Cyborg, Terra and Starfire angrily paced around around a palatial room where they had been locked in.
"This doesn't make any sense!" Fumed Cyborg as he battered the barred door with his robotic strength. "BB attacks Slade and now he's in prison for it? Can this get any more messed up?"
"Yes it can." Growled Terra. "We're locked in this place when we didn't do anything wrong!"
"Why will not the people of Curatoria tell us what is of the happening?" Cried Starfire in dismay as she stormed around the room smashing furniture with her immense strength. "Where is my Robin?" She sobbed as Cyborg and Terra both stared incredulously at her.
"Star! Beast Boy is in trouble too! And so are we for that matter!" Exclaimed Cyborg as he kept pounding on the door.
"Haven't you noticed the room is much darker than when we came in here an hour ago?" Exclaimed Terra as she desperately tried to get her powers to work on the walls that locked them in.
"And colder too!" Yelled Cyborg. "My sensors say the temperature has already dropped quite drastically! If we don't get outta here fast we're in big trouble!"
"Oh Robin." Starfire sighed as she plopped down on the only piece of furniture she had yet to break - the sofa.
"She's in love. She's not going to be of much help." Hissed Terra as she joined Cyborg against the door. "So what are we going to do?" She demanded.
"We gotta bust out of here." Cyborg said thoughtfully. "This room has gotta have some weaknesses or something. We just have to find 'em and bust through!"
"But my powers aren't working and even your sonic cannon barely scratched the paint off these walls." Terra stated as she tried once more to summon her powers. Suddenly, she paled and stopped short in her tracks, her eyes darting around the room. "Cyborg! Stop moving! Just stop what you're doing!"
"Why?" Demanded Cyborg as he landed another punch on the wall.
"There is no electrical power source in this room. That thing to charge you - it's not here." Terra said tersely.
"There is no place of which to let Cyborg do the charging?" Starfire suddenly sat up, memories of those trying times when Cyborg ran out of power still fresh in her mind.
"No! No! This can't be!" Exclaimed Cyborg as he desperately checked his power levels. "Aurena equipped every room with a-"
" -This isn't one of the rooms that we usually spend time in." Terra cut in having sneaked a peek at his arm. "You have to start saving your power now. Let Starfire and I handle this."
"No! I'm not going to let you two -"
"Oh Cyborg! Please do not!" Starfire's shrill voice cried out as the tears flowed from her sparkling green eyes. "We are of needing of you."
"Okay." Cyborg instinctively softened before reaching out and patting her on her shoulder. Starfire had a way of getting to him. After all, they had been teammates for years. "Don't worry." He said as reassuringly as he could possibly sound. "We'll get through this together."
Raven was in a hurry and for a very good reason. The Curatorians had only given her one earth hour to present herself at the gates of Curatoria to make the sacrifice for Beast Boy. Her heart continued to throb and ache but she forcefully pushed her feelings aside and raced around the room like a madwoman, trying to find that book on Curatoria. She had spent so much time tricking just about everybody in the universe that she had little time left to organise her library. When she finally found it, she waved the Bracelet of Athena over it.
"Okay, let's see. The Stone of Azarath lights up because I have my powers within the stone. Within the stone. That means I need to find some way to remove my powers from it in order to trick the Curatorians. What else? What else? Should I go through a demonic ceremony to lay down my life, my soul will permanently travel to another plane of existence, taking the powers trapped within the stone with it. The stone will thus cease to light up. That's it! I just have to travel to Azar's plane of existence and the stone should stop glowing!"
Fortunately for Raven, she was a careful strategist and knew that nothing was as simple as it appeared to be. The more she reviewed the information available to her, the more concerned she became. Under the chapter of transgressions, murder and attempted murder were among the gravest charges. Apparently any transgressions committed would cause the light over Curatoria to lose its purity and stop glowing. That light also protected Curatoria from its enemies and that explained why they were so anxious to have it restored. The only way for restoration was if a great evil was purged within Curatoria. That great evil rightfully should have been Beast Boy but because he probably was not evil enough, Raven guessed that the Curatorians needed her to be purged instead. This meant that her old plan would not work. Even if she managed to trick the Stone of Azarath, the Curatorians would know that she was still alive because no great evil had been purged. She also realised that going in person to Curatoria was an extremely risky move on her part and that there was no good way she could explain this to the demons. As usual, she would have to resort to underhanded methods to get her way. Practice had done her good and as a self-taught mistress of manipulation, the plan came to her almost as quickly as she needed it. Assuming the Lotus position, she began chanting her demonic summoning.
The demon Brutus, come to thy Queen.
Come to me, come to me, you servant; my fiend.
Let thee before me in moments be seen,
Come to me Brutus, come to thy Queen.
As quickly as she was finished, Raven teleported herself to her throne room and waited. Her position as the demon queen combined with Trigon's powers made her certain that the summoning would work. Her only concern was how long it would take for it to take effect. A crash that rocked the whole spaceship told her that it hadn't taken long. Raven smirked and plopped down on her throne knowing full well that at that very moment, Edwindan, Devia and Defria were battling Brutus. While Brutus was doubtless a lessor demon than the other three, the summoning had made him throw caution to the wind and now that he was very close to her and mentally distracted, Raven was able to mystically control his mind with her soul self to make sure that he could tactically outfight her demons. Her plan worked brilliantly as within a minute, Brutus crashed into the throne room with the other three collapsing behind him like dominoes.
"My-" Raven hastily wrapped her dark energy around his mouth. She had to prevent him from acknowledging her as queen lest it make the demons suspicious. A portal opened below Brutus and the writhing demon disappeared down into the dungeon below. The time that she had been waiting for had finally come: the time to be angry.
"I am sick and tired of that bothersome pest!" She roared. "Your brother has been a constant thorn in my side from the very first day! That idiotic miscreant thinks so highly of Seigon that he would try to get into heaven if Seigon told him to! What do I have to do to get some peace and quiet around here?" Her roars shook the spaceship harder than Brutus' arrival did. "This is supposed to be my place! Mine. Yet that brutish fiend just waltzes in here and knocks you three to your feet! You're supposed to be my guards!"
"We're sorry your highness!" Devia fell to the ground before Raven. Edwindan and Defria quickly followed her example. "We promise we won't let him in here again!"
"Oh. He's never coming in here again." A smirk crossed Raven's face. "You're going to destroy him for me."
"Your highness! We can't destroy him!" A panicky Edwindan leapt to his feet.
"I will hear none of it!" Roared Raven as she sent a pillar of dark energy flying his way. Edwindan dodged it barely in the knick of time.
"Your highness, there is something you must know about Brutus!" Exclaimed Edwindan hastily.
"What." Raven slumped into her favourite chair and glared at him.
"He's carrying the Crystal of Amarre."
"Of course I know that. I was hoping that you three would have enough confidence in your powers to kill him no matter what but as always, I'm disappointed." In all honesty, Raven did not know that but she was expecting them to say something like that. Having meditated on the relationship between Brutus and his siblings, she found it extremely odd that these downright evil beings would so graciously allow their troublesome brother - who constantly tried to usurp their positions from them - to live. Devia telling her that they kept him around because he was their brother confirmed her suspicions because in the demonic world, self was always put above family. Their actions were not adding up so Raven had always suspected that Brutus must be in possession of something that prevented his siblings from killing him. In six words, Edwindan confirmed her suspicions.
"We are sorry." The three demons bowed their heads apologetically.
"Since I expected you to fail this miserably, I went ahead and came up with another plan." Raven declared. "I'm not going to destroy Brutus."
"You're not?" Their jaws practically smacked the floor.
"Nope. My enemies are." Raven grinned.
"Seigon would never destroy Brutus."
"I'm not talking about Seigon. I'm talking about the Curatorians." Raven ignored their horrified expressions. Manipulating the Curatorians would mean dealing with them and though the demons would never admit it, they respected the massive powers that the Curatorians possessed. If they could help it, they preferred not to get into confrontation with them. "The Curatorians openly asked me to sacrifice myself for that worthless Beast Boy because of some crime he did. I'm obviously not going to do that but it gave me an idea. I am going to use my power over Envy to make Brutus jealous of me. Jealousy is tied to Greed so in his Greed, he will do just about anything to be me. That way, I can manipulate him into doing my bidding just by convincing him that going to Curatoria and sacrificing himself there will help him become me. There's no risk on my part since I'm not using my soul self to control him, I don't have to put in so much effort to destroy him, the Curatorians will lock his soul away for eternity meaning we'd be rid of him forever and I get the rest of the titans that I can use to torture Seigon with. My plan is flawless."
"Your wisdom is only eclipsed by your power." The demons breathed in awe. This plan was practically a win-win-win-win situation for Raven. The demons were praising her for her cunning but unbeknownst to them, this plan was actually a much bigger win for Raven. With her scheme, she could openly cooperate with the Curatorians' demands to save Beast Boy's life while making sure that the demons were happy and completely unsuspecting of her true intentions. Having sent a messenger demon to inform the lower demons of her plans, Raven sent for Brutus.
"I have a question for you." She said casually as the three demons seized him. "Who is more evil? You or your siblings?"
"I am more evil!" Roared Brutus triumphantly although he was being held down by his superior siblings.
"Uh-huh. And would you consider yourself a great evil?"
"The greatest evil in the universe there is!" Brutus had an ego that matched his size.
"Right. Secario Rox Nein!" Four red beams shot out of Raven's eyes and slammed right into Brutus' body.
"What is happening to me?" The big, brutish demon began screaming like a little child.
"It's not fair that Raven rules the universe." Raven spoke as her eyes bore right into his chest.
"It's not fair that Raven rules the universe." He repeated in a daze.
"I should be the one to rule the universe! I should be her!"
"I should be the one to rule the universe! I should be her!" Brutus collapsed to the ground, his emotions under Raven's spell.
"Perfect." Raven's lips curled into a smile. "I want to be Raven."
"I want to be Raven!" He cried out as his whole body began to tremble.
"So I will do what it takes to have her power."
"So I will do what it takes to have her power." He repeated after her, his mind clearly in a daze.
"I will pretend to be Raven and go to Curatoria."
"I will pretend to be Raven and go to Curatoria." Edwindan, Devia and Defria were all chortling in delight.
"I will lay down my life for the green titan for that will give me the power of Raven."
"I will lay down my life for the green titan for that will give me the power of Raven." Now the demons were really laughing.
Raven smiled. The sins were just as good as mind control.
Terra had almost given up. It was as if the room they were being held in was made out of a box of lead or some power-suppressing material. They could not find a single weakness in every nook and cranny of the room and no matter how hard she and the sobbing Starfire tried to summon their powers, nothing happened. The three dejected titans joined each other on the couch almost resigned to freeze to death. How far the mighty had fallen. There was once a time when they had the confidence that they could do anything despite the odds but numerous defeats had almost broken their spirits. It was as if fate had decided to be extra harsh with them, dealing out blow after blow that slowly wore down the victorious titans into shells of their former selves.
"Why did we come to this?" Terra asked bitterly as they stared at the white ceiling.
"I know why. It's because -" Cyborg was interrupted by a flash of light. A welcome sight greeted their eyes.
"Aurora!" Exclaimed Starfire in delight as the alien girl lunged at the Curatorian. Aurora easily sidestepped her before motioning for the three of them to be quiet.
"I know you've been hearing a lot of things lately about Raven. I know that my fellow warriors brought back a lot of stories about her but now, I'm going to tell you the truth about what happened to her." Starfire rejoined them on the couch and the three of them sank into expectant silence.
"What happened?" Cyborg finally spoke.
"Raven is well and truly alive." The sighs of relief were as audible as a thunderstorm. "I know that there were a lot of confusing things that happened in the past but as of now, she's alive."
"Yes!" Cyborg pumped the air as Starfire's tears turned into tears of joy. It felt so good to get a concrete confirmation that Raven was actually living.
"But she isn't who you think she is. She isn't the same Raven as she once was." Aurora's words were like hammer blows to the cranium. Ignoring the stunned silence, Aurora paced around the room as she told them everything. How Raven was now the reigning queen of the demons, how she was fighting with her brother for control over eleven sins, how she was always seen with four red eyes, how all the demons respected and adored her... "She's evil. By all appearances, she's given in to her demonic side. She's the next Trigon, she gets more powerful and more evil every day. But in a short while, she will be coming here to give up her own life to save Beast Boy's."
"What?" Cyborg was quick to spot the contradiction.
"You now have a choice." Aurora ignored him. "Even though Beast Boy has been convicted, he will get a chance to speak for himself. He's madly in love with Raven and we all know it. He will do everything he can to save her and if that means taking on even more blame and making himself out to be more evil than he actually is, he will do it. I know how to silence his voice. I know how to make sure he will not be able to say a word before the council. If I do that, his life will be spared and Raven will die for him. If I don't do that, our spiritual meditators say that he will convince the council to kill him so that Raven will live. They saw glimpses of the future during their meditations and I have learned from experience that they are highly accurate. There is a gap period between Beast Boy's speech and Raven's arrival. It is during that time that council can decide to put him to death instead. By the time she comes, it would be too late and with her powers, there is no way we can restrain her. So essentially if we don't silence him, he will die and she will live. You are their friends. You've known them all this while and now that you know Raven's story, I feel that you are in the best position to choose who should live and who should die. To silence or not to silence, it is your decision. You have seven minutes to decide."
"Seven-" Aurora was gone before Cyborg could finish his protest. "I hate this. I hate this." He said brokenly. "We have to choose between BB and Rae."
"Surely we do not have to!" Cried out an increasingly conflicted Starfire as she struggled to comprehend the situation.
"But yet we must." Cyborg groaned as he placed his head in his hands. "It's all up to us now. Who do we love more? Who deserves to live more?"
"Raven." Whispered Starfire.
"Beast Boy." Terra declared.
"Oh god." Groaned Cyborg in despair.