Authors Notes: Keep in mind my intention is not to make any kind of political statement with this chapter. The Mask is just feeding into Garret's philosophy so he'll accept the entity inside the Mask pulling on his strings. So, like with Stanley Ipkiss it was his drive for revenge, and it ended up with him killing innocent people. With Kellaway, it was his drive for justice and it lead him to attacking his own fellow police officers. With Garret it is his want for a better world, but the Mask is taking him down the contradictory thinking of Pol Pot and Stalin where stuff starts to descend into black and white thinking where if you're not with him, then you're less than human or a morally inferior insect.

Forgot to mention in an earlier chapter that the Mask also makes the wearer have an unearthly tone to their voice. I think it's similar the tones of Bill Cypher from Gravity Falls. I'm going to go back and edit that back in. I mention, because it comes into play here.

Chapter 5

Somebody Stop Me!

Garret was having the time of his life. He felt detached from everything he did. Like he wasn't responsible. It was like a mixture of playing a video game and the sense of the detachment you get being drunk, but the benefit of having the level head of someone sober. Everything he did wasn't as a result of 'him,' but this new him. It's the new him that will suffer the consequences. Proper Garret will get off scott-free.

After he was a sufficient distance from the Teen Tyrants he kicked out of the go-kart thing he was sitting in and landed back on his feet. He opened the rucksack and sped-counted the money. There were still millions in here. His soul went green. Surely the poor had enough money now, right! The rest of this was his bonus for being a modern day Robin Hood. It was his reward for breaking capitalism and bringing about the revolution. All shall be equal, but those who fought for the revolution will be rewarded by power, status and position. But apart from that, everyone shall be equal. Just that some were more equal than others for they did the work to bring about the new Utopia.

Who was laughing at him? It sounded like it was inside his head.

He shut his bag and turned to head back to the van.

Several tiny dots surrounded his body and rubber head. THE FUZZ!

"Freeze!" In a panic Garret held up his hands and froze. Literally froze as a solid block of ice. Icicles descended from his chin and nose. "Down on the ground!" Someone with an oppressively bright light barked. The police were all dressed in their SWAT gear. "Down on the ground, now!"

"But..." Garret tried to say through his frozen lips. "...you told me to free..."

"Down on the ground!"

"...eeze."

"Down on the ground!" He barked. "Get on the ground, now!" Garret broke free of his iced body, got on the ground and slammed his head into the road. The rubber thing vanished into a crack in the road that spread out like a spiders web. It broke the ground under the police and they fell between the cracks. Followed by their patrol cars.

Satisfied, Garret got back up again and the whole SWAT team was gone, vanished. Swallowed by the breaks in the road. Rolled over by the revolution.

"Hello?!" He called out, no one answered. "Oh well, must be on a doughnut break." He said this despite knowing where the police had vanished to.

"Agh!" Someone screamed. "My legs! I can't feel my legs!" Garret waited for someone to say. "That's because those are my legs." But the gag didn't finish.

"My arms crushed!"

"I think Mark's dead! Oh God, he is dead!" The manic grin faded. That wasn't funny. That...

"You're feeling bad for the police?!" Said a voice in his head. He was sure it wasn't his. "The police are all fascists, you said so yourself. You're not a fascist are you?!"

"Well... no. But..."

"Then shut up and get with the program!"

"I didn't want to kill anyone."

"Do you want people to think you're a traitor to the revolution? You know what they'll do too you if they smell a mere hint of descent in the ranks."

A dose of fear shot through his mind.

"I knew you'd see things my way. Just enjoy yourself."

The grin came back to his rubbery face.

A beam of light from the sky picked Garret out. A police helicopter whirled around overhead.

"Halt!" The man at the controls shouted. "Surrender."

With one giant leap and with the aid of giant springs in his shoes Garret flew through the air and landed on the cockpit glass of the helicopter frightening the pilot. "I'm sorry, were you trying to attract my attention?" The pilot weaved the copter left and right trying to shake him off.

In the next instant Garret had somehow slipped into the cockpit and knocked the pilot out of the pilot seat. Garret was now dressed like he was ten, with a red and black striped shirt and a little cap with a small, plastic propeller on it.

"Give me a go. I want to drive."

The helicopter swerved this way and that. Up into the air doing barrel rolls and dangerous manoeuvres even trained, daredevil pilots would ever dare try. The pilot tried to fight him for the controls, but a good swerve sent him to the back of the helicopter. Garret flew between tall buildings with barely inches to spare. Garret didn't care if someone died, or if he brought down a building. All he cared about was his own amusement. He found he didn't feel bad at all just as long as he told himself it's all for the good of the revolution.

These people weren't people. They were clutter in an over populated world. What he was about to do was a good thing.

"This is the life. Hahahahahahaha!" He wondered what would happen to him if he rammed the tallest building in the city at full speed. Now that would be really cool.

He raced at the tallest building. Bulls horns had grown out of his skull, like he was charging a matador with a red cape. There was someone in the building on the floor he was about to ram into. She looked out in dazzled horror. There was no one else in the building. Just her.

It was a cleaning lady.

Garret suddenly thought of his mother.

The helicopter came to a sudden halt. The pilot in the back was thrown forwards.

Garret pushed the engines full throttle, but the blades had stopped inches from the building and were cutting around the level of cleaning lady's throat. She screamed and ran away.

His grin faded again watching her run. But it came right back.

"What the heck happened?" He looked back and saw the two Teen Tyrant women. The Fake-tan had one had grabbed the helicopters tail and was holding it in place. Resting-bitch-face raised her hands and muttered those nonsense words of hers.

Before that boot-licking mystic could do anything Garret leapt out of the window and fell straight down towards the ground. He wasn't concerned about hitting the ground at terminal velocity. He knew he'd survive.

He stopped just short of landing on a parked cars roof. He was held upside down by a swirl of black energy.

The boys descended from the sky and surrounded him. The green boy was rubbing his burnt backside.

Robin looked intensely at him. "Did you really think we were that easy to defeat?"

The two girls joined them.

The green man squirmed in Raven's power. "Why don't you boot-licking brats go back to school before somebody gives you detention!"

"Been there, done that." Cyborg said. "I think Raven's still got the T-shirt."

"It makes a good rag." Raven commented.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" The green man barked. "This is persecution. What have I done to you?"

"You tried to drown me." Cyborg said.

"You tried to cook me." Beast Boy said while rubbing his backside.

"You tried to vivisect me." Starfire said.

"You tried to break my skull." Raven said.

"And you're really starting to annoy me." Robin said.

"Yeah, but..." Garret shrugged, "...apart from all that." He grinned. The teens leaned away and even Raven herself was spooked when the green man seemed to... the best way to describe it was to unzip Raven's powers and fall right out of them. The black shroud that held him now had an open, metal zip in it. It vanished along with Raven's dissipating power.

"This is turning into one of 'those' days." Raven said flatly, but irritably.

Robin whirled his staff in an aggressive stance. "Surrender, because we'll just keep coming."

"Bring it boy." the masked man said, doing an impression of an action star.

"Titans, Go!" Robin leapt into action trying to strike at the masked man, but his rubbery body warped and slid out of the way.

Beast Boy came at him next as a bear. But the green man threw him to the ground. Beast Boy morphed back into his human shape. The masked man stood over him and took out a base ball bat and was trying to hit him. Beast Boy shuffled to the side to narrowly avoid the strike. He shuffled to the other side to avoid the next.

"Hold still while I hit you!" The man shouted. "Hearing your skull crunch will make me feel better. Stop oppressing me with your resistance!"

Beast Boy, though design or accident, raised his foot up into the man's groin. A loud crunching noise sounded along with a loud ring of a bell.

"Now that was unnecessary!" The masked man said in a horse whisper. Beast Boy quickly pulled himself away. "K. Getting really bored of these games, kids. Keep at it and I'll send you all to bed without supper."

Now Cyborg was throwing down with the man. Trying to overwhelm him with his superior muscles. The masked man turned into a bulked up wrestler. He put on the voice of a sports commentator. "And in this corner we have the champion of the working-class, Mischief-man. He's green, but not with dollars. Facing him is his opponent, Robocop rip..." Cyborgs fist just bulldozed through the man's head.

"Booyah! Champion of the working-class my ass."

Beast Boy had composed himself. "Dude, this guy's totally nuts."

"Do not make assumptions Friend Beast Boy." Said Starfire. Raven and Beast Boy looked at her like she was nuts too. "A shloplglop is then enemy of a shrovender, but that doesn't make a shlopglop bad. Nor does it make the shrovender good."

Raven shrugged at this nonsense. "Couldn't have put it better myself."

"Just because he has good intentions Star, it doesn't mean he's not a bad guy!" Since when did Beast Boy grow a brain?

"Friend Raven, you can see his aura. What is your assessment?"

Indeed Raven could read the Masked man's aura. "Do you want the long version or the short version?"

"Best let it be short." Starfire nodded.

"He's nuts."

"Oh..." Beast Boy scratched his head "What's the long version?"

"He's totally nuts. He..." Raven stopped speaking. There was something odd about the man's aura. The main aura, the man's was being suppressed and smothered by a separate energy. Raven had sensed something like this before in people possessed by spirits, but this wasn't a whole entity, just part of one. The mask he wore reeked of it.

There was a split in the psyche. Perhaps that was his weakness. She just needed to get close to it.

"Okay, Tin Man. You wanna play rough." The masked man produced from his pocket a large, sparking mass of metal. Cyborg froze.

"What's up Cy?" Beast Boy asked stepping around Cyborg. "You're not frightened by a glowing, metal ball are you?"

"That's an E.M.P.!" He said as the others joined him. "Electro-magnetic pulse weapon."

Raven was at their side. "It'll short out all the machines in a large area. Including those inside Cyborgs body keeping him alive."

"I get it." Beast Boy said, "Why is everyone explaining stuff to me? Do I look like an idiot?!"

"I'm taking the fifth on that one." Said Cyborg.

"No comment." Said Raven.

Beast Boy snorted in a huff. Then his eyes lit up in alarm. "Dude! You're right by the children's hospital. There are kids in there on ventilators. If you set that thing off you won't just kill Cyborg, but everyone hooked up to a machine to keep them alive!"

The masked man looked back and up. Children were at the windows watching the exchange despite the doctors and nurses trying to pull them away. The man's face faltered again. The cartoon-y features deflated to a face expressing horror. His hands went over his face, feeling it's freakishly large proportions.

"Good God... What am I doing?" His voice had lost the unearthliness it had. He shook his head and the manic grin came back as did the unearthly tone. "You can't cause a revolution without killing some fascist kids!" He shook his head again. "But they are children." Unearthliness gone. It came back. "They are the children of the enemy, so must die so the ideology of capitalism shall die with them!"

"Dude, why is he talking like he's two people?" Beast Boy scratched his head.

"Keep him talking." Raven stepped back and vanished into a black portal.

"Hey, you can't just run!" Beast Boy called after her. But the portal closed up after her.

"Sir," Robin said, talking to him like he was talking to a member of the public. "All you've done is rob a bank and toss the money out to the poor. A judge will be lenient for that. But if you set off that device and people die then you will be charged with child murder."

"Ch... child murder?" The normal voice asked. His hands trembled. The eyes became cartoony again. "What do I care for children? Scum. Their only use is as tools of the revolution. To burn down the old world and forge a new one! A better world!"

A portal was forming behind the man.

"A world better for who, may I ask?" Said Starfire.

"Why, the children of course." Said the rubbery lips. Raven reached out for the man.

"Dude!" Beast Boy looked like his tiny brain was crashing. "Do you not see a problem with that?"

The man's eyes softened. "I... I just... All I want is for life to be a little bit easier. Hey'ffff!"

Claws of black energy grabbed his face and stomach. Raven pulled herself backwards and the green man fell back with her.

The portal sealed after them.

Raven and the big headed man fought in the blackness. He twisted and squirmed in the grip of her power. Raven wrapped her legs around his diaphragm to stop him throwing her off. She reached for his head to bridge a connection between his mind and hers.

"Hey, get off me. Call me back when you're eighteen!" Raven ignored the jibe and clamped her hands over the rubbery head. She flooded his brain with calming, good vibes.

"Calm." Raven sent into his brain. "Be calm. You are at peace. No one is going to hurt you. You're safer now than you've ever been." Raven lied. Her crown still hurt.

His struggles lessoned and his eyes drooped. When he was sufficiently calm she placed her fingers on the sides of his rubbery head and dived into his mind.

The dream world at this level was basic and monochrome. The man floated in the blackness like he was suspended in a tank. Raven's mental avatar approached him and turned him over.

"Who are you?" He asked. He lacked the large, rubbery head.

"I'm here to help." Raven's avatar said without moving its lips. She couldn't see it, but she could feel a smothering influence around the mind.

"I... I didn't want to hurt people."

"Yeah... well you did. Nothing you can say can change that." Raven was not one to sugar coat shit.

"I just want the world to be better. To smash the system of oppression. Don't you think the system we're under is massively unfair?"

"Please shut up." Raven said. She can be very sympathetic to people when she was in the mood. But right now this political preaching was just more draining noise to her.

"But the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer!"

"You're worrying is pointless. The world will end in a mere few years, and there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing even I can do about it." She didn't mean to let that slip. She refocused.

"Don't listen to her. She's a fascist!" This new voice came from everywhere at once.

"Yeah, thanks for telling me what you need me to be." Raven said coolly. Frankly, she'd been called worse. Being the daughter of a demon will get you accused of harboring similar, immoral philosophies.

"Stop her! Stop her!" Garret reached for her, but she held him in place. Typical of an untrained, undisciplined mind to let a simple voice manipulate them. Melchior suddenly floated into her mind. She buried that memory deeper than that manipulative book.

"Am... am I in trouble?" The man asked.

"My job is to stop you. Not punish you." It wasn't a reassuring thing to say, she knew. But it was the truth. The man would likely go to prison.

Raven could sense a divide where his consciousness ended and this controlling influence started. She mentally rammed a wedge between these two minds.

Something in his psyche screamed.

"What are you doing?! No STOP!" It said. "I won't go back! I don't want to be trapped in the cold dark again!"

She pulled herself back to reality. The man's green head glowed due to the wedge she'd put in it. The rubber mask was wriggling like it was trying to get away.

"Get off me!" The green man barked trying to throw Raven off. "Leave me alone!" With her hands still clamped over his head Raven pushed the wedge even harder. He tried to pull her hands away from his head, but she clamped her left hand directly to his face and dug her nails into the rubbery texture. "OW, OW! Not the face-not the face-not the face!"

She hit the mental wedge again. The rubbery face was melting away. The texture was altering, it felt like rapidly setting clay. Electrical sparks went over the face and up her arm. There was a release of energy and a loud bang of thunder. The two entities separated and something came away in her left hand. Her fore and mid fingers clamped through two open holes. The man fell onto her right arm unconscious, the large rubber head was gone. She hoped he hadn't caused him any damage. The bag of money fell through the void, but she called it back to her and slid the strap over her left arm. There was something vaguely boat shaped in her left hand.

Curious, Raven brought the thing closer and spun it around. It was a wooden mask with a metal bar running down half its face. It had a subtly amused look to it and it made funny vibrations in the aether. It was like it was annoyed with her.

A loud jingle sounded. With her hands full her communicator flew up in front of her covered in black energy. She was surprised a signal could reach her here. The thing popped open.

"Raven!" It was Robin. "Are you okay? What happened?!"

"I've got it in hand, don't worry. Coming back now." Raven said and closed the call. She waved her mask-full hand and a new portal opened up. Yes, she had it in hand...

She looked at the mask.

But what did she have in her hand?

Through a black portal Raven floated back through and gently dropped the older man to the floor. He slept as soundly as a baby.

"Booyah!" Cyborg celebrated while standing over the man. "Not so tough now, are you?"

"Hey cool, you caught him." Beast Boy's smile dropped, "what happened to his rubbery head?" She held up the mask. Beast Boy gave an amused look. "Raven, his head was rubber, that is made of wood. There is a difference you know." Raven rolled her eyes at his attempts at being clever. They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Only Beast Boy could go lower.

Robin reached into the man's dirty jacket and checked the guys wallet. "Garret Blowinski. From Edge City." He took out a business card. "Gardening and landscaping on a budget."

"I knew he didn't fit the bill of a bank robber." Cyborg said.

"They never do." Robin commented. "But why is he here?" He turned to Raven and held a hand out to see the mask. Raven handed it over. He gazed into its empty eyes.

"Raven, do you think this was controlling him?" Raven leaned away and mentally filtered her own opinion. In her opinion the animosity and hostility were all there in the guys head, but that mask had let it out.

"A little." She shrugged. Was that the correct response?

Sirens were sounding. The police were on their way.

An ambulance had arrived to take the man away. Robin had told the officers that Garret was another victim of the green man's rampage. Garret had woken up in the mean time, but he seemed a little out of it. Raven stared, but couldn't express her sorrow for causing that.

A ringtone sounded from the ground. There was a cellphone on the floor. Raven picked it up and looked left and right for someone to answer this. No one was coming. She looked for Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, someone else to answer it. She didn't like talking on the phone.

She answered it and slowly put the thing up to her ear.

"Hel... hello?" She croaked.

"Hello. Is this Garret Blowinski." It was a female voice.

"This is his phone. Umm... can... can I take a message?" Raven asked. "Please make it quick. I really don't like this."

"Oh..." The woman sounded unsure. "This is the Jump City Hospital down main-street, I'm afraid there has been a terrible accident involving Garry's uncle, Harry. He is alive but stable."

"Okay, I'll tell him." She quickly hung up the call, thankful for it to be over. She looked over to Robin and the others, but they were all busy and Raven felt stupid calling them over to do this simple task. She approached the ambulance before it set off. The paramedics were busy in the back with garret and Raven waited for the opportune moment to speak. But it felt like it was never going to come.

"Garret." Raven stepped into the ambulance and handed him his cell phone back. She wanted out of this awkward situation right now. "Umm... you got a call from the hospital. Your uncle Harry has had an accident."

Garrets face lit up in alarm. "Wh... which ward?" Garret fought to ask in a horse whisper.

"I... don't know."

"Didn't they tell you?" Where they going to tell her, but she'd hung up the phone. Oh God, had she socially messed up?

"I'm sorry."

Why were Garret and the paramedics looking at her like that? Oh right. She needed to put on a concerned face. She tried, but that only seemed to make things worse.

Raven stepped from the ambulance before they thought any less of her. She watched the ambulance speed off.

"I'm sorry I caused you discomfort." Raven said.

"Huh?" Beast Boy was at her side again. "What did you say?"

Raven rolled her eyes and sighed. "Nothing. Just nothing."

The Titans returned to the tower. Cyborg had carried the T-Car's shell on his back and gently put it down in the garage. The inside was full of all the stuff the masked man had stripped from it.

"He's lucky there were people around to stop me." He hissed under his breath. "It's gonna take me all day to put her back together."

Raven watched him as he sorted all the pieces out into piles. The car was his baby. He put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into its construction. "Cyborg, do... do you need a hand fixing it?"

"Not tonight, Rae." He patted the cars dented hood. "I'll start on it in the morning." He left the garage, emotionally torn up. Raven only wished she knew some magic that could fix the car in two seconds flat. Unfortunately, such a spell was likely beyond her, and beyond the realms of reality.

She turned the light off before she left.

The mask was placed on a pedestal and Robin gently placed a glass case over it. It didn't have a plaque yet to identify what it was. He produced a pen and a writing pad and wrote down some notes about the mask. It's shape, it's effects. Every little thing was useful. He'd even asked Raven to look into her literature on cursed objects to find any reference of this mask.

There must be some information about this thing somewhere in the database. Perhaps the Justice League central computer had some info, or maybe the Bat-computer. He just hoped the back door to it still worked.

He turned and left the mask sitting among the other trophies of the Titan's other victories. Mumbo-jumbo's hat. Control Freaks remote control. Slade's face plate, and many more.

Oh great, it was back behind a glass display case. A mere trophy. Fan-frickin'-tastic! Oh well. It was a trade up from a grave or a sack. At least people could see it, and it was in close proximity with five, hormone driven teens. If it was anything like the last time he was shared among teenagers this should be really good fun.

It sat and glowed ominously. There was one in particular that would make an ideal host. It just had to wait for them to get close.

To Be Continued...

Authors notes: Hope everyone enjoyed the new chapter. I might take a break from writing for a bit, just to let my creative juices recharge. But I will come back to this. We haven't even come to the main event.

Raven's indifference to Garrets preaching places this before the start of season 04 for the Teen Titans.

I do think Raven would have that nihilistic indifferent attitude towards building a better world, especially before they defeated Trigon. You build a better world with the intention that it'll last. But Raven knows it'll burn down anyway when Trigon arrives, so what's the point? But she doesn't want the world to fall into anarchy. Yes, she works hard to make the world slightly more comfortable for people in ways she understands. But in her mind it's more like sitting with a dying man in his final days. You make them comfortable before they fade away.