Teen Titans; ReBeL Yell – If I Had Stayed a Renegade –

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Swapping Lives; Joining a Pact for an Eternity

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This is not M or R! It is violence and a beat down and a bit dark so noted! Came to me when a fan wanted a Raven as the heroine during Dick's apprenticeship ark, tell me if it's not up to par! I can do a ton to make up for my extra tangents. Thanks!

DEDICATED TO checycherrylily ) This is for you, kid! Lol!

Let me know if you guys want another, I'm chocked full for the fun of it! I take requests, no strings.

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She didn't like it one bit.

The brutal, constant reminder of how she'd gone to Slade after they'd escaped the attack by the probes on Wayne's building that night, how she'd sold a part of her actual dignity away to get a running start against the man now scarring the boy wonder's skin with his boot.

She was not allowed to see him often, and she did use her powers to keep the Titans at bay and on a wile goose chase as before. Robin was in danger; she'd seen a vision right before Slade had negotiated his deal with her friend and leader that agonizing death would descend upon them, yet not him.

She had to find out what it meant, at all and any cost. Even if Slade had not deactivated her probes, he instead granted her an inhibitor collar for her powers as she was forced to watch the two spar, her friend covered in bruises while she could only steel away her emotions as Slade expected of his captive.

She wasn't an apprentice, she wasn't anything but a spectator to a bloody war that could go on for decades…

That was, until her hands slipped and she found her way to Slade's quarters to swipe up the device, with as little power as possible she shorted it. As long as he never used it, she could delay the inevitable.

Robin was called one evening to his master's throne room to hear some interesting news from the horse's mouth.

He was there, and yet he wasn't.

"That suit looked much better on you, apprentice. How is it fitting?"

"Better." Robin gritted his fists, trying to hide his anguish and fear behind the façade of a willing protégé to a crime lord.

Raven's eyes darted between them as she stood stalk still beside Slade.

"A bird told me that your teammate here, has the power to freeze time; however, I have only to find out if this is false. In the meantime, I want you and Raven to do something for me."

Robin's eyes flickered with hope for a moment. "But, isn't she here to –

"She's here out of her own decision to stay, but no." Slade's hand shot out to lift her up as he did from his seat, the collar too much to not allow the empath the luxury of gaining her wrists back before they snapped like twigs.

She could feel Robin's fear, all of it made her feel even more weakened as his negative emotion only fueled another.

"She's not able to fight!" Robin begged. "Let her go!"

"Only once you denounce everything to me, including…" Slade lifted the trigger to his protégé's eyes as Robin gasped, Raven's arms ready to pop as his grip was an iron mass upon them, in just the right places but never to do some lasting damage.

"Rob….in….no…"

"Raven! Wait there! I can –

"You'll do it." Slade lowered his voice to seem sinister as he already had Raven fading out with her struggle. The pain would have her pass out soon enough, as Robin begged again to know.

"What, then?? Tell me what…I have to do to save her, Master…."

Raven gasped as Slade gave a final pinch of his grip, her eyes tearing not by the pain yet by the outcome of her vision.

"She's gone against me, my apprentice." Slade sad with a hiss, Raven knowing he'd rather break her than let Robin have the honors. He'd…. he'd never go through with it.

"Your heroine was trying to spare them under my watch, so I want you to punish her. Do that, and she'll be forgiven. For now." Slade tossed Raven to lie before the steps of his dais, his throne as he sat and leaned into his hand to wait.

As Robin walked up those steps, his eyes icy and unfeeling.

"Yes, Master Slade."

"Good Boy. Don't be too messy. We want her in one piece. I want to know if she can really….try to turn back the clock."

/

Robin dragged Raven and her now fractured arm, the other bruised to the next room as the door slammed shut on them.

"R…obin…."

"Wait." He snapped at her coldly. She caught the ceiling, the cameras on each wall and maybe even closer than was thought for comfort.

As they made their way; Robin dragging Raven's cloak to by far not choke her, and to just bring her enough of a slide to avoid bruising the empath, to what looked like a medical table.

"We're safe here. For now…" Robin let her go as he collapsed, his heart a rhythm she'd only felt during his fights with Slade at best. Back when they were still on the side of good, wherever that was by now.

He grunted, groaning to rise as he lifted her bridle style up onto a gurney. "He hurt you, I won't forget this…"

"Robin…I…. it'll heal –

"I don't care !" He snapped at her, pulling away to keep from letting his anger fuel him like Slade had wanted.

"He wanted me to let you get hurt…who knows how –

"Raven?" Robin's eyes returned to widen at the empath, who was starting to drip tears onto the floor as she knelt on the gurney and said nothing. Only felt…. pain as it crept back into her life, so she wept and he came over, he tried all he could to cry but…

Slade had swallowed that last hope that he could, that Robin could feel as human as in this moment.

"I want you to leave, I'll make a distr-

"No!" She sobbed weakly. "I'm not letting him take over, Robin…. My vision…it showed you…you were going to change somehow. You weren't just going to stay and learn to hurt others…you'd never, die."

/

Robin had no clue what that had meant; not before Wintergreen came to treat Raven or Slade, how that black set of eyes a week had become manageable with enough ice and heavy painkiller.

Raven was there to keep Robin in line. Period.

What if that failed too? What if she made Slade want to push that button?

Robin came to his sessions less than interested in recalling what they'd cried over. He didn't see her for two weeks, thinking she'd taken his advice to return to the tower. It was safer than being here, but no.

She was worse than he'd ever been. Determined to do or die, not to give up even –

The doors slid back as Slade came forward, hands behind his back as a few Slade – Bots flanked a girl in a white cloak.

Raven?

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"It's done." She told the mad man, her face devoid of emotion to protect her weakest self. He nodded, bobbing his head to coax Robin to stand a bit closer for a demonstration.

"A chronotron detonator won't be needed." He said with a pleased purr to both of his accomplices. "While healing herself, your teammate and I had a little talk. We decided, for one chance to serve me, she'd give up a part of her abilities to fuel our ambitious goals; Raven is now my soldier, as are you."

Robin nearly fell to his knees at those words, was she –

"Raven has also generated a few ounces of her new and improved magic to freeze the city for easier access to what I want. And what I want, is the same device you lost from Wayne Enterprises."

Robin tried to swallow a swell in his throat, yet it wouldn't come. "In exchange, Raven has asked that I free one of the heroes temporarily. So, we chose the Tamaranean girl."

Raven looked up, her eyes bright as her collar only permitted a fire lit glow, not an encore. "You never said -

"You never stated the terms enough, my dear. Playing with the big leagues takes years of practice." The man darkly chuckled. "Years that the big bat failed to teach MY protégé. Failing you by giving into hiding and laying low. Don't you agree, Grayson?"

/

Dick was exposed, flawed as Raven just sputtered while the bots took her back kicking and screaming to her cell, out cold as Slade had only the time she'd granted before the city would be his. "She was very specific about what I'd receive, yet not for herself." Slade shrugged and returned to his dais as Dick stuttered in plain sight, his eyes finally watering until Slade shot the boy a glare to quit it.

"Go, Robin." Slade commanded. "Show the bat that there won't be a next time."

/

Raven was all alone and she was furious, but it couldn't stay that way.

She centered her mind, every atom enclosed within Nevermore as her reflection peered forth through the dark.

~ He forced us to change. ~ The darker of her selves droned and no longer admired the light cloak that the original wore.

~ I had to do something –

~ WHY NOT FREE YOURSELF, GATHER YOUR POWER AND OBLITERATE THE MORTAL INSECT. ~

Raven gasped inside her mind. She KNEW that voice!

~ You can't be here…this isn't your way out. ~

~ YET MY DAUGHTER, IT IS YOUR TURN TO AVENGE YOUR HONOR AS MY REMAING GEM; ONE DAY, I SHALL ERASE ALL OF THOSE WHO DARE TO OPPOSE US…LIKE ARELLA, AND ALL OF AZARATH WILL HAVE ECHOED FOR NAUGHT! ~

~NO! YOU WON…. T…WIN! ~

~ I HAVE ALREADY FOUND IT, MY CHILD…. LORD TRIGON IS ALL KNOWING…THE BOY YOU CARE FOR WILL BECOME AN IMMORTAL TO ANOTHER – YOU WILL ONLY SUFFER IF YOUR VISION BECOMES FALSE…YOU MUST DRIVE HIS MASTER TO PERISH! DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM YOUR DESTINY!! ~

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Dick had returned to receive a pat on the back, his stomach dropping when the man told him to rest and not come out until he was called. The idea of returning to his cell of a room made Dick break out in a sweat, yet he didn't retaliate.

Alone again, Slade knew this might be a risk. He had gotten very wealthy very quickly by all of the blood spilt. However? Thunder and Lightning…

A boom of thunder clouded his sight as Slade shut his one eye, a faint dark whisper seeping through the veil he'd created, only to open his steel eye to see…

Shadows, and a demon not of his reality.

"You should be in confinement." Slade narrowed his eye slowly at the empath, possessed by her darkest side and ready to fight.

Not using her magic, yet the one who had given Slade everything he'd wanted.

The church of Blood had made it vaguely clear – Trigon was coming, and the way he'd break the walls of time and space was through a small enough portal as Slade's eye widened to view it.

The walls clung together and the floor was a puddle of tar that sucked in his throne.

"An illusion, demon child? I know your history; I know why you've finally awoken –

Raven pushed him back by what was not her magic, yet something meant to bend realities. She had to fix what had already started, for him.

~No Slade, you don't! ~ She struck him and dragged Slade into her cloak, the horrible monsters and claws made the man scowl and scream out with the bellow of a beast, her intention not to kill.

No, that would be what they both wanted to see.

"Robin is going home."

She removed his body to fall back onto the cold floor, armor scorched by a demon's rage and a daughter's scorn.

"So…. cough…. you say, witch…" Slade rasped and pressed the probes' activation button, her world turning all at once to dusk and ash… before long.

Then. She saw only the light as it took her home.

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She was home, it took too long as she waited for a sound from the alarm, just one as that light had been a vortex to where she needed to be.

"Time." Raven gasped as she jumped out of bed in a hurry, rushing for her cloak and turning it white as snow by the trick Slade had used to change her.

"Go back……back…. AZARATH……AZARATH…… AZARATH!!"

/

"Slade lost, let it go dude!"

"He never left." Robin gripped the stupid uniform, the one that had him branded for a crime he'd still be explaining to his mentor.

"Robin…. you were not yourself, and Raven also said –

"But I could feel that something was wrong, Star…" Dick held his head in his hand and bit his lip hard. "Raven…. where is she?"

"She is…going home." Was all that Starfire replied as Robin ran to find his savior.

/

"You stopped him, I don't know how…." Dick called out to Raven as she stayed locked inside her room, summoning a way to another dimension. It was left in transit, there being no way to go back to earth once she'd dipped her toe into the multiverse.

"I don't belong here…go away –

~ No! ~

Dick put his fists into balls at his sides, body quaking as he held onto the uniform that he was about to put in the evidence room for life. "You saw it, didn't you…when I first lost my head. When Slade –

The door slid back as she looked at him with sad eyes, her body stilled of the avarice she'd had for the crime lord she and her friends had beaten. "You saw a reality YOU didn't need to see. It's over…" She looked to the swirling vortex. "I, have to go."

"You don't Raven." Dick's eyes fell onto hers as she felt his stare stun her into place. With his hands up, his mask came down, blue orbs crying on and out as tears were there.

Finally…. finally…

"There's more, isn't there." He spoke in a soft whispered sound. "You're not just running away from what happened, but what's going to happen. I want you to…. Create, a bond. Between your leader…" He rubbed his neck nervously, the suit in his other hand with his mask. "Just….so I can help you, and when that day comes. When we can fight back and win, together..." He held out a hand with a small smile that she had ultimately missed in too long. "Can we try to see each other as a team, please Raven."

With the words revealed, she spilled the times that had passed on, that she had rewritten their time to a few days, that she had never stayed as Slade's soldier of devastating consequences.

"I changed it, Slade lost because…. I reversed my decision… I didn't go with you in that time I'd recreated another outcome…." She gasped, her head hurting as Dick stood there and worried. It…. hurt…

~ He never left…~

She felt her eyes open as if a spectre had come from the beyond, her arm turned to close the vortex out of fear of something getting into their world.

"Robin…I…. I need you to tell me; what you said to the team…. about Slade?"

/

He returned to his destroyed outpost, his lair that was totaled and hidden among the rubble. Kicking a brick, Slade breathed, the imprint of a red set of markings on his broken screens showed the face of the one that had granted him another trial.

~ THE WAY TO GREATNESS WAS DENIED TO YOU, MORTAL. ~ Trigon chuckled beyond his domain. ~ YOU'LL HAVE MY WORD, IF EVER YOUR UNTIMELY DEATH SHOULD COME BY THAT HERO'S HAND, I WILL RAISE YOU TO YOUR FORMER GLORY…. IF ONLY JUST –

"And WHEN that day comes…. I will annihilate what remains of my faithful protégé…. However." Slade rubbed his chin to ponder. "He was perfect, for a while, might not be so easy to have another trial."

~ WHO CAN SAY, MY DEVOTED SUBJECT? HE MAY JUST RETURN TO YOUR SIDE ONCE OUR BARGAIN IS THROUGH. TO HAVE WHAT YOU HAVE LOST…~

"Unless it is my flesh and blood, Lord Trigon." Scoffed the mercenary. "I can't imagine falling into a pit of boiling magma to meet my benefactor, face to face."

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Anyone see what I see? Maybe it was Trigon as the kanji at the tip of that staff in Forces of Nature Tt03 ep 4 (I think?) I recall Brother Blood's history with the demon overlord… Aha! So, fun stuff. ALSO, THE NEVER DIE THING? Slade was going to use the serum on Dick to make them even more alike but Raven caught him in the act – from one bad dream to another. Raven used her power to go back, not forwards in time to undo her mistake of giving up her freedom and powers to Slade to protect her friends, and Trigon never hinted in the end to Slade about Raven, so he WILL fall into a pit of lava. He WILL get a new apprentice. And HE WILL BE RETURNED HIS FLESH AND BLOOD IF HE DELIVERS RAVEN TO HER FATHER TO OPEN THE GATE BETWEEN WORLDS. So, it works, right? Similar to other fics I've done but dedicated to user; checycherrylily on FF who wanted a Raven (or Renegade) apprentice piece, but we all know it's not as dramatic if Raven isn't the one who laughs last. She is the void of all things, and Slade has to give in whether he wants to or not. Trigon may back her power, but she has her own light to shine on the Titans' one true tomorrow.