The Titans Tower training room was Starfire, Raven and Shadowcobra's usual meeting place whenever they needed to practice using their Pactio forms and powers. Even after the end of the millennia's Zodiac War Shadow still remained. Takada was back on Tamaran with Blackfire while Draco and Jinx were in Tokyo attending college in the Red Horse Private Institute's University.
Though the Vampangel would not admit it, he would still miss his comrades. They'd been through a lot for the last four years but they knew that they had to part ways. It was how it was meant to be. They each had their own lives to lead.
"Partners: Raven of Azarath and Starfire of Tamaran," began Shadow as the two Pactio cards floated before him, depicting Starfire and Raven in their Pactio forms as the Warrior Queen and White Priestess, "Reveal the True Power Within! Contracts Activate!"
However, instead of the normal activation, the girls' copies of their own cards flew out from where they kept them and joined with Shadow's copies.
"Is this part of the ritual?" asked Starfire.
"No, it isn't!" Shadow hissed. He hated unexpected surprises.
Suddenly, the Pactio circle appeared under their feet and the cards flew around and around them. The two copies of Raven's contract and the two copies of Starfire's contract combined together and then flew at the girls.
"Watch out!" Shadow warned but he was too late as the two girls gasped when the cards entered them through their chests. The circle vanished and the two girls fainted. "Rachel! Kori!"
"So, this happened after you activated that Pactio thing, huh?" asked Cyborg as he checked the screens for the girls' vitals. The two girls were in individual beds, resting.
"Yes," nodded Shadow. "Is anything wrong with them?"
"Nothing seems wrong," said Cyborg, tapping the screen. "They're just sleeping."
"Thank goodness," Shadow let out a breath of relief.
"Well, consider yourself lucky that Robin's in Gotham. If he was here he'd beat your ass," reminded Cyborg. Shadow had been put in charge of the team until Robin's return. Cyborg would be his second.
"I know," agreed Shadow. "He cares about Koriand'r, Victor."
"The same way you care about Rae," added Cyborg. Shadow turned away, hiding his blush with his collar. "Hey, she's your wife. It ain't nothing to be embarrassed about."
"You know I'm not used to talking about my feelings," Shadow muttered. He then saw Raven stirring. "Rachel." He went to her and took her hand in his. "Are you okay? How are you feeling?"
"Just a little tired," said Raven, smiling softly. He smiled back at his wife before leaning down to kiss her but stopped when he remembered Cyborg was in the room.
"Victor, do you mind…" Shadow gestured to the door.
"OK, I know, I know," Cyborg said as he went to the door. He knew better than to spy or tease Shadow and Raven about their relationship. The door slid close after Cyborg's exit.
Raven and Shadow shared a tender kiss that was brief yet meaningful before gazing into each other's eyes. "So, do you know what happened?"
"Whatever the reason, the Pactio activation malfunctioned," Shadow grimaced. "I should look into this."
"Could the contract have been broken?" asked Raven.
"Maybe, but for that I need to check our energies along with Starfire's," said Shadow. "And right now she's…"
GLOMP!
"On my back," said Shadow as Starfire hugged him from behind with her arms and legs around him.
"Good morning, friend," she giggled.
"Koriand'r, it's 5 in the evening," corrected Shadow.
"Oh, then good evening, friend!"
"Get off my back, please," he urged and she did. This just reminded him of how affectionate she was all the time. Even when they'd been children she hugged him like that.
"So, what happened?" asked Starfire curiously.
"We don't know, but it may effect our Pactios," stated Raven.
"Oh, please let it not! I love my sword!" Starfire panicked. She'd gotten pretty attached to her Starblade.
"That's why I'll be hitting the books later before I check our energies to see if they are in synch," Shadow told her. An out of synch Pactio was dangerous and Shadow didn't want to endanger the two girls in any way. One was his wife while the other was his childhood friend.
(Neo Activation-Raven Cosplay)
"Shadow!" shouted Raven. "My Pactio!" Shadow hesitated. "Shadow!"
"Alright!" he relented and the magical circle activated beneath their feet. He started on the incantation, "Partner, Raven of Azarath…" Raven's body began to glow as she stood before him, her body radiating with light. An orb of Azarathean runes appeared over her heart. Shadow then continued, "Reveal the True Power Within!" He reached inside the orb which caused her to gasp and blush. "Contract…Activate!" He drew the card out from her chest and the transformation occurred.
Raven's uniform was the replaced with a new set of clothes. Over her leotard she wore a tight white shirt with a bow tie, a black tuxedo jacket with long coat tails and a black cape with red lining. Her legs became covered in fishnet stockings with tight knee high boots and she also wore white gloves on her hands. She held a magician's wand in one hand and a top hat in the other which she placed on her head before striking a pose.
Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire and Terra gaped at Raven's new look and Shadow was staring at the card.
"Huh? Cosplay Card!?" Shadow looked it over. It depicted Raven in the same outfit in front of a white background.
Raven looked down at herself and grimaced, "Great…I look like Zatanna."
Mumbo was not pleased, "So, trying to steal my show, huh? Well, how about this?" He removed his hat and tapped it with his wand, "Hocus Pocus!" At his command the hat released a flock of killer pigeons.
Raven did the same and removed her own hat. Somehow she knew what this form was capable of and decided to take advantage of it. She removed hr hat and then did the same thing Mumbo did. She tapped it with her new wand and the hat produced vacuum winds that sucked in the killer flock. It stopped and Raven smiled. "Hey, Mumbo! What goes around comes around!" She then fired the flock straight at the stunned magician. He scrambled away from the flock which began to peck at him.
"OK, let's see what else I can do," smirked Raven, enjoying her new power up. She reached into her hat and then reached in deeper before grabbing something. "Hm…" She then took out a deck of cards. "OK, what am I supposed to do with these?" The cards then flew out of her hand and positioned themselves above her. A sudden burst of inspiration came to her and she looked towards Mumbo. "Hey, Mumbo, ever played 52 pickup?" She used her wand to direct the cards at Mumbo and then they sliced through the air before bombarding the criminal magician. Instead of cutting into him, the cards exploded. He screamed as all 52 cards caused small explosions all over his body.
When the bombardment ended, Mumbo was lying facedown on the ground and waving a white flag. "I…surrender…"
Raven turned to her teammates and took a bow as she placed her hat to her chest. "And that's all folks!" winked Raven before she changed back to normal. She stomped over to Shadow, "What the heck was that?"
"NEO Pactios?" Shadow responded after getting the message from Renia.
"It's a new type of Pactio," said Renia. "It's pretty high level but also unpredictable," stated Renia who was on the screen. She was in Tokyo.
"I can testify to that," said Raven.
"Basically you got three cards with different power levels," said Renia before listing them, "You got Armor, Cosplay and Suka."
"Suka?" the Titans repeated.
Renia giggled, "You'll find out what it is. But don't worry, nothing's wrong with the Pactio. It just got an upgrade. Just…make sure you don't draw the wrong card at the wrong time."
(Starfire's Cosplay)
"Partner, Starfire of Tamaran…" Starfire's body began to glow as she stood before Shadow, her body radiating with light. An orb of Tamaranean writing appeared over her heart. Shadow then continued, "Reveal the True Power Within!" He reached inside the orb which caused her to gasp and blush. "Contract…Activate!" He drew the card out from her chest and the transformation occurred.
As soon as the transformation was completed, the boys stared and Cyborg nearly got a nosebleed.
Starfire was dressed in a tiger-skin bikini with matching knee high boots and elbow gloves that had black fur around the elbows and knees. She also had a tiger's tail sticking out from her bottoms and a pair of pointed ears on her head. She struck a cute pose and meowed.
Shadow groaned, "Great…another Cosplay card."
Billy Numerous and his clones stared at the new Starfire and they all grinned while whistling. "Woah! Now you don't see that every day!"
"Yeah! Now that's one hot momma!"
"Think she can do a pole dance for us?"
The Billy clones and the original continued to laugh while giving Starfire wolf-whistles and cat-calls. This didn't bode well for Starfire and she roared like a tigress. This resulted in her energy manifesting itself into giant green aura tiger that stood above her. This made the Titans' gawk.
"And another surprise," stated Shadow.
The tiger roared along with Starfire before she sent it at the Billies. They all screamed in pain as the aura tiger attacked and as soon as it was done with them they were all left in a twitching pile. The aura tiger vanished before Starfire skipped towards Shadow.
"Friend, I adore this outfit!" she purred.
(Suka Form)
Shadow palmed his face. He had his doubts about the power of these Neo Pactios but both Starfire and Raven had displayed new powers and abilities in their Cosplay forms (which had been unintentional) but now this was worse.
Now he knew what Suka meant.
Both Starfire and Raven had been reduced to Chibi forms and wearing animal costumes. Raven was in a white bunny costume with the ears and Starfire was in a tiger cub costume. Not only did they look like children, they had also mentally regressed to have the minds of 5 year olds.
"Shadow, let's play!" urged Chibi-Starfire.
"Play! Play!" added Chibi-Raven. "Let's play!" She leapt into his arms and nuzzled his chest.
"Yay!" Starfire also glomped him.
"Great…" groaned Shadow. Now he was a babysitter.