Hey there everybody! I hope you're all ready for some more Teen Titanic awesomeness, because here is a brand new chapter! In this chapter, thanks to some resourceful thinking on the part of our favorite half robot, the titans find themselves interrogating a large group of demons for the sake of figuring out who sent them after the titans and why. Here's to hoping you read, review, and enjoy (but it definitely wouldn't hurt for you to review).

Again, I do not own Teen Titans.

Now, on with the fic!

Chapter 5:

An Early Morning Interrogation

The very next morning, at 8:15 sharp, the Titans were gathered together in the common room having their breakfast. Unlike most mornings, the five teenage heroes were surprisingly quiet as they had their breakfast this morning. Robin was eating a bagel, and had his usual coffee next to his plate as he also proceeded to do his daily newspaper reading at the same time he was eating his bagel. Starfire was calmly consuming her favorite sugary cereal from Earth, but sadly in her usual fashion of slurping it down instead of using a spoon. Beast Boy was calmly gnawing away at his freshly defrosted tofu waffles. Raven was calmly sipping her tea, making sure to take a bite of her toast every few minutes or so. And of course, Cyborg was heartily devouring his own non-tofu waffles. But over the course of the entire breakfast, not one of them bothered to mention the events that had unfolded the previous night.

After getting started on their work at setting up the tower for defense against future demon visits, Robin had managed to get the security system reactivated in no time flat before heading off to help each of his friends with the demon proofing. Raven had initiated the process of demon proofing by going to her room and retrieving the rosary she had before, then teaching the water blessing ritual to Beast Boy. The changeling had then proceeded to go over to where the sprinkler water was stored and perform the ritual. Cyborg had begun his part by activating the invisible laser trigger that would cause the sprinklers to automatically turn on, and then proceeded to help out the other four titans in placing iron bar boundaries around the base of the tower, the edges of the roof, and the windows of the tower. With the outer defenses set up, the titans had worked together in placing salt lines by the doors to each room and painting devil's traps at assorted locations on the ceiling and floors. With all the preparations out of the way, only then had the titans finally gone back to their rooms and resumed their sleep. Surprisingly enough, they'd managed to sleep soundly for the rest of the night without any further abrupt wake up calls.

Now, after five minutes passed the completion of their breakfast, Robin decided to finally break the silence and discuss what had happened. "Well," he said, "I daresay I'm pleasantly surprised that we didn't have to deal with anymore demons last night after setting up the defenses."

"Agreed," said Starfire. "I am most thankful that we didn't get woken up again by demon visitors last night."

"Do you think that maybe no demons came last night after we set up the defenses?" Cyborg asked.

"Either it was that," said Robin. "Or none of the demons that did come after that managed to get past the holy water and iron boundaries." He looked at Beast Boy and Raven. "What do you guys think?"

Raven shrugged, seemingly noncommittal to this matter. Beast Boy, however, appeared to be deep in thought. "Umm, Robin," he stated. "I was just now wondering, if any demons did happen to come last night after we finished setting up the defenses and none of them made it past the defenses, then how we are going to find out who sent them after us?"

At the sound of this, Starfire gulped and looked at Robin nervously, clearly now worried about this detail now that Beast Boy had brought it up. Raven also looked at Robin with her eyebrow raised. Robin found himself cursing to himself in his mind. "Darn it," he thought to himself. "Why didn't I think of that?"

But then Cyborg said, "No need to worry. I've got that taken care of."

The other Titans looked at Cyborg. "How?" Robin asked.

Cyborg chuckled, walked over to one of the nearby computers, and said, "I'll show you."

The other Titans followed, and after they'd all taken positions by the computer, Cyborg proceeded to activate the security video footage, and then access one of the individual cameras. When the feedback from the chosen camera went full-screen, the other Titans were shocked to see that not only was the footage of a storage room located under the ground of the island past even the hangar and basement that had previously always been empty, but that the same room was now filled with a large seething and raging mass of demons that appeared to be contained within a massive devil's trap that had been painted across almost the entire floor.

As the other Titans gaped in shock at the large sea of demons contained within the massive devil's trap, Cyborg said, "As you can see, we have an entire Noah's Ark load of demons to interrogate."

"Cyborg," said Robin. "How did you manage do this?"

"Easy enough," said Cyborg. "I painted the trap in that area while you guys were busy painting traps on the ceilings and floors higher up. And as for how the demons got there, these are what I used." Upon saying the word 'these,' Cyborg pressed a button, and in a flash, what appeared to be large laser pistols jutted out from the undersides of the two horizontal 'arms' of Titans Tower and pointed at assorted areas around the island.

At the sight of the stunned look on Robin's face, Cyborg further explained, "I designed these babies last night. While battling the five demons that managed to get inside the tower last night, I managed to scan a complete sequence of their DNA, and I entered that data into the system. The scanners were updated to be capable of scanning for the pureblood DNA I scanned. The scanners detect an exact match of this DNA, and therefore a demon, these guns are designed to automatically come out into position and start firing. And the best part is, they're designed to fire zeta beams, so the moment the demons get blasted, they get teleported straight to the location I entered in the coordinates for, which in this case, is the storage area where I painted that big huge devil's trap."

After hearing this explanation, even Raven seemed vaguely impressed by what Cyborg had done. Robin eventually managed to say, "Cyborg. You are a genius."

"I have my moments," said Cyborg.

Robin then grinned, turned his head to face the other Titans, and said, "Well in that case, get ready team. We have an interrogation to make."

. . . . .

The large crowd of trapped demons were still milling around wildly within the giant devil's trap when the five teenage heroes entered the gigantic storage facility where they were currently being kept in. At the sight of them all, Robin whistled silently. Only now, with the entire crowd of demons directly in front of him as opposed to on a video screen, did he truly realize just how many demons Cyborg had managed to trap with his ingenious gadgetry the previous night. In fact, Robin had a feeling that it was a miracle that there'd been enough room within even the huge devil's trap in the room to contain them all.

Then Robin noticed another detail that only confirmed how lucky he and the other Titans were that Cyborg's massive devil's trap had worked. For not only were there countless black, blue, green, yellow, and red demons raging around on the ground, but there was also a likewise large number of purple scaled and eyed demons flying around in the air with taloned eagle-like feet, purple feathered wings in the places where all the other demons' arms were located, tufts of purple feathers at the ends of their tails and on the tops of their heads, and serrated beak-like mouths. Robin gulped at the sight of this, for if the amount of demons currently contained in the devil's trap had proven so large that all the flying demons had been forced to take to the air in order for there to be enough room, then he didn't even want to know the possibilities that could have occurred if there had been more demons than the devil's trap was potentially capable of containing.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Now's not the time for random thoughts," he thought to himself. "I need to have my game face on and my mind clearly focused for when I interrogate these things."

Taking on the most serious and emotionless facial expression he could muster, Robin determinedly walked right up to the devil's trap border that was closest in proximity to the doorway that led from the anteroom to the storage room. As their leader made his way over towards the demons, the other Titans remained standing next to a faucet-like area that connected to a large underground tank of reserve water. Each of them was holding a goblet that they'd recently filled to the brim with said water, and was watching intently as they waited for the business they'd come for to begin. After taking on a firm standing position about one foot away from the boundary of the devil's trap, Robin glared at the massive crowd of demons and yelled, "Silence!"

At the sound of the boy wonder's commanding shout, every single one of the demons seething around in the devil's trap went silent and turned their heads to directly face him and the other Titans. Robin snarled, pointed directly at the demons, and hissed, "Alright, you little fiends, I hope you're listening, because I don't want any funny business from you today. Last night, five of your compatriots invaded my home and tried to kill me and my friends. This attack against us will not go unanswered, and the only reason you lot haven't already followed in the footsteps of your little advance party by now is because I need answers, and you're the only ones conveniently available who can give me the ones I want. You got that?"

The demons snarled, but grudgingly nodded their heads up and down.

Robin took one step forward, leaning forward with his glare still on his face. "Good," the boy wonder growled. "Now before we get started, who among you is the leader?" The demons growled and hissed in response.

Robin narrowed his eyes, appeared to closely gaze at the demons, and then abruptly drew out his sword and slashed it across the chest of a black demon standing directly in front of him. The demon had just enough time to let out an inhuman scream of pain before it exploded into dust. The remaining demons let out a unified hiss of fright and shock and backed up as far as the invisible barrier produced by the power of the devil's trap containing them would allow, clearly surprised and now wary of the fact that at least one of their captors had a weapon capable of killing them.

Robin pointed his sword at the demons again, and then yelled, "You see this?! With this blade, I am perfectly capable of killing you all; and believe me, this isn't the first time I've used this sword to kill one of your kin either! And since you aren't legally protected against being killed, I will gladly kill you all if I have to! Understand!?" The demons gulped, and nodded as if to say 'yes.'

"Good," said Robin. He retracted his sword, pointed his finger at the demons once again, and yelled, "Whichever one of you is the leader, show yourself now!"

In a flash, a sudden disturbance appeared to occur among the demons within the very center of the devil's trap, and a large stream of blood red smoke rose up from the ground-based crowd before gliding around in circles through the air like an air-born snake.

Robin's eyes narrowed. "I'm guessing that's the leader," he thought to himself. He pointed at the red smoke and yelled, "Alright, now take up a position so that I can see you clearly. As leader of the Teen Titans, I want to talk directly to you, face-to-face."

The other demons promptly began to move and jostle each other around as they struggled to make sure that there was enough room for their leader to take up a position directly in front of the masked boy in the traffic-light themed costume. No sooner had the demons all managed to clear up an empty space just big enough for the tip of the smoke stream to touch down on, when the blood red smoke that their leader had become proceeded to rear up like a snake and then slam itself head first on to the empty space. It reverted back to its corporeal form directly after landing, revealing a blood red demon.

The red demon straightened up to full standing height, and directed its red eyes straight at Robin's mask covered ones, an emotionless glare on its face very similar to Robin's own commanding and poker-faced glare. The demon snarled, gave a slight grudging nod of respect, and said, "I am Carnax! Captain of the Theta Squadron of the 13th Infernal Legion, at your service!"

Upon introducing himself, Carnax bowed, a very slow motion designed to be an insulting gesture. Robin showed no sign of being phased by the insult, and gave a slight nod of his head before saying, "Alright Carnax, as I've already mentioned, my team and I have important questions that need answers, and you and your squadron of warriors are the only ones currently available who can give me those answers. Now we're going to either do this the easy way or the hard way."

A wolfish grin crossed the crimson demon's face, and it chuckled arrogantly before derisively hissing, "You dare think it to be even remotely possible for one such as you to get any demon, much less me, to tell you our secrets?"

Robin's eyes narrowed beneath his mask. "I don't think that," Robin growled. "I know."

All the other demons gathered around behind Carnax 'oohed' and looked each other in the eyes with spunky looks in their eyes as if to say 'feisty.' Carnax chuckled, raised his eyebrow, and said, "A very healthy sense of self-esteem I see."

Robin said nothing, and the demon chuckled before shaking its head side to side and saying, "But nonetheless, I sure as my kin's domain won't be telling you anything just on your say so."

Robin snarled soundlessly, and stated, "Hard way it is then." He turned his head to face Cyborg who was standing behind Robin alongside Beast Boy and the girls, and said, "You know what to do."

Cyborg nodded, walked up to Robin's position, and then proceeded to splash the water in his goblet directly on Carnax's face. Carnax howled in shock and agony as acrid red smoke began to waft off of his face as if it were burning. His underlings reared back in shock, for they'd once again been taken by surprise.

Cyborg smirked, lifted up his now empty goblet so that it was in clear sight of all the demons, and said, "That's right ya'll! As you can see, we've come prepared. That reserve water tank you see the faucet for right here in this room, we made sure to have its contents blessed earlier this morning right before we entered this room. Therefore, we're more than capable of making things pretty painful for you if you don't answer our questions."

Robin nodded in agreement with Cyborg, looked back at Carnax, and then said, "Perhaps now you're willing to talk?"

Carnax growled at Robin, his red eyes filled with fury, and stated, "Do your worst boy blunder; I guarantee you will not get a thing out of me or my soldiers!"

"Have it your way then," said Robin. He turned his head to Raven and said, "Raven, let him have it."

Raven proceeded to levitate her goblet of holy water directly over Carnax's head and then cause it to flip upside down, spilling the contents right on top of him. The sound of Carnax's agonized howling filled the air immediately afterward.

. . . . .

One hour later, Robin was forced to grudgingly admit that demons definitely weren't the easiest to get to talk. For the last hour, the Titans and demons had found themselves in a seemingly never-ending cycle that went along the lines of Robin asking Carnax either if he was willing to talk or one of the questions he hoped to gain the answer to if the demons did finally crack, Carnax making an insulting, sarcastic or likewise uncooperative comment, and each of the other four Titans taking a turn spraying Carnax in the face with holy water in their own unique way. Cyborg had simply thrusted his goblet so that the contents went flying into Carnax's face whenever it had become time for his turn at torturing. Whenever it had been Raven's turn, the dark sorceress had levitated her goblet and flipped it upside down directly over Carnax's head. Beast Boy's turns at torture had consisted of him gulping his entire goblet's worth of holy water into his mouth, turning into an elephant, and spouting it all from his trunk into Carnax's face. As for Starfire, her form of holy water torture had involved her forcing Carnax's jaws open and pouring the contents of her goblet down his throat.

Now, Robin was almost positive that the large underground tank of holy water was half empty now, and still Carnax seemed as if he could last for entire centuries of torture. Carnax chuckled, his wolfish grin back on his face as his most recent holy water torture session finally wore off, and said, "I will admit, you certainly aren't one to give up easily, but your current efforts at torturing me into revealing the secrets of our current plans are an exercise in futility. We'd sooner sing hymns in praise of Heaven before telling you our secrets. Sooner or later, my warriors and I will escape from this trap somehow, and we will flay you and your friends alive, starting from the toes and working our way up to the tops of your heads."

Robin's eyes narrowed, and he then hissed, "Well I can assure you that it will take far less time for me to get you to crack then it will for you and your army to escape that trap." He turned around, looked back at Carnax, and said, "But for now, you get to have a reprieve. I have some things to discuss right now with my teammates. But I warn you, when we get back in here, the torture will be recommenced immediately, and it will be much more brutal."

Carnax chuckled, licked his chops as if he were hungry, and said, "I look forward to it." The other demons chuckled in agreement, the poison demons even hissing like snakes while they chuckled.

Robin, showing no signs of emotion, turned his head away from Carnax to face the other Titans, and then said, "Meeting in the anteroom of this level, now." Upon saying this, the boy wonder exited the storage room, closely followed by the other titans. Beast Boy in particular seemed rather eager to go back into the anteroom, not to mention still very squeamish and nauseous after hearing what Carnax had said about flaying him and the other Titans alive. Raven, however, briefly stopped long enough to use her powers to paint what appeared to be some form of ancient runes on both the doors to the chamber and the wall the doors were located on before exiting the storage chamber herself.

Seconds after Raven joined her teammates in the anteroom, the large sliding doors to the storage chamber closed. "You wanted to discuss something with us?" Raven asked.

Robin lifted his finger as if to say 'hold it,' and then asked, "Before I get started, what did you just do before you came in here?"

"I placed some ancient Azarathian silencing runes on the wall and doors," Raven responded. "Apply these runes to any surface, and all noise that occurs on the side opposite the ones with the runes on them will be incapable of being heard by anyone or anything on the sides with the runes. In other words, we now won't have to worry about anyone eavesdropping on this meeting."

The other Titans nodded their heads with impressed looks on their faces. "Well, that's certainly useful," said Robin. He then clapped his hands together as if signaling the beginning of a meeting and said, "Well with that out of the way, let's discuss the original reason for this meeting." The other Titans listened carefully. Robin took a deep breath, exhaled in a weary sigh, and said, "I hate to say this, but I have a feeling that we're going to need to rethink our strategy in this interrogation. At this rate, we'll all be 100 years old by the time we get these demons to crack." The other Titans nodded and mumbled in agreement. With their current nonexistent rate of success, they definitely needed to come up with a different way to torture the demons sufficiently enough to get them to answer their questions.

"If any of you have any ideas we could attempt, speak now," said Robin.

The other Titans thought to themselves. "Well you do have your sword," said Raven.

Robin shook his head. "I doubt that will work. I don't know how, but I have a feeling that threat of death or severe injuries won't be enough to get that demon to talk. Heck, those things would probably welcome it."

Raven shrugged, for she hadn't truly expected this idea to be accepted as the new strategy.

"Maybe Raven could talk to them or read their minds," Cyborg suggested.

"How would my talking to them be any more effective?" Raven asked.

"Well he does have a point," said Robin. "You are half demon, no offense. I think that Cyborg's trying to say that the demons might be more willing to talk to you since you are related to one of their kin. And if that fails, you could always use mind reading."

Raven shook her head. "While not a bad idea, I'm afraid neither of those suggestions will work," said Raven. "For starters, demons usually tend to not have very high opinions of demons from other forms of Hell, and since I'm half Trigonian demon and these ones are all Luciferian, odds are they would be more likely to spit at my feet then talk to me. And in fact, they'd be even less likely to treat me with respect since I'm only half demon and they're all purebloods, pure being a relative term. And as for mind reading, while they are capable of reading minds themselves, they are also immune to getting their own minds read by others."

"Perhaps we could offer to set them free?" Starfire asked. "It would certainly be the last thing they'd expect and it might surprise them into telling us what we want to know."

Robin shook his head. "I'm sorry Star, but while I do understand your reasoning, I doubt that would work. Deals with demons rarely ever end well, and I have a feeling that more likely than not, they'd ask us to free them first and then kill us the second the trap is broken." At the sight of Starfire hanging her head sadly in apparent shame, Robin said, "But still, good try."

As one, they all looked at Beast Boy, who now appeared to be in surprisingly deep thought. "Well," he then said. "I'm not entirely sure if this will work, but I was just now thinking about how rarely demons ever actually make physical appearances on Earth and wreak havoc. You've gotta admit that is true."

Robin nodded in agreement, and then said, "Indeed; and you're mentioning this why?"

"Well," said Beast Boy, "with that in mind, since this is very likely the first time these demons have gotten to walk the Earth in who knows how long, they're probably considering their current time here on Earth their own equivalent of a vacation."

Robin thought to himself. "Hmm, I guess I can see what you mean. But how is this going to help us?"

Beast Boy grinned, clasped his hands together so that his fingers intertwined, and said, "Well since this is hypothetically a vacation for the demons and they've likely not been out here on Earth for very long, who among you is willing to bet that they're not all that keen on returning home at any time in the near future?"

Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg looked very much confused after hearing all this. Raven, however, only looked confused for about five seconds before it abruptly hit her. "I think," said Raven, "that Beast Boy's trying to say that maybe we should threaten to exorcise them."

Upon hearing this, Robin and Cyborg promptly realized that this suggestion actually did match up with what Beast Boy appeared to be talking about. "Hmm, an exorcism threat could actually work," said Robin. "Alright then, we'll give it a shot."

"Please," said Starfire. "What exactly is this exorcism of which you speak?"

"It's a ritual that's used to banish demons from the mortal realm and send them back to Hell," said Raven.

Starfire raised her eyebrows in confusion. "What is this Hell place?"

The other Titans looked each other in the eyes awkwardly, not entirely certain as to how to explain this to the Tamaranean girl. Eventually, Robin took a deep breath, looked directly at Starfire, and asked, "Star, do your kin have a concept of the afterlife?"

Starfire nodded. "Indeed. My people believe that when we die, the souls of the virtuous and likewise good Tamaraneans travel to M'ngwarl, the palace of our goddess X'hal, where they live in eternal bliss and happiness."

"What happens to the bad ones?" Beast Boy asked.

Starfire shuddered, looked down at her feet, and said, "A fate far worse than ceasing to exist. On my planet, it is believed that the souls of the evil are sent down to the dark and terrifying realm of Dahak, where they are eternally mauled and ravaged by the savage and bloodthirsty thirteen-headed fire serpent, Ahz'rogha."

Robin gulped, lifted up his finger as if about to make a point, and said, "Well Star, that realm you just described called Dahak, that's basically the Tamaranean equivalent of Hell."

Starfire gulped, and involuntarily shivered as she found her mind abruptly filled with nightmarish images.

Cyborg, ever the big brother figure, decided to get things moved away from the matters of what Hell was, and said, "So in other words, you think that the potential for us abruptly terminating their vacation when it's barely even begun might get them to talk?"

Beast Boy shrugged, spread his hands out to his sides, and said, "It might, I mean, I'd be pretty pissed off if my vacation were to be unfairly cut short. For all we know, these demons might feel the same way about their time outside Hell."

"Then that settles it," said Robin as he clasped his hands together. "Raven, do you have any books on how to exorcise demons?"

Raven smirked. "Thought you'd never ask."

And just like that, another chapter over! I hope you guys all enjoyed this, leave a healthy bunch of reviews, and will be looking forward to the next chapter! Till then, this is A-LionGleek signing out.

Coming up next: The titans resume their interrogation, but this time with a far more powerful threat (aka. an exorcism) at the ready. Will there new powerful trick be enough to get the demons to talk? Find out next chapter! ^_^