Adaptation

by Cyberwraith9

Life is change. Do you have what it takes to change with it?

38. Ascendance: The End

Teen Titans
Adaptation

By Cyberwraith9

---

Ascendance: The End

His friends' breathless cries dwindled behind him as Beast Boy sprinted through wasteland streets. A gallery of horror-stricken statues wailed without voices as he wove through their midst. The pounding of his feet echoed in the haunting silence, chasing him to the bay.

The heavy sword swung in his grasp, its white blade flashing with all the myriad colors arising from the world. A jolt ran up Beast Boy's arm each time the sword brushed through a ribbon of the misty colors arising from the world. Its edge parted the incandescence, making the colors swirl and dance in the wake of the sword.

Beast Boy did not notice the sword's heft. He could not smell the stale, permeating death, nor heed the utter silence of the world. His body met his demands with greater muscle, fresh sinew, rushing blood, and eyes that pierced the distance separating him from the great red giant that loomed over them all.

Trigon stood motionless atop the bay, as he had since his laughter had drawn the colors from the city's statuesque populace. The iridescent storm swirled around him, blotting out the red sky with a tapestry that ebbed and pulsed and trembled as though it were alive, and in pain.

The beauty of the colors fell upon indifferent eyes. Beast Boy's eagle gaze flickered across the backdrop of Trigon's expansive chest, and came to rest upon a fluttering black mote. He stared hard, his eyes smoldering, until he could make out the details of the speck. He saw the glowing runes tattooed into its pallid skin, and the hanks of oily hair billowing inside its hood. As he stared into its four luminous eyes, he felt it stare back, and became enraged.

It's not really her, his rational mind insisted. She said it wouldn't be her. She's been changed.

His rationality shattered with a roar that started in his toes and rattled up through him to explode out his fangs. Whatever humanity he had left was swallowed by the beast that lurked beneath his skin.

His body rippled. A thick mane engulfed his shoulders and elongating body. Four hooves fell to the ground, punching craters into the cracked road as he galloped. Flecks of pavement skittered off the scales of his thick tail, which curled up over his back and ended in serpent jaws, which were filled with the hilt of The Hand. The colors in the air trembled as the green chimera roared.

The window-shattering howl came as a whisper to Trigon, who nevertheless turned his head. Bemusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. "A mortal?" he boomed. "Alive?"

Skittering to a stop at the edge of a concrete dock, the chimera howled again. Fire gushed from its mouth and nose, rippling the still, black waters. The sword flicked in his tail's maw.

Trigon took one hand into the other. When he moved, the storm of colors rushed around him. His thumb brushed the nub of his pinky as he saw the needle-thin flash of the blade. "So," he rumbled, "I see Azar put his prize to good use. But a sharpened fleck of bone will brook you no hope here. You are in my realm, mortal. None dare stand against me and live."

The chimera snorted flame. It pushed off the dock's edge, plunging into the pitch waters. The surface stilled unnaturally fast, becoming a smooth mirror for the sky once more.

An instant after the last ripple disappeared, bubbles began pearling across the water's face. The bubbling grew faster, more fervent, until a smooth black shape breeched from the water. The creature was so green as to almost blend into the black ocean. Glassy, soulless eyes dotted its skin, a thousandfold stare set upon Trigon. A nest of tendrils thrashed behind the creature, propelling it at tremendous speed. The Hand splashed behind it in a tentacle's grasp.

His ugly laugh shook the world. "I admire your courage, little changeling. Too, your hatred invigorates me. Swear your life to mine, and I shall allow you to serve me."

The creature breached again. A deep, mournful song broke with it, a single note that rose and fell. The haunting cry consumed the echoes of Trigon's laughter. The creature did not swerve or slow in its charge.

Trigon's scowl smoldered. Lifting his hand, he boomed, "Your arrogance has sealed your fate, mortal. So be it!"

A crimson blaze sprang from Trigon's hand, stretching until it filled the width of the bay. The colors tumbled out of the way as the ceiling of fire descended upon the green-black leviathan. The glassy surface of the ocean sizzled, becoming a red boil an instant before the fire slammed into the water.

Steam billowed from the ocean in a glimmering, twisting pillar miles in diameter. Trigon smirked at the fading boil, and returned his attention to the storm gathering around him.

A resounding snarl made Trigon turn back. Out of the fire clinging to the waters burst a long, powerful serpentine creature, which beat the air with enormous bat wings jutting from its back. Its black scales glimmered with emerald undertones as it pierced the swirling colors in the sky. Its claw clutched The Hand, dwarfing the miniscule blade.

As Trigon watched the dragon approach, he saw the blackness of its scales crackle and fade, disappearing last where the last tongues of flame clung to its body. It emerged from the storm fully green.

Reaching with otherworldly senses, Trigon felt a presence stir within the dragon, batting aside his attentions. Even rebuffed, the demon lord recognized the presence within the shapeshifter at once. "So, my daughter saw fit to protect you from my influence," he mused.

The dragon replied with a bellowing geyser of fire. It flew at Trigon's skyscraper chest, its wings pounding the iridescence of the air.

"But I wonder what will protect you from her influence?"

A circle of blackness opened before the dragon in the cascading storm. Raven emerged from its depths.

The flash of her flat, four-tiered scowl broke the dragon's bloodlust. Squalling, the dragon beat its wings backwards to hover before the sorceress. She hung in the air, as puny to the great beast as it was to Trigon, yet her face betrayed no reaction to the dragon's stare. Craning its neck, the dragon roared, its slavering fangs awash in the glow of her brands. Its volume shook the air, and its breath made her cloak twist and dance behind her. But she did not move, or blink, as its roar dwindled into breathless despair.

Trigon snickered, a looming voyeur. "I know your heart as I know hers, changeling. Hers is a void, an empty, withered vessel to be filled with my hate. But your heart aches with the weight of her. All mortal hearts are merely a weakness to be exploited."

Without warning, Raven's hands arose. Blackness sparked in her palms, becoming a lance of soul-self that struck the dragon's armored belly.

"And now your heart has killed you."

The lance stretched across the bay, folding the dragon around its blunt tip. Wings flailing, body crushed, the dragon spiraled at the end of the lance, and then hammered through a warehouse. The metal siding bashed and tore at the dragon as it left the building and slammed through the next, and then the next. When the buildings at the wharf were exhausted, the lance struck ground, and burrowed through city blocks of street. Waves of pavement leapt at its passing, showering the petrified citizenry in rubble.

At last, the lance stopped against the foundation of an old building. The long, black line dissipated, leaving behind a scar that stretched across the city, and a mountain of dirt piled high against the building's face.

A satisfied noise whorled from Trigon's nose. "A pity," he said of the scar's distant terminus. "You would have made a fine herald, or an interesting meal."

The thought spurred his ageless hunger. Trigon recalled his daughter to his side, and pondered no more on the curious collection of bone and blood and scales buried in the lifeless city. His meal awaited him, and nothing remained to oppose him.

Soon, tantalizingly soon, he would feed.

---

He opened his eyes. The sky danced overhead, overlapping into new and vibrant hues, wrapped around buildings that stretched down toward the ground around him. The buildings and the colors spun, slowing down only after several minutes of concentrated effort.

A mountainous mound of rubble pillowed his throbbing head. Little flecks of concrete tumbled down his face when he made the mistake of trying to move. Molten pain oozed out of his bones to fill every part of him. He collapsed, gasping for the breath to scream, and heaved until his agony quelled.

Through tears, he saw a silhouette loom above him, blotting out the palette sky. The inky shape boomed in Cyberion's voice. "I think he's coming around."

"Not so loud," Beast Boy murmured.

Cyberion brushed the pebbles from his face, smoothing back blood-matted hair. "You're gonna be okay, Salad Head," Cyberion whispered thunderously. "Just take it easy."

Beast Boy winced at the words, and then again as a horde of feet clambered down the side of the craterous trench in which he lay. Tek, Robin, and Starfire all skidded to the bottom, crowding behind Cyberion to glimpse the prostrate shapeshifter.

"Look at him," Tek said, leaning on Cyberion's elbow. "He doesn't have a scratch on him!"

As his head began to clear, and his friends' voices dimmed to a dull roar, Beast Boy managed to look down at his half-buried body. A few shreds of his shirt still hung from his waist. Some of his pants remained, enough to maintain what little dignity he had remaining. His exposed skin bore smudges, and stains from where he had plowed through sewage lines, but none of the gaping wounds he had expected. Beneath the skin, he could feel the last of his organs twitching back into their proper places.

"We all saw you charge him," Robin said. "None of us could keep up. You were…"

"We did not know you could turn into such creatures," Starfire said. "I have never seen such animals here on Earth…or anywhere."

"Am I the only one spazzing out about this? You turned into a dragon!" exclaimed Tek. "A freaking dragon! And you got pounded across the city, and look at you! Holy shit, Gar!"

Cyberion pressed her back. "Ease off, kid," he said. Then he asked Beast Boy, "What happened?"

Beast Boy groaned, letting his head settle back into the rubble. "I was gonna ask you the same thing. I remember the world ending. I saw the big red guy in the loincloth. Then it gets kind of blurry. You found me here?"

A meaningful glance shot between the four Titans above him. Tek stepped around, her eyes struggling to meet Beast Boy's fuzzy confusion. "We…saw you try to fight the big guy out there," she said. "And when you went down, we sort of tracked you by the, uh, trench."

"'Fight' isn't the word I'd use," Robin said, scowling and crossed his arms. "You have to be lucky beyond belief to survive a blast like that. And all you managed to do was put Trigon on his guard. Whatever surprise we might have had is gone now, thanks to you."

Before either Beast Boy or Cyberion could snap back at him, Tek stepped forward with her hand raised. "Question. How exactly did he survive that? The big red guy sent a big red wave that turned the whole bay into soup. Maybe Gar can heal quickly, but from something like that? All the Band-Aids in the world wouldn't help."

Thinking back to the battle drew fresh, blossoming pain into Beast Boy's head. He rubbed his temples, forcing his memories to the surface one shard at a time. "I dunno. I remember…I remember the water. Then everything went red…and then everything went black."

"Well, that part makes sense. Anybody would black out after a hit like that," Cyberion said as he slid Beast Boy's arm over his shoulder. "Easy. Okay?"

With Cyberion's help, Beast Boy lurched onto his feet, spraying debris down the mound's slope. "No," he grunted. "It's like everything around me turned black, and then faded back to normal. Like being swallowed by…un-light…anti-light…something. Like what happened with Raven when she was…"

He trailed off. The memory of Raven arched on the biobed stabbed deeper than any pain could. It made him remember the cold, flat, hateful face he had seen the instant before being thrust through half of the city. He fought the image away, and looked instead to the odd weight hanging in his clenched fist. The hilt of The Hand bit into his palm, its blade tipped into the soft earth beneath him.

A growl stirred in his chest. The beast refused to forget her face. It grasped the memory in its teeth, and tightened his grip on the sword's hilt. Its strength jolted through his legs to free him from Cyberion's help. The growl worked up through his throat.

"It was her," he rasped. "It was Raven. She protected me somehow."

"Dude…" Cyberion said, taking a step back from the rumbling shapeshifter. "It didn't really look like she was interested in protecting you from much of anything."

"No!" snapped Beast Boy. "Before that! Before he took her away, she…she did something…"

The rest of the Titans lapsed into worried silence at Beast Boy's frustrated scowl, until Tek cried, "Appointed!" When the scowls and worried silences turned upon her, she smacked her fist into her palm, and said, "Don't you remember? Raven's floaty-head said she had appointed us!"

Starfire's scowl rose in sudden understanding. "Anointed," she said.

Tek pointed excitedly. "Yeah, that! She said we were anointed, and that we would know what that meant when the time came! Don't you guys remember that big black whosits that exploded out of sickbay when the Tyrants attacked us?"

"It was Raven's soul-self," Robin mused. "It had to have been. She wasn't trying to protect herself from the Tyrants. She was trying to protect us from Trigon. She…infused us with part of it, somehow. With part of 'her.' "

Looking up at the sky, Starfire said, "That infusion must have been what protected us from the creature's petrifaction. Raven saved us from becoming statues like the others."

The excitement drained from Tek's expression as she looked back to the disheveled Beast Boy. "Ooh…but whatever she did won't protect us from her. And she kind of works for the big guy now, doesn't she?"

"She doesn't work for—!" Beast Boy bit his lip, curtailing his snarl before it panicked Tek. He tasted blood beneath his fangs, and forced a long, slow breath through his nose. "That thing is controlling her somehow. Raven needs our help. We have to save her!"

Cyberion had been propping Beast Boy up, and now rested a hand on the shapeshifter's chest to hold him back. "Easy," he said. "We will. We'll save Raven."

"S-Sure, Gar," Tek said, reaching for the plastic vial in her belt on instinct. A white pill eased the shaking in her hands. "Of course we want to save her. It's just…Even if we win…" The vial in her hands began to rattle again as Tek looked up. Drab, gray ruins filled her brimming eyes. "Guys, even if we beat this thing…will Raven still be Raven afterward? Will anybody? What if the world's stuck like this forever?"

The question had been in all of them, waiting for someone to give it voice. At Tek's soft uttering, the thought grew heavy. One by one, their gazes fell into the loose earth at their feet.

Then Cyberion looked up. "Then I guess I'm pretty damn lucky," he said, jerking all eight eyes out of the dirt. "If we're stuck like this forever, I couldn't have asked for four better people to share the whole world with.

"We'll worry about what happens after when we get to 'after.' Right now, we've got a job to do, and a friend to save. So let's get to work." Cyberion said, and stuck his hand into their midst. "Titans Together."

After a second's pause, Robin clasped his hand atop Cyberion's. "Titans Together," the Teen Wonder said solemnly.

Starfire's hand joined his. A light squeeze drew his eyes to hers. "Titans Together," she agreed.

Beast Boy thrust the tip of The Hand into the ground. He imagined the yielding earth to be red flesh, and felt a surge of animal hate wipe away his exhaustion. Stacking his clawed hand on top of his friends', he rumbled, "Titans Together."

The vial disappeared back into Tek's belt. Her smile uneasy, she joined her hand to theirs, and said, "Dibs on Europe."

They stood beneath the surface, in a crater made from a fraction of their enemies' power, the warmth in their hands providing their sole comfort in a cold, bleak hell. A noticeable absence remained in their circle, a gap at Beast Boy's side, one which hurt them all. With unspoken agreement, they vowed to fill that gap or die in the attempt.

Beast Boy's ears pricked at the sudden emergence of new heartbeats at the edge of the crater. Soft, crunching footfalls worked through the fuzz in his brain. He heard a crackling, and felt the hairs on his neck stand at attention. "Move!" he cried, his outline blurring.

The green lion's roar spurred the Titans apart an instant before pink lightning turned the rubble where they stood into molten glass. Tek's armor swallowed her in time to take the brunt of a green bolt, which slammed her into the side of the trench. Robin made for the opposite side of the crater. Then he backpedaled hard, crashing into Starfire as the crater's wall became an oozing acid mire.

A catalogue of weaponry flashed behind Cyberion's eyes, aching to manifest in his arms. He held the arsenal back, and looked up to the edge of the crater. "You have got to be kidding me," he said.

Jinx cradled a readied blast of hex, one bright and loud enough to dismantle Cyberion down to his component molecules. The pure chaos burned in her scowl. Around her, the other Teen Tyrants rimmed either side of the crater-trench, with Billy Numerouses backing them up on both sides.

"Look what you did!" Jinx cried, and loosed her blast.

The hex met the ground at Cyberion's feet, spraying debris across his pale, sleeveless bodysuit. Gizmo's disruptor bolts splashed through Shimmer's crawling acid mire, herding Robin and Starfire back toward Cyberion. Outnumbered and outflanked, the Titans gathered in the middle of the crater, their backs encircling the sunken Hand.

Shimmer grasped the crater's edge. More of the wall transformed into greenish sludge, pooling down the crater wall in an inexorable march toward the Titans. "You brought that thing here!" she screamed. "Your little goth bitch killed everything!"

A Volkswagen Beetle groaned as its wheels left the ground. Mammoth hefted the car above his head, grasping it by each axle. "Now we're gonna kill you!" he bellowed, and took aim with the car's bumper.

Iridescent pink tears floated from Jinx's eyes, sparking before they winked out of the air. "It's your fault," she sobbed, and made bonfires of her hands. "This is all your fault. I'm going to roast you down to your goddamn bones!"

Beast Boy's fur became skin and shredded uniform once more. "Why are they here? 'How' are they here?" he growled just loud enough for the other Titans to hear. "Why would Raven protect these guys too?"

"Dude, I don't think she had time to be choosy," muttered Cyberion.

"They seem more agitated than usual," Starfire murmured. Starbolts lit in her palms, which she cupped to keep hidden.

"Might be all this apocalypse," Tek murmured back. "It's got me feeling a little wonky."

"We're running out of time. We need to take them out quickly," Robin whispered. "Tek is the distraction. Beast Boy and I can—"

"No," Cyberion said. He stepped out of their formation with his hands raised.

As the others watched in bewilderment, Robin tensed, letting his hand drift toward his belt. "Vic, what are you doing?" he hissed.

Cyberion ignored him, and met Jinx's tearful scowl with a steady look. "Pretty lousy weather we're having, huh? It's like a kindergarten finger-painting massacre up there."

Jinx convulsed with rage. The dead air replied with a sudden gale that whipped around her. Her fires danced in her hands as she screamed, "Shut up!"

"Looks like it might rain cats and dogs…or maybe fire and brimstone," he continued. His uniform changed, manifesting pockets, in which he stuck his hands with a shrug. "Should've brought an umbrella. Or a priest."

"Right. Vic's checked out, guys," Tek squeaked.

Through billowing hair and sparking tears, Jinx roared, "You think this is a joke? You think you're funny, hero? You ended the world!"

"Me, personally? Sure, why not?" Cyberion said, and shrugged again. "And now you're gonna kill us. Smush us real good. Start with me, why don't you? Oh, but don't wait too long to get Robin. He's sneaky. And really grind Beast Boy into the ground. I mean, just mash the hell out of him, you know? He bounces back pretty hard these days, so you need to do the job right the first time."

"Shut up!" screamed Jinx.

Shifting his Volkswagen load, Mammoth snarled, "Jinx, c'mon! Let's do this already!"

"Yeah. 'Do it,' " jeered Cyberion. "And then what? After you finally kill us—way to go, by the way, it only took you guys about a year of trying—what are you gonna do? Head down to The Hideout for a beer?

"…um," said Shimmer. The oozing of her acid mire faltered.

"Look around, you morons!" Cyberion shouted, throwing out his hands. "With everything going on right now, are you seriously keeping up this pissy little grudge we have?"

Gizmo shifted his weight from foot to foot. The glowing mouths of his disruptor cannons bobbed. "Yeah, well…we can still kill you, bolts-for-brains! We'll strip all that pretty new skin right off of you and make it into a handbag, and then…and then we'll…"

Cyberion fixed him with a pointed look. "Yeah. And then. While you're stomping us into the dirt, that thing," he said, and pointed to the red colossus looming over them, "is going to finish his planet-sized snack. And y'all can die happy, knowing you just killed the only people left on the planet who are actually trying to do something about it."

"Yeah!" The cheer erupted from the gaggle of Billys lining the crater. Then they looked between themselves in sudden thought. "Uh, yeah?"

"If you really wanna kill us, then just up and do it, and quit yapping about it," Cyberion said. "Then you can sit back and watch everything end. Or, if you aren't completely brain-damaged, you could help us."

"No!" Robin snapped. "We can't trust them, and we can't waste time watching our backs. We've already lost too much time as it is."

"We don't need to trust them. They've got as much stake in this as we do," Cyberion answered, still facing Jinx. "I'm offering them a chance to save all the things they might want to rob or break later on. They'd have to be crazy to say 'no.' Just like we'd have to be crazy to turn down any help we can get," he added.

Jinx was silent for a moment, ignorant of the inquisitive looks from her teammates. The colors roiled overhead, drawing her eyes toward the demon standing at the top of the world. Looking up, she watched Trigon orchestrate the world's souls into a tempest. She remembered the scalding red light that had spilled out of Raven. Her arm tingled with the impression of a hand that, mere hours ago, had saved her from being the first to die, only to take her place instead.

Finally, Jinx said, "You actually think you can beat him."

Cyberion's mouth twitched. "Yeah. I actually do."

"I say we frag 'em!" Gizmo cried. The ends of his cannons flared. "Gear-Meat is just trying to bluff us! Let's—!"

"Shut up, Mik!" Mammoth bellowed. The car dropped from his shoulders, crunching hard on the pavement behind him. His hard look drifted up from the Titans to pierce the haze around Jinx's eyes. "Nikki?" he gruffed.

The other Tyrants waited, wordless and still, for Jinx's decision.

Robin ghosted behind Cyberion, lowering his voice to a graveyard whisper. "This is a mistake."

"Then you'd better say 'I told you so' now," Cyberion retorted. His gaze drifted up to the storm, where the luminescence writhed in mounting fervor. "You might not get the chance later on."

---

From across the globe, the last remnants of life streamed through the upper atmosphere toward the focal point above Jump Bay. The iridescence slithered from on high, joining the essences of every plant, every animal, and every person on Earth in a convergence of blinding magnitude.

Trigon skimmed his fingertips through the edge of the silent maelstrom. A shiver traversed the gangling length of his spine as raw life pulsed against his skin. His meal was collected, complete, and ready to be consumed. But first, it would require purification.

A fraction of his will stretched into a fluttering vessel, which rode the edge of the maelstrom overhead. His unseen presence squashed the vessel's mind, stifling her wordless, screaming protests long before they reached her throat. The vessel's four eyes flashed red as her arms spread from the fluttering recesses of her black cloak, parting the storm.

His daughter had been bred to be many things to Trigon. First among her duties was to serve as his Portal, and she had served that purpose well. Too, she was a living gateway, one that would carry his magnificence to the billion-billion realms of the multiverse.

But the half-breed was also an empath of unequivocal sensitivity. She absorbed ambient emotions. Her soul would filter from the world its mortal trappings—love, fear, joy, sorrow, memory—leaving only the purified life energy for him to consume. She had done so in Azarath, and would do so now, and continue at each new dimension.

And when the aggregate emotions of Trigon's meals destroyed her soul, Trigon would consume her lifeless husk, reabsorb the dimensional nexus, and bestow it upon a new progeny to begin the cycle anew. So he had done in countless numbers throughout time, and so would he continue to do, until all of Creation resided in him.

At Trigon's command, his daughter descended from the maelstrom to hover before his open mouth. The storm trailed after her, pulled by the force of her receptive soul. A vortex of color stabbed into her chest, funneling through her arched body. It emerged from her back as cool, pure, white light.

Trigon spread his lips around the oily, luminous cloud of life. The taste of it sent pure pleasure shooting across his nerves. He pulled at the colorlessness, drawing its power into him at last.

His relishing became a pained grunt as a green needle lanced into his eye. The luminescence he had eaten spilled from his mouth and rejoined the storm around him. Staggering back, he clapped his hand over the offended eye, and glared with the other half of his face toward the source of the pricking.

At the end of a dock, standing between the lifeless boats lining the concrete walkways, stood a golden torch, her hands blazing with green fire.

"Here me, demon!" she bellowed. "I am Koriand'r, crown princess of Tamaran, and sworn guardian of Earth! You will release our friend and leave this dimension at once!"

Trigon swept his hand from his eye, the red of which was slightly redder. "Arrogant mortal!" he thundered. "You dare strike me?"

His words created a gale that crashed into Starfire. A long, red banner of war fluttered behind her scowl. "I will destroy you," she vowed. "Leave our world now, and never return!"

"Destroy her!"

At Trigon's world-shaking command, Raven pulled the vortex from her chest and tossed it back into the swirl of the maelstrom. Her four red eyes narrowed upon the distant dock as she shot forth.

Great, shadowy hands emerged from the oncoming shape, each claw the size of a building. The hands stretched across the bay to close around Starfire with uncanny speed. Starfire watched the hands scoop into the ocean, creating tidal waves off of their black skin. She stood her ground as long as she could, until she saw the red glint of Raven's eyes.

"Now!" she boomed.

---

Three shapes shot from the cover of Jump City's skyline miles away to the north of where STarfire stood. Two of them pulled ahead, while the green third shape glided behind them, filling the sky with its pterodactyl shriek. A white needle protruded from its claws.

Robin cut the air with his angular helmet. Once free of the cityscape, he mashed his free thumb on the Redtail's throttle. His red, winged jetpack screamed fire in reply, propelling him at ludicrous speeds out over open waters.

The hum of Tek's alien thrusters drowned out her nervous moan as she chased Robin's wake. Her helmet crackled with static before Cyberion's distorted voice emerged. "Did she take the bait?" he demanded.

Their satellite communications had always been clearer, but were obviously no longer an option. The radios in their communicators, while still working, were made to fuzz and screech at the energies abound in their airspace. "Confirmed," Robin said scratchily, and with composure that Tek envied. "We're on approach now. Tek is my flank, and Beast Boy is guarding our six. Time-to-target is less than four minutes."

"Okay. I'm on my way to give Starfire a hand," Cyberion answered. "If what Beast Boy said is true, then Raven's the only thing here that can zap us. If we keep her busy, you should have a clear shot. Do whatever it takes to take him down."

"The head or the heart," Robin chanted back. "We'll do it."

Tek tore her eyes away from the storm of shadows raging to the south, and from the green lighting that flashed within it. The sight awaiting them at the center of the bay almost stopped her heart. Staring down the towering, furious demon, she said, "Maybe he can't zap us, but I gotta believe he can still squash us. His hand is as big as a parking lot!"

Robin's jets burned hotter, thrusting him ahead. As Tek fought to keep up, she heard him say, "Stay clear, and try to distract him with your cannons. I'll do the rest."

Trigon watched his daughter engage the golden mortal at the shore. Half a city away, he felt the tremors of a new presence, and saw fire cross the sky. The nub of his little finger ached to look at the sword in the mortal's grasp. He knew their plan at once.

"So," he boomed, "you would raise your hand to me. You think yourselves force enough to challenge me? Let me show you true might! Let it be your last waking thought, to realize the arrogance of your defiance.

"Daughter!"

Across the bay, Raven's head turned at her father's command. She batted aside a starbolt meant for her head, and turned. Her hands swept the dead air, creating a new gust that stirred the waters around the dock. A black portal opened before her.

Already running at inhuman speed, Cyberion cursed and pushed himself harder. He touched the earpiece manifested from his own body, and shouted, "She's teleporting back to protect Trigon! Be ready to—!"

A dozen new portals cut the air above the bay. A dozen more joined them, and then more still. Hundreds of black portals opened above the water, blotting out the color-sick sky. The still air jumped, scorching hot and thick with the smell of brimstone.

Cyberion skidded to a halt at the sudden gust. As he watched, the black sky became red once more. He thought perhaps that the portals were dissipating, until he telescoped his sight, and grew cold with horror.

Things climbed out from the portals. Things. Things that slithered, with serrated teeth. Things that flapped upon leathery wings dripping in gore. Things that crawled across the surface of the water, their claws long and terrible. Creatures the likes of which his nightmares could never hope to become poured from the portals in endless number. All of them stared back at Cyberion with the eyes of Trigon.

"KILL!" Trigon bellowed. His army screamed in reply.

"By X'Hal…" It was the first thing Cyberion heard over the sound of his own instincts screaming at him to run.

"I can't… I can't…" Tek blubbered over the radio.

Cyberion closed his eyes, and drew a long, steady breath. He could still hear a legion of horrors coming for them. "Get to Trigon. Hurt him any way you can. Whatever it takes. Everyone, go!"

"I guess that's our cue…"

He opened his eyes to the wry new voice over the radio. Half a mile to the south, he saw movement skitter down the end of the dock. His eyes adjusted to the distance once more, until he could make out the distinct shapes of their backup team.

The rest of the Teen Tyrants gathered behind Jinx at the end of the dock. Her eyes crackled as she bent down to the water's edge. The tips of her fingers dipped into the smooth, black surface.

She raised her scowl to the nameless horrors writhing toward them. Her energies shot through the water, stretching herself through the still, black conduit of the ocean. Sweat poured down her brow as she worked her will into the waters.

She lifted her scowl to the hordes. Her other hand followed. "One last time. For you," she murmured too softly to be heard.

The water shivered throughout Jinx's reach. All along her tendrils of willpower, ribbons of ghostly frost began to form. The crystalline cold spread in all directions across the bay. Ribbons became colliding sheets, and then bergs, until at last the entire body of water under Trigon's soles was frozen over into a solid sheet of ice. The entire bay was frozen inside of a minute.

Sixteen square miles of intrinsic, molecular heat pulsed back to Jinx through her leylines. She channeled the energy up through her fingertips, digesting it at her core, and directed it back out her outstretched hand.

"Tyrants Terrorize!" screamed Jinx.

A cone of flame erupted from her palm, growing to the thickness and length of a skyscraper as it spread. Jinx angled the white furnace upward, away from her carpeting ice, straight through the wall of horrors. Carapaces and scales and stinking flesh became shadows that haunted the flames for a split instant before they were consumed wholly. Though the attack fell miles short of Trigon, its direction left no question as for whom Jinx had meant to hurt.

As the crackling column burned itself out, the screams of Trigon's armies—diminished, but still innumerable—squalled at the Titans and Tyrants. Then, through a crackle of static, Tek said, "I am so glad she never did that to us. Wow."

"Tyrants Terrorize!" came the bellowing cry, as Mammoth and Shimmer charged across the ice field, followed by a platoon of Billy duplicates. Jets roared, carrying Gizmo and his arsenal into the air on laden wings. Jinx sagged at the dock, pulling her fingers free from the ice. Fatigue pulled at her features, but could not reach her blazing eyes.

Cyberion shook himself free from his awe, and ignored the Tyrants' charge. "Starfire?" he said, touching his earpiece.

Amidst the flash and terror out over the frozen bay, the shadow storm on the south shore seemed miniscule. Intermittent flashes of green light escaped the swirling black clouds that enveloped the docks. "I am…nnngh…fine! Do what you must to help the others!" came Starfire's reply.

His gaze drifted upward. Somewhere in the writhing wall of demons and portals, Tek, Robin, and Beast Boy were carrying their best hope against annihilation.

His earpiece receded into the skin of his ear at his unspoken command. "Right," he grunted. "Good looks ain't gonna buy me much in that fracas. Sarah, are you still with me?"

Affirmative. I am awaiting direct commands.

Cyberion shivered at Sarah's clear, pleasant voice in his head. "Access every weapon and armor design rattling around in my head. If I've ever seen it, thought about it, or dreamed it up, I want it ready to shove it down these guys' throats."

Acknowledged. Defensive systems on standby. Power levels optimum. We are now fully prepared to proceed with the kicking of monster asses at your discretion.

A small part of him wondered if her earlier concerns had been more valid than he thought. But he had no time to consider them now. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Make us shine, Sarah."

Silvery metal ate his skin. His muscles grew into cold, angular lines. Metal plates became his ears. The details of his body—fingernails, pores, hairs—faded. Blood and mucus became oil and silicone. The blue light of his eyes expanded until his sockets blazed. Blue circuitry crisscrossed his limbs and crawled up his sides.

Armored, tall and strong, the new Cyberion stood at the edge of the black sea, scanning Trigon's army with his powerful optics. New data flooded into him amidst Sarah's cool voice: mode change complete.

"Let's jet."

The metal plates on his back bulged outward. The bulges hollowed themselves, and then hardened into twin thrusters. As his circuitry pattern glowed across their casings, the thrusters bellowed, making the world behind Cyberion dance with heat.

He exploded into the air. Were the weight of the world not crushing his shoulders, he would have whooped. Instead, he thought only of arsenals, of weaponry blueprints, and of the monstrosities writhing toward him.

---

White-hot bolts shot past Robin to fill the faces of the serpentine hydra blocking their way. The hydra's three heads became one, which screamed in agony as it plummeted toward the ice below.

He could hear Tek's ragged breath through his headset, and knew she was half a heartbeat from losing herself. Nor could he blame her. The baser parts of Robin shriveled in the presence of Trigon's army, the leading periphery of which loomed before him and Tek. His Redtail was light on fuel and ammunition, and even if it wasn't, it never could have prepared him for such a situation as this.

Yet when he envisioned himself dashed to pieces between the jaws of the horde, he felt no fear. The image drew a tight smile across his face. He aimed his defiance at the heart of the slavering army, mashing his thumb until the Redtail's throttle-button disappeared into its housing.

Through tentacles, through wings and claws, he saw glimpses of Trigon's broad chest. He locked his eyes on the flashes of red flesh, refusing to swerve from the target. Raven's premonition echoed in his head. …someone will have to make the greatest sacrifice. …won't be mine to make.

It would be his sacrifice to make. He vowed that it would be him. It had to be him.

"Robin!"

Tek's shriek rousted him. He shook his head, and saw a mouth the size of a parking structure rise before them. The creature behind the mouth stretched on for a quarter-mile, and the inside of it seemed to be nothing but a black tunnel lined with billions of white teeth. Its bristling, jagged innards undulated as its maw rushed toward the two Titans.

Robin's smile became bared teeth and flattened cheeks as he jerked back on the Redtail's control, rocking his body back. He activated his last afterburners, pushing him at the sky so hard his helmet began to creak. The world turned to charcoal at the edges of his vision. As he shot past the edge of the maw, he felt the tip of his boot graze something chitinous. He heard a shrill cry over the radio, and then a crashing spray behind him.

Tek rose to his side several seconds later, clinging shards of the maw-creature's shell flaking from her shoulder. She slapped at the teeth stuck in the joints of her armor, and radioed, "It's getting really—!"

A wall of feathers batted Tek into silence. She tumbled off the wing of a tremendous red raptor, which screeched for its flock to join it. Another terrible bird loomed with open claws at the end of Tek's arc, answering with its own ear-splitting screech as its talons closed around the armored girl.

Robin loosed two rockets into the looming raptor. The demon's midsection became fire and black blood expanding in a cloud. An instant later, thunder clapped the sides of Robin's head, and he felt a rush of heat push against him. A rattling shriek followed the top half of the bird down. Two smoking drumsticks trailed after its torso.

Even as Robin changed course, he heard a hum span the air behind him, followed by two thudding impacts. Over the top of his wings, he saw a blue force field blocking him from a trio of the massive raptors, their red feathers made purple by the crackling wall. Turning back, he saw Tek's hands stretching toward him. The trim of Tek's armor glowed.

"It's getting really loud over here!" Tek cried.

"Keep moving!" barked Robin.

He led the way, jets blazing. Tek shoved the raptors with her force field for good measure before dissipating the energy and following. Her thrusters paced the Redtail into the maelstrom of demons still emerging from the nearest cluster of portals.

Most of the monsters were simply too big or too slow to notice the pair, and those that did could not turn fast enough to snatch at them before the brood behind them shoved them forward, out of reach. But the closer they drew to the portals, the thicker the air became. The monsters were pressed wing to shoulder to spindly feeler at their source. Space to fly grew scarce in a matter of seconds.

Sparks burst from the wingtip of the Redtail as Robin nicked the back of a finned, flying monstrosity he dare not look upon twice. The world pirouetted around him. It took several nauseating seconds to right his wings again, and he had to juke to the side or be bisected by a claw as tall as he was.

Plasma fire burst behind him. Over the screams of creatures, he heard Tek say, "Okay, now it's getting crowded, too!"

His eyes drilled through the monsters' ranks, glimpsing Trigon one last time before a leathery wing curtained the demon lord. A skyscraping pterodactyl emerged from a portal, its wingspan blotting out everything in the Titans' path. The thrust of its wing nearly brought Robin to a dead halt.

He waited, hand tightening on the Redtail's control. When the great beast's wing drew back for another beat, he loosed the rest of his rockets. The small flock of black darts converged into fire upon the flap of the pterodactyl's wing, the barest of stings, which the beast hardly noticed.

"Fire!" bellowed Robin.

Tek understood at once. Her repeating cannons boiled the flesh where Robin's rockets had struck. White fire consumed the beast's flesh, making it wail in an octave humans could barely hear, and at a volume that resonated in both Titans' bones. The black scorch on its wing became red sky, expanding as the gaping wound grew wider.

Robin pushed his jets past their limits, aiming himself through the expanding hole in the pterodactyl's wing. White bolts flew past him while warning messages flashed in his helmet's visor. The Redtail's engines began to sputter as their fuel tanks emptied.

Smaller, still gargantuan red shapes whirled past him. His wings creaked and his blood rushed as he darted between monsters. The pterodactyl's wing flapped, rushing a wall of wind and blackened flesh.

The Redtail burst through the hole in the demon's wing. Flecks of flesh sprayed off the jetpack's wingtip, widening the gap by a fraction. Beyond the pterodactyl was clear sky, a straight line that ended at Trigon's chest. Robin unclenched the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, and heard Tek's victorious whoop as she followed through the hole and into the open sky.

A reptilian hand rose up, its palm the size of the whole of the pterodactyl through which they had flown. The colorful world above them turned black in the shadow of the demonic hand. Three tremendous claws curled around the Titans' airspace as they hurtled into the scaled, lined flesh of the palm.

The scale of the creature grasping at them defied all remaining reason in Robin. He acted on instinct, twisting the Redtail up and sideways. Beleaguered jets shoved him at one of the dwindling gaps between the enormous lizard's fingers. Behind him, he heard a scream, and a whining hum, and then a gonging thump. Tek had turned too late.

Robin pressed his face toward the soul storm. It has to be me, he insisted. It has to be.

Thrust became smoke as the Redtail's jets coughed. Robin lost speed, and then control, and then half of his starboard wing as he sheared past one of the reptile's claws. The impact knocked his straight climb into a knotted, spiraling, smoking descent. The world blurred and darkened around him.

He fought, but the force of the spin exhausted his hand, which dropped from the Redtail's useless control. The occasional belch of thrust emerged from his jets, punching him with speed. The Redtail provided just enough lift and drag to prolong his spiraling fall to the black ice far below.

This was the end. It was over.

For one moment, his dimming thoughts flooded with relief. Maybe he had failed, but he had tried his hardest. And now it was over. He was finally done. That was all that really mattered.

In whirling glimpses, he saw a dark corner stand out against the iridescent backdrop. A storm of shadows converged on the shoreline. He tried to recall the source of the storm, but could not. He only knew of the nebulous sense of loss it evoked.

Green lightning flashed inside the shadows. With it flashed a face in his memory, a smile so blinding that it made him blink just to remember it. The green light pulsed, and Robin ached. His relief became an icy black absence in his head and his chest. Through that creeping vacuum, one thought echoed.

"K…K-Kory…"

---

Blades of shadow assaulted Starfire from all sides. She blocked, and ducked, and blasted the ephemeral blades. The bracers on her arms grew scarred. Too many close calls oozed with shallow blood, making her fists trail red steam as she swung starbolts through the dark shapes.

Raven hovered out of reach of Starfire. Darkness poured from the depths of Raven's cloak to attack the Titan. Where they couldn't strike Starfire, the shadows punched through the dock, shredding the old wood. Splinters filled the air in a thick, biting spray.

The disappearing footing forced Starfire back. Her eyes blazed, turning the splinters to cinders. New shadows poured through the haze, forcing her back faster still. One flat tendril scored Starfire's side, staining her gold skin red before she shattered the shadow with a sweep of her elbow.

"Raven!" Starfire bellowed, clutching her side. "Raven, you must fight the demon's control!"

Raven's red eyes blazed. Her soul-self left Starfire, giving the Titan a half-second of false hope. Each tendril thickened, trading its bladed shape for that of a bludgeon. Thick fists of ether punched through the wood all around Starfire, rocking her off her feet. Wave after wave of soul-bludgeons began demolishing the dock out from under Starfire.

Scrambling, Starfire ran for dry land. The tendrils followed, destroying the dock as fast as she could step. With one last push, she leapt twenty yards, and landed with her toes on the concrete foundation of the wharf. Dry wood crumbled from under her heels, making her whirl her arms to keep from falling backwards.

The air split open before Starfire. She saw four red eyes coming at her from the black opening. Instinct curled her fist, which she launched into the eyes. Her knuckles connected with a crumpling nose. Raven soared off the end of Starfire's punch and disappeared through the wall of the warehouse behind her.

Starfire held her breath, watching the hole in the warehouse while black ichor dripped from her fist. When she saw crawling shadows tear through the inside of the warehouse, she sighed, unsure of if she should feel relieved or afraid.

"Raven, you must stop this!" Starfire shouted at the disintegrating warehouse. "You are not this monster! You are not meant to be this way! You do not have to do this!"

Metal shrieked as the corrugated walls of the building folded beneath its collapsing roof. A wave of dust rolled from the collapse, billowing across Starfire.

Starfire blinked away gritty tears. "Whatever he has done to you, it need not turn you into this. You can choose to come back to us, if you only try. Raven, please! You…"

Raven's four eyes lit the dust, making it red fog. Starfire watched the shadows in the ruined warehouse swirl around the eyes. The Titan's words dried in her throat as Raven rose from the wreckage.

Terra had betrayed them. She had not come back. Robin had abandoned them, and refused to come back. Starfire saw the puppet her friend had become, and realized that it was no use. Once gone, her friends would never return to her. Once turned, no one ever truly returned.

"Kory…"

Tears overwhelmed Starfire's closed eyelids. "I do not wish to fight you. I do not want things to be this way," she said.

"Kory…"

"…I do not wish to be this way," Starfire whispered through trembling lips.

A violent cough exploded with static in Starfire's ear, snapping her eyes open. Through the radio, she heard a hoarse voice mumble her name. "Kory?"

Her whole body jolted. Starfire spun in place, forgetting the shadows that arose from the warehouse behind her. Her eyes darted through the sky, only to slam against a monstrous red wall. "Robin?"

The airwaves buzzed with his cough. Starfire blinked, and suddenly found herself hurtling toward the slick surface of the bay, her legs leaping out from Raven's clutches all on their own. Snow jetted from under her boots as she landed in a long skid.

Starfire skated into the midst of the horrors. Her strides cracked the ice behind her, a skidding, bounding sprint that put miles behind her in no time at all. A centipede the size of a bus put its jaws through the ice trying to catch her, all beyond her notice. Her eyes skimmed the sky while her step never faltered.

Past a curtain of wings, she saw a needle-thin ribbon of smoke. The ribbon's end spiraled through the heart of Trigon's army, and vanished behind the span of a twisting, undulating serpent long enough to encircle Titans Island.

She gasped at the smoke, batting aside the maw of a slavering wolf-demon without thought. Then, closing her mouth into a tight line, she leapt.

Wind crackled in Starfire's ears. Her fists stabbed the sky, pushing it aside as she rose. Teeth and beaks snapped at her, too slow to catch the tips of her boots. The ice beneath her dwindled into a small, scarred pond dotted with red. She kept her eyes locked upon the house-sized serpent. As its house-sized scales approached, Starfire felt her ascent begin to slow. The wind's crackle softened, and the air didn't push on her as hard.

She scowled. Her fists hammered into the serpent's side, and kept going.

Sinew and slime plunged around her. She felt the creature's shriek rattle through her. Bones shattered against her fists. Flesh ripped around her determined grimace.

Starfire breached from the top of the demon, wearing shreds of its heart draped around her. The serpent twisted itself into knots as it plummeted, too wracked with pain to understand that it was already dead. And Starfire kept going.

The end of the smoke ribbon lay in sight. It had fallen beneath her on her way through the serpent. She was close enough to see the glint of red metal and a shock of black hair. Dull blue eyes flashed at her as the red wings rolled.

Starfire gathered herself and leapt again. She jumped down to the source of the smoke, and sank her fingers through the wing. The jetpack bucked against her grasp. She reached, straining, until she grasped the collar of Robin's uniform. Her other hand tore the pack free from his shoulders. The pack spun away to crash alone as Starfire drew Robin close, and carried them both out of the trailing smoke.

His face felt clammy on her chest. He hung limp against her, frighteningly still. Starfire held her breath until the dead weight in her arms began to wrack with coughing. A sigh of relief shuddered out of her as he sprayed her neck with smoky phlegm.

Robin heaved. His eyes circled the battlefield in a fit, and came to rest on Starfire's face. "Kory? What…?" he croaked.

"You were crashing," said Starfire.

He struggled against the arm around his waist. "We don't have time. I have to get to Trigon! I have to…"

When he looked down, he jolted, and fell still. Two miles of open air hung below them, teeming with demons. The snowy crown of Trigon shrank as Robin and Starfire continued to rise. "Kory, are you…flying?" he said.

Tears ran down her cheeks, red with serpent's blood. "You were crashing," she said again.

Robin stared back into her gore-spattered expression. "I…I'm okay," he said. His gloved thumb crossed her cheek, wiping away her tears. A line of golden skin emerged from the stinking mess that clung to her skin.

"No," she said firmly. "You are not."

He stared again, silent for a beat. Then he said, "I know."

Six words had been lurking in Starfire's chest since the moment she had spurned Robin from her room. They exploded from her now, bursting from her lips before she could stop them. "I wanted it to be you."

"…what?"

She looked away, her cheeks ablaze. "I told you that it could have been anyone, and…in my state, that much was true. But I wanted it to be you. Very much. From the very start of my quickening, and before."

Robin's mouth dropped, empty for words. It clapped shut at a string of echoing shrieks from underfoot. Looking down, he and Starfire saw a squadron of the pterodactyl demons climbing, the creatures' wings pounding the sky.

"We should probably table our screwed-up issues until after we save existence," Robin said.

"Agreed." The edge returned to Starfire's voice. Clinging entrails smoked as her hands alighted with green fire.

They dove, each clinging to the other. Their free hands grew heavy with energy and explosives, their eyes hardening on the aberrant monsters below them. No more words were needed for the moment, save for one.

"Go!" they shouted, and lashed out with everything they had.

---

The lights of Tek's HUD blurred together into a blinding flare, forcing her eyes closed as quickly as they had opened. Pain throbbed in every part of her, assuring her that her limbs were all still attached and unhappy at the fact. Her helmet tilted back and met a solid surface.

She remembered the sight of the tremendous hand coming for her. Then whirling, and hurt, and screaming—her own.

"I really hate flying," Tek groaned, and could not hear herself over the ringing in her ears.

As sensation faded back to her through the haze of aches, she became aware of a rhythmic thump against her chest plate. She heard the impact of flesh against metal as her ears started working again.

"Allie!" Thump. "Allison!" Thump. Thump. "Get up! Get up, damn you!" she heard. Thump.

Through arduous effort, Tek tilted her helmet up to her chest. She uncrossed her eyes, forcing them through the glare of her HUD. There, perched on her chest, was the last sight she expected to see.

"Ryuko?" she said.

Bushido looked up from her armor, his fists poised to knock again. "Allie! I feared you were dead in there. I saw you struck by the demon, and I tracked you back to your crater here."

He slid off her chest as she sat up. "Crater?" she groaned. Tek surveyed the oblong depression stretched around her. She sat over a mile back from the edge of the ice. Broken road and holed buildings formed a long, thin line ahead of her. She could see the spots where she had skipped against the ground before grinding to rest on a bed of rubble. "Oh. Crater," she said.

Bushido stepped aside as she lumbered to her feet. "I've been trying to reach you ever since the mass petrifaction of the planet. It took quite a bit of effort to—"

Tek turned her back to him, scanning the skyline through her visor. She touched the side of her helmet, and said, "Cy?"

"Tek? Still alive?" Cyberion replied. He sounded harried.

"—catch up to you," Bushido finished lamely.

"I got conked pretty good," said Tek. She grimaced at the looming, scowling visage of Trigon on the opposite side of the battlefield. "Is Robin okay? The big ugly's still standing."

"Alive. Not flying. Starfire's got m—aahgh!—me," Robin grunted.

Starfire chimed in, "We are working our way toward—yah!—the demon now. His forces are hindering our progr—hhah!—ress."

"Beast Boy?" Tek said.

There came a silence that lasted for eons. Cyberion's voice cracked, "Last time I saw him, he was right behind you. Maybe his communicator just got knocked out."

Tek fought a hot rush from her eyes. "Right," she croaked. "Sure. I bet that stupid sword of his is just slowing him down. I'll look for him on my way back in."

Bushido jumped at Tek's words. "Sword? What sword? Does Garfield have a weapon capable of—?"

Tek ignored him, and ran a handful of steps to launch herself back into the air. When she willed her glowing thrusters to activate, she received a miniscule hop instead of the bone-jarring acceleration she had expected. Red lettering flooded her HUD, making her curse.

"Guys, my suit's all screwed up. I'm running on minimum motor functions, and not much else right now. I'm gonna try a hard reboot. If you don't hear from me in another minute, it'll be because I'm a monster snack."

"Stay back until you're fighting trim, kid. And try to taste terrible."

Cyberion's words gave her a grim smile. "Feel free to save the world while I'm out. Back in a minute."

Her armor split open, showering her with sparks as it grinded into her back. She landed on one knee, awash in the light of the armor's closing aperture, and watched the battle rage without her.

"Tek," Bushido insisted, "what sword? Have you the means to hurt the demon lord?"

Heaving a sigh, Tek said, "Beast Boy found it. I guess it's Brother Blood's sword. He says it's hocus pocus-compatible with demon hoo-hah, or something."

She flinched as Bushido walked up behind her. "Of course! The Church's relic! It may possess magic enough to slay him, provided it can reach his heart. Where is it? Do the others have it?" he demanded.

"It's lost out there somewhere with Beast Boy," Tek said, and felt her throat constrict just speaking the thought aloud.

"What? No!" exclaimed Bushido. "Tek, the demon has emerged into our world with far greater power than I ever anticipated. Conventional means will do nothing to him. Your strongest attacks will be mere hindrances at best! If Blood's sword is truly magic, it may be our only hope. If you can get me to the sword, I am certain—"

"Eat a dick, Ryuko."

Bushido stopped. He blinked. Risking a single step in her direction, he said, "I beg your pardon?"

The face that turned to him was by no stretch of his imagination one belonging to Tek. Its expression betrayed a raw contempt that he thought the gangly Titan incapable of harboring. "Go to hell. Piss off. Whatever it is I have to say to get you to leave, pretend I said it, and just leave."

"Allison, this is hardly the time for—"

Tek whirled on him, balling her hands into fists. "You left! We needed you, and you left us! You left me!" she thundered.

His mouth opened to reply. Nothing emerged. It closed. He watched her heave and tremble, her face cherrying. Then he said, "Yes. I did."

"I stood up for you," she cried. "I spent all year telling Vic and Gar and Kory and Raven that they were wrong about you! But I was wrong, wasn't I? You never wanted to be here. You were doing it because…because…why? Your stupid magic sword? You wanted to make nice with the dead guys you swing around?"

Bushido said nothing.

"I was wrong, wasn't I?" Tek said.

His face puckered.

She thrust her fists out, and screamed, "Answer me!"

"Yes," he said.

Tek sucked in a breath, like she'd been kicked in the stomach. She pierced his face with a glare. He offered her nothing more, no words, no tic of remorse. Even when she stepped at him with her knuckles cocked, he remained unwavering.

Her fist sang a single, thudding note against his cheek. He spun to the ground, startled, not by the punch, but by its force. His eye throbbed as he turned it up from the rubble to find Tek huffing above him.

"Tek," he said, "I can help you. I know I can stop the demon lord." Gingerly, he touched his face. "If we find Beast Boy's sword, I can end this."

"Screw you." Tek's head tilted, as if she had heard a distant sound. Her aperture flashed. "We can end this ourselves," she added over the clank of her emerging armor.

Bushido swung onto his feet. "Please, do not act foolishly because I—"

"No. I'm done listening to you," Tek said through her grille. Her visor glared down at him. "You made your choice hours ago. Stay here and live with it."

"Tek!"

Her armor clanked into a bow-legged run, and then opened its thrusters to a white glow. Tek kicked into the sky, leaving Bushido to watch her dwindle in the uncanny silence of the world.

Bushido stared long after he had lost Tek in the red, undulating battle. His hand cupped the purple bruise puffing around his eye. As his fingers trailed down his face, he found an odd, dour expression at his lips.

"You were wrong about me," he murmured. "You were always wrong about me. And you learned that too late. I never wanted to fight for you. I had my own goals, my own life.

"And now it seems I have no choice. Now I must fight your battles. Your way. By your means."

His cringe became a scowl. "Well, to hell with you. I will do what I must, my way, for me."

---

Cyberion hadn't spoken with God since his mother's funeral. The accident, her fate, his disfigurement, was all proof enough that prayers were wasted breath. His grandmother had chided him for it, talking of "mysterious ways," and the power of faith. But outside of the occasional epithet, he had stopped believing.

The creatures all around him did little to rekindle his faith. Every fang, every compound eye, every chitinous inch surrounding him defied any notion of a benevolent creator. Each demon he saw coming at him with hungry jaws and hateful eyes made him want to laugh in the face of his grandmother's hypocritical, nonexistent god.

But he prayed anyway, for himself, and for the world, and for his friends.

Compression waves screamed out his arms. His sonic blasts hammered the face of a truck-sized gecko into pulp, and continued through to liquefy its innards. The demon's misshapen neck frothed as it collapsed. Cyberion staggered to keep his footing while the cracking ice settled under the dead demon's bulk.

Two smaller demons crawled over their fallen fellow to take its place. They shrieked with ape-like muzzles and pounded their chests with six fists each. Wisps of fire flickered from their jaws as they ran on their hands at Cyberion.

Cyberion grinned, and then tensed as a screech shook him from above. One of the endless numbers of pterodactyl-like demons filled the sky directly above him. Its talons descended upon him, each one big enough to scoop up him and the nearest parking lot's worth of ice around him.

Even as he started to flinch, he saw a white bullet streak overhead. The streak shot through the pterodactyl's neck, turning its screech into a gurgle. The pterodactyl's head tumbled off its body as the impact knocked it out of Cyberion's airspace and into the advancing hordes.

"Miss me?"

"Tek?" Cyberion paused, turning the hexape demons into U-shaped torsos with blasts from his cannons. "Thought you might be dead." He tried to sound breezy.

"I got hung up. Had to scrape off something nasty. Haven't you guys won yet?"

A cacophony of hooting crawled over the giant demon gecko's corpse. Seconds later, an entire pack of hexapes climbed into view at the corpse's peak. They belched fiery promises of revenge at Cyberion for the deaths of their scouts before charging across the ice.

He gritted his teeth. "Having too much fun to quit, kid," he said.

As he lowered his cannons at the hexapes, Cyberion saw green bolts dart from behind him. Each bolt found a four-eyed glare, drilling through the eyes with heat, and bursting in a pyrotechnic shower of brain grease and skull fragments. The demons' bodies staggered forward until their momentum was spent, and then collapsed.

"Do you morons ever stop jabbering at each other?" snarled Gizmo. His jury-rigged spider stalks carried him above and over Cyberion. A cannon twice his size was wrapped around the Tyrant's body, and spat green bolts into the teeming demon pack. "Every fight is like debate club for you losers, I swear."

A bone-quaking scream from above cut short Cyberion's retort. He and Gizmo looked up, and saw a winged something in the throes of death. The creature grew difficult to quantify as its body evaporated into billowing smoke. The remainder of the creature slammed into the ice in front of the two technological teens.

Shimmer slid off the demon's vanishing corpse. The heatless smoke curled around her as she wobbled onto the ice. "Woo. Didn't expect that from his snack, did he? Are we winning?" she asked.

Cyberion turned. The brief pause in their fighting had cost them dearly. The edge of the battle had swallowed them, putting them in the thick of Trigon's army. Those demons not pouring past them in a mindless charge circled around Cyberion and the Tyrants. A menagerie of jaws slavered for their mortal flesh from all sides.

"We're really not," said Cyberion.

Gizmo's lenses widened. "These brimstone munchers just keep coming! They keep pouring out of bird-goth's black holes. They're endless!"

"Even if they're not," Shimmer grunted, "I don't think we'll live to see 'em run out." Her chest rose and fell in a breathless flutter. Black ichor matted her hair and stained her grim face.

Cyberion's cannons became hands, which he clenched. "We gotta get to Trigon. We take him out—"

"—we still get crunched by his fan club," Gizmo spat. "Face it. We're dead anyway."

One of the circling demons, an ant the size of a city bus, stumbled and fell. Its offending leg broke free from its body. Before it could draw breath to screech, the ant succumbed to its own leg being thrust through its thorax. Skewered, it died in gouts of black bile as a pair of ham fists flattened its head.

Dripping in his kill, Mammoth turned to his teammates and the gleaming Titan. "What're you ass-hats doing, having a tea party? Start killing things!" he bellowed.

One side of the demon ring converged on Mammoth. He snarled, pounding back every four-eyed face that descended upon him. Claws raked through his armor, opening his sides to searing pain. He grasped the claws, and twisted them off their hands, and returned them through their owners' eyes.

"Come on!" Mammoth screamed. "Come on! Drag me to hell! Come and get me! I got plenty more for all of you! I got plenty! I…"

Shadow enveloped him. The sudden darkness startled the demon horde into scattering away from him. Mammoth looked up and felt his burning blood run cold. A skyscraper-sized leg settled on either side of Mammoth, supporting a demonic lizard whose size exceeded all comprehension.

The lizard looked down at him. Fire jetted from its nostrils.

"Oh, crap," breathed Mammoth.

The lizard's jaws began to open, glowing. Then they snapped shut with a frustrated snarl. The lizard tossed its head, staggering, its footfalls knocking Mammoth off his feet. Arching against the bitter cold, Mammoth watched a swarm of red motes crawl across the mountainous lizard. He had to squint for several seconds before he recognized the motes as an army of Billy Numerouses.

"Big don't mean nothin', do it, scale-belly?" the Billys howled by the tens and twenties. They clung to the demon's surfboard scales. Grips were lost, and Billys fell screaming, duplicating in the air until they pulverized the ice in bloody droves. Those that hung on piled into the demon's face with street signs and lengths of pipe and whatever else they had found in the city to bring to war.

"Big don't stop me! I'm a million! I'm ten million! I'm Billy Numerous!"

The lizard pawed at its besieged face. Acre-sized claws squashed Billy by the dozens. The duplicates crawled into the lizard's nose, and died screaming as it snorted fire. The dying shrieked in terror, while the survivors bellowed, and burrowed into the lizard's eyes.

Each surviving Billy duplicated into a squad. Billy split himself faster than the lizard could kill him. He marched through its eye-flesh, quintupling faster than the ichor could drown all of him. He burrowed into its brain, tearing with his hands and teeth.

A rattling, fiery scream opened the lizard's jaws for the last time. It staggered back, and then toppled. A black geyser leapt up as the lizard fell through the ice. Mile-long chasms raced through the surface of the bay. A tidal wave splashed from the gaps to wash entire legions of demons into the dark waters. The lizard sank quickly, with all hands on board. Only a few red, duplicate bodies floated up to mingle with the ice.

In the heartbeat's respite, as the sloshing ice settled beneath him, Mammoth watched the ripples in the water chase after the sunken lizard. "Huh. I still never liked the guy," he grunted. "But…damn."

Sonic blasts bracketed Mammoth's head. He ducked, and saw the blasts punch back a pair of hexapes that had tried to flank him.

Cyberion slid onto Mammoth's slab of ice. Spikes extended from the Titan's soles, stopping him in a spray of snow. Gizmo and Shimmer jumped after him, skidding on the rocking floe.

"We're pushing through to Trigon!" Cyberion commanded. "Quick, before they—"

Mammoth shook his head, and gazed across the surrounding hordes. "Forget it, Chrome Dome. Look."

The demons had closed a circle around them again. Smaller demons flitted at the inner edge of the circle, while the larger monstrosities made the broken ice lurch under plodding footsteps. The circle was already five giant demons deep, with more bolstering the ranks by the second.

"They don't like us very much," Shimmer said, unable to keep her voice from cracking. "And I think we have their attention now. We all go, they follow, and they eat us."

"If you think killing one big one is gonna end this, go do it your-friggin'-self," snapped Gizmo.

"We got plenty to kill right here. You go. We stay," Mammoth said.

"Besides," Gizmo added, "We don't like you."

"We kinda hate you," said Mammoth.

"Kinda totally hate you," agreed Gizmo.

The air around Shimmer danced. "I almost hope that loincloth guy eats you. Try to get under him when you bring him down, will you?"

Cyberion grimaced. His jetpack manifested from his shoulders as he said, "Tyrants Terrorize?"

"Hell, yes!" they shouted above the blast of Cyberion's takeoff.

The glow of his jets and the blaze of his cannons faded into the demonic wall, which closed around the remaining Tyrants. Black, numbing water rushed over their feet as their ice floe tilted beneath the onslaught of the demons.

"I guess we're not much of Tyrants anymore, are we?" said Mammoth.

Gizmo stepped to Mammoth's back, his spidery legs pricking the ice. "More like we're a troika again. We just swapped one skank for another," he said.

Shimmer pulled at the air, sweeping a cloud of acid to surround the three of them. "You know what? Screw it. I hope that lead-head lives, and you two get eaten instead."

---

Starfire dove, squinting against the rush of stale air that pulled at her face. A red, toothed maw had chased him across the sky, and now loomed below her. She felt a squeeze on her hand, and opened her arms.

Robin soared out of her grasp, screaming a giyup as he flew into the creature. Black ichor drizzled in his wake, slicked his hair, and clung to the birdarangs clutched in his hands. As the jaws closed, swallowing Robin whole, Starfire felt a faint swell of pity for the mile-long demon.

Then she echoed Robin's cry and skimmed the demon's length. Her hands burned scars into its segmented body. She hurled bolts through its scales, pockmarking the creature into screaming fits. Even as its body regenerated from her blasts, she hurt it more, and more.

She wasn't happy. In this hell on Earth, she couldn't find a single joyous thought. But she had one hope, and it kept her aloft.

Her hope blew a hole out from behind the demon's eyes, spraying bone and ichor across the sky. He leapt free from the dying creature with his arms outstretched. Starfire swooped and caught him.

Black brains sputtered from Robin's lips. "That was the last of my heavy ordinance."

"Titans," Cyberion's voice snapped in their earpieces. "The Tyrants are buying us a shot at the big guy. We've got minutes at best. Sound off, and make a beeline for Trigon, now!"

"This is Tek. It's really thick in the middle, Cy. I might be late again."

"I'm right behind you, kid," Cyberion replied. "Robin, Star, you'll have to start without us."

The world of demons spun around Robin as Starfire juked past a flock of pterodactyls, which poured out of a black circle hanging in the air. They both felt a sharp, brief chill as they shot past the open portal and into the clear air. Trigon lay less than a mile away, larger by far than anything they had yet faced.

"I guess it's just us," Robin said, and tightened his grip around Starfire. "Think we can handle it?"

Even though he couldn't see her face, he could hear her tired smirk. "You believed you could do it on your own mere moments ago, did you not?"

"Right," he said. "Well, I lost my jetpack. That's slowing me down a little. I…I don't think I could take him alone."

Her tone feigned deep consideration. "Hmn. Well, then it is a good thing you have no need to," she said.

She looked down to meet Robin's pressing gaze, but it wasn't there. He was jerked from her grasp. Starfire dug her heels into the air and spun, circling around to catch him.

But Robin didn't fall. He dangled in Starfire's wake by his ankle, growing red-faced as the blood rushed down. Craning his neck, Robin saw a pale hand wrapped around his boot. The hand had emerged from a small, black pool hanging in the air.

The black pool expanded. Red eyes flashed from within. Then Raven emerged, raising her catch as she floated out of the portal. Her scowl was fixed upon Starfire, who had stopped dead in the air at the sight of the half-demon sorceress.

Touching his ear, Robin deadpanned, "Cyberion? We've hit a little snag."

---

Beast Boy died again and again beneath the greedy claws of a pack of hexapes.

His bare back puckered against the ice. Through the torn gaps in his skin, the demons stirred through his steaming, opened innards. They grasped whole lengths of intestines to slurp into their grinning mouths. They tore out his lungs, stealing his breath until the displaced organs regenerated in a swell of flesh. They had eaten his heart countless times, and peeled the muscles from under his skin, only to gleefully watch them grow back.

Blood pooled in Beast Boy's eyes. Blood choked him. The laughing chatter of the demons deafened him. If not for the constant agony of being pulled open, he would be nowhere, all alone, with nothing.

Nothing, save the beast.

Beneath the coils of pain, one last sliver of Beast Boy listened to the howl of his beast. That last shred of him was all that held the beast at bay. And despite his own animal hate for the monsters tearing him apart, he refused to stand aside for the beast again.

No, he told the beast. Not again. You'll just get us killed again.

The beast rumbled. His body jerked as his liver was torn out.

Yes. Fine. Okay. So I'm getting us killed too. And I'm in so much pain that I can't register it anymore. And I'm hallucinating up a conversation with a fake whatsit that can't even talk. Point for you, asshole.

An insistent snarl. Sharp claws peeled his quadriceps free like dripping steaks.

I'm done listening to you. I'm done with you, period. Let's just die here.

A roar.

God, I'm so tired. I'm tired of you, and I'm tired of this. Go away.

A roar, louder than before.

What do you want from me? he moaned.

Its snarl was unintelligible. The face it conjured was not. A pale, beautiful expression floated through his thoughts, propelled by the fury of the beast.

For an eternity, Beast Boy lay stunned. You…you too? You do, don't you?

The beast rumbled.

…just this once. Understand? This one time, for her.

It roared.

No. You listen to me this time.

It howled, tearing at the last of him.

YOU LISTEN TO ME!

The pack of hexapes jostled above Beast Boy, jockeying for a handful of the endless supply of meat. They pushed, and shoved, and hooted, and feasted. In their blood-drunken stupor, they were unprepared for Beast Boy's body to close faster than their claws could grasp. His skin rippled into place over fresh sinew.

His eyes opened. Through cat-like slits, Beast Boy saw red.

Beast Boy's hands ballooned into pincers. The oversized claws shot up and found the necks of two hexapes. With a squeeze, he sent their heads flying. Then he found two more necks and did the same to them.

The hexapes scattered, squalling at their meal's resurgence. The largest among them yowled at the other demons, spraying red as it rallied their courage. Its yowl dwindled into a squeak as a thick, green scorpion tail bisected its chest.

The green, Buick-sized scorpion tore the hexape lengthwise and tossed the halves aside. His legs skittered, skewering the surprised and confused hexapes one by one through the skull. Seconds later, when the entire pack hung kabobbed on his legs, the scorpion shed his shape.

Beast Boy's toes clawed the ice for purchase. His uniform dangled from him, leaving his sculpted muscle open to the cold. He twisted his head from one side of the endless fight to the other, plumbing the world with narrowed eyes and flared nostrils.

There. Half a mile away, he caught the scent. It was the smell of ancient bone caked in generations of blood.

His body became razor-thin bone, elongated, poised upon six serrated legs that drove him across the ice. He picked up speed, skittering until the numberless demons became a red blur rushing past him. The demons in his path were split against his carapace, carved and left forgotten faster than it took their halves to hit the ice.

Seconds later, he saw the glimmer of The Hand. All but its pommel stone was buried in the ice where it had fallen from his hand when the demons had grounded him. As he ran past, his pincer became a claw, which he raked deeply into the ice to wrap around the sword's hilt.

Beast Boy took up his sword, and then thrust himself into a new shape. He grew leathery wings from his back, and two legs that pushed him off the ground. His pincers and claws became two arms, which grasped The Hand at the ready. A face appeared—his, but leaner, without mirth.

His slitted eyes locked upon the distant, stern orchestrator of the world's end. A demonic angel, Beast Boy flew through the heart of the battle, carving apart anything that stood in his way.

---

Tons of screeching horror stacked itself against Tek's fists, stopping her dead in midair. She grunted, and pushed to no avail, and reconsidered the merit of her plan to plow straight through to Trigon. Behind her lay a winding carpet of dead or dazed monsters that had sapped her momentum, leaving her stuck against a centipede large enough to swallow a train.

"Nngh…fine," she growled. Her plasma repeaters blossomed from her arms. "You wanna make me late to the party? I get all kinds of cranky when—ARGH!"

Something with talons clamped onto Tek's shoulders from behind. A long beak pecked her cannons, crushing the fragile weapons and crumpling the armor around them. Tek cried out, thrashing in the demonic raptor's grasp. The beak came back, clamping over her arm, while the centipede turned its mandibles upon her.

Tek screamed. She tried to focus her fear into a force field. The energy refused to coalesce between her and the demon riding her back. Then she felt the beak clamped at her elbow shudder and release all on its own. Her eyes opened in time to see the demon bird's stunned expression tumble past her, decapitated.

A shadow fell over her. She looked up and saw a pterodactyl swoop from behind her to crash into the centipede. The red lizard's eyes had been carved out, and its belly had been slit. Black entrails were strung from its opened bowels and around its slender neck, and were grasped like reins in the last hands she had expected to see.

"Ryuko?" she gasped.

Bushido leapt from his blinded steed as it fumbled into the centipede's tangle of legs. His sword cut the entrails wrapped around his arm, letting him land unfettered in front of Tek. Black ichor stained his keikogi's leg as he wiped his katana clean.

"Would you care for some help?" he asked, and offered her a shallow bow. "And please, don't let my heroic entrance or my fantastic means of transport affect your answer in any way."

A second centipede threatened Tek and Bushido while the first centipede sorted itself from the blind pterodactyl. Tek scarcely had the wherewithal to punch the new centipede's head off its thorax while she gaped at Bushido. "What are you doing here? I told you—"

"You did," he agreed. "Vehemently. But here I am."

"But—"

"You are no longer my friend," he said, holding his hand up in a plea for her patience. The swelling around his black eye shone as he tilted his head. "I cannot fault you for that decision. But I am still your fr…your best chance at saving the world," he said, and averted his gaze.

Tek's visor scowled for her. She batted aside a pair of hexapes that leapt upon her, and said, "How do you figure?"

His stained sword flashed before her, cleaving one of her hexape attackers in half. Though its head and heart remained intact, the creature's scream ended in a rattle. Its eyes dimmed as it fell at Tek's feet, unmoving.

"Beast Boy and his magic sword are missing," Bushido said, and re-sheathed his blade. "Therefore, I humbly offer myself and my sword in their place."

Tek jumped a step back in surprise. "Hey! You killed it! But…but you said—"

"Magic imparts permanent harm upon a demon," Bushido said sagely. "My blade is magic."

"But it's not! That's what your whole deal was about!" protested Tek.

He nodded. "True, my ancestors refuse me," said Bushido. "That has not changed. But unfortunately for the old bastards, their vessel remains a magical artifact."

Tek stared at him a moment more. Then she said, "No."

Bushido groaned and staggered. "Are you insane?" he snapped. "Did you see that demon? Do I need to paint a picture for you? I am your only hope! You have to—"

"No, I don't. Because you aren't," Tek retorted. She loomed over him, making Bushido acutely aware of just how much larger than him her armor was. "We've all been killing demons just fine without you. And what are you going to do with that toothpick anyway?"

His answer was drowned out by a screech that shook the ice. Bushido looked around Tek's metal girth to find an enormous gecko demon looming above them. Its four eyes narrowed upon them. Then its mouth opened, unleashing a pink rubber tongue that stuck upon Tek's back.

"Allie!" he cried, as Tek was yanked off the ice. He leapt forward, his katana flashing out of its sheath. He knew he would be too slow to outpace the demon's tongue.

Tek vanished into the gecko's mouth without a sound. The demon snapped its jaws, wrestling with its mouthful. Then it turned its eyes upon Bushido, its lipless mouth stretched in an expression of hunger.

The top of the gecko's head ruptured. A guttural cry trailed from the demon as it collapsed onto the ice, knocking Bushido off his feet with its impact. A rain of black brains spattered its corpse.

Bushido scrambled to his feet and ran to the gecko's jaws. He worked his hands into the tight seam of its mouth, struggling to pry it open. "Tek? Tek!"

"What?" Tek's tinny voice yanked his eyes to the top of the corpse's head. She pulled herself out of its skull, her white armor painted gray by the gecko's innards. As she slid down the gecko's snout, she said, "You think I need saving? You want to be the big hero here?"

"I…ah…"

"You really think that sword of yours is going to make the difference?" Tek asked, and wiped the thick gunk from her visor. "That little prickle wouldn't make it halfway through the Jolly Red Giant's skin, let alone de-head-ify him or scoop his heart out. Even when the world's ending, you're still full of crap, Ryuko. I don't need any more crap, and I don't need you."

Bushido's lips tightened. "You are right. I am no hero. I have little power. But I still must try."

She snorted. "Still looking to impress your little sword buddies?"

His eyes narrowed. "No. I will fight for myself, and for my world. And if you will not help me, then I will do so alone."

His expression slackened as Tek held out the flat of her hand at stepping height. "That's what you should have said earlier. Get on."

Bushido hesistated. "You would—?"

"You're still an ass. But you're an ass who chased after me across frozen hell," Tek said quickly. "That buys you a few points. Not many, but some."

Bushido stepped tentatively into Tek's palm. She lifted him to her shoulders, where he gripped the frills of her helmet. "If I say nothing of your abysmal aerobatics, will I earn more points?" he asked, straight-faced.

"Keep talking. It'll make it funnier when I throw you into his mouth," Tek said over the rush of the wind as they hurtled off the ice.

---

How is he still so far away?

Cyberion sprinted across open ice, each of his strides covering a dozen yards apiece. After the endless nightmare throng through which he had fought, the emptiness of the frozen bay unsettled him. All that lay in his path now were a pair of red, sky-scraping legs, and a half-mile of ice yet to be crossed.

No living thing could be so huge, as Trigon was. It defied comprehension. It was stupid. It terrified Cyberion to think he had to fight something that might possibly not perceive him as any kind of threat, if at all.

Next time a mosquito wants a drink, I might just let it, he thought, and grimaced.

He dug deep for the last of his courage. If he was to be Trigon's mosquito, he would leave an itch for the history books. "God, I am sick as hell of your ugly smirk!" he bellowed. His arm morphed into a sonic cannon, which belched a blue compression stream up into Trigon's face.

Trigon growled, setting the air abuzz. He tossed his head at the sting of the sonic blast on his cheek. White hair cascaded over his shoulders. He looked down, searching the ice at his feet for the source of the annoyance, and caught a second blast in his lower left eye. Clutching his face, he bellowed, "Who dares strike me?"

Cyberion morphed his other hand into a twin of his first cannon. "One brave little mosquito," he shouted. "Now get the hell out of my reality!"

The demon lord's snarl had opened his mouth. In a display of luck or incredible skill, Cyberion landed two shots of sonic energy between Trigon's teeth, striking the roof of the demon's mouth. The pain of the sonic prick made Trigon howl and clap his hand over his mouth.

"Ha! Choke on it!" crowed Cyberion. Then he sucked in a breath, and squeaked, "Uh-oh."

Hellfire poured from Trigon's mouth. The red flames splashed upon Cyberion, consuming everything it touched. Whole fields of ice burned, becoming peroxide clouds in the otherworldly heat. A column of steam jetted from the new crater in the bay, and caught the light of the world's soul in its twisting spiral.

Trigon smirked at the clouds building beneath him. Then he scowled as the clouds flashed blue. Another sonic blast split the cloud, and dragged stinging pain across his forehead.

From the fiery smoke, Cyberion ascended, riding jets formed from his back. Hellfire clung to him, kept off his skin by a thin barrier of crackling black power. His sonic cannons poured into Trigon as he rose into the sky. "Sorry, ugly. If you want me gone, you're gonna have to do it the old fashioned way," he shouted.

Trigon's hand rose to swat Cyberion from the sky. "Bug," the demon lord sneered.

"Buzz, buzz!" Cyberion heard shouted through his earpiece. He saw a white mote streak across the sky to strike Trigon's nose at full speed. Trigon's head snapped back with a grunt, while the mote tumbled away, wrapped in a swath of yellow force field. "I got your back, Cy!"

His cannons became hands again as Cyberion cupped his ear. "Thanks, kid. But it's going to take more than a punch to the kisser…"

"That's why I brought a secret weap—WHOA!"

Tek shrieked at a river of red light, which poured from Trigon's eyes to envelop both airborne Titans. The light continued into Trigon's horde, where it consumed a battalion of demons in one shrieking flash. A corridor of emptiness emerged where the lesser demons were erased from being by the red light.

As the river of light stemmed, Cyberion and Tek emerged, awash in black static. Tek shouted to Cyberion in a shaken voice, "How long do you think this anointed stuff will hold out?"

"Don't really want to find out," Cyberion shouted back. "His head's too big. Let's go for the heart!"

He darted forward, with Tek trailing at his heels. Trigon's pectoral rushed at them, filling their vision with tensed red muscle. Metal rang as he clapped his hands together. He merged his arms into a large, flat, circular blade. Bellowing, Cyberion drove the saw deep into the wall of flesh before him, averting his eyes from the jarring black spray.

He's not a person, Cyberion chanted in his head. He's a monster. He's evil. It's him or the world. He felt his buzz saw hands cut deeper, rending flesh, while the world shook with Trigon's cry.

Then Cyberion felt the edges of his saw dull and crumple against new resistance. He opened his eyes and peered through the curtain of black bile drizzling off his brow. The gash he had opened in Trigon's flesh was knitting together, pushing back against his blunted saw. By the time Cyberion's blade became hands again, he was staring at Trigon's flawless, renewed skin.

Tek whirled past Cyberion, driving into Trigon's chest with a trio of yellow force fields. Her barriers came together to form a crude drill, which she held before her as her thrusters spun her into a blur. A fountain of Trigon's body spouted around her.

But as quickly as Tek wounded him, Trigon healed. His body pushed back, sealing itself under the edges of her force fields, until the pressure became too much, and the fields evaporated. Tek ceased her spinning and lurched in the air next to Trigon's immaculate chest. "Doohhhh…did we get him?" she groaned.

"How dare you touch me?"

The bellow jolted both Titans. A shadow fell over them, cast by Trigon's hand as the demon slapped at his chest. As hard as they flew, Cyberion and Tek knew they wouldn't escape the edge of Trigon's massive palm.

As Trigon glared down at his chest, a single lock of white hair dangled out of place from his forehead. He was too intent on squashing the insects who sought him harm to notice the stray follicle. Then, from the corner of one eye, he saw a glint of steel at the end of the hair. It was the last sight his eye beheld before hot agony darkened it forever.

Trigon's hand stopped, and clapped his bleeding eye. His scream staggered him. "AAAH! What…?" When he pulled his hand away, he saw blood in his palm. "What is this?" he demanded.

"Magic." The voice came from the end of the stray hair, where Bushido hung by one hand. Ichor ran from his katana, trailing black drops behind him as he swung down to land upon the bridge of Trigon's nose. He struck two-handed, slashing deep.

Trigon snarled and tossed his head, throwing Bushido from his face. He snarled again as sonic energy creased his cheek.

Heat dissipated from the vents of Cyberion's cannon. He clapped the side of his head, and cried, "Does anyone else maybe want to help us fight the giant freaking monster? We could use a little help!"

---

"Kkkkkkkhhh…" Starfire replied, trembling. Her hands and feet were braced against a sphere of soul-self, which constricted around her at an excruciating, interminable pace. The world outside was made stark black and white by the sphere. The only light to slip through was the glow of Raven's glare.

Robin clung to Raven's back, his arm hooked around the sorceress's throat. He pulled, and punched her in the spine, and drove his heels into her sides. She refused him any reaction. As he struggled, he could only watch as Starfire was slowly crushed inside the soul-sphere.

"Raven," he growled in her ear. "Raven! You don't want to do this! Starfire is your friend! We all are! You can't do this, or you'll never forgive yourself."

The sphere shrank further still. Starfire's arms buckled, forcing her into a crouch. Her scream was muffled through Raven's soul-self.

Grimacing, Robin reached into his belt, the stores of which were distressingly light. "You're better than this, Raven. You may not think so, but you are. You're a better friend than I could ever be…

"…especially right now." He reached around and mashed his palm against Raven's lips, parting them with surprise. The gas pellets he had been holding discharged behind her teeth, filling her mouth with acrid heat. Her eyes widened, and she roared smoke. The soul-sphere crushing Starfire faded with the distraction.

Robin bit back a yelp as Raven bucked him off. Open air whistled in his ears as he fell, watching Raven grow distant above him. The iridescent sky turned green with Starfire's attacks, which Raven swept aside with swaths of soul-self.

"Is anybody still alive? Hello?" Cyberion continued over the radio.

Grasping at his grapple launcher, Robin replied, "We're kind of busy here. Raven's being a little murderously unreasonable at the moment."

The launcher kicked in Robin's hands. Its hook trailed a long metal line up to Raven, where it wrapped around her bare ankle. His weight purpled her pale skin at once as he jerked her down. Starfire's punch rocked the surprised sorceress, dragging Robin through the air behind her.

"Well, cut the reunion short and get over here! Ultra-Satan is kicking our asses!" Cyberion shouted over the whine of Robin's launcher as it reeled him toward Raven.

"You really think starbolts and birdarangs are going to do anything you can't?" Robin snapped back, and held on tight as Starfire's battle with Raven jerked him to and fro across the sky. "We need some kind of edge! A weapon, or an opening! Something!"

A shriek from behind drew Robin's gaze. Twisting around, he saw a long, subway-sized serpent fall from the sky in pieces, loosing black rain from its hewn ends. Out of its entrails flew a winged creature like nothing Robin had ever seen. The creature appeared black at first, until the clinging ichor drizzled off its hide. As it approached, its features grew distinct, and its coloring became deep green.

Starfire struggled with an ethereal blade trapped between her hands, its tip inching toward her face. At the sound of the shriek, her eyes flickered to the side. She did a double-take, ducking her head to one side to avoid Raven's soul-blade. "Is that…Beast Boy?" she gasped.

The winged beast rushed past Robin. Its wake sent him into a lazy spin on his line. Intermittently, he watched the beast soar toward Trigon. Something white and long hung in its oversized claws. "I think it is…" said Robin.

Trigon's head snapped around as though he had been stung. The other teens paused in the fight, watching the towering demon narrow his eyes upon the speck of green heading his way.

"Fool!" Trigon boomed, almost shaking Robin's grip from his launcher. "You think yourself a threat? Your intentions are transparent, the scheme of a pitiful mortal. My might is eternal! And my daughter protects my heart with her own! You cannot win!"

Robin wondered at the sudden outburst. Then he felt himself jerked upward, and saw Raven disappearing into her own cloak. The fabric around her became hungry shadow that consumed itself until nothing remained except the clipped end of Robin's grapple, which fluttered after him on his long way to the ice.

Robin tossed the launcher and spread his arms. Seconds later, strong hands encircled him, lifting him out of his fall. "Why would Raven retreat?" he heard Starfire say as she carried him. "Not that I am complaining, but she was hardly losing our contest."

"It's Trigon," Robin said. He watched the demon lord swat at something too small or too distant to perceive. "It's like he got spooked all of a sudden."

"Could it be he fears Beast Boy?" Starfire asked, sounding uncertain.

As they drew closer, the buzzing gnats around Trigon distinguished themselves from the background. Robin saw Cyberion swoop from above with a thin needle of sonic disruption piercing Trigon's shoulder. Down below the demon's knee, Tek skimmed Trigon's calf with Bushido in tow, leaving scratches.

But the demon's hands swatted solely at the green beast, which had yet to even draw near enough to hurt him.

"Or something he's carrying," Robin said. "Remember the first time Beast Boy charged him? Trigon said something. Something about…a fleck of bone, and…Azar? What if he meant that sword?"

Starfire saw the white glint swinging in the beast's paws. "I know little about the sword. Beast Boy and Raven obtained it during my…absence. Could such a thing really hurt so large a monster?"

"Rationally speaking? No. But I think we left 'rational' behind when the world ended." He reached down and rested his hand atop Starfire's grasp around his ribs. "At this point, I'm willing to go out on a limb of faith."

Her breath tickled his neck. "Agreed."

"Let's give him the opening he needs. Go!"

---

Tek spiraled upward, and then dove along the landscape of Trigon's arm. She rose and fell over his musculature, her force fields edged beneath her to drag long, thin cuts into the demon's skin. Trigon's snarl rattled her armor, and his red flesh leapt up at her. Pulling up, she flew from his wrist before it snapped into her.

Bushido clung to her helmet with white knuckles. "This is all very distracting," he said, "But what now? He will not let us at his head so readily aga—"

Then he shouted, "Tek, dodge!" and leapt off her shoulders.

Tek looked up, and met the groove of Trigon's fingers with her face. The demon lord's hand swatted her down. Her brief scream ended as she rocketed off his hand and shot into the broken ice beneath Trigon. A brief geyser stirred the water. Then, nothing.

Bushido ignored the empty sky streaming around him, and the demon's hand careening toward him. "No!" he screamed at the dark, motionless water.

A wall of metal collided with him, knocking him from the path of Trigon's swipe. He found himself pressed to Cyberion's chest by sheer acceleration. "On your toes, Ginsu. You're the only thing we have that can hurt this guy."

"We must find—!" Bushido crushed his eyes, and said, "Yes. Yes, of course. Let's go."

Shifting Bushido in his grasp, Cyberion said, "She's fine, Ry. She's tough." He did not tell Bushido of the ominous crackle in his radio, or of the impact calculations Sarah insisted on running at the back of his mind. "Let's—"

As they looped around, both teens saw a dark speck dart toward Trigon's neck. It flitted across the demon's collarbone. Raw, blackened flesh opened in the speck's wake. The wound oozed and throbbed as the speck continued down.

"Robin to all points! Come in! Beast Boy is back and en route!" Robin shouted over the radio. "And he has—"

"Holy hell…" whispered Cyberion. His vision closed upon the speck, magnifying it into its almost familiar shape. "Gar! I see him. And he's…holy hell!" he exclaimed, marveling at the long scar left in Beast Boy's wake.

Bushido tensed at the sight of the damage left in Trigon, damage that did not immediately disappear. "Beast Boy? He has his sword? He has the means to hurt the demon!"

"Hell, yes, he does!" exclaimed Cyberion. As he watched Trigon's hand chase after the beast, his enthusiasm soured. "But Trigon's gonna cream him before he gets the chance!"

"Throw me," Bushido said without hesitation.

"What?"

"Straight into his mouth," insisted Bushido. "I will do as much damage as I can."

Cyberion swore. "I'm not killing you, Ry!" he shouted.

Bushido snapped, "I cannot saw through the demon's neck! I am useless up here. A brief distraction is all Beast Boy will need to end this. Now throw me!"

Slowing to a stop, Cyberion hesitated. "But—"

"Bushido Blitz!" the swordsman thundered. "Go!"

Bushido's feet slipped into Cyberion's palm. The metal Titan cocked Bushido back, and then hurled him, adding a burst from his jets to make Bushido a living bullet. The force of the throw spun Cyberion off his course.

The snarling maw of Trigon rushed at Bushido. With his sword tucked against his leg, he hurtled at Trigon, his eyes made slits by the rushing air. His grip tightened on the hilt as he realized what waited for him between the demon's fangs. The next stroke of his sword would be his last.

So be it. If I cannot live worthy of you, I shall die worthy of them. They fight for the survival of everything while you gather dust in your sheath. Let my final act be the opportunity they need to—

Trigon's hands clapped upward to catch Bushido, crushing him in thunderous darkness.

---

Bestial rage clouded his thoughts, and guided him down to the center of Trigon's chest while the others buzzed around the mountainous demon. His claws dug through the red wall of flesh to slow his descent. The leather wings folded themselves into his bare back.

He hung from Trigon, his claws hooked through skin that healed around them. With his free hand, he drew back his bone sword. The Hand's blade shimmered with all of the colors of the world's soul. His fangs emerged as he thrust the blade at Trigon, determined to dig until he could carve out the demon's heart.

The red flesh before him rippled, and parted for a pale, emerging face. From Trigon's depths, Raven surfaced, pooled in the demon's skin as though she were immersed in red water. Her red eyes glared dully at him, her lips drawn taut. The light of her runic brands painted his surprise in dark crimson.

The sword's tip froze an inch from Raven's breast. The sight of her chased the beast from his thoughts. He nearly dropped off of Trigon as his shape became elfin and lean. "Raven? Raven!" Beast Boy cried. "Raven, it's me! It's Gar!"

Raven's face remained glass smooth. Black tendrils erupted from her to wrap around his wrist. The strength of her soul began crushing him, trying to force his hand open. More tendrils emerged to snare his waist, his neck, and his face. She throttled him without leaving Trigon's skin.

Gagging, Beast Boy swept The Hand through Raven's soul-self. The b lack cords dissolved at the touch of the blade. He gasped, and scampered, jumping to one side. His claws snared a new fold of skin. "Fine," he rasped, and pulled The Hand back to try again. "If you're gonna be stubborn, I'll just—"

Trigon's skin rippled again as Raven slid to follow Beast Boy. Her chest fell beneath his stab, which he stopped at the last second. The tip of his sword skittered against her shadowy vestments, drawing a bubble of ichor down her breast.

Beast Boy snarled, and jumped again. Raven followed. Wherever he turned his sword, Raven placed herself in his path, her chest centered above its tip. He wriggled the blade, and Raven bobbed accordingly, following The Hand's every movement with almost comical fidelity.

"God damn it, Raven! Get out of the way!" Beast Boy shouted, before new tendrils of soul-self emerged to clutch his throat.

---

Tek beached herself on a bobbing ice floe. Water gushed from her grille as she slid forward, panting. She pushed, and clanged onto her back, staring up at the tower of Trigon looming over her.

"That…sucked…" she told her throbbing head. Red warnings flashed in her HUD. She could hear her servos whining throughout the armor. Cold water had seeped through her boots, making her legs heavy and numb.

Above her, she saw Cyberion, a mere glint amidst the swirling colors. The glint hurled something at Trigon, who was busy patting down his chest. Tek's exhausted curiosity focused through her visor, zooming upon the small projectile hurtling at Trigon.

"Ryuko?" she groaned. She watched Bushido fly like a shot, her mind imagining the sound of his fluttering keikogi.

Then Trigon's hands flattened Bushido between them in a clap that rocked her floe. "Ha!" the demon lord crowed. "Not again, mortal. One eye is prize enough."

"No!" screamed Tek.

She blasted off the floe, sinking it with the force of her launch. Her hands curled into hammers, which she careened into Trigon's jaw. The force of the collision rolled through her arms and down her body. She felt as though she were being folded like an accordion as she bounced backwards off the demon's chin.

Trigon felt her. His head snapped to one side with a grunt. Screaming, Tek knit her armored hands together and swung them into Trigon's nose. His head tilted in the other direction, and he staggered back. She struck over and over, pounding against a face the size of a building, screaming. Tek let her monster loose against this bigger monster, letting the two pound each other into oblivion.

Then, as Trigon's hands parted to swat Tek too, the red world around them became a luminous purple. Blinding blue light exploded from Trigon's palms, making the demon flinch, and gave Tek's monster pause.

The light dimmed enough to reveal its source, which was a shimmering orb stuck to Trigon's hand. It seemed small in the enormous demon's grasp, a glowing marble, if that. But it refused Trigon's attempts to shake it loose, and made the demon snarl with barbs hooked into his skin.

A silhouette crouched inside the sphere. As he straightened, his blue bubble expanded, making room for his height and his sword. "Demon!" his voice thundered, magnified to inhuman volumes. "Submit to death or prolong your suffering!"

"An amusing trick," rumbled Trigon, as he brushed the dumbstruck Tek from his face. "But you will need more than a mere blade—ARGH!"

The silhouette stabbed down through the bottom of his sphere. A shaft of blue light erupted from the opposite side of Trigon's hand. As the blade of light faded, Trigon cradled his hand, and dropped to one knee.

The blue sphere dissipated. Bushido brushed the hair plastered to his face, and raised his glowing katana. "I have no tricks, demon. I have honor, and righteousness. I have a thousand generations who clamor for your end!"

He leapt from Trigon's hand and raced up the steep incline of the demon's arm. Blue waves cascaded from him as he struck the air. The waves scythed into Trigon, turning his red flesh black. Trigon howled and flailed, but he could not escape the elongating waves.

"I am Ryuko Orsono! I am Bushido!" he bellowed. He leapt from Trigon's bicep, sailing through the air. His blue slashes sheared hanks of Trigon's snowy hair as they cleaved into Trigon's neck, unleashing a spray of black blood. "I—oh."

Trigon's three eyes flashed at Bushido. A red light enveloped the swordsman faster than he could manifest his blue shield. Crackling black energy protected him instead while the landscape behind him withered. Though Bushido was spared annihilation, the force of Trigon's attack pushed him away, launching him into the open air.

Trigon would have blasted Bushido through the planet if not for a string of green explosions that crossed the demon's face. Growling, the demon flinched, and then glared at the golden sprite circling his head for another pass.

"Now!" Starfire bellowed, and sprayed Trigon with starbolts.

Robin was already released his death-grip from her ankle and plummeted toward the demon's open mouth. His belt fluttered in his hand, its ends clasped together. The belt's monogrammed buckle blinked red.

He landed on Trigon's lip. Brimstone reeked in the deafening wind rushing from Trigon's mouth. Closing his eyes, Robin hurled his belt into the cavernous mouth, and then vaulted clear of Trigon's lips.

Starfire darted past Trigon's face to catch Robin. She felt a wave of pressure chase her heels as Trigon's mouth exploded. The corners of the demon's mouth tore with the force of the blast, which mushroomed out of his blackening lips. Shards of teeth peppered the teens' backs.

She caught Robin's wrists and carried him away. A look back at Trigon dampened her remaining hope. The demon's mouth regenerated almost as fast as the explosives had wreaked carnage. Bus-sized teeth grew back into a grimace, soon covered by a surge of lips. "He is recovering," Starfire shouted to Robin.

Robin saw Trigon's new mouth twisted with inhuman rage. "I know. That micro-fusion charge was my ace in the hole. I'm out," he shouted back.

Tek ascended to fly alongside the pair. Bushido sat in her arms, battered, but alive. "I shagged our fly ball here. Now let's get him back in there," she said. "How about it, Ry?"

Stunned silence creased Bushido's face. He appeared old, and tired, more so than the Titans had ever seen him. The sword in his hands consumed his attention until Tek's gentle rousting made him look up. "I…I cannot do that again. I am sorry," he said.

"Huh? Well, that sucks," said Tek.

"We have hurt him and enraged him," Starfire said. "But I must question our capacity to defeat him."

Another blue flash drew them across the battlefield. Cyberion hung in the air, two-gunning sonic blasts into Trigon's face. The demon stumbled after him, swinging blindly at the annoyance.

Cyberion darted and fired. He never lingered long enough for the grasping hands to find him. As the other joined him, Starfire began adding her own firepower to his stymieing blasts.

"Gar's still down there," Cyberion said through his teeth. "Something must be holding him up. And my battery can't keep this up much longer."

"He has the means to hurt the demon," Bushido insisted. "At this point, he is our best hope—"

"Yeah, yeah," Tek said, jostling Bushido.

"He needs more time," Robin growled, and dangled from Starfire's free hand.

Cupping another starbolt, Starfire said, "We shall give him more time!"

Starfire carried Robin back into the fight. Tek chased after them, with Bushido climbing onto her back. Cyberion grunted as he watched his power level indicators dip in the corner of his HUD.

"Salad Head, you picked a lousy time to dawdle," he snarled to himself, and increased his cannons' output beyond their maximum.

---

Thin wires of soul-self wrapped around Beast Boy's sides with crushing force. He yowled, and cut the black coils with is sword. The wire evaporated, leaving his ribs slick with blood as the wounds closed themselves.

"Raven, come on! This isn't you!" cried Beast Boy. "This is all your psycho-dad! You've never let anybody tell you what to do. Don't listen to him. Fight it. Fight back!"

Grasping black hands emerged from the fluttering edge of her cloak. He snarled, and cleaved them into stumps. Raven swayed in Trigon's flesh with the motion of his sword, always between the blade and her father. Her face remained impassive while her shadow tried to kill Beast Boy.

The glow of her eyes and her brands turned his green skin black. "Son of a bitch!" he swore, and batted aside two more tendrils of soul-self. "Even when you're evil, you're still a stubborn pain in the ass!"

And then Beast Boy was struck silent by an idea. He mulled it over for a precious half-second, parrying Raven's murderous soul as he did.

Bright flashes filled the sky—his friends, fighting for their lives.

"You know what?" he said to Raven's blank expression. His teeth gritted into a smile. "Screw it. I might as well just carve through you. Y'know? It's not like anybody will care. You're about as popular as wet garbage, and you smell half as good. Hell, we could throw a party after you're gone. You hate parties anyway, so I know you won't mind."

He leaned in closer, shoving his grin into her four eyes. "Man, things are gonna be awesome when you're gone. No more 'Quiet down, Garfield,' or 'Get out of my dirty laundry, Garfield,' or 'Nacho cheese isn't an essential nutrient, Garfield.' No more lectures, or insults, or snarly quips, no more sarcasm, and no more put-downs too brainy for me to understand. Thing'll finally be fun once you're gone."

The tendrils had stopped attacking him.

"Even just being around you when you were quiet was a pain," he said. "Your skanky tea breath? Those smelly tea farts you tried to hide under that tacky cloak of yours? It was like living in a Lipton's bag. Oh, and here's a tip: most people don't use a mixing bowl to give themselves a haircut.

"Hey, I've got some of your dad's blood on my face. Can I have one of the tissues out of your bra? We all know you're packing half a box of Kleenex down there. I bet you'd make a decent surfboard if you ever waxed that hairy lip of yours. Oh, what am I saying? You, wax? As if.

"And have you ever even seen a movie in color before? All that art house crap was almost as boring as you were. God help it if you see a movie actually made in Hollywood, right? Earth to Raven! People like explosions and plot, not moody, ugly filmmakers sitting in a room whining about how mommy never hugged them! Though I guess you can relate to that, huh?

"Seriously, you are so lucky you're a monster. You couldn't get away with being such a frigid asshole otherwise. You try to come across as the tortured, damaged loner. But really? You're just a bitch."

"GARFIELD!" Raven bellowed. Her four red eyes squeezed shut, and then opened as two burning jewels the color of twilight. "You little—!" she snapped, and lunged at him. When she found herself stuck in Trigon's skin, she gasped. Her eyes bugged as she heaved for breath. "Garfield?" she rasped, and struggled against the pull of Trigon's body.

"Raven!" Beast Boy let go of Trigon's skin. He held on to Raven's shoulder, bracing his knees to either side of her. His face hovered before her, locking her wild eyes into his. "Raven, stay with me! I'm here, okay? I'm here."

Her breathing slowed into a ragged chant. "I can't. It's Trigon. He's in my mind. It's…it's too much. I can't…"

"I know. It's okay. Raven, I need you to move," he said. He held the sword between them. "I got your message. I got Dominic's sword. We can end it right now!"

As he waved the sword from side to side, Raven swayed with it. The motion almost knocked Beast Boy off of her. She bobbed in Trigon's flesh, a living metronome, which grunted and strained against its rhythm. The red skin held her fast. "I can't," she gasped.

"Yes, you can!" he told her.

"I can't!" she cried. Her eyes flashed red. She crushed them shut, panting until their bloody light was extinguished. Opening her eyes to Beast Boy's concern, she said, "I'm a part of him now. My life is his. My heart protects his."

Beast Boy snorted, and swept The Hand behind him in a furious, empty gesture. "Raven, I can't do anything with you in the way!"

Her eyes followed the arc of his sword. Then they snapped back to his. Her lips quivered with a ghost of her voice. "Yes, you can."

He froze. "…what?"

"NO!"

---

Trigon glared down at his chest. His fangs opened in a roar as he reached to slap the tiny blemishes clinging to his skin. "How dare you? You are mine!"

His hand was holed by a column of green light. The blast emerged from his palm and puckered his ribs. Trigon howled, and batted with his regenerating hand the golden sprite who had struck him. She flew through his hand before it finished closing, and scorched his brow with Starbolts.

"I cann…cannot keep this up," gasped Starfire. Her hands flung energy that she thought she didn't have, battering Trigon's face with the last of her reserves.

"One minute," Robin said in her earpiece. When she glanced down, she saw him, a red dot on the ice behind Trigon. A white dot followed him until they were practically under Trigon's heel. "Ready as we'll ever be. Cyberion?"

Cyberion floated down to Starfire, watching Trigon intently through her hail of starbolts. "Ready. Kid?"

"Only in the sense of 'not at all.' But let's go!" Tek radioed.

Cyberion closed his glowing blue optics. Sarah? We're going plasma, he called into his thoughts.

Such action is unwise, Sarah's voice echoed back at him. Power supplies are dwindling. Your sonic arsenal is less of a power drain than would be any plasma weaponry. Combat time would be severely reduced.

It's gonna cut to zero, he replied. I want all available power rerouted for this one shot.

Be advised, Sarah insisted, her smooth voice becoming agitated. Such a loss of power could lead to loss of attonites cohesion. If your physical structure loses power, it may become inert. You may go offline.

Trigon blinked away the annoyance of Starfire's waning onslaught. Snarling, he reached again for the miniscule teens stuck to his chest. The blistering green stings could delay him no longer.

"Cyberion!" Starfire shouted in warning.

His eyes snapped open, blazing. His thrust his arm forward, and bellowed, "Do it!"

The metal of his arm split, elongating into two flat prongs. White heat spilled into the prongs' gap. The blinding, roiling light gathered in Cyberion's arm until it threatened to burst free from its magnetic containment. Blinded by the plasma's fire, Cyberion aimed high at the center of Trigon's mass. The Titan released everything he had in a dazzling eruption.

Trigon screamed as a river of light consumed his shoulder. His flesh evaporated, the bone beneath cracking into blackened shards under inconceivable heat. The arm that had been reaching for Beast Boy and Raven fell, dangling from a single string of bubbling, charred tendon. Charcoal steam hissed from the crater in Trigon's body, clouding his eyes and running between his fingers as he grasped the grievous wound.

As his shoulder rebuilt itself from ashes, a white, armored missile hurtled into Trigon. It wrapped golden force fields around itself an instant before impact, creating a blunted fist that punched Trigon between his remaining eyes. The rapport of cracking bone echoed across the bay as Trigon's head snapped back and Tek rebounded off his face.

Behind and beneath the demon, Robin ran alongside Bushido, keeping ahead of the demon's backpedaling. The swordsman nodded to him, and so Robin cupped his hands low. The Teen Wonder caught Bushido's heel and heaved him upward, twisting every muscle he had in the effort.

Bushido soared upward, judging the distance to the demon's descending heel. In one motion, he drew his katana and slashed, carving a deep wound into the Achilles tendon drawn taut at the back of Trigon's leg. His feet touched either side of the gushing wound, and he pushed off, jumping away as Trigon hobbled backwards.

Cyberion smiled at Trigon's stagger. Then he felt his stomach lighten, and realized that his HUD had disappeared. His alloy had become skin and jumpsuit. Sarah's voice was absent from his thoughts. Everything below his neck felt empty and sore, and everything above his neck throbbed while he fell toward the bay.

Strong hands plucked him out of the air. Holding Cyberion around his chest, Starfire said, "I have you!"

He didn't answer, watching instead as the demon lord succumbed to gravity. Trigon's head bounced against a rocky shoreline, his hair spilling through the cracks of the slope. A cloud of sand leapt up from under the demon's back.

Trigon growled, dribbling ichor from the corners of his mouth. His body healed, but slower than before, his flesh sluggish to close. He was slower to rise, and clumsily shoved his hands against the beach in an effort to stand.

"Hit him!" Cyberion screamed. "Go! Go! Go!"

Starfire dove with Cyberion in tow. Below them, Robin and Bushido skated to the shore and jumped onto the beach. Tek flew low over the pair's heads, her force fields flickering. They converged upon the demon, their bodies exhausted and their weapons depleted, but their voice rallying in a cry.

"Titans Tog—!"

"ENOUGH!" Trigon bellowed.

The sand beneath the Titans flashed red with Trigon's soul-self. Hard-packed granules softened into a living, boiling slurry, which reached up and snared the Titans' feet.

Cyberion sank quickly into the sand, crying out as his legs vanished from underneath him. Bushido and Robin both jumped in unison, only to be snared as the red sands reached up and lashed their ankles to the ground. Tek struggled, and screamed, and sank.

Starfire was caught last. She vaporized the sandy tentacles as fast as they reached up for her. Then they started coming faster, and bound her glowing hands behind her, and wrapped around her legs and her waist, and forced her eyes up to protect the beach from her blazing glare.

Black static crackled around the Titans at the soul-sand's touch. Raven's gift pushed against the touch of Trigon, but it had no effect on the sand, which pulled the Titans beneath its surface.

Eyes blazing white, Trigon crowed, "Enough, mortals! If I cannot have your souls, I shall extinguish them!"

Cyberion struggled as the sand swallowed his shoulders. As strong as he was, it was a human's strength, and he had no leverage with which to use it. The living ground was too powerful. He watched Trigon rise, whole again, to loom over their deaths.

"Your defiance ends now!" the demon lord announced. His hands reached for the motes in his chest that sought his demise. "Your world is mine!"

He would have crushed the motes, if not for a storm of crackling pink energy that leapt from the edge of the shore to strike his face. Trigon screamed and jerked at the touch of iridescent lightning, which flayed the skin from his jaw. White bone glistened through the scorched wounds, which did not close.

Twisting his head around, Cyberion saw a distant figure with long, pink hair poised on the frozen shoreline. She raised her arms above her head, swirling her hands. The air replied with sparks of chaos, which gathered above her into another storm of pink lightning.

"Go back to hell!" Jinx screamed.

Her storm leapt forward at her gesture, rushing forward with such force as to throw Jinx off her feet. The lighting surged across Trigon's cheek, throwing him to one side with its force. Burning flesh replaced the pervasive smell of brimstone as Trigon's countenance was scarred with her chaos magic.

Cyberion watched Jinx fall. She did not stir again, though he saw the quickened rise and fall of her chest. That last blast must have emptied her. Tearing his eyes away, he watched Trigon brace himself against the cliffs next to the shore. The demon was hurt, and delayed. But his three eyes trailed down his chest. His shaking hands rose once more.

As the demon stood, Cyberion's eyes were drawn up the side of the odd cliff by a sudden thought. In all the fighting, Cyberion hadn't realized how far out into the bay they had been drawn. He saw a familiar, T-shaped building sitting on top of the cliffs, and realized what beach was drawing him into its depths.

Kinda fitting, he thought, and stared at the derelict Titans Tower as their old island consumed the rest of his head. We're right back where we started…

---

Beast Boy clung to Raven one-handed, his knees squeezing her waist to hold on as the demon lord stood. He felt Raven's pulse race beneath her skin, and shivered at the touch of her labored breath on his neck. The muffled screams of his friends sounded deafening to his ears.

"Garfield…" Raven rasped. "There's no more time."

"No!" he cried. "I won't—"

When he pulled back, he gasped at the strain in her features. Her blackened hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her breathing grew ragged as the lines around her eyes deepened. "Can't…" she wheezed.

Beast Boy felt his heart seize as he watched Raven shudder in Trigon's skin. A dark shadow fell over them both. It was Trigon's hand reaching for them once more. "No! You can't ask me to do this!" he shouted.

Her eyes narrowed. Her brows trembled, as though pressed with a great weight. Glowing red cracks emerged in her forehead, and her demonic eyes blossomed to glare at Beast Boy. The red light began seeping into Raven's human eyes again.

"No!" he shouted. "No, Raven! Just hold on. You have to stay with—"

Wisps of shadow bled from Raven's hands. The smoky soul-self drifted around Beast Boy, encircling his neck. Its grasp was hesitant, but it tightened. Trigon's hand loomed behind them with fingers poised to crush them both.

Raven's eyes filled with tears, making the red light shimmer. "Help..." she whispered.

The cord drew taut around Beast Boy's neck. Trigon's grasp descended upon him. And the last shred of Raven vanished from her glowing scowl.

Beast Boy shut his eyes, and thrust his sword into Raven.

The blade slipped into Raven as though she were water. There was no push against Beast Boy's thrust, no whisper from the sharpened bone that parted Raven. Beast Boy felt the hilt thump against her chest. Wet warmth spilled over his hands, shocking his eyes open.

Raven slipped forward out of Trigon's skin. She collapsed over The Hand. The piercing blade pinned her to her father's side. Her four eyes crashed together, becoming two shaking points of twilight. A wet gasp burst from her mouth as her soul-self unraveled from Beast Boy's neck.

Both teens shook as Trigon stiffened at the prick of the sword. For a second, the world froze. Then a deep, booming laugh swept through them. Trigon's mirth shook them to their cores.

Beast Boy felt his hands slip on the slick hilt as Raven's brow tilted against his forehead. He shoved, and pushed, but the blade would go no further into the laughing demon lord. "It won't reach his heart," he choked to Raven, his voice torn between a laugh and a sob. "It won't…"

Raven's cool, trembling fingers wrapped around his, intertwining with his claws. When he looked up, he saw her staring at him. Her gaze was clear, and steady, and warm.

Then she screamed. "Azarath! Metrion! ZINTHOS!"

Everything that Raven was poured through Beast Boy's hands and into the hilt of the sword that pierced her. Beast Boy saw images, flashes, a life's story shared in fragments. He felt emotions far stronger than anything he thought possible. Through the touch of her soul-self, he saw Raven more clearly than he had ever seen anything in his life.

He saw her smile as she slumped against him.

Trigon's laughter ended in a hiccup. The demon doubled over at the sensation of ice spreading through his chest. The numbness expanded, and sharpened, becoming pain beyond anything he had experienced in his immortal life.

His last breath rushed out of him in a grunt. "Oh."

Blackness erupted from Trigon's back in a geyser of bone, flesh, and ichor. The shadow exploding from him culled its shape into that of a titanic bird. Its wings spread across Titans Island, its beak split in a shrill report as it turned back upon the demon who had birthed it.

As Beast Boy clung to Raven on the toppling Trigon, he felt the enormous bird look upon him. Its white eyes blazed, filling him with a wonderment no words could describe. He felt a sheer joy, a freedom he had never felt before. It was the black bird's joy he felt, shared through its fleeting gaze.

Then the black bird spun. Its wings stretched, encompassing the entire island in their span. They stretched further, reaching beyond the city. The bird embraced all the colors in the sky. Its blackness became absolute around Beast Boy, robbing him of sight and sound.

The world ended in darkness.

Then it began again in a cold, jolting blast of life.

---

Robin awoke to numbing cold thick with bubbles. He suppressed the urge to gasp, and kicked after the rush of bubbles. The world around him felt heavy and wet. It wasn't long before he saw a shimmering ceiling, which he breached with his face.

He burst out of the waters of the bay, gasping for air. The sky above him was dark, rimmed to the west with the pinks and oranges of a normal sunset. Flat, fat chunks of ice floated around him. There was light in the city, stirring softly, and blinking. The thick stench of death had been replaced with the musk of the ocean. He gulped in the smell, coughing the water out of his lungs. His legs felt like sandbags, but they kicked when he told them to.

Treading in a circle, Robin saw the shoreline of Titans Island close at hand. The sand that had eaten him was gone. Water pooled in its place, forming a small cove that abutted the island's cliffs. As Robin dragged his arms through the water, he saw shapes climbing up the edge of the new cove.

Cyberion hunched on his hands and knees, belching seawater into the beach. Next to him, Bushido sat cross-legged, clutching his katana, his shaggy hair draped in his eyes. Both teens looked up as Robin staggered out of the water and collapsed next to them.

"Tim," Cyberion coughed.

Rolling onto his back, Robin said, "Vic. You guys okay?"

"I will live," Bushido said, and wrung the sleeves of his keikogi. "Whether or not that is 'okay' depends entirely on your opinion of me."

Cyberion's cough became a hoarse laugh. He punched Bushido in the arm, and said, "Have you ever answered anybody with less than ten words?"

Pulling the hair from his eyes, Bushido mulled over the question, and then said, "No."

The city lights mesmerized Cyberion. He watched them twinkle with an irrepressible smile, until he saw a flicker of movement out on the bay. With no power left to transform his eyes, he squinted. A tremendous spider was jumping from floe to floe.

"Gizmo," he murmured. Behind the villain's silhouette, he saw two more shapes, one big, and one small. Mammoth and Shimmer. The trio hopped across the ice, and then stopped on a large floe. A spark of pink light briefly lit the trio, and then sat up to rub her head.

Cyberion felt Jinx's eyes sweep toward the island. He nodded to her as he felt her gaze pause. Seconds later, the remnants of the Teen Tyrants hopped toward the city.

"What happened?" Robin asked. With incredible effort, he climbed onto his knees. The sand scraped him through the tears in his black tights. "The last thing I remember is us losing."

"Gar," said Cyberion. "He must have done it. He…" Realization struck him, and he looked out across the water. "Gar? Where is he?"

"Where are the girls?" Robin added. He and Cyberion scanned the icy waters. Too much of the sun had left, making each bobbing floe in the bay into a shadow.

Then they jumped as the water off the shore began to glow blue and green. The glow frothed, and then broke for Tek's crested helmet. Her armor glided toward shore, rising out of the surf, which pulled back to reveal Starfire beneath the heavy metal Titan. Starfire carried Tek to shore, and rested her gently upon the sand before pitching forward.

"Kory!" Robin lurched down to the surf. The act of dragging Starfire up from the water dropped him to his knees. He crouched over her and cupped her cheek.

His touched opened her eyes. A small gout of ocean spurted from her lips. She coughed, and sighed. "I saw…I saw Tek sinking," she said. "I went to…to get her, and…"

"You got her," he said, watching her breathe with a swell of relief. "She's safe."

Starfire's lips twitched. "You were concerned?" she said in a thin, teasing voice. "Tek should feel honored. You rarely show concern so openly."

His eyes fell. "I was…"

When his hand started to drop away from her face, her hand rose to keep it there. He looked back up, and saw her sober expression reaching out to him. She mouthed the words, "I know," and squeezed his fingers.

Bushido limped to Tek's motionless armor. His katana dropped into the surf, forgotten, as he knelt beside her. "Allison?" he said. His bleeding knuckles rapped on her visor.

"Nngh…stop it," Tek groaned tinnily. Her helmet tilted at him. The trim of her armor darkened, and then split apart into a flurry of grinding metal that slithered into the white froth beneath her. Her armor gone, Tek lay in the wet sand with the tide rushing over her back.

"Allie!" he cried, elated. He quickly sobered, settling his face into somber lines. "Good. I, um, would hate to see you lost after the battle. Drowning is hardly a heroic death. If you must die, you should do so with panache, with—"

"Stop talking," she groaned. Adding a tired glare to her face, she said, "And don't think I'm done yelling at you either. Jerk."

The corner of his mouth perked. "I look forward to your shrill admonishment, then."

They both looked up as Cyberion hovered above them. He stared across the bay, waiting. Each moment of silence that passed took its toll on his features. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he yelled, "Gar? Gar? Beast Boy?"

"Raven," Starfire sighed. With Robin's help, she sat up from the rolling tide, and shouted out across the waters. "Raven! Raven?"

A howl from down the beach snapped Cyberion's head around. Far away, where the edge of the sand disappeared behind the cliffs to curl around the island, he saw a flicker of motion in the sunset. He started to run, ignoring the leaden emptiness in his legs.

---

Beast Boy clawed across the sand. He didn't care that the sky had returned. He ignored the absence of the demon hordes, and the warm breeze rustling through his hair, and the distant cries of his friends. The still, white shape pressed into the beach just a few feet away was his whole world.

"Raven! Raven!" he cried.

Her oily hair was lavender again, and the ashen color of her skin had been bleached to a bone white. Her red, demonic brands were gone. So too were her cloak and clothes of shadow. In their stead, a glistening blackness kept Raven chaste. Beast Boy realized it was her blood that covered her.

She laid prone, her eyes opened to the sky. The Hand's hilt still stood in her chest, deep in a pool of her blood. When he grasped her shoulders, the hilt rolled off of her. Its blade had been shattered, leaving only a jagged stump still attached to the grip.

He listened for her heartbeat. She had none. Her skin felt cold and clammy where it wasn't sticky and black. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no," he said, and shook her. "Raven, no! Come on!"

She blinked, and gurgled, startling Beast Boy back. Black sludge rolled out of her mouth as she tried to gasp.

"Yes!" he cried, and grasped her hand. "That's it! Hang on, Raven! I'll go get—"

He tried to leave. Surprising strength filled her hand, dragging him close. Her eyes bugged as she struggled for breath. Her body shook with spasms as she choked, "Ga…Garf…"

He pressed her back into the sand. His hands fell over her open wound, as if he could push the lifeblood back into her frighteningly pale body. "I'm here. I'm here," he told her. Over his shoulder, he yelled, "Somebody, help!"

Her body wracked, sticking sand to her blood. Her eyes never left Beast Boy's. "It…It's…"

"Don't talk," he begged her. "Just hold on." Behind him, he screamed, "Help me!"

"…s'okay," she wheezed.

Tears streamed down his face. "No," he insisted. "No, it's not. It's not."

She gagged, and coughed, spackling Beast Boy's face with wet black flecks. Her voice was all but gone. "My bhhh…mmmmy behhh…"

"Raven," he whimpered, and cradled her head.

Her eyes brimmed. "…best ffffriend…suh…saved…mmme…"

Raven seized in his arms. She convulsed, curling up underneath him. Black bile spurted from her chalky lips. Her wet breaths quickened. They softened, and grew further apart. They stopped.

Her body slackened. Her eyes stared through him.

Beast Boy stared back. An unutterable stench filled the air as he laid her back in the sand. He stared, and listened to her silence, and ran his hands across her sticky, cold cheeks. He stared until the sight of her became a hot, wet blur, as the pounding footsteps of his friends stopped somewhere behind him.

He held the empty girl in his arms and sobbed while the last rays of the sun trickled below the horizon.

To Be Concluded