Things seemed to be going back to normal four months after Beast Boy woke up from his coma. Though the titans still had not found a way to be reinstated as the city's official guardians and they were still living in their house on the outskirts of the city, they had settled nicely and all seemed to be well.
During those four months, Cyborg finally found the antidote to the injection Slade gave Robin, much to Robin's relief. With several weeks of hard work, he quickly shrunk back to his normal size, though the huge folds of loose skin were still a problem. Terra decided not to go back to her old life and remained with the group as a titan. Beast Boy had problems getting over the fact that Raven did not actually say "I love you" to him, but he was dealing with it.
By now, more than two years had passed since Raven left and a lot had changed. Beast Boy was now quite a few inches taller than Raven was when she left and he had changed considerably. He went through puberty quite late, shortly after she left and when he turned sixteen. Not only had his voice and his physique changed, his behavior had too. The other titans could not help but notice that he was beginning to act more and more like Raven and it deeply bothered them. The group needed a clown to be balanced and they were rapidly losing their clown. Robin decided that some intervention was in order.
"BB! What's wrong with ya?" Demanded Cyborg as the titans sat him down for a firm chat.
"What do you mean be what's wrong with me?" Replied Beast Boy placidly. Immediately, he wished he hadn't asked. The titans pounced on him and each began reciting what he or she thought was wrong with him.
In another part of the city, a black raven appeared in the sky and swooped down over the titans' tower. As the black bird landed on the tower, Raven materialized in her human form. The moment she did so, an alarm sounded and she was ambushed by Cyborg's security system.
Hastily putting up a shield to protect her from laser blasts and exploding disks, she vowed to give her friends an earful for giving her such a welcome. To her amazement, the group that appeared before her was not the titans.
"What are you doing here, snotbag?" Demanded Gizmo. Raven raised an eyebrow and stared quizzically at him. "Oh! Haven't you heard? Your dumb friends got kicked out of the tower while you were gone because they weren't good enough!"
Hearing his words, the entire group laughed uproariously, save Kyd Wykkyd.
"We're the good guys now!" Yelled Gizmo as he took out a huge gun and pointed it at her. "So get off our tower!"
Raven was still reeling from the news that he had just given her, but that did not mean that she had completely spaced out. She held out her hand and immediately, Gizmo's gun was encased in her dark powers. It then vaporized. Calmly, Raven levitated upwards and flew off, leaving the STRIVE gaping at her in utter astonishment.
"She's the one we have to be afraid of." Said See-More with a sudden realization.
"Goose darn it!" Yelled Gizmo as he stalked off, still sore from losing his prized weapon.
"Okay Raven, don't lose it." She thought as she flew over the city. "Where could they be?"
As she flew, she concentrated and did a psychic scan of the city. She easily located them and began flying to a house on the outskirts of the city.
"Not good enough? Were things really that bad when I left? I shouldn't have left. No, I had to. I could've blown up the whole city! What happened to them?" She was now hovering over the house. Her heart ached for her friends and she wondered if they blamed her for their downfall. She decided to check out the house first. Taking the form of the black raven again, she melted through the roof and straight into the main room.
"What happened to the clown?" Roared Cyborg as he gesticulated wildly at Beast Boy. The other titans were so absorbed in jokingly berating him that they did not see the black raven seep through the walls. But Raven saw none of that. She only saw Terra sitting at the edge of the couch, laughing as Cyborg wrestled with Beast Boy, trying to paint his nose red.
"They replaced me!" Thought Raven as she felt her world come tumbling down. "They replaced me... But they promised!"
She watched them laughing and joking for a full minute before she left the room and melted through the ground to the second floor. Transforming into her human form again, she walked down the hall. The hallway led to five doors and each had a large name engraved into them. ROBIN, CYBORG, STARFIRE, BEAST BOY and TERRA. Raven was crushed. She wondered where her things were and realized that they must have placed it in the basement, garage or attic. Since the house had no attic, she checked the basement. She found all her things there, dusty and untouched. Tears forming at the corners of her eyes, she absorbed all her things with her soul self and left the house.
Beast Boy stared at his friends as they comically jumped up and down pleading for him to go back to being the clown he once was. At that moment, his sensitive nose picked up a familiar scent - the smell of lavender - wafting through the door. Jumping up, Beast Boy morphed into a bloodhound and followed the scent down to the second floor.
Intrigued by his weird behavior, his friends followed him. Beast Boy followed the scent to the basement. Forcing the door open, he morphed back into his human form and switched on the lone light bulb that illuminated the basement. He entered, his friends hot on his heels.
"Raven's things!" He gasped with a sudden realization. "They're gone!" The others turned to look only to see that it was true.
All of Raven's things were gone and the ground where they once lay on was cleaner than the ground around it.
"Her scent, her things, Raven's back!" Cried Beast Boy. "But she's left! The trail ends here! Why would she come back and leave?" Cried Beast Boy as he fell to his knees. Cyborg walked over to his friend and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Look, B. Wherever Raven is, we'll find her." He promised.
Robin motioned for Cyborg to step outside as Beast Boy covered his face in his hands. Cyborg nodded and followed Robin outside as Starfire and surprisingly Terra tried to console him.
"I don't think Raven wants to be found." Said Robin once they were out of Beast Boy's hearing range.
"Why is-" Cyborg stopped short, thinking. "We broke our promise to her."
"We did." Robin nodded grimly. "We promised we wouldn't replace her and we did. Her scent was in the hallway, which means she saw the five doors. Beast Boy was right, we broke our promise to Raven by adding Terra to the team."
Cyborg hung his head. Never in his life did he feel so low. It was his vote that voted Terra into the team and even though he was being blackmailed then, he felt awful. He knew that Raven wouldn't know about Slade's return and all that happened to them. All she would know is that they replaced her when they had promised not to and that the very friends who had promised to stand by her forever had picked someone else to be their friend.
"That doesn't mean we can't try to look for her." Cyborg said finally. "We owe it to Beast Boy. He was the only one who stood by her. He was the only one who actually kept the promise."
"That's true." Robin agreed. "How are we going to do it? Would she have her communicator?" With that, the two went back to the main room discussing how they could track Raven down.
Raven flew as far away as she possibly could from the city. Before long, she arrived at the place where Beast Boy had brought her on the picnic that ended with him pushing the car home. There, she landed and released her things. She stopped to recollect her thoughts for a moment, before reabsorbing her things and flying away to a nearby mountain. There, she released her things once again and stepped back.
"Azarath Phenatria Vertutim." She recited softly as she held her hands in front of her. Immediately, a black spaceship appeared before her. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos." All her things were teleported inside.
"Oh, Raven. Leaving already?" Asked a familiar voice behind her. Raven instinctively clenched her fists.
"Slade." She growled as she turned to face him. "This was all your doing, wasn't it?"
"No." He said coolly. "Terra really did get her memories back. It had nothing to do with me."
"Whatever." She snapped as she turned to leave.
"Raven. Sweet little Raven. Do you really think I'm the reason why your friends decided to replace you?"
"Yes." She hissed as she turned to face him again. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't vaporize you here and now."
"Because." Said Slade shortly as he took a step towards her. "I can give you what no one could ever truly give you."
"Acceptance?" Asked Raven bitterly. "Your tactics may have worked on Terra, but they won't work on me."
"Unlike your friends, I'm not afraid of you, Raven. I know what your deepest fears are. After you defeated Trigon and found out about the will, your new fear was that someday, your friends would fear you and befriend you not because they truly love you but because they fear you." Raven stopped short. Slade was describing her sentiments exactly. "You feared that they'd fear you."
"So what?" Snapped Raven defiantly.
"You knew deep down in your heart that no one would accept you for who you are, yet you allowed yourself to be fooled by their lies. They betrayed you Raven, they replaced you. They broke the promise that they vowed to keep." Said Slade as he walked in circles around her, knowing that the ball was in his court. "Join me, Raven. Together, we can destroy those who played with your heart, those who played with your feelings. I know you have a thing for Beast Boy, but he loves Terra now. Not you, Raven. Terra."
"How do you know all this?" She asked resentfully, turning away from him once more.
"I've been watching. I've been watching nature take its course. So, what do you say Raven? You know that you're evil and you can't run away from that. You should embrace what you are Raven, instead of trying to be what you're not."
Slade watched Raven carefully as she fought an inner battle. Deep down, she still loved and cared for her friends. However, the demon side of her longed to rip them to pieces for their betrayal. Then she thought about Beast Boy. Would she do it? Would she destroy him? Would she actually allow herself to do so? Did she actually love him? Did she still love her friends? Did they mean what they did to her? Maybe there was another side to the story, yet the sight of Terra's name engraved on the door continued to haunt her. Raven fought within herself for a good ten minutes. Finally, she turned to her spaceship and walked towards it.
"They may have betrayed me and broken their promise. And though I may be evil, I will never, ever turn on them." She said firmly. "I came to earth all alone and they took me in and cared for me. Regardless of their sentiments then or what has happened now, they were nice to me. And for that, I will remain loyal."
"If you're so loyal to them, then why are you running away from them?" Asked Slade calmly. "Is it because you can't bear to see Terra and Beast Boy together?" Raven was silent for a moment.
"I don't have a place on this team any longer. They have Terra now, they don't need me. The past is the past and I must move on." She said gazing at the spaceship. "Slade?"
"Hm?" Slade took several steps towards her.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven yelled as she wrapped her dark energy around Slade's body. With one deft flick of her hand, she smashed him into a large boulder.
Thanks to her heightened powers, the boulder disintegrated and Slade dramatically flew off the edge of the mountain. Raven held out her hand and vaporized him in midair. Without so much as a backwards gaze, she strode into her spaceship and closed the door. A dark energy portal opened up above the spaceship and Raven and the ship disappeared into the boundless space.
Back on the mountain, the real Slade smiled. His plan was working perfectly. With the little emotion chip he had installed into the Sladebot, he had easily fooled Raven. One of the very most powerful beings in the universe had been fooled by a chip the size of a fingernail.
As Raven watched the pretty blue planet disappear from view, she felt a sense of despair overwhelm her. Though she loved Azar, she had looked forward to coming back earth and her friends every moment she was there. She had thought about them everyday and frequently reminded herself how fortunate she was to have friends who loved her and cared for her.
"Great anticipation leads to great disappointment." She sighed as several tears slid down her cheeks.
She looked out of the window and watched planets whizz by.
"Who am I kidding?" She wondered as the picture of the latest Teen Titans poster flashed into her mind once more. Having been pressured by various newspapers for a group picture, the titans had relented and visited a professional photographer to have one taken. When she saw the poster nailed next to the mailbox when she was leaving the titans' new house, Raven felt her heart drop. All the other original members of the team were in their favorite poses, the only difference being that Terra was in the position where Raven once was.
Having put the spaceship on autopilot, Raven retreated to her room and cried like she never had before in her life. Many had made her promises before, but of all the promises ever made to her, the promise that her friends would not replace her meant the most to her. She had never in her life expected that it would be broken.
"I was selfish and stupid to expect them to keep my place on the team." She finally thought in defeat. "They looked so happy in the main room. I just hope that they'll be happy." With that, she hugged her pillow tightly and cried herself to sleep.
Beast Boy was distraught. Actually, distraught was an understatement. He moped, wailed and cried, spending his days wallowing in misery. He avoided his friends and often locked himself in his room. Cyborg and Robin had finally told the team their most plausible guess on why Raven returned and left and Beast Boy blamed them for it.
He could only imagine what Raven must be feeling. The titans were in actual fact the only friends she had. One of the worst things one could ever do to a friend is to abandon that friend in favor of someone else and they had done just that. No matter how tough the going got, they should not have admitted Terra to the team and given her Raven's room.
Beast Boy knew exactly how Raven probably felt. Unwanted. Unloved. A disposable entity. How he longed to take her in his arms and tell her what he really thought about her. How he longed to tell her how important she really was to him and how he had only woken up from his coma when he thought that he heard her voice. How he wished that he could kiss her and make everything better. Beast Boy knew that he truly loved Raven and that he would do anything to make her happy. He spent hours monitoring surveillance cameras around the city. He was determined to find Raven.
As Beast Boy sat glued to the couch in the main room surveying the city, Cyborg and Robin were busy working on other ways to find Raven.
Robin thought very carefully about the chain of events that would lead Raven to find the house and it was then that he made a breakthrough. He realized that when Raven first returned, she probably would have had no idea as to what had happened to the team. That would mean that the first place that she would have gone to was the tower, where she would have undoubtedly met the STRIVE. Recognizing a lead when he saw it, Robin had Starfire and Beast Boy fly him and Cyborg down to the tower the confront the STRIVE.
"What do you want panty face?" Snarled Gizmo. His manners had definitely worsened over the years and so had his mood. Determined to get some answers, the four titans had completely destroyed his defense systems. Terra was noticeably absent from the group and that was due to her lunch date with Cody.
"We just want to know if you've seen Raven." Replied Robin, ignoring Gizmo's nickname for him.
"Yeah, we have." Replied See-More only to be kicked in the groin by Gizmo.
"You did?" Cried Beast Boy. "Where did she go? What did she say to you?"
"Don't know, nothing." Replied Gizmo and he whipped out a gun and readied it. "Get off our tower you bratty buttheads!" Seeing that that was all Gizmo could and would tell them, Robin and the other titans took their leave. They were not any closer to finding Raven, but what they did know was that she was back and that they were determined to find her.
As Slade watched the beautiful demon princess flee in heartbreak, he slowly but surely pressed a red button.