After two days, the titans finally ventured out of the house to look for Raven. Robin had initially feared that searching the city individually would be a waste of time. Their efforts to find her with surveillance cameras having failed so far, they decided to opt for a more labor intensive approach.
Terra scanned the skies and provided rocks for them to fly on. Starfire flew into space to search for Raven while the others remained on earth.
"I've checked every depressing café in the city." Said Cyborg looking into his communicator. "She isn't there." Robin punched the wall in frustration. Wherever she was, Raven was doing an amazing job of hiding from them.
"Beast Boy, report." Robin commanded as he crossed out 'depressing cafés' from the list.
"I got nothing from all the libraries." Sighed Beast Boy his ears drooping.
"Where else could Raven be?" Asked Robin as he crossed out 'libraries' from the list as well.
"Goes to show how little we actually know about her." Said Cyborg dismally. Robin was about to reply when a robotic hand swatted the communicator out of Cyborg's. The communicator landed on the floor and smashed into smithereens.
"Cyborg?" Yelled Robin. "What's happening there?" But there was no response. "Beast Boy!" Yelled Robin as he sent him Cyborg's last coordinates. "Meet me there!"
Robin dashed to the garage and grabbed his R-Cycle. He sped out of the garage like a lightning bolt, whizzing down the driveway and towards the heart of the city. Meanwhile, his own heart pounded within him. Something had happened to Cyborg and he had no idea what. How he hated that! There was nothing Robin hated more than not knowing what was going on.
Upping the speed, he arrived at Cyborg's last coordinates in no time. The sight in front of him made his heart sink. One communicator lay on the ground several feet from the café. Another one lay several meters away, completely smashed like the first. The T-Car and the B-Mobile were nowhere in sight.
His heart sinking to its depths, he called Starfire. However, before she could answer, Robin felt a now-familiar feeling crawl up his legs. As he sank to the ground, he turned around just in time to receive a punch in the face by a Sladebot.
Robin awoke to find himself strapped down like he had been when Slade captured him the first time. Groaning, he mentally kicked himself for allowing himself to be captured again. Looking around, Robin recognized the stains on the walls and realized he was back in the old room where Slade tortured and tormented him. Having heard familiar footsteps echoing down the hallway, he braced himself.
"Hello, Robin." Said Slade casually as he entered. Behind him was a Sladebot pushing a TV screen mounted to a movable stand. The Sladebot positioned the screen against the wall that Robin faced and left.
"You won't get away with this!" Growled Robin as he glared at Slade.
"I already have." Slade said evenly as the screen flickered on. Robin gasped in horror. The screen was divided into four sections, with each one showing live video footage of all the other four titans. Cyborg had been shut down, while the other three appeared to be unconscious.
"We've stopped you before and we'll stop you again!" Declared Robin defiantly.
"Not this time." Replied Slade. "Now, Robin. As the leader of the titans, you have the privilege of choosing which one of your friends gets to die first. So who will it be?"
"None of them are going to die." Replied Robin bravely.
"You have four minutes." Said Slade as a countdown timer appeared on the TV screen. "If you pick one, that one will die first, saving the others. If you don't pick one at the end of the four minutes, all of them will die. Also, you cannot pick yourself."
"You're going to kill us all anyway." Said Robin bitterly, the sting of another impending defeat penetrating his heart.
"Oh Robin, you think so much yet you know so little." Slade remained as calm and collected as ever.
"I'm not as dumb as you think I am." Snorted Robin.
"Oh, really? Since you're so smart, why not tell me what you think I'm doing?" Asked Slade casually.
"You waited until all of us split up and picked us off one by one so that you could kill us." Replied Robin as he gritted his teeth and strained against his restraints.
"Is that what you think I'm up to?" Asked Slade as he backed out the door. "Your time is running out, Robin. After the first one dies, I'll tell you more."
As the door closed behind Slade with a bang, Robin began thinking fast. As he gazed upon the faces of his beloved friends who were blissfully unaware of what was befalling them, he felt his heart break within him.
3 minutes 30 seconds
"What shall I do?" wondered Robin as his eyes traversed each face on the screen. "I'm stuck and so are they. If I don't choose one, all of them will die! This is just what Slade wants! He wants to make me suffer! Think Robin! Think hard! How are you going to get out of this?" Robin closed his eyes and kept thinking.
3 minutes 0 seconds
"Terra was the last one to join us and she's betrayed us before! But we all would've died at the docks if not for her! Is she working for Slade? How can I know for sure? No, I don't think so. If she were working for him he wouldn't have given me the option to have her killed! I can't do this! I can't bear to order the deaths of any one of them! They're my friends! I could never do that!" Beads of sweat rolled down Robin's forehead.
2 minutes 30 seconds
"But I must choose one! If I don't the other three will die and I know Slade will make sure it happens! Would I rather be responsible for one death or four? What am I thinking? I don't want to be responsible for any deaths at all!" Robin's mind raced as his mouth became very dry. "What to do? What to do? What am I going to do?"
2 minutes 0 seconds
"Cyborg likes to challenge my authority here and there but he's still a great guy and he's been so loyal to the team! I could never do this! Beast Boy has his faults but he's a good person and friend! Why am I even considering putting one of them to death?" Robin clenched his fists. "I could never let anything happen to Starfire! I would rather die than have her get hurt! But is fair to the others if I'm biased towards her?"
1 minute 30 seconds
"Is Terra being controlled by Slade? Did he put her up there on the screen to trick me into thinking she's still loyal? Should I choose Terra? Would it be right? Would Beast Boy be alright if I did that? Nah… He'll probably be madder if I choose Raven." Robin sighed. "Raven! She could help us! Oh, Raven! Where are you? I know you're somewhere out there. Do you have any idea how much we could use your help?" Robin stopped himself for a minute when he realized that he was beginning to sound like a lover boy.
1 minute 0 seconds
"Wait a minute! Raven and I have a bond. She's gone into my mind before! Maybe I could contact her using that bond! But how am I supposed to do that? I haven't been in her mind before!" Robin's heart began to palpitate. "Okay. Calm down." He took several deep breaths and tried to relax. "I have to do this just right. Focus on Raven… Focus… Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" He thought.
Robin knew very little about magic, thus reciting Raven's incantation in his head was all he could think of. He waited for several moments but nothing happened.
30 seconds
"Think Robin! You're running out of time!" He scolded himself. "Slade said you must choose one of your friends to die!" He stopped short as a new realization dawned upon him. "He said one of my friends but he didn't specifically say that one of my friends referred to the four of them! Raven is one of my friends! And she's powerful, a little less powerful than Trigon himself! When Slade attacked Trigon, he was only able to hurt him! He couldn't kill him! Even if Slade tried, he couldn't kill Raven because she's so powerful and she has healing powers! Raven will survive no matter what!"
Robin's heart had now jumped to his throat. He hated having to pick Raven to die like that since he was so close to her, but she was the only one that had not been captured by Slade and she seemed to be the most invincible one of them all. The jarring sound of the timer filled the room just as Slade walked through the door.
"So who will it be, Robin?" asked Slade as he held up a controller. The controller had four buttons on it, a green one, a blue one, a yellow one and a pink one. Robin instinctively knew what those colors stood for.
"I choose Raven." Said Robin calmly; inwardly smug that he had found a loophole in Slade's words. Slade appeared to be taken aback for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure.
"Very well." He said calmly and pressed a black button on the controller than Robin had not noticed earlier. The footage of the other four titans disappeared from the screen and Robin found himself staring at a huge black spaceship as it travelled through space. It was shaped like a raven in flight and Robin thought that he had never seen anything that cool in his life.
"So Raven went to space." He thought as he admired the spaceship. At that moment, the spaceship blew up in a huge fireball. Robin gasped as shrapnel flew in all directions. He had done Raven in and betrayed her! Slade had bested him again!
"What have I done? What have you done?" He cried, this time aloud.
"I'm getting rid of Raven." Replied Slade. "That was a neurostratanium blast, which will kill her instantly. And you thought that Raven was invincible didn't you?" He asked, tilting his head to one side.
"Raven can travel through planes of existence. She will come back to crush you." Said Robin with a lump in his throat.
"I think not." Slade responded as the screen changed back to the live video footage of his friends. But this time, there were only three of them and Terra was conspicuously missing.
"Where's Terra?" demanded Robin.
"Doing whatever I tell her to do." Replied Slade.
"What?" cried Robin in horror. "How could she betray us again?"
"She didn't betray you by choice. I was controlling her all along."
"If you were controlling her, then why didn't you have her finish us off when she had the chance?" Yelled Robin, his voice cracking under the strain.
"All your life Robin, you've been trying to be a mini Batman. You've grown and you've learned, but there are some things that you are still to inexperienced to comprehend."
"Like what?" Robin spat out.
"Everything I've done so far is not to destroy you, but rather to make Raven leave the team so that I can destroy you and later, her."
"What?" asked Robin his eyes widening.
"When Raven defeated Trigon, Terra was released from her prison of stone. I made sure to shoot her statue with a ray that would allow me to control her access to her memories. I was the one who made her forget who she was and who you were.
When I attacked the oilrigs, it was to take down Cyborg. With no oil and electricity, he's powerless. I also made sure that Beast Boy got injured and that you got captured, so that Starfire would be insecure and lose some of her powers. I paid some of your so-called neighbors to destroy the solar panels and shoot Beast Boy and that took down Cyborg as well.
While Beast Boy was recovering, I fattened you up and sent you back. I figured that you'd work out to lose that weight and that'll bring Cyborg back, but it was worth it since you became so insecure about your appearance that you treated Starfire differently and that caused her to lose some of her powers again. Maybe you didn't know it, but she lost them.
All that was to make you and your friends think that you were so weak that you couldn't take me down on your own. Then all I had to do was to fake a doctor's diagnosis, buy a fortuneteller's shop and restore Terra's memories. You and your powerless, insecure friends happily took the bait and invited Terra to join the team and when Raven saw that you broke your promise not to replace her, she left."
"Raven won't just leave over a stupid broken promise!" Robin practically screamed. "She's much more mature than that!"
"That's where you're wrong." Slade chuckled. "Raven is powerful, but she herself is also very insecure. Terra was able to defeat her once single handedly merely by exploiting her insecurities. If you had replaced her with perhaps, Jinx or Kid Flash, she wouldn't have left. It was replacing her with Terra in particular that sealed the deal."
"Huh?" Robin was confused.
"And yet you call yourselves her friends." Slade shook his head disapprovingly. "Raven is very much like Terra in the sense that they are both incredibly insecure, yet they appear confident on the outside. This is because of all of you titans, Raven and Terra are probably the most powerful because they have the power over some form of telekinesis.
When a woman is dangerous like that, she fears that people will not accept her and holds the friendship of those around her very dear. It was for the same reason that Terra ran away when she thought that Beast Boy had told you her secret about not being able to control her powers. She was insecure and when she thought that he had betrayed her trust, it was too much for her to handle.
Raven is very much like you. She is slow to trust and even slower to forgive. The fact that she hasn't forgiven Terra makes the broken promise even more painful for her. It is that kind of hurt and pain that would cause Raven to lose control over her powers. That's why Raven ran away. She just couldn't handle it."
"Raven went to Azar to learn how to control her emotions and powers. She wouldn't flee just because she couldn't handle the hurt. Raven is stronger than that." Robin insisted.
"Really? Then why is it that within the span of one hour, she destroyed her spaceship and recreated it thirteen times?" A video recording appeared on the screen. Robin watched in both amazement and amusement as he watched Raven's powers blow up the ship before she recreated it only to blow it up again. "It's beautiful how unstable she was, isn't it?" Asked Slade.
"If the neurostratanium is powerful enough to destroy her like you said, why didn't you just use it to destroy her in the first place? Why would you go through all that trouble?" demanded Robin.
"That's a very good question." Answered Slade. "Neurostratanium is powerful, but it isn't enough to kill her. Of all of you, she's the most powerful. Besides her, only I have used Trigon's power, therefore I know how powerful she actually is. I am human but Raven is half-demon. She can absorb and control much more power than I can. Though I only had a taste of a fraction of the power she has, I am properly impressed by it. Remember Robin, Raven stopped time in order to save you all. Which one of you can do that? When she left, she was insecure, angry, hurt and jealous and that weakened her enough for the neurostratanium to kill her. She is very powerful, that is why I needed your help to kill Raven and you and the team beautifully followed through."
Robin hung his head. He wished that he could just drop dead.
"Raven has no friends other than you titans. Because of that she'll protect you with everything she's got. In order to take you down, I must first take her down and the only way to do that is to make her angry and hurt. You made my life so much easier by betraying her trust with Terra."
"But Terra destroyed you!" insisted Robin. "She hated you! Why would you control her memories to make her hate you?"
"That wasn't me. That was a Sladebot filled with pig's blood." Once again, Robin felt like an idiot. "I can't actually control her mind, Robin. Her mind is her own. But what I can control is her access to her memories. When she lost her memories, she didn't actually lose them. Instead, she merely lost access to them. With my gadgets, I can manipulate which memories she has access to. When she joined you, I let her remember everything so that you'd believe her and let her join you. But now, all she remembers is that she's loyal to me."
"How do you know how Raven feels and everything? I doubt she's ever told anyone about this." Robin was trying to stall for time as he desperately tried to formulate an escape plan.
"I'm watching. I'm always watching. After Trigon's defeat, I took a special interest in Raven, because I saw the will and knew that taking her down was the only way to take the team down. I know how Raven feels because I do not take her facial expressions and words at face value like you do. I studied her body language, I studied her actions, I studied her interests. If you would've bothered to study her like that, you to would've noticed how insecure she is and come to all the same conclusions as I.
During battle, she covers up her back and head with a cloak, just like a child covers up his head and body with a blanket to hide from monsters. When you titans are venturing into the unknown, who is the one who always walks right at the back, shyly hiding behind the others for protection, afraid to be the trailblazer to walk right in front? Who was the one who was hesitant to join the team when Starfire first came because she feared that you wouldn't want her around? Who is the most insecure, introverted member of the titans? It's Raven."
Why are you telling me this?" Stormed Robin bitterly. "Wouldn't it be better to just save your breath and kill me already?"
"I'm telling you this Robin, because I want you to die feeling like a worthless idiot who kills his friends." Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy's faces appeared on the screen once more.
"I would never kill my friends!" screamed Robin at the top of his lungs.
"But you will Robin. I will make you." Slade said as he closed in on him. "You will kill Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg, and there's nothing you can do about it. You will die seeing your blood stained hands with their murders on your conscience."
"I could never!" shrieked Robin as Slade walked out of the room leaving him to vent and rage.