Night of the Cursed

by A-LionGleek

The titans have finally returned from Tokyo, but before long they end up at work once again to foil the newest plot cooked up by their arch nemesis, Slade, and his new compatriot Vandal Savage. And to make matters worse, if they don't stop this plot, then there will literally be Hell to pay! Rated T to be safe.

16. Raw Deal

Hey there everybody! I'm back with a new chapter! And don't worry, this one will definitely not have any real tear jerking elements like the one in the previous chapter! In this chapter, Robin sets out in earnest on his newly self assigned mission to bring his friends back from the dead. But just how far, may you ask, will he go in his efforts? Find out, in this fantastic new chapter! Here's to hoping you read, enjoy, and review!

Once again, I'll just quickly remind you all that I do not own Teen Titans or any other elements of the DC universe. Now, onward with the story!

Chapter 15:

Raw Deal

Quite some time later, in a cave located a couple feet further down the path that Savage had taken, and which the Titans had earlier been following the immortal caveman, Robin carefully etched out a complicated shape on the cave floor. He grunted and growled in exertion as he tirelessly carved out the shape as best as he could with his birdirang. If his current plan was to work, he needed the shape he was currently in the midst of carving to be absolutely perfect, and he could not afford any mistakes, especially not in this particular case. If he made even the slightest mistake or similar discrepancy this time, his efforts were capable of resulting in an embarrassing blank novice failure at the very best and a violent death at the hands of a demon at the very worst.

Yes, Robin was about to attempt to summon a demon. Under normal circumstances, he would never have done such an action. However, at this point, he was desperate, and demons were the only things that he was conveniently capable of summoning which had the power to actively help him fulfill his current plan.

He had spent fifteen minutes prior to this point looking carefully through the Infernal Tablet, working carefully to decide on just which of the demons out of the countless hellish monsters dwelling in Hell he would summon. And this choice had taken so long to make because he knew perfectly well how careful he needed to be when it came to this type of work, for he needed to summon a demon of just the right rank. If he summoned a demon too low in rank, then the odds were high that it wouldn't be powerful enough to fulfill the commands that he wished of it. On the other hand, if he summoned a demon that was too high in rank, then it would prove far more powerful than he could hope to keep under control and be far more likely to kill him on sight immediately after being summoned than to obey his orders.

Another fifteen minutes later, Robin finally managed to complete his carefully etched out work on the cave floor with a small grunt of triumph and relief. "About time," he growled. "Took me long enough to finish the stupid thing." The shape in question, which Robin found looked very oddly like a horizontal oval with scythe-like blades at the tips, was the specific sigil for the demon he wanted to summon. From what he'd managed to read, he knew that demon summoning that involved the use of the personal sigils of demons worked far more effectively than those that didn't, as the presence of the sigil was enough to establish an almost physical bond between the demon and the location of the summoning so as to make it almost impossible for the demon to ignore. All the other methods of summoning which involved use of either careful concentration or invocation of the demon's name were far more likely to go wrong since people were capable of either losing concentration, accidentally thinking of the wrong demon, or forgetting or mispronouncing the name. Thankfully, with the sigil of every Abrahamic demon in existence being among the information contained within the Infernal Tablet, Robin now could tell with confidence that his summoning would be guaranteed to work.

Placing his birdirang back into his utility belt, Robin turned his head to face the area where he'd left the tablet and the Fallen Tools. He thought to himself. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to examine these things real quick."

He walked over to the Fallen Tools and examined them carefully on his hands and knees. He had to admit, they looked surprisingly eye catching and pretty for objects that were supposed to be the tools of the Devil. "Then again," he thought to himself. "Of course that's the way Lucifer would want them to be. The more eye catching they are, the more likely people will use them and cause their souls to be easier to stake his claim on."

He picked up the Chalice of Sins. As he gazed at the beautifully carved and crafted goblet, he had to admit that it looked like the kind of drinking cup worthy of royalty. "Pity that any people who drink out of this end up becoming demons," he thought to himself with a smirk. Then he positioned the chalice so that he could look directly inside. After a few seconds, much to Robin's surprise and intrigue, the cup magically filled up with a suspicious dark reddish black liquid that looked very eerily like some sort of blood. Robin shuddered at the sight of the liquid. "Why do I have a bad feeling that this is Lucifer's blood?" he thought to himself.

Then, as he continued to stare at the liquid within the chalice, Robin suddenly felt a very strong urge to drink the liquid. In this trance-like state, Robin found himself slowly lifting the goblet up to his lips, all the time still staring at the liquid within. "It looks . . . so . . . appetizing," he thought to himself unconsciously. "Why . . . am . . . I . . . so . . . thirsty?" But even as he wondered about all this, he found himself strangely not seeming to care about what the answers were to these questions. All he could currently focus on was the painfully tempting liquid within the chalice in his hands. All he wanted right that very moment was to drink the whole entire serving without stopping until the chalice was empty.

Suddenly, right as Robin's lips were literally inches away from touching the rim of the chalice and the chalice itself only seconds away from being positioned in the correct way to allow the liquid to enter his mouth, he suddenly heard the sound of his fallen friends shouting frantically in his mind, and he abruptly snapped out of his trance. This happened right as a tiny rivulet of the liquid was just about to start flowing straight into his mouth.

Shrieking in horror and disgust at the discovery, Robin threw the chalice back down to the cave floor. The chalice landed on the ground with a clang and bounced thrice across it, the entire serving of liquid spilling out onto the floor, where it proceeded to briefly appear to boil and let off steam before then seeming to melt into the ground. Panting and gasping in a mixture of horror and relief, Robin hurriedly turned his head away from the offending chalice, closing his eyes and grumbling like a dog as he thought of how very narrowly he'd just now avoided turning himself into a demon. "Forget it," he snarled furiously to himself in his mind, "summoning one is bad enough. I do not need to turn myself into one of those damned things."

Now very much wanting to get the Chalice of Sins out of his mind, he looked intently at the Eye of Lucifer. His eyes narrowed as he considered whether or not to closely examine this particular object. He shrugged his shoulders. "It probably wouldn't be that harmful compared to that stupid chalice," he reasoned. "Besides, this thing could actually prove pretty useful for me just this once."

Robin picked up the crystal ball, lifted it up to eye level, and glared intently at it as he just tried to remember what he'd read in the Brotherhood of Dante's database on how to operate it. Then a light bulb went on in his mind as he remembered. "That's right," he said out loud. "I remember what I have to say now." He grasped tightly onto the crystal ball with both hands, looked intently into it, and said, "Show me the Knights of Hell at this very moment."

Tendrils of red lightning began to crackle up within the sphere, and a mass of red smoke appeared within. But then, seconds later, the smoke faded away and the red lightning also made a faint crackle before vanishing as well. Robin's left eyebrow rose. "What the Devil?" he thought to himself. Then he remembered something Raven had mentioned about the Eye of Lucifer the previous evening while the Titans had been on their way from the Tower to Dragon's Head Valley. "Of course," he thought to himself. "The only locations that are out of reach to the Eye of Lucifer are the actual afterlife realms themselves. In other words, I can't view anybody located within Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory."

Robin chuckled weakly to himself as he remembered this detail. "Certainly makes sense," he said to himself. "After all, Lucifer certainly wouldn't want this thing to be used to spy on him and his forces if it ended up in the wrong hands. And of course, God wouldn't want any mortals to tune themselves into Heaven's own personal business."

The Boy Wonder chuckled one last time before looking intently at the Eye of Lucifer once again. "Well I might as well use this to check on the status of an enemy that I know is definitely not located in Hell at the current moment," he thought to himself. Gazing like a hawk into the sphere yet again, he stated, "Alright, in that case, show me Vandal Savage."

This time, Robin got a result that involved actually getting live footage of his desired target for viewing. Within the small 'screen' formed by the mist within the Eye of Lucifer, Robin could see Savage standing in a small field that appeared to be not too far away from the location of the Alpha Afterlife Portals. However, what Robin found particularly interesting was that Savage was swinging his bone blade around at thin air. After a few minutes, it became clear to Robin that Savage was practicing his sword fighting skills. At one point, after Savage finished unleashing a particularly heavy and strong sword maneuver, the immortal caveman placed his hand up against a nearby tree and started panting.

After the immortal caveman got his breath back, he straightened back up, spun his blade around in his hand, and then said, "I can still afford half an hour or so to continue practicing. I may have a lot to catch back up on, but it's better I put all this backbreaking work into it now then risk getting myself into yet another obviously one-sided sword fight that's in my opponent's favor the way it was in my earlier battle with the Boy Wonder."

At the sound of this, Robin's eyebrow rose, clearly showing his intrigue at hearing this information. "Huh," he thought to himself. "So I had the advantage in my fight against him even before he caused me to lose my temper by bringing up Slade. Well that's certainly flattering to know. I guess all my hard work at maintaining a consistent schedule of practicing my sword fighting skills really paid off." He chuckled, but made sure to carefully make a note to not allow this information to let him put his guard down. After all, he didn't want to end up carelessly allowing his own sword fighting skills to dwindle the way that Savage had done.

After a couple more minutes, Robin stated, "End transmission." The sight of Savage faded away back into the red mist, which then vanished into thin air as well. Robin took a deep breath, exhaled, and then gently placed the Eye of Lucifer back on the ground before turning his gaze towards the Devil's Scepter. Robin carefully clasped his right hand around the masterfully crafted obsidian staff with the beautiful red ruby adorned at the upper tip with four claw-like structures positioned between the staff and the ruby as a sort of crosspiece. He lifted it up, straightening himself fully upright in the process. As he carefully examined it and moved it around in his hands, he found himself having no choice but to admit that it felt very good in his hands, almost exactly as if he were wielding his own Bo staff. "I guess this thing really is capable of fitting into anyone's hands," he thought to himself. Then he looked back at the sigil he'd carved on the ground behind him. He smirked at it, positioned the staff so that he had it clasped within both of his hands, and said, "Well this thing will certainly make my upcoming summoning a Hell of a lot easier."

And indeed the Devil's Scepter would make his job considerably easier. As he remembered Raven saying the previous evening before they'd left the Tower for Lucifer's Crypt, if he used the staff while performing his summoning ritual, then he'd be guaranteed full obedience from the demon he summoned regardless of whether or not it proved too powerful or just powerful enough. Letting his usual poker face come back on, he tapped his left hand with the staff, and said to himself, "Time to get down to business."

. . . . .

Twenty minutes later, at exactly 4:00, Robin had finally managed to fully prepare everything he needed for the summoning. He'd managed to draw out several smoke sticks from his utility belt and placed them on the appropriate areas of the sigil so as to serve as makeshift candles. Within the very center of the sigil, he'd placed a small bowl that he'd formed by blasting a miniature boulder within the cave in half through use of a well-placed and designed explosive device. Within this bowl, he'd placed all but one ingredient he needed for this particular summoning ritual.

Robin smiled as he thought of how lucky he'd been to have been able to conveniently find all the ingredients he needed. For this particular type of demon summoning, the ingredients required for the spell included a cup of nightshade berries, three ounces of grounded hemlock leaves, 13 milliliters of toad venom, and four crushed viper fangs. As he remembered the last two ingredients, he winced as he thought of how very unhappy Beast Boy would have been if he'd seen just what he'd had to do to obtain them. "Then again," Robin thought to himself for the sake of both rationalizing the deeds in question and figuring out a way to help Beast Boy forgive him, "at least I gave them a quick death."

And indeed Robin had made the deaths of the toads and viper he'd found within the area very quick indeed. Upon finding a trio of toads that he knew were venomous thanks to reading a book he'd once borrowed from Beast Boy, he'd swiftly picked up a small stone and smashed them to death before using a five milliliter syringe within his utility belt to extract the venom from the deceased amphibians. From the first two toads, he'd managed to obtain four milliliters each, while the last toad had luckily enough contained the full last five milliliters he needed.

As for the viper, Robin had just walked back into the valley from finding the toads when he'd seen the snake literally right next to Starfire's head hissing towards her ear. Upon sight of this, acting purely on instinct and pure rage, Robin had flung one of his birdirangs at the luckless snake. The 'beak' end of the device had plunged straight into the viper's head from the back and jabbed right through its brain, killing it instantly right as it opened its mouth to the fullest. Upon killing the snake, Robin had used his birdirang to pry four of the creature's fangs from its mouth before then grabbing onto the snake's dead body and flinging it into the bushes nearby. From that point on, Robin had carried all the supplies he needed for the summoning back to the cave. And he'd been extra careful to make sure that he waited until after he'd placed the other three ingredients within the bowl before then proceeding to crush the four viper fangs with his birdirang and then scooping the remains into his hands before pouring them into the bowl as well.

Taking a deep breath, Robin tightly gripped the Devil's Scepter in his right hand, closed his eyes, and then lifted his hands upward like a priest, lifting the staff up as well before then stating, "Attenrobendum eos, ad consiendrum." Right as he stated the second verse, Robin slipped the staff into a position that allowed him to hold it within his underarm area, drew out a birdirang, and then proceeded to carefully slice the 'beak' in a straight line across the palm of his left hand. He grimaced in a mixture of pain and disgust as he did this. The reason behind this rather masochistic action was that the final ingredient needed for the summoning spell was the blood of the summoner, and it had to be added to the mixture at that particular point of the incantation.

Still grimacing slightly, Robin placed the birdirang back into the appropriate compartment of his utility belt, slipped the staff back into the grasp of his right hand, and slowly leaned forward with his left arm extending out towards the bowl. Once he managed to get his left hand positioned properly above the bowl and directed at a slant, he kept it still and watched as drops of his blood began to drip upon the contents already within the bowl. As he did this, he continued the incantation, "Ad ligandum eos, potiter et solvendum."

The last drop of blood required for the spell landed within the bowl, and Robin immediately withdrew his left hand from its position above the bowl, pausing just long enough to draw out a roll of gauze from his utility belt and wrapping it around the wound as a makeshift bandage. Then he straightened back up on his feet, gently placed the Devil's Scepter down on the ground, and drew out a smoke stick and pen-like object very similar to the one he'd used against Abaddon as a makeshift Taser during their earlier tussle hours ago. Pressing lightly on the back end of the pen-like object, a small flame popped up from the tip, and the smoke stick promptly became ignited at the top end. Robin slipped the miniature flamethrower back into his utility bolt, lifted the newly ignited makeshift candle up so that it was positioned directly above the bowl, and then said, "Et ad, congregontum eos, coram me."

Robin let go of the makeshift candle, and it landed right atop the mixture within the bowl, flaming end first. The instant the small flame came into contact with the contents of the bowl, the whole mixture abruptly erupted into a small pillar of flame that was just tall enough to reach Robin's utility belt in regard to height. As Robin watched the small pillar of flame blazing up and burning away the mixture within the makeshift bowl, Robin quickly grabbed back onto the staff, raised both of his hands up into the air, and then stated, "Arcessio diabola Nehreezah."

That particular action was not mandatory for the summoning, but was capable of further strengthening the power of the summoning if done right. As it soon turned out, Robin managed to say the name right, for soon after he finished uttering that last phrase, the outline of the sigil began to glow, and the small flames atop the twelve candles that had been placed upon the sigil erupted into their own brilliant pillar forms. The Devil's Scepter also began to glow with an ominous red and black light. After another minute or two, the flames abruptly shut off, the sigil stopped glowing, and the staff lost its impressive yet unnerving aura.

For another three minutes, Robin remained standing as he was, watching the area in front of him intently, waiting for the demon he'd summoned to appear. After the three minutes with still no apparent sign of the spell having worked, Robin glared at the sigil, then at the wall in front of him, and yelled, "Well? What are you waiting for!?" Silence hung in the air in response to Robin's shout. Unamused, Robin looked to his left and shouted, "I'm waiting!" There was still no response. Now very clearly starting to lose his temper, Robin turned his head to his right and irately roared, "What's taking you so long!? Show yourself already!"

For a brief few seconds, the area around Robin continued to remain silent. Then, right as Robin was about to completely blow his top, he suddenly heard a feminine voice behind him say, "Pipe down Boy Wonder, you'll wake up the neighbors."

Robin's eyes widened at the sound of this voice. In a flash, he turned around to face the area behind him, the Devil's Specter at the ready for use as a weapon if the need arose, and his eyes then narrowed as he saw none other than a demon leaning casually up against one of the cave walls. Robin tensely lowered the staff, and then calmly proceeded to examine the demon without showing any outward signs of his being in the midst of making an observation. The demon seemed to be about the same height as him, and looked just like a normal Abrahamic water demon. He could also tell that this demon was clearly a female due to both how its voice had sounded when it had revealed its position behind him and the fact that its body had a rather slender and elegant build that he'd previously only seen in Lilith. In fact, quite a large number of traits about her seemed to remind him rather unhealthily of Lilith.

At the sight from the corner of her eyes of the hard-eyed glare that soon took the place of the wide-eyed look of shock that had been on the Boy Wonder's face when he'd first turned around to face her, the demoness smiled maliciously, her icy blue eyes seeming to gleam with an icy cold light that proved more than appropriate in matching her similarly sapphire colored scales. Chuckling smugly, revealing her wicked sharp teeth, she coolly stated without even turning to face Robin directly, "You really shouldn't be so surprised by my presence here, after all, the spell was practically guaranteed to work after all the work you put into setting it up plus the research you made in making sure you knew what you were doing."

Robin scowled at the demoness, clearly unamused. "And you couldn't show the decency of appearing directly in front of me upon the sigil the way I'd been lead to expect why?"

The demoness chuckled again, turned her head so that she could look directly at the Boy Wonder, and then stated, "It's not my fault that's where you were expecting me to appear. I may not be able to control whether or not I appear in the area you summon me to through use of my personal sigil, but I'm still at least granted the ability to control just where in the area I appear. Every spell has at least some form of small mercy like that."

Robin grumbled, rolled his eyes, and then glowered at the demon before sarcastically growling, "Well it's nice to meet you to."

The demoness chuckled again, much to Robin's annoyance, and then proceeded to step forward away from the wall she'd been leaning up against before proceeding to walk past Robin and towards the area across the sigil directly behind Robin. As she walked, she stated, "Come now Bird Boy, is that anyway to greet a guest? I'm a demon, and even I know the proper etiquette for a situation like this. We haven't even properly introduced ourselves to each other."

"Yeah well boohoo," Robin grumbled. "But newsflash, I don't need you to introduce yourself to me. I already know who you are."

"Oh do you?" the demoness asked smugly as she directed a wolfish smirk at the Boy Wonder.

"Darn right I do," Robin responded. "And you can thank both your sigil and my careful research from reading the Infernal Tablet for that." He then turned his head so that he could face the demoness, his eyes narrowed and his face likewise showing signs of how he was very clearly glaring at her. "You're Nehreezah. Eldest biological demon daughter of Lilith and Samael, elder sister of Belazeal and Dreezallah, top student of your mother's in the ways of demonhood, and chosen heir to the position as head deal maker among demons.

Nehreezah smiled arrogantly, positioned herself as if she were a model showing herself off and stated smugly, "Indeed I am, and what greater honor for me then to have that title." She then positioned her head to face the cave wall directly behind her in a way that made it look as if she were admiring herself in a mirror and said, "And boy if you only knew how many teenage demonesses these days just wish they could be me."

"Yeah well, I could care less," Robin responded as he turned himself around completely.

"And since you already don't need me to introduce myself," Nehreezah stated, completely ignoring what Robin had just said, "I'm quite happy to inform you that I won't need you to introduce yourself to me anymore than I need to introduce myself to you. I know who you are as well."

"Oh yeah?" Robin asked cockily. "You sure about that?"

"Oh I'm quite positive about that Boy Wonder," Nehreezah responded. "Or should I say," she directed a smug look of triumph directly at him, looking straight in his eyes, "Richard Grayson?"

The silence that came upon the area was like a physical force, and it came up so suddenly that it was almost as if a boom of thunder suddenly erupted in the air after Nehreezah said that name. At that moment, as Robin found himself gaping at Nehreezah in shock and horror, he could have sworn that both time and his heart seemed to stop for just a brief moment. Nehreezah's already triumphant expression morphed into an arrogant grin of pure euphoria. She could tell that she'd scored a major home run against the young teenage hero who'd summoned her, and boy was she happy about it.

After what seemed like an eternity to the shell-shocked caped crusader, time resumed for the Boy Wonder, and so did his heart. He closed his eyes, hung his head slightly, took a deep breath, and then lifted his head back up with his eyes open before pointing his right finger at Nehreezah and stating in a half angry and half fearful snarl, "How did you know that name?"

Lilith chuckled, but this time in a considerably more high pitched and villainous sounding tone, waved her right hand slightly in a dismissive gesture, and said, "Please Richard, do you even need to ask me that? Surely you remember how easy it was for that one particular underling of his Malevolence among that advance party in your tower three nights ago to gather the late Victor Stone's civilian name from all his encoded and program flooded graphics he has within that computer of a brain; and that careless old oaf wasn't even a tenth as powerful as me, nor even a hundredth as powerful as my mother. Honestly Grayson, digging up your civilian identity from within that caged up mess you call a mind is child's play. Heck, it's so easy that I'm actually quite certain that your late friend Raven would have been more than capable of doing that herself if she'd only had the guts to try."

Within seconds, Robin tensed himself, glaring murderously at the demoness. "Don't you dare disrespect my friend like that! She wasn't too afraid to try, she was just respecting my personal privacy!"

"And now that I think about it," Nehreezah continued, "from what my father told me about his battle earlier today, that verdant green pet of yours had a mind so scatterbrained and disorganized that it's really no wonder he's so easily hypnotized by that clumsy old oaf Mad Mod."

"You're crossing a serious line here Nehreezah," Robin snarled.

"And for that matter, you should have heard what my mother had to say about your late girlfriend's mind. Honestly, from the way she described it, you'd think it a miracle that the poor girl even had the intelligence needed to know how to breathe."

The birdirang flew towards Nehreezah so fast that she didn't even know what was going on until she heard the 'beak' of the weapon embedded itself in the wall and felt the 'underbelly' pressing up against the right side of her neck. Her eyes widened at this, and she stepped away to her right so she could get a closer look at the weapon that had very nearly jabbed right through her throat. Then she felt the sensation all demons felt whenever their nonlethal injuries were automatically healed by their natural healing factor, and it was right on the area of her neck that the birdirang had been pressing up against. Only then did she realize that the Boy Wonder's projectile had actually managed to leave a small cut on her neck.

Nehreezah placed her hand up against the area where the wound had been, eyes widened and her face clearly showing a look of such stunned shock that Robin could have sworn that her naturally blue face very nearly turned white. The demoness then looked back at Robin just in time to see that he still had the hand he'd used to throw the birdirang positioned so that he had his finger pointing threateningly at her. Robin snarled at the sight of the genuinely surprised and horrified look on Nehreezah's face, and coldly growled, "You listen to me scum, I didn't summon you to listen to you badmouth my friends. Now you'd better start taking this seriously, or so help me I will run you through with my sword and summon someone more respectful."

Nehreezah gaped at Robin in shock, clearly not having expected him to take charge like this. Then she pouted, and groaned, "Geez, grow a sense of humor." She turned around to face the birdirang still embedded in the cave wall. Drawing it out, she stated grudgingly, "And I thought we were friends."

Robin actually found himself struggling not to laugh when he heard that last bit. "Ha!" He then yelled. "Now that's a laugh! I may have willingly summoned you here, but we are far from friends, and I'm certainly not going to try to befriend you either."

"Is that so?" Nehreeza stated, crushing the birdirang in her fist. "Well you certainly could have fooled me. After all, if you were planning to trap me, you certainly planned it out pretty poorly considering the fact that you don't have any Devil's Traps in the area. And I certainly doubt you're planning to kill me either. After all, I certainly don't see any point in summoning me if you're just going to kill me."

"Well you've certainly got one thing right," Robin responded. "I'm not trying to trap you, and I'm not going to kill you either; not yet."

"Yet?" Nehreezah stated with a slight scowl directed towards the Boy Wonder. She turned her head to the side and directed her eyes towards the cave ceiling before stating sarcastically to herself, "Never heard that one before."

"And before you ask," Robin stated, "I'm not going to try to befriend you, join forces with you and your kind, or make you my servant." He then pointed his finger back at her once more, his eyes staring intently towards the demoness. "I want to make a deal."

That got Nehreezah's attention, and she promptly turned her head to face the Boy Wonder, her eyebrows raised but the rest of her face otherwise showing her now very clear interest in the matter.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, at the exact same time that Robin had been the midst of summoning and having his little 'discussion' with Nehreezah, Savage had been busy taking a long overdue practice session with his sword. Now, having now finally reached the point that Savage could truly no longer find it even physically possible to continue practicing anymore without running the risk of either counterproductive or downright harmful results, Savage was leaning forward with the tip of his bone blade resting upon the ground. He panted and heaved in exhaustion as he continued to remain in that position for about ten or fifteen minutes.

"By God I'm out of practice," he thought to himself. "I can still remember the days when I could practice like this for twice as long without losing a sweat," he then thought to himself ruefully. Eventually, with a final deep breath, he managed to straighten himself back up and slip his sword back within the folds of his cloak. "On the other hand," he thought to himself, "at least now I've learned my lesson. I'd definitely better make sure to fit some extra sword fighting training and practice sessions for myself within my schedule in the near future."

"You've certainly got that right."

Savage reared back in shock at the sound of the unexpected voice he heard coming from his right. When he managed to turn around to face that area, he scowled slightly at the sight of the five Knights of Hell standing right there. "Would it kill you to give me fair warning before you show up like that?" he growled.

"A true warrior never lets his guard down," Abaddon responded coldly. "And this tip is one out of many that I highly recommend that you remember in the future."

At the sound of this, and the overly meaningful look directed towards him from Abaddon, Savage winced mentally, and thought to himself, "Yeesh, you didn't have to rub it in."

"On the contrary, since it was only through a sheer timing miracle that you're even still alive right now, I have every right to rub it in."

Savage scowled at Abaddon. "And they wonder why many people feel so uncomfortable around mind readers," he growled to himself. "How long were you five even here?"

"Long enough to see that Abaddon was quite correct when he told us about how mediocre you've allowed yourself to become in your sword fighting skills," Azazel responded. "Still, I will admit, you certainly have appeared to have learned your lesson after your recent duel with the Boy Wonder not too long ago. After all, I'd say it's been about a couple centuries or so since his Malevolence last caught sight of you training like this."

"Well it's certainly been a long time, that's for sure," Savage grumbled. He involuntarily tensed up as he felt a slight pain flare up in his back, and he rubbed at it with a grimace clearly showing on his face before he then said with his eyes closed, "At this current rate, I'll be sore for a month." He then shook off his momentary spell of pain, looked back at the five demons, and said, "But if this is what I have to do to regain my edge, then so be it."

"That's the spirit," Asmodeus hissed in approval.

"Indeed," stated Samael. "But enough of that; right now we have more important news to bring to this man's attention."

Savage raised his eyebrow in interest at the sound of those words. "I presume you are referring to his Malevolence's forces in Hell?"

"Indeed," said Samael. "You'll be quite pleased to know that we have been hard at work in getting everybody ready. As of now, every single demon in Hell, us included, are either fully prepared or hard at work in readying themselves for tonight's conquest. And indeed they are all accounted for."

"Ahem," Azazel growled, a withering 'excuse me?' glare on his face.

"I will rephrase that," Samael grumbled grudgingly. "Almost all of us are accounted for."

Savage groaned upon hearing this. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and calmly asked, "How many of you are absent?"

"One greater demon and one novitiate," Lilith responded.

Savage considered the information, and then nodded. "Shouldn't be too bad," Savage stated. "Two absent demons shouldn't make that big of a difference." He looked back at the five Knights of Hell. "But nonetheless, I suppose it wouldn't do any harm for me to ask just who those absent demons would be?"

"Would you like to know the identity of the greater demon, or the novitiate?" Azazel asked.

"The greater demon," Savage responded. Due to how this particular division of Abrahamic demons were much older, stronger, and likewise more powerful than all the others, it would be especially important to know the identity of any that happened to be absent at an important time like the current moment.

"That would be Agramon," Azazel responded with a clear disdain in his tone. He rolled his eyes, directed his eyes upward towards the sky, and grumbled, "As usual, the cheeky little bugger decided that he had better things to do than stick around and help us in our efforts to allow his Malevolence to escape earlier than his high and mighty daddy would prefer."

"I see," Savage stated uncertainly, not sure whether or not he wanted to ask Azazel to further elaborate on his apparent distaste for the demon in question. "What about the novitiate?"

"That would be my daughter Nehreezah," Lilith stated. "And the last time I saw her in Hell, she was hard at work in preparing herself for tonight's invasion alongside her siblings. The only reason she isn't still in Hell doing exactly that right this very moment is that she appears to have been summoned."

Savage raised his eyebrow upon hearing this news. "Summoned?" he asked. "By who?"

Abaddon glared at him. "I do believe you already know," he growled.

Savage gaped at Abaddon in surprise at this blatant accusation, then he calmed down, and he realized just who Abaddon suspected to be responsible for summoning Nehreezah at the current moment. "Well even if is the Boy Wonder who happens to be the one who summoned her, there's no guarantee that his Malevolence's plot will end up getting derailed as a result. For all we know, he could be attempting to get himself into our good graces so that we'll let him live when he see him during our invasion. Hell, he might even be attempting to join forces with us."

When he saw the shared look on all five of the demons' faces, Savage grimaced. He knew that what he'd said was a very weak suggestion, and thanks to the sight of the 'how stupid do you think I am?' glare that he could see on the faces of all five of the Knights of Hell, he could tell that they knew this as well.

Azazel then raised his eyebrow. "You sure about that? Sounds awfully out of character for him if you ask me,"

"Yeah well, I wasn't asking you," Savage grumbled.

"Indeed," said Abaddon. "But nonetheless, we wouldn't need to worry about this if you'd just let me waste him back at that valley."

"Well it didn't seem necessary at the time!"

"It certainly seems right now that it would have been the wiser thing to do don't you think?" Abaddon growled.

"Well we don't even know for certain what whether or not he even is the one who summoned her! Let alone what his plans behind it are if he is!"

"Well knowing him, I highly doubt that it spells good news for tonight's invasion," Azazel snarled.

"Well what's he gonna do?" Savage snapped. "Gain invincibility? Turn himself into a god? Bring his friends back to life? You all know that he'd have to make a deal for such things, and I'm quite certain that he would never go that far!"

"You'd think he'd have learned by now not to underestimate that annoying little snot," Asmodeus hissed to himself grudgingly.

"I heard that," Savage growled.

"Who said you weren't supposed to?" Asmodeus retorted.

Samael raised his right hand up dismissively. "It matters not what the Boy Wonder is up to, let alone who has summoned Nehreezah. Lilith and I know her better than anyone else in Hell apart from his Malevolence, and she knows better than to risk failure of his Malevolence's plots for the sake of adding another successful deal to her list of training conquests."

"Well it's also pretty out of character for Savage to deliberately allow a credible threat to his plans to remain at large," said Abaddon. "Yet right this moment he is even now continuing to allow a very credible threat to his Malevolence's plans tonight to stay alive!"

"ENOUGH!" Lilith roared, swiping her claws across the black demon's face for good measure. "I will not tolerate you slandering my daughter! You know her better than that!"

"He has a point you know," Azazel growled.

"Don't you start it to!" Lilith howled.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the cavern this morning," Asmodeus hissed.

"Enough," Samael stated in a considerably more calm voice. "There is no need to worry so much about this trivial matter. We have nothing to fear. Do we?"

Lilith smiled smugly like a wolf in obvious agreement. The remaining three Knights of Hell, however, weren't so quick to agree. Eventually though, they grudgingly nodded their heads in agreement, grumbling under their breath.

"Just as I thought," Samael stated coolly. He looked back at Savage and said, "Farewell for now Savage. I trust you are ready for when the time comes to open the gate?"

Savage nodded his head. "Indeed I am. I have everything I need."

"Good," said Samael. He turned his head to face the direction of the Alpha Portals' location. "We shall leave you for now. With the Infernal Key, Tablet, and all three of the Fallen Tools now in your possession, it should be child's play for you to keep everyone under control long enough to overrun this island and undo the security enchantments. Once that is done, just give the signal, and we shall come ourselves to spearhead the expansion past the island's boundaries alongside you."

"Sounds like a plan," Savage stated, though he was starting to wonder in the back of his mind why Samael still appeared to be under the impression that he still had the entire collection of artifacts from Lucifer's Crypt.

"Indeed," said Samael. "Farewell."

At that, the five demons shifted into their incorporeal forms and rocketed off to the location of the Alpha Afterlife Portals. And as they continued to fly off towards toward that area, and from that point onward straight back to Hell, despite the continued lingering doubts of Azazel, Abaddon, and Asmodeus, Samael and Lilith were very confident indeed about their chances of victory that evening, and through that of their king's chances at finally achieving his lifelong dream of successfully escaping from his imprisonment and unleashing the end of the world earlier than he'd been foretold.

. . . . .

However, if Samael and Lilith had known for certain just what Robin was up to, and for that matter what their eldest daughter was up to, they would not have been so nonchalant about the matter. In fact, as it currently stood, they would receive quite an earful from their three compatriots later that evening. For at that current moment, back in the cave nearby the valley where the earlier fateful battle had occurred, Robin and Nehreezah were about to commit an action that would determine whether or not that evening would be the night of the world's salvation or its damnation.

For a few minutes after Robin had revealed his plans to make a deal with Nehreezah, the teenage hero and demoness remained positioned as they were. Robin stood on one side of Nehreezah's sigil with his back facing the path leading to the exit of the cave while Nehreezah stood on the other side of her sigil with her back facing the wall behind her. The silence was finally broken when Nehreezah stated coolly, "Surely you are aware of how unseemly it is to make deals with devils, aren't you?"

Robin's calm poker-faced face turned into a glare, and he stated, "You're the mind reader, why don't you find out yourself?"

Nehreezah chuckled, folded her arms across her chest, and stated smugly, "I don't know, you're the one willing to do business with me, so why don't you tell me yourself?"

Robin glowered, gritting his teeth in an irritated snarl, and then said, "If I'd had any other choice, I would never have summoned you, or any demon period. Does that answer your question?" Before Nehreezah even had a chance to answer, Robin pointed his finger at her and stated, "But regardless of how unseemly it is, that's past the point. I didn't summon you here to get a Sunday school lecture."

Nehreezah guffawed, rolled her eyes in amusement, and then started walking off to her right. Robin repeated the gesture, making sure to keep a close eye on Nehreezah as he carefully kept pace with her. As they began to reach the point in which they would begin to turn to continue following their current circular path around the sigil, Nehreezah stated, "Quite frankly, I'd be surprised if that were the reason you summoned me. But nonetheless, summoning me was unsavory enough, but making a deal with me? That's pretty low, even for you. Just imagine what Bruce would have to say about this if he knew."

Robin scowled at the mentioning of Batman, and he tensely grumbled, "Yeah well, I could care less right now what Bruce would think, let alone what he'd say."

Nehreezah chuckled slightly, continued her current slow pacing around the sigil, now with her right side fully facing the wall to the left of her sigil painted on the ground, and stated, "I'll admit, that was a pretty weak defense on my part. But still, think about your friends. Or better yet, think about your parents." She turned her head to directly face him, smirking smugly, and said, "What would they think?"

At the sound of this question, Robin briefly hesitated, grimacing slightly as he tried to think of an appropriate response. He hated to admit it, but the demoness had actually brought up a very valid point. "It will be difficult to face them after this," he admitted. "But for the sake of the world, I'm willing to set that matter aside just for the time being. I'll cross that bridge when I get there."

"Hmm," Nehreezah hummed, her head positioning and facial expression firmly indicating that she was now thinking to herself about Robin's response. "Certainly not a bad choice," she stated. "But what about them? Are you sure they'll be willing to wait that long as well?"

"I'll worry about that next," Robin snarled. At around the same time he said this, he managed to reach the very position that Nehreezah herself had originally been standing before they'd begun their current little game of maintaining an even pace around the sigil, and he came to a stop and turned around so that his back was facing the wall. Nehreezah turned herself around so that she now had her back to the exit path and was looking Robin straight in the eyes, or at least straight at his mask. Glaring still, Robin pointed his finger at Nehreezah and stated bluntly, "But right now, there are bigger things I need to worry about; and needless to say, I don't have time right now for any games, now do you want me to make you a deal or not?"

Nehreezah raised her eyebrow in a gesture meant to convey that she felt intrigued, appeared to think to herself, and then directed her gaze back at the Boy Wonder. "All business are we?" she then asked, a half amused and half flirtatious smile on her face. Robin showed absolutely no facial reaction whatsoever. Nehreezah chuckled, clasped her hands together so that her clawed fingers seemed to intertwine, and stated, "Very well then, let us discuss terms."

"Finally something we agree on," Robin stated, slamming his right fist down lightly upon the palm of his left hand as if to emphasize his point.

Nehreezah hissed in pleasure, leaned her head forwards, and stated, "Indeed; so, what is it you wish from me, and what shall I expect to receive from you in return?"

"Simple," Robin stated. "I'm gonna give you the Infernal Tablet." Nehreezah raised her eyebrow, her face now conveying a look that clearly showed that she was on alert for a potential trick. "And the Fallen Tools," Robin continued, having managed to guess just what sort of trick Nehreezah had now been considering the potential for him pulling.

Sure enough, Nehreezah thought to herself, smiled, and then nodded her head with her eyes closed. "I like what I'm hearing," Nehreezah stated. She then opened her eyes, smiled at the Boy Wonder, and said, "Do continue."

Robin nodded, cleared his throat, and then said, "You get the Infernal Tablet, and all three of the Fallen Tools, and as an added bonus, you'll get to personally have them placed right back into Lucifer's Crypt where they belong." He then pointed directly at the entrance to the cave and said, "In return, I want you to bring my friends back."

Nehreezah looked in the direction that Robin was pointing, thought to herself, and then stated, "Hmm, I see. Is that all?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, do you want me to simply just cast a simple necromancy resurrection spell on them that would allow them to come back to life, but leave you with a quartet of mindless zombies on your hands, or would you rather I go the extra mile?"

"And what would the extra mile be?" Robin asked, shuddering mentally at the thought of his friends as mindless zombies.

"Oh you know," Nehreezah responded, "I could resurrect them, clean them up, patch up their wounds, restore all their memories and likewise allow their minds to be fully intact. In other words, I'd be resurrecting them and giving them a full physical and mental restoration as well." She then directed a smug look of triumph towards the Boy Wonder, and calmly stated, "I could even alter their memories of their time in the afterlife so that they at first think that those experiences were just a dream; thus both giving you more time as well as an easier time for you to break the news to them yourself."

Robin directed a smug smirk of his own towards Nehreezah. "You drive a hard bargain," he stated. "I accept."

"That's nice to hear," said Nehreezah. She folded her arms across her chest, appeared to think to herself, and then stated, "Now let's see; where are they now?"

"They're right outside the cave," Robin stated in half irritation and half confusion.

"Not their bodies," said Nehreezah. "Their souls."

"Why's that important?" Robin asked.

"Contrary to popular belief," Nehreezah explained, "Reviving people from the dead can be surprisingly difficult for even such beings as my kin and the kin that serve my . . . 'great grandfather' so to speak, depending on the circumstances."

She faced Robin directly yet again, and then continued, "For example, in this particular case, since I, a demon, am attempting to revive four people whose souls are destined to go to Heaven, I will only be capable of resurrecting them if their souls have not yet directly entered Heaven proper. If they have already successfully made it just far enough across the other side of the Pearly Gates, then they'll be out of reach of even my parents and uncles. And at that point, your only hope in resurrecting your friends would be in either God, the angels, or Lucifer."

Robin's eyes widened after hearing all this. He had most certainly not been aware of this information. Then he started to panic. "It's been about three and a half hours since they died," he thought to himself. "They might very well already be out of her reach at this point . . ."

"But thankfully," Nehreezah then stated right as Robin was starting to sweat profusely from his panic, "as luck would have it, your friends' souls are currently inside Heaven's antechamber."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Robin asked.

"Both actually," Nehreezah responded. "Heaven's antechamber is the absolute maximum distance a Heaven-destined soul can travel while still being within range for resurrection by a demon. However, they need only to exit the antechamber and fully enter Heaven proper and they'll be beyond even my parents and uncles' reach. But fortunately, for some odd reason, they have still not yet been let out of the antechamber and into Heaven proper; so yes, for now I'll still be able to bring them back, no problem." She then looked back at Robin. "Will that be all?"

"Just one more thing," Robin responded.

"Certainly didn't see that one coming," Nehreezah stated sarcastically.

"I want to be there to watch you do it," Robin continued. "I want to see with my own eyes that it's done right, and exactly as you've promised."

"Oh Richard, I'm offended," said Nehreezah. "Don't you trust me?"

Robin raised his eyebrow at her, a half amused and half annoyed look on his face.

Nehreezah sighed. "Fine," she stated. "I'll let you serve as a witness to my work, and see full proof of the authenticity of my results with your own eyes. Happy?"

"Perfect," Robin responded. "So we have a deal?"

"No, Richard Grayson," Nehreezah growled. "Not yet. You still need to sweeten the pot."

Robin glared at the demoness. "Sweeten the pot?" He hissed tensely. "What do you mean sweeten the pot!? I've already offered you the Infernal Tablet and Fallen Tools! Isn't that sweet enough!?"

"I will admit, you have put up a very much satisfactory offer so far," Nehreezah responded. "However, there is one more thing you still need to add to your end of the bargain in order to make the pot extra sugary." She directed a wolfish grin at Robin, the expression reminding him very unhealthily of the similar look he'd seen on the face of her mother while inside Starfire's body. "I'll give you a hint, it's something that every person in history to have made a deal with my kin or his Malevolence has had to give up; something that we'd want just as much as those items you have now offered ." She then chuckled darkly to herself. "Perhaps maybe even more," she then continued with a wink.

Robin growled, very clearly starting to lose his temper. "Well what do I even have that you could possibly want that ba . . ." He then stopped, his mouth snapping shut, his body tensing up, and his masked eyes widening in horror. He had just now remembered exactly what sort of thing Nehreezah was referring to that she wanted him to add to his side of the bargain.

Nehreezah chuckled, her cold sapphire colored eyes agleam with smug triumph. "I take it by both your sudden silence and the look on your face that your memory on this matter has returned."

"My soul," Robin stated slowly. Nehreezah's already wide grin grew immense at the sound of this. "I have to give you my soul."

"Ding, ding, ding," Nehreezah stated in a sing-song voice that made her sound very irritatingly like a game show hostess. "We have a winner."

Robin briefly glowered at Nehreezah, but then he quickly resumed his worried and uncertain look as he began to carefully think to himself about the newly risen issue regarding his soul.

Nehreezah smirked at the Boy Wonder. "Come on Grayson," she stated smugly. "Surely you weren't so foolish as to think that you'd be able to avoid this matter?"

Robin grimaced, briefly closed his eyes, then opened them back up with a half pained and half nervous look on his face. "Is it really necessary?"

"Well," said Nehreezah, "if you had happened to place me within a Devil's trap before now, I would have gladly allowed you to replace your soul with the right to be released from the trap; and by that, I mean actually being set free from the trap right here in this cave, not the 'exorcise-me-out' trick that you used on that oaf Carnax and his squadron of wimps."

She then sighed in content, her eyes closed and head raised up as if she were smelling the air. "But needless to say," she stated in a tone of clear contentment, "since I am free as a bird, it seems you'll have to make do with giving me your soul."

Robin gritted his teeth, his eyes shut tight, and eventually managed to grumble, "Do I really have to?"

"No soul," said Nehreezah. "No deal."

Robin sighed in defeat, opened his eyes, and then thought to himself. Truth be told, he had expected this possibility, but had nonetheless hoped that he'd be able to avoid having to deal with it. Now, it seemed that if he wanted his friends back, he would have no choice but to offer up his soul as well as the items he'd already offered. But of course, Robin knew all too well how every other person to make a deal with a demon before him had ended up selling their souls. And of course, with that territory, he knew perfectly well that every single one of those people had ended up going to Hell as a result of their sale.

And to make matters worse, the demons never allowed their deal makers to patiently wait for a natural death to come upon them before collecting the souls. No way. Instead, they would allow the deal maker to continue to stay alive for a specific amount of time in which they could enjoy the fruits of their deal. Once that time limit was up, the deal maker would need only wait a further few seconds before they ended up face to face with a hell hound; and from that point onward, the infernal beast would violently maul the deal maker, rip the soul from the luckless person's body, and then drag it kicking and screaming down to Hell.

Now, Robin himself was on the verge of very possibly condemning himself to the same fate. He grimaced as he found himself desperately struggling to decide just what to do. He knew that if he said yes to allowing Nehreezah to stake her claim on his soul, then he would not only end up going to Hell when he died, but would also have only to wait until he was 27 at the most before his time of dying. Yet at the same time, he also wanted so badly to get his friends back, and knew that if he didn't successfully make this deal with Nehreezah, then he would very likely end up dooming the entire world to an even worse fate.

Tensing himself up, his eyes clenched shut, and his teeth gritted, the Boy Wonder continued to wrestle with his current, and very severe, moral dilemma. It was either consign himself to eternal damnation in Hell, or possibly end up heartlessly sacrificing the entire world. And while the hero in him knew that he'd never be able to live with himself if he allowed such a villainous thing to occur in such a manner, his own survival instinct combined with the righteous side of his soul wanted nothing more than to stay alive and go to Heaven instead of Hell.

For a brief few minutes more, Robin continued his difficult mental wrestling match. And indeed he was now in quite a fix. His mind was shouting for him to say no, barking at him to draw the line at giving up his soul. But his heart was pleading for him to say yes, begging for his lost friends, for Star. And so, Robin found himself desperately trying to decide whether or not to obey his mind's orders to jump astride his moral high horse or give in to his heart's desperate desire to bring his friends back.

"You'd better hurry Boy Wonder," Nehreezah stated in a smug tone. "Your friends aren't going to be held up in Heaven's antechamber forever you know. And that's before you even consider how much time you're wasting when you could be hard at work in saving the world."

At that moment, Robin finally made his decision. He had always followed his mind for so many years before the fateful trip to Tokyo. But now, a week and a half after finally choosing to let his heart make the decisions for him instead, he was done with obeying his mind and allowing Batman's strict training to define his life. He had already spent about a week and a half now letting his heart guide him instead of his mind, and he sure as Hell wasn't going to let the possibility of becoming literally damned in Hell cause him to become so figuratively damned as to stop doing so now. Now was the end of smart, and the beginning of right. "Besides," he thought to himself. "I'll have ten years to wait before the time comes for my soul to be collected, and that should be more than enough time to find a way to weasel my way out of going to Hell."

A hard eyed look of determination on his face, Robin directed his head upward to face directly into Nehreezah's eyes once more. "I've made my decision Nehreezah," he stated. "And my answer . . ." he paused briefly for dramatic effect, "is yes."

Nehreezah's eyebrows rose in amusement. "So you're saying . . . ?" she eagerly asked.

"Damn right I am," Robin growled. "Personal morals or no personal morals, I'd rather burn in Hell myself than let the entire world take the punishment for me. You bring back my friends, and the Infernal Tablet, Fallen Tools, and my soul are all yours."

Robin then smiled to himself. "Besides," he then stated. "On the bright side, as long as I don't end up dying tonight when my friends and I are in the midst of saving the world tonight, I'll have ten years to look forward to. And that will be more than enough time to figure something out."

"Ah yes," Nehreezah stated. "About that . . ."

"What is it now?" Robin hissed.

"Well you might have to forgo the decade of waiting in this particular incident," stated Nehreezah.

"And. Why. Is. That?" Robin growled.

"Well," said Nehreezah. "You did call me up on rather short notice," Nehreezah explained. "And that little detail combined with the fact that you're now asking quite a lot from me means that you're going to have to be willing to make some sacrifices of your own to compensate for the ones you're asking of me. To put it simply, if you want speed, you have to be willing to sacrifice some quality."

Robin's eyebrow rose, clearly unamused. But after a few seconds, he shrugged resignedly and nodded his head. "Very well, if I have to sacrifice the usual decade, then how long will I have to wait?"

"One year," Nehreezah stated.

Robin thought to himself. "Five years," he countered. At the sight of the slightly irritated glare that came on Nehreezah's face after hearing this, Robin felt a slight spark of triumph within him. "I may be having to give in to her reduced waiting time," he thought to himself with a smirk. "But that doesn't mean I have to make it easy for her."

"One year," Nehreezah hissed. It was clear that she wasn't all that keen on backing down from her initial offer.

"Three years," Robin offered. He'd already faced considerably worse opponents in far worse types of standoffs. He was not about to give up that easily in a simple haggling match against a demoness.

"One year," Nehreezah growled. Her mind was set, and she was not going to let herself relent to the Boy Wonder's haggling.

"Two years," Robin snarled. He pointed his finger at Nehreezah and stated, "This is my last offer. Either two years, or no deal."

Nehreezah snarled lividly at Robin, clearly on the verge of losing her temper. Then she took a deep breath, exhaled heavily in a mix between a sigh and a snarl, and thought to herself. While her own personal pride combined with her firmly ingrained knowledge and code on deal making wanted nothing more than to again refuse the Boy Wonder's counter offer, her inner saleswoman knew how valuable a soul she was on the verge of potentially staking her claim on, and thus how much closer she'd find herself to achieving the top job that her mother had been training her so passionately for, and that if she truly wanted to make her mother proud and get the job, then she couldn't hope to afford letting this opportunity get away. But at the same time, she had to allow at least a tiny portion of her dignity to remain.

Eventually deciding on what she viewed to be a worthwhile gamble, she glared straight at Robin's mask, pointed her own clawed finger at him, and stated, "A year and a half."

"Come again?"

"I'll give you a year and a half," Nehreezah repeated. "Half a year less than you're willing to offer and half a year more than I was originally willing to allow, no more no less. And in return, your friends come back alive and well, and you give me your soul, the Infernal Tablet, and the Fallen Tools. Take or leave."

Robin thought to himself. An extra half a year wasn't that big of a difference between Nehreezah's original offer of a single full year. "Still, it's additional time, and any amount of additional time is better than nothing," he reasoned mentally. "Done," he then stated.

"Excellent," said Nehreezah. She straightened back up, clasped her hands together, and then stated, "All we have to do now is seal the deal, and the rest is history."

"And how would we do that?" Robin asked.

"Pardon?"

"How do we seal the deal?" Robin explained. "Do we shake hands on it?"

"That is one way we could do it," Nehreezah responded.

"There are other ways?" Robin asked.

"There's one other way that's equally effective," Nehreezah admitted. "I'll give you a hint, if your girlfriend were to make a deal with me and she chose to seal it through this particular method, then there's a slight chance that she'd end up learning Enochian."

Robin's eyebrow briefly rose in confusion. Then it hit him, and he was like 'oh,' before he then grimaced at the disturbing image that then popped up in his head. "Um sorry," he stated, "but I just washed my lips; and besides, I'd rather reserve kissing for my girlfriend thank you very much."

"Shaking hands it is then," Nehreezah stated without missing a beat. She extended her right hand towards the Boy Wonder. "Deal?"

"Deal."

The Boy Wonder and the teenage demoness clasped their right hands together and gave each other a firm handshake. And just like that, the deal was made. Seconds later, after the handshake had ended, but before Robin could let go of Nehreezah's scaly hand, he suddenly felt an intense pain flaring up within him, and he jerked his head back, howling in agony as what appeared to be some sort of Hellish runes popped up in lights all across random areas of his body and shining through his clothes much like the way similar runes had appeared on Raven's body the previous year. When the runes on Robin appeared to vanish from view entirely seconds later, Robin collapsed onto his hands and knees and started panting heavily from the pain.

"Your soul has been branded," Nehreezah stated. "The contract is set; as of now, you have the remainder of this year, the entirety of next year, and the full first day of the year after that to enjoy yourself and the fruits of your soon to be granted wish. But when the clock strikes midnight at the end of that one particular day, expect an escort to arrive to collect your soul."

"Duly noted," Robin growled. He directed a withering glare at Nehreezah. "I'm totally looking forward to that," he then grumbled sarcastically.

"Noted," said Nehreezah. She then clasped her hands together, looked up towards the cave ceiling, and said, "And as luck would have it, your friends still haven't yet left the Heavenly antechamber, so I still have time to fulfill my end of the bargain." She turned around to face the exit to the cave. "Come along Richard," she stated. "You wanted me to allow you to watch me as I worked, and now you shall do exactly that."

Robin did not need to be told twice, and he promptly got back up on his feet and obediently followed along behind Nehreezah as she slowly walked out of the cave and towards the edge of the cliff from which Robin himself had been forced to watch his friends die in the first place, but not before picking up the Infernal Tablet and Fallen Tools. Right as Robin was literally two footsteps away from walking right over the edge of the cliff, Nehreezah gestured for him to stop, and he obediently halted.

As Robin watched Nehreezah intently upon being silently ordered to stop where he was, the demoness looked up towards the sky, lifted up her hands, and then started chanting in a strange language that Robin knew for a fact he had never heard spoken before. As Nehreezah continued to chant, and her hands started to glow with a vivid blue light, Robin found himself both gaping intently at the spectacle and wondering furiously just what was happening. "What is she saying?" he thought to himself. Then he remembered what the demoness had stated about potential vocal side effects from Starfire using the kiss method of demon deal sealing. "So this is Enochian," he then thought to himself.

A few minutes later, he then heard what sounded like a bolt of lightning, and he looked back up towards the sky just in time to see what looked like a swirling vortex of light appear within the sky. Then, as Robin continued to watch and Nehreezah chanted out a final phrase, four lightning bolts lunged out from the vortex. Of the four, only one of them was a standard yellow. The other three were quite different colors; one of them was blue, a second one was purple, and the third was a very familiar shade of green. In fact, even the yellow one was a considerably darker and more golden toned shade of yellow then ordinary Earth lightning.

Then the bolts struck down upon the corpses of Robin's friends, and then proceeded to crackle and spark upon contact instead of fading away like normal lightning bolts would do. The blue lightning bolt struck Cyborg, the purple one landed on Raven, the green one naturally plunged down on Beast Boy, and the yellow one emphatically slammed itself upon Starfire's corpse. Seconds later, as Robin continued to watch the scene with wide eyes, the four corpses began to glow with auras that matched the colors of the lightning bolts striking them. Then the auras began to expand until the corpses disappeared entirely in what appeared to be rapidly expanding force field-like domes of energy that soon increased to the size of mountains.

Eventually, with an almighty flash and banging noise, the force field like domes vanished, and Robin briefly saw what appeared to be miniature lakes of energy in the area where each of his friends' corpses had been lying before even those vanished, and revealed his friends. But upon the sight of his friends after all the brightly colored energy had vanished, Robin could tell almost immediately that there was very big difference between the way they looked now and the way they'd looked before getting struck by the mysterious lightning that Nehreezah had summoned. The biggest differences in appearance by far were in Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy. As Robin was very joyous to see, Beast Boy was now no longer caked in ash, Raven's skin had darkened back to its usual tone, and Cyborg's mechanical parts had regained the glow that they always had whenever the bionic teen wasn't in stasis. Even Starfire, much to Robin's joy, had very noticeably brightened in complexion compared to the way she'd been when he'd been cradling her corpse in his arms and bawling his eyes out hours earlier.

"Done and done," he then heard Nehreezah state. Robin turned his head to look at the demoness, who gestured down towards the valley with the newly apparently revived Titans and said, "You want further proof? Go right ahead and test them yourself."

Eager to find out for sure whether or not his friends were now truly back, Robin bolted down the slope leading down from the cliff to the valley. He couldn't have been more eager to obey a request then he felt at that particular moment. He was just that ready to truly see whether or not his friends were truly back from the dead. He actually had to force himself to skid to a halt so as to avoid tripping himself up on his own friends. He then placed the Infernal Tablet and Fallen Tools gently on the ground before heading off towards his friends.

Moving very carefully as if worried that any sudden movement could ruin the moment and possibly undo what Nehreezah had just done, the Boy Wonder slowly made his way over to his friends after entering the valley. Before long, he was close enough to his friends to truly get a good look at them, and he found his heart rise up him when he saw a very clear sign of life. "They're breathing," he stated in a half relieved half euphoric tone. He then carefully walked over to Starfire and placed a finger on the side of her neck. "She has a pulse," he then stated in the same tone as before. He looked at the others. "Likely so do they," he said. And then, as if to give Robin even more proof, Beast Boy let out a low grumble in his apparent stupor while Raven moaned slightly, and Robin found a wide smile coming on his face and tears of joy starting to form up behind his mask. "They're alive," he thought joyously to himself.

Then he thought carefully to himself about another factor. "Why aren't they awake?" he asked Nehreezah.

"It's been a pretty long time between their original death and their resurrection," Nehreezah explained. "That being considered, their bodies now just need some time to reacclimatize to the presence of their souls. Should take about another fifteen to twenty minutes at most before they wake up."

Robin thought to himself, and then nodded. "That does make sense," he admitted.

"And they'll probably be hungry when they wake up," Nehreezah then stated. "And likely so will you." She then drew out from thin air what appeared to be a small device and five mysterious looking objects that looked suspiciously like dehydrated food packets.

Robin gaped at the sight of the objects. Those very same objects had been left in the kitchen at Titans Tower. "How did you get those?" Robin asked.

"I just summoned them here," Nehreezah stated nonchalantly. She then placed the objects she'd summoned gently onto the ground, extended her hand towards Robin and said, "And since I'm feeling generous, I'll go ahead and give you one last little freebie."

Robin raised his eyebrow, and Nehreezah rolled her eyes before then grabbing onto Robin's left hand. Before Robin even had a chance to protest, the demoness's hand started to glow blue, and the light crept onto Robin's hand. When the light faded away seconds later, Nehreezah let go of Robin's hand. Robin shook his hand up and down as if in reflex from its contact with Nehreezah, and then he glared at her.

Nehreezah smirked at him, gestured with her eyes towards the very hand she'd gripped onto earlier, and said, "Well, go ahead and take off the bandage."

"And why would I do that?" Robin asked.

"Why not take it off and find out?" Nehreezah asked.

Robin grumbled, and reluctantly proceeded to take off the bandage. However, at the sight of what was revealed when the last of the gauze was removed, Robin's eyes widened when he saw that the small cut in the fabric of his glove had completely sewn shut as if there had never been a cut in the first place.

Nehreezah chuckled at the sight of Robin's surprised expression, and then said, "Now take off your glove."

This time, Robin did not hesitate, and he yanked off his left glove, only for his eyes to widen even further when he saw that the wound that he'd been forced to inflict upon his left hand for the sake of the summoning ritual had completely healed. There wasn't even a scar present. Robin lifted his head upward and gaped at Nehreezah, who smirked, and stated, "Now you won't have to explain to your friends about why you had a wounded hand."

Robin thought to himself, realized that Nehreezah had indeed brought up a valid point, and then nodded. "That's certainly true," he admitted before then slipping his glove back onto his hand.

Nehreezah chuckled, shook her head side to side, and then said, "You have to admit, doing business with my kin certainly doesn't come without perks."

Robin glared. "Yeah well, don't expect me to make a daily habit of it," he growled.

"I'd be surprised if you did," Nehreezah countered. Her face then took on a serious look, and she pointed a clawed finger at the Boy Wonder. "Now listen to me right now Boy Wonder," said Nehreezah. "It's time to set down a few final ground rules regarding this matter. I've fulfilled my part of the bargain, so now it's time for you to fulfill yours."

Robin nodded, his glare not leaving his face. "Right," he stated bluntly, and then he walked over to where he'd placed the Infernal Tablet and Fallen Tools. After picking them back up, he walked back over to Nehreezah and handed them over to her. "Here you go."

Nehreezah nodded, gently grasped onto the items, and then caused them to vanish in a flash of light. "There," she stated. "As of now, they are back in his Malevolence's Crypt where they belong." She then glared back at Robin and stated, "And now that all that business has been taken care of, you are going to let me walk away from here alive."

Robin raised his eyebrow. "And why would I do that?" he snarled.

Nehreezah pointed a claw at the four unconscious Titans behind her. "Them," she replied bluntly.

Robin gazed at his friends. "She can't be serious," he thought to himself.

"And that same reason is why you are going to not lift a finger to attempt to escape your appointment a year and a half from now."

Robin growled, his glare hardening. But before he could say anything, Nehreezah pointed at him and said coldly, "If you try and welch or similarly weasel your way out; and yes, that includes drawing out your sword right this very minute and killing me . . ."

The Boy Wonder snarled, for he had indeed been thinking of doing exactly that.

Nehreezah jabbed her finger back towards the newly resurrected Titans once again, and then growled, "Then your friends drop back down, dead as dinosaurs once again."

Robin looked at his unconscious friends, briefly tensed up, and then reluctantly relaxed at the sight of the look in Nehreezah's eyes. He had seen that kind of look before far too many times, and thus he knew very well that she was serious. She would not hesitate to rekill his friends if he tried to kill her or welch his way out of his part of the deal. And so, he reluctantly nodded his head in understanding. "Very well," he stated solemnly. "I'll let you go this time. And I'll make no effort to personally attempt to escape the fate you've set for me. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna actively attempt to discourage my friends from attempting to save me when they find out."

Nehreezah scowled, but then shrugged resignedly. "You have a fair point," she admitted. "Fine, as long as you yourself aren't directly attempting it, or actively encouraging it, I'll let your friends live. But again, that is the only loophole I'll allow for you."

Nehreezah then turned around, faced the sky, and said, "On that note, I shall now say farewell for the current time. Since I currently would be most unwise if I returned to Hell to help with tonight's planned invasion after what I've just recently done to very likely derail it, I'd best stay here on Earth for a while and cook up some trouble; give your friends all the more reason to dispose of me after they've helped you save the world this evening from my parents, uncles, and the rest of our kin."

Robin nodded his head. "Certainly makes sense," he thought to himself. He then glared at the back of Nehreezah's head. "And hopefully, I'll be there to watch them kill her," he thought to himself.

"I quite doubt that will happen," Nehreezah chuckled. She then turned her head to face Robin, a half arrogant and half seductive grin on her face, and then stated, "Farewell Boy Wonder. It was a real pleasure doing business with you. I'll see you in Hell." She turned her head to face the area in front of her once more, shifted to her incorporeal form, and then rocketed off into the sky and far, far away from the island.

For a brief moment, Robin was tempted to at least try something to stop Nehreezah from leaving. His mind was howling at him to do so, roaring that what he was currently doing went against everything that he'd been trained and conditioned for. But his heart, thankfully enough, was able to hold him back, for he also knew that if he obeyed his mind this time, he would all too likely lose his friends all over again.

After a few minutes, Robin's instincts told him that Nehreezah was now long gone, and he finally trusted himself to move again. He took a series of deep breaths, then checked the time on his communicator. "It's been about 10 to 15 minutes," he thought to himself upon seeing the time. He then looked over at a nearby log. "Might as well sit down and relax while waiting for my friends to wake up," he thought to himself. And so, he walked right over to the log, sat down, and placed his chin on his hands, sighing as he relaxed and proceeded patiently to wait for the last few minutes to pass before his friends finally finished reacclimatizing to the presence of their souls and they woke up.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait very long at all. After only five minutes, Robin heard a faint groggy moaning coming from Starfire. He looked right over towards her, and his heart leaped when he saw her slowly starting to move around as if slowly starting to wake up. Before long, Starfire groggily opened her eyes, yawned, and then lifted herself up into a seated position with her hands lying flat on the ground.

As Robin continued to gaze intently towards Starfire, the Tamaranean eventually turned her head and managed to face Robin. Upon sight of her boyfriend gazing at her, Starfire yawned, winced slightly at a sudden pounding in her head, and briefly rubbed at it before saying, "Robin? Are you the alright? What happened?"

Robin didn't answer, but merely walked slowly over to Starfire. Then, much to Starfire's surprise, he abruptly gave her a big hug. As Robin continued to hug the surprised Tamaranean, Robin stated quietly, "Welcome back Star."

Starfire, still confused but nonetheless pleasantly surprised by this gesture from Robin, eventually proceeded to give Robin a hug of her own. And this time, she gave a surprisingly gentle one compared to how considerably tight and python-like her usual hugs were. "Thank you Robin," she then stated quietly and still in slight confusion. "But, what happened?"

Robin sniffled slightly, moved back from the hug, but still kept his hands on her shoulders. With a relieve smile on his face, he then nodded his head up and down slightly, and then said, "I'll explain real soon."

Seconds later, the newly reunited teen couple heard two more groggy groans coming from their left. They turned their heads just in time to see Beast Boy and Raven slowly waking up as well. Soon after they'd gotten themselves on their hands and knees (but without yet realizing that they were still clutching onto each other's hands), they then winced in unison and placed the very hands that had been locked together onto their heads.

"Ow," Beast Boy growled. "God my head."

"What happened?" Raven groaned.

Robin smiled weakly, shook his head side to side, and then stated, "It's good to see you up and about guys."

Beast Boy briefly raised his eyebrow. "I'll say," he grumbled. "Nnnnggghhhh," he then groaned as his head flared up again.

"Ditto," Raven mumbled, her own head flaring up as well. "What do you mean by up and about?"

"I'll explain after Cyborg wakes up," Robin responded.

As if on cue, all four of the Titans heard a tired grumbling coming from Cyborg, and they turned their heads just in time to see the bionic teenager slowly climbing up onto his hands and knees. "Ugh," Cyborg groaned as he placed a hand upon his temples, which were now very painfully pounding. "Good grief, I feel like I'm having a hangover." He then looked at his four friends. "What happened? Is everyone alright?"

"You could say that," Robin responded. Sighing in relief, he then said, "And boy do I have a story for you guys." He then proceeded to lift up the mysterious device and food packets that Nehreezah had brought, placed each one into the device one at a time, and said, "But first, it would probably be a good idea for us to have a quick lunch. I'm feeling pretty hungry right now, and I have a feeling you guys will be starving."

And just like that, another chapter done! Again, I hope very much that you read, review, and enjoy! And on that note, what do you guys think of how I had Robin get his friends back from the dead? I'm certainly proud of how I handled this matter ^_^. On another note, just in case you feel willing to ask, yes Lilith and Samael are what one would consider a mated couple in this story. I got this idea from reading between the lines while reading the book City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare. And from that idea, Nehreezah was born, as were her brother Belazeal and sister Dreezallah (who will be featured in another story further down the line in this series). On another note, in spite of how Robin has now sold his soul, I hope you're all happy that Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven, and Cyborg are no longer dead ^_^. I certainly am, and I'm the author. But again, here's to hoping you enjoyed this chapter and that you leave a healthy number of reviews! ^_^

Coming up next: With the other four founding Titans back from the dead, and an unexpected game changer soon to come along with them, the newly reunited team of teenage heroes hurries off to resume their race to the location of the Alpha Afterlife portals in time to stop Savage from using the Infernal Key to unlock the Alpha Devil's Gate. But will they make it there in time to prevent Savage from unbarring the way for Apocalypse Take 2? Find out next time, on Night of the Cursed!