"Let me see if I understand you correctly," Diana said. "You claim to be some sort of dimensional traveler, hopping your way across the multiverse."

I nodded.

"Furthermore, you were sent to this dimension by the Moirae-" and as I opened my mouth to interrupt she held up an imperious hand and continued in a placatory fashion- "or some variation thereof, to ensure the fulfillment of a prophecy which you have been told not to reveal to any except the one that it's about."

"Correct."

"You claim to be a Chronicler."

"I do, as I am."

"The Amazon Nation knows damn well that the last Chronicler died during World War II in Auschwitz."

"Claus. In my home universe, he was my mentor."

"... I'm only believing you because of two things. Do you know what they are?"

"I wouldn't presume, Royal Highness."

Diana scoffed for a moment. "First, there's that. You know entirely too much about our culture and traditions for someone raised in Man's World. Secondly," and here she heaved a huge sigh and grinned self-deprecatingly. "... this entire conversation has taken place in the lingua-franca of the old Amazon Tribes."

I nodded soberly. "A pidgin comprising of corruptions of Greek, German, and Chinese. No outsider has ever been taught the language."

"Exactly. Chronicler-"

"Please, call me Jon, Highness."

"Only if you agree to call me Diana."

I nodded my agreement, a small smile on my face. "Some things," I reflected silently to myself, "never do change."

"Jon," she began, "how is it that you came to be incarcerated with the Titans?"

"That," I began wearily, "is something of a story. You see, I began my time in this dimension in Japan. While I was there, I published a number of books of poetry. Eventually I was invited to a number of universities, coffeehouses and bookstores to speak. My final stop was here in Jump City, where I met the one everyone calls Raven..."

=-=-=-=-=-

"Dude, I can't believe you just left him down there alone with Wonder Woman!" Beast Boy waved his arms emphatically. "What if he uses some sort of mind-power on her? What if he puts her to sleep like he did to you and escapes?!"

Robin hid his flinch with a dour glare towards Beast Boy. It was embarrassing that whatever power Jon carried had caused him to fall asleep in the middle of a fight. The glare succeeded in its immediate goal of shutting the changeling up for a moment. Unfortunately, the silence only allowed Cyborg to speak his thoughts.

"Guys, I'm tellin' ya that Jon wouldn't do what y'all are afraid of. He doesn't even want to be a Titan. Rae says that using his abilities sometimes causes a rebound affect and that he only uses his powers sparingly."

"It's not simply a metahuman ability, Cyborg," Raven said from behind a book. She sat a bit apart from the others, they on the oversized couch of the Ops room and she in a chair in the eating area. "I've been studying some of his books, and all of his abilities are purely magical. Aside from his facility in magecraft, he's as normal a human as any other citizen." Her brow furrowed slightly as she added, "And don't call me Rae."

Robin turned his masked eyes towards Raven. "How much magical power are we potentially dealing with?"

Raven's brow furrowed further, into a scowl. "We won't need to deal with anything. He's not going to harm any of us, as I've told you countless times before."

His face expressionless as granite, Robin distinctly enunciated his next two words. "How... much?"

"Potentially limitless," she growled. A deep breath restored some of her composure. "In actuality, it's difficult to say. As a human, he doesn't have any theoretical limits upon his power usage. His abilities are limited by his personal understanding of the universe and the amount of raw power he can store and channel."

"So, what you're sayin' is that Jon can do damn near anything?"

An unexpected voice from the direction of the elevator said, "Theoretically, yes."

As one, all save Raven turned to the voice. Jon stood in front of the closing elevator doors with one hand gripping Wonder Woman's forearm for balance. Robin shot a glance back towards Raven, who had the tiniest smug smile on her face. "You knew he was standing there," he accused.

The smile grew into a full-fledged smirk. "Yes," she agreed easily.

Meanwhile Beast Boy was flapping his arms and saying, "See?! See?! I told you he would escape!"

Raven speared him with a withering look as she lifted into the air. "Part of his carefully crafted escape plan is hobbling in here to confront us for revenge, I suppose?" As she spoke she drifted towards the elevators. For a seemingly long while, Wonder Woman and Raven locked eyes. It was a noticeably uncomfortable moment, and silence rippled away from the optically dueling duo until it encompassed the entire room. Finally, Wonder Woman made a slight bow of acquiescence, passed support of Jon onto the demi-demon and said in a low whisper to herself, "If Eros didn't have a hand in this then I'm a dormouse."

Both Jon and Raven looked at one another and blushed before remaining resolutely silent. As Raven guided Jon to a chair near where she was reading, Wonder Woman looked over to Robin and said simply, "We must speak."

=-=-=-=-=-

After Diana and Robin left, Cyborg distracted Beast Boy from his soliloquy about my escape plans with a Gamestation racing challenge. I turned to examine Rachel. She sat across from me, apparently reading from a familiar tome. Either she had excellent peripheral vision and could read an entire page without moving her eyes, or she was simply using the book as a focal point. Her eyes, usually a stunning cobalt, were lackluster and rimmed with red. Her violet hair wasn't dirty or unkempt, but it seemed to hang lankly, lifelessly. "Have you found anything to help you?" I asked.

She barely glanced from the page. "How do you mean?" she queried.

"Well," I stretched myself back a bit and lifted my bad leg onto another chair for support. "One of two ways. Your team has a problem with Nephilim... and you are running up against a deadline yourself."

Immediately a bolt of dark energy flew from her forehead and impacted against the viewscreen, cracking its casing and tearing the screen surface apart. Shouts of protest from the couch were summarily cut off as Rachel responded. Her eyes glowed red, her mouth was full of fangs, and her voice was multitonal as she nearly yelled, "It's none of your concern!"

I stood (surreptitiously leaning against the table for support) and responded in a somewhat lower register, "I only want to help."

She sneered in response, a gesture made more impressive by her current dentition. "How could you help me? You cannot even stand unassisted."

"From a wound I took for you, Rachel!"

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" she screeched. Dark tendrils of energy thrashed the air around her, thrusting forward and flinging me up and away. A bolt of her power shattered the window towards which I was headed. Before I was forcibly defenestrated, I heard her continue with, "MY MOTHER NAMED ME RAVEN!"

Cyborg shouted my name while Beast Boy implored Raven to calm down. The rest of the tableau became academic to me as I left the confines of the tower, reached the apogee of my parabolic arc, and proceeded to plummet towards the island's rocky shore at approximately Nine-Point-Eight Meters-Per-Second, Squared.

Now, everybody knows that the trick to flight is to throw oneself at the ground and miss, but some are rather more talented in this area than others. I was not one of the lucky few that had mastered it.

The air whipped past me, catching on my clothing and causing an intense ripping sound as it violently fluttered. I saw Diana above me as she leaped from the window, wasting precious seconds looking around until she saw me. Regardless of how swiftly she flew, she would not reach me before I hit the ground.

Still, I could at least hit it on my own terms.

"Felino Fortuna!" I screamed as I approached the end of my vertical journey. Power coursed through me, forcing me upright and causing me to land lightly upon the balls of my feet. Unfortunately my perfect landing was spoiled by treacherous sand shifting out from under me, wrenching my knee as I fell to the ground.

Still, it was better than being beach pizza.

Diana landed next to me a moment later, inadvertently showering me with gritty sand. I brushed my hands against my body to rid myself of the worst of the sand while the Amazonian Princess looked on silently. I snagged a piece of driftwood that was almost as long as I was tall and about three inches thick to use as a support. As I hauled myself to my feet Diana said to me, "So... trouble in paradise?"

Grimly I began shuffling back towards the tower. "You have no idea."

=-=-=-=-=-

We walked into the middle of an obviously tense silence.

Robin was fuming as he glared down at Rachel. Cyborg seemed to be examining the viewscreen, but the darting glances of his human eye showed where his attention actually was. Beast Boy looked both surprised and relieved to see me, his expression tainted with the tiniest bit of fear. I suppose even if he didn't trust me, he still didn't want me dead.

Diana stayed at the door while I continued on. My driftwood staff clunked hollowly against the utility carpet. Rachel looked up at me, all traces of crimson gone from her orbs. Her impassive eyes widened slightly as she took me in. I walked between the furious team leader and the recently homicidal sorceress, breaking his glare and drawing his attention. I went one step past them and stopped. My voice was hoarse from screaming as I fell but I was still clearly understandable as I said, "Robin, I need to borrow Raven for a moment." Then, without waiting for a reply, I resumed my shuffling gait and exited the room through a door on the far side.

The door took a moment longer to close than it would have had I passed through the doorway alone. "Walk with me, Raven," I said as I hobble-stepped towards the room I had slept in several nights previous. The walk was silent save my ragged percussion and the susurrus of her cloak against her leotard.

"Each of us," I stated suddenly, musingly, "is the embodiment of two distinct and opposing forces - Good and Evil - each fighting for supremacy inside us. If we could separate these two forces, we could control and ultimately eliminate all evil from mankind."

Rachel's quiet voice responded with, "And what if you're right Jekyll? And you do manage to separate Good from Evil, what happens to the Evil?" reaching a crescendo on the last phrase.

I turned to look at her as we approached the door. "You're familiar with the production?"

She nodded. "I've wanted to see it, but I've had difficulty finding the time. I own the soundtrack."

We strode into the room and I gestured for Rachel to take a seat. She sat upon a box of books, and I settled myself on the bed. "Raven," I began until I saw her wince. "What is it?" I asked. She muttered an inaudible reply. "Come again?" I said, motioning for her to speak up.

"I said," she repeated at a barely audible level, "that you can call me Rachel." I examined her in light of this. Her eyes were screwed shut, her jaw clenched, and her hands were fists.

"I'm not entirely certain that that's good for my health at the moment, Raven," I replied, watching her wince again at the use of her given name. I sighed. "You could have killed me, Raven. Most people don't have the ability to survive a fifteen story fall."

She looked at me then, eyes shimmering and bottom lip caught between teeth sharp enough to shear through skin and sinew. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "It's been difficult these last few days."

"Yeah, for me too. But I haven't lost my temper about it. Yet."

Her face again pointed into her lap. I sighed. "Raven, you're one of the most mature teenagers I've ever met. I understand why you've controlled yourself so rigidly. However," I continued, "you need to stop suppressing your emotions or you're going to kill somebody." I paused and scowled. "Look at me, Raven."

She again met my eyes. "Raven," I said, "I can't help your team get ready for these Nephilim." Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak before I cut her off again. "It's not my decision. Robin's decided that any assistance I offered would be suspect. I'll work on the problem myself, but Princess Diana has forbidden me from directly helping in the investigation any farther than I already have. Frankly, I don't much want to associate with the Titans either," here I averted my eyes and swallowed a bit to clear my throat before continuing with, "except for you."

"Jon," she said, allowing the rest of her thought to be swallowed in silence.

It was a deep silence, velvety and thick. It was the kind of silence that allowed ambient noise to become readily audible. The gentle crash of the bay against the rocks far below, the hum of the electricity in the lighting filaments, the gentle buzz of the air conditioner circulating all took on an unaccustomed prominence. We looked into one another's eyes, searching for some kind of reassurance from the other that our vague, undefined relationship was continuing to grow.

Finally she swallowed and said, "I can heal you if you'd like."

I quirked an eyebrow and examined myself for the first time since my aborted attempt at flight. At some point I must have flown through the glass shards from the broken window. Pinprick wounds leaked scarlet runnels across the ebony lines of my office. "If you can," I replied with a shrug and a wince. Knowledge of the wounds seemed to awaken the pain in them. "My own healing spells have been less than effective on me recently."

She nodded and approached me. Her hands glowed blue and I felt her healing magic enter me and sluggishly go to work. I watched her face as she healed me, noticing how her eyes became slightly glassy and unfocused, how she licked her lips, how her pupils dilated slightly. A faint, musky aroma flirted with my nose. As she went to heal the last of the wounds (a smattering of droplets on the inside of my left wrist) I reach out and caught her hand.

The blue glow winked off.

I grasped her head gently with both hands and tilted it towards my own, reciprocating the gesture until our foreheads touched. Her hands were clasped around my wrists, pads of the fingers on her right hand pressing against my minor wounds. I growled then, a guttural, primitive sound which seemed to emanate from deep within my chest. She growled back, brought the blood stained fingers to her mouth, and licked them clean daintily. She brought both hands around to my left and gently eased the injured wrist towards her mouth. After a hesitant look in my direction and an encouraging nod, she flicked her tongue across each drop until my wrist was as clean as her fingers. I gently disengaged and she stepped back unsteadily, her breath shallow and quick.

"H-how...?" she asked tremulously.

"I'm not nearly as ignorant of your kind as you might think, Rachel." I licked my own dry lips then, glad that I was sitting so that the intensely sensual moment wouldn't cause my knees to buckle. Silence in demons was a pretty strong indication that something was very wrong. The type of growling we did was reassuring, calming, the equivalent of soothing nonsense noises humans sometimes used to relax another. The bloodying was an offer of trust and intimacy, and I was surprised that she had taken it. It was the demonic equivalent of a full body-contact hug; very intimate, but not necessarily romantic or sexual.

"I care for you, and I wanted you to know that," I continued more steadily.

"I... thank you," she said hesitantly. "Here," she said, as she drew a pen and bit of paper from her belt. "You can use this number to contact the Tower." She handed the paper to me, and I placed it within my pocket. "I'll let you get cleaned up," she said as she stood and strode towards the door. She paused before she passed through it and put her hood up, casting her face into shadow. She turned slightly and said softly over her shoulder, "I... care for you as well. Good night."

Before I could respond, she was gone.