAYS BURNED

SHE KEPT OUR HOPES ALIVE

These tombstones broke her heart. Unleashed pain and bitterness like never before. But it was this last stone that made her world come crashing in on itself.

BRYON

NEVER ALONE

EVEN IN DEATH

Raven screams in pain, wails in heartache. "NO! NO! NOOOO!"

"Raven. Take my hand, and it'll all be over," Sam says to Raven as he extends his hand to lift her from the ground. "You can be normal again, let Trigon help you."

Raven looks up into the eyes of her beloved brother. The only one left in her life, and reaches to take his hand.

Simultaneously, though in alternate dimensions, Raven and Psy reach to grab the hand, seemingly of each other. As their hands touch the outstretched hands in front of them, everything goes dark…