Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: the Begining

Raven had woken upseveral times along the course of the night, finally at about three thirty shegave up and roamed about the tower. Sleep had refused to come to her for morethan a few minutes at a time. There was a faint whisper in the back of her mindthat would not let her concentrate, no matter how hard she tried. At some pointshe tried to meditate, but to no avail. She could not scare away the thoughtthat something was going to happen today. Eventually she returned to her roomand started to read a book she had picked out at random. A few hours later she still had no idea whatthe book was about…“Well, aren’t you an early riser.Last time you woke up this early it was the end of the world,” said Robinwalking up behind her. At the sound of his voice Raven looked up from herreading.“I don’t know, I feel likesomething important is going to happen. But it’s not the end of the world, atleast no end that I know of.” She said, hoping to reassure him.“BB asked me to go get you, apparently he hasprepared some sort of show for the rest of the team. Star is jumping up anddown in excitement. I just hope it’s not the same sort of thing as thatsnorkel-tuba thingy,” said Robin.“This early? Normally Beastboy wakes up at aroundnoon.” Raven stated, clearly not interested in seeing this ‘show.’“That got me too, apparently he’sbeen planning this all night. Andyou’re the guest star. We don’t want to ruin his fun,” said Robin with a smileon his face. “Fine, we’re going to have to goto the main room eventually...” Raven said before leaving the room with aspacey look on her face. Raven cautiously entered the room,trying to figure out what Beast boy could possibly have in store for her. “Wow, you actually got her tocome… miracles do happen!” shouted the green man at first sight of Raven. “Okay let’s get this thingstarted.” said Cyborg as he motioned the chair set in the middle of the‘stage.’ Raven didn’t even have time to move before the alarm system started tomake it’s loud, and rather irritating, wail. “Aw come on! That was going to bethe best show ever!” Beasboy wailed in protest. “What is it?” asked Robin asCyborg checked the computers. “Just a simple robbery byGlow-Worm,” said Cyborg, using the nickname he and Bestboy had adopted for Dr.Light. By the time the team arrived at the recently robbedbank, Raven could not think straight. The buzzing in the back of her mind hadgrown louder, and significantly more painful. All she wanted to do was wrenchthat terrible metallic screeching from her mind. As soon as she got out of the T-car, a wave of painwashed over her and her sense of balance was thrown out the window. She triedto hold herself up by pressing her hands against the car, but she slipped andsoon found herself crumpled on the ground. She faintly heard the sound of worried voices aroundher, but was not sure if they were real or not. Suddenly she saw flashes of aburning landscape. Then a boy, well into his teens with golden eyes, andmatted, bloody obsidian hair appeared in her mind. The pain stopped. She opened her eyes and saw therest of the team starring worriedly at her. She realized that she was leaningagainst the T-car, pressing her temples rather painfully. Slowly, she removedher fingers from the sides of her head and got up.“Raven… are you un-well?” asked aworried Starfire.“I’m fine,” said Raven as sheturned into a shadow of a black bird and flew back in the direction of thetower. . “What happ-” asked Robin, butRaven did not hear the rest. She was rushing back to the tower as fast as shecould. Once she got in her room four candles flew from a cupboard and placedthemselves around a circle of white powder. Hurriedly she sat in the middle ofthe circle and muttered few words. Soon she was absorbed in the power that wastaking her to Azarath.… When Raven arrived in Azarath, shedid not look at the carnage around her. She knew that he was alive and she hadto find him. Nothing could stop her from that task. She scanned Azarath for anyliving being; she found a lot of remains from what she guessed had been aliveat some point, but not much else. Then suddenly a faint aura came from somewhere near the far western edge of Azarath. She hurried there and landed near a pile of rubble.As she was scanning the surrounding are she heard a faint moan behind her. “Tokala!” she whispered to no onein particular. The rocks flew off the ground as power rushed over just aboutanything it could grab. Raven walked cautiously across the ground, hoping shewasn’t stepping on anything alive. Suddenly a teen’s broken form appeared amidthe rocks and she rushed to his side. “I knew you would come… I’m sorryit had to… hurt so much,” he said, visibly having trouble breathing. “Shh, don’t talk it will drainyour energy,” said Raven, as she transmitted her power into his body, hoping toheal some of his injuries and relive the pain.“Rae, I’m too weak to do anythingbut die,” said Tokala.“You were never too weak… and Iwill help, so will my friends… I’m going to have to pick you up, it might hurtbut you are going to have to bear it.” Raven said slipping her hands under hisform. A small moan escaped his lips as she shot into the air and entered theportal back to Earth. When she got back to her room, sheimmediately headed towards the infirmary. She would have just turned into her‘shadow form’ but Tokala might not survive it, so she levitated down thecorridors nearly colliding with Robin and Cyborg.“Rae, where were you… Oh my god!We have to get this guy to the infirmary, pronto!” said Cyborg when he realizedwhat Raven was holding. Then they all headed towards the same area, Robinrunning ahead so he could ready a bed. When they arrived in the roomRobin had turned on all the systems and a bed was sitting in the middle of theroom. Carefully, Raven placed Tokala on the bed and sent a little more powerinto him, hoping to make him last a little longer. Robin and Cyborg, theresident doctors, soon took over. “Robin, what can I do?” askedRaven anxious to do anything that might help her long-time friend. “You could take a shower, you’recovered in blood and some other stuff I can’t, and probably don’t want toname.” Said Robin while bending over Tokala. Only then did Raven realize thatshe was covered in grime, there was dirt, dust and a whole lot of blood on herchest, legs, and arms. With a reluctant sigh she walked off to the showers. In the hallways she met withStarfire, who, due to her nature, thought that Raven had tried to massacreherself. “Raven, what happened??? We needto get you to the infirmary!!!” shrieked Starfire.“It’s nothing Star,” respondedRaven in a dull voice.“What do you mean, you are coveredin blood!!!” said Starfire.“It’s not my blood, I’m going togo wash it off now anyways,” said Raven as she walked past Starfire. Her mindwas in turmoil and she thought that a shower might just be the best thing forher right now.…“He has five fractures and a lotof cut all over him, he also seems to have bled a lot. I don’t know if we couldsave this guy,” said Cyborg looking at a sheet that had recently come out ofthe infirmary printer.“Rae really wants him to live, I don’t think weshould give up. It would tear her apart, and you know what that would mean,”said Robin, attempting to clean out the boy's wounds.“She could blow up the world, I know… so what do youthink we should start with?” he said, turning to look at Robin.“We don’t know anything about this guy, I think weshould talk to Raven about him, see if there’s anything we should or shouldn’tdo.” Robin said to Cyborg, “I’ll go talk to her and you watch over him, don’tgive him anything, he might have a negative reaction. Raven’s power surgeshould keep him calm for a little while.” Robin said as he walked out the door.He walked town the hallway, towards Raven’s room,when he saw her moping near the infirmary door, cleaner than before. When she saw him, she ran up and asked, “Is hestill…?” “Yeah, he’s still hanging on. But we can’t doanything until we know more about him. Is he allergic to anything?” askedRobin.“He’s a Hanyou like me, so think anything you woulduse on me would work… as far as allergies I don’t really think he has any.”Raven said, biting her lower lip.“Thanks… you don’t need to stay out here, you cancome in there if you stay out of our way.” Said Robin, hoping to be helpful.Raven’s only answer was a nod. Together they walked into the room.“Rae says that anything that goes for her goes forhim,” Robin announced as he walked up to Cyborg. Out of the corner of his eyehe saw Raven sit on a stool in the far corner. Her head tilted instinctively asshe tried to analyze how bad off the boy was. Slowly, her eyes lit up and shestarted floating a few inches above the seat of the stool. When Robin turnedback to the patient on the bed he noticed with amazement that his fractureswere healing themselves and that most of his cut were already gone. “Whoa, Rae has some pretty good healing skills,”murmured Cyborg next to him.“Come on, we have to work now. He might not last ifwe wait,” said Robin as he hooked up a bag of blood to transfuse into the boy.Robin knew that Raven would not let the boy go, she seemed very attached tohim, but fate was one twisted dog. Luckily the boy was unconscious so hewould most likely not feel the full force of the pain. After hours of grueling work on the patient andRaven already past the point of exhaustion, Robin declared that the boy wasgoing to survive. Raven let go of her power, which had kept his pain andconsciousness at bay, and walked over to the bed. Halfway there she passed outand sank to the ground. Cyborg carefully picked her up and placed her on theend of the bed. “It’s just exhaustion, she should never have beenable to keep her powers on for that long.” Assured Cyborg.“We’re all tired, and I don’t think there’s anythingwe can rally do for him any longer. Whydon’t we go to bed?” said Robin stifling a yawn.“What about Rae?” asked Cyborg.“Leave her here, she’s asleep and this is probablythe guy’s last night, let her be near him.” Robin said as he started walkingtowards his bedroom. Cyborg simply shrugged and turned on the security systemfor the tower. He needed re-charging anyways. … “Rae this guy’s dead, there’s noheart beat, no breathing, nothing at all.” Cyborg said as he looked over theseemingly sleeping boy on the infirmary bed. The pour soul hadn’t survived thenight and Raven was having a hard time with accepting that.“He’s not dead, I can feel him...his aura isn’t gone, and he’s still warm!” said Raven in an extremely defensivetone of voice.“Rae… we don’t know how demonsdie, maybe they stay warm longer than humans.” Robin said as he tried to calmdown the purple haired girl in front of him.“they don’t.. they freeze…” shewhispered silently, “Give me three days, I’ll heal him by then.” Raven said abit louder, begging the others to accept her deal. For a response Robin nodded andsaid, “Three days, after that we all agree that he’s dead. “How, this is some messed up kindof Heaven, I never imagined it as a sterile room with a whole bunch ofcomputers.” said the boy on the bed.“Tokala, who ever said that youwould go to Heaven?” asked a figure walking into the room.“This can’t be heaven, Rae would never be able togain access there,” he moped to himself, making sure Raven could hear him. Heattempted to sit up. A low moan escaped his lips and he sank back down on thebed. “Very funny, but I think that defeating Trigon doesdeserve some reward.” Raven said digging in a cabinet, looking for something.She fished out a cup and poured in a mixture that looked a lot like greenvegetables gone through the blender. “So you avoided the prophecy, I’m impressed. If youtell me how you did it I might avoid my terrible fate.” The boy said with apracticed dramatic voice.“I didn’t avoid it, I let it happen then I banish myfather back to his little curse… It was actually pretty hard, so I don’trecommend it,” said Raven, walking towards the professional drama queen withsomething in her hands. “Drink up, it will help with the pain.” She saidhanding over a paper cup. He looked at its contents and sighed, “Do I have to?Your cooking was always the essence of disgusting” he asked. The slushygreenish liquid was no different.“Unless you want to lay on your back like a littleold man, for the rest of eternity, you will drink it.” said Raven, crossing herarms on her chest. When she wanted to, she knew how to be persuasive. “Fine,” He muttered as he downed the entire cup,imagining what it would be like if he was paralyzed. He shivered violentlyseveral times, and then relaxed. “Wowthat feels way better!” he said blinking in amazement as he sat up without anyproblems.“You didn’t think I sat on the universe’s secondgreatest spells and potions archive twiddling my thumbs, did you? Now go take ashower, you looked like some thing coughed you up,” she said pointing towards adoor on the wall behind her. Once he got into the bathroom he realized that Ravenwas right. His black hair was matted with blood and he was covered in blood,dust, and dirt. A shower had never been this good of an idea before. He was clean now. It had taken him a while to washoff all the dirt, grime and blood from the last month, but it was worth it. Hisnormally black hair had kept a reddish tint and his tan was covered in whitespots, where scars had previously been, but other than that he was just likebefore the burning of his home. He hadeven found a pile of freshly laundered clothing on a stool. He was now wearinga spare outfit from some sort of Christmas themed superhero. Green and redreally weren’t his colors, but it was probably the only thing that would fithim. She had even given him the old medical jacket he had forced Raven to takewhen she had left. He smiled at that simple touch of elegance; only she wouldknow that he hated new clothing… and now tights, they were very itchy and theymade him very much naked. He was relatively happy here, with the exception ofthe tights, and for the first time in months he did not feel pain. He walkeddown the hall, following Raven’s familiar aura.Suddenly he felt like his energy was being drainedfrom him. He moaned as he sank to the ground. His head accidentally swung backand hit the wall, and then everything blanked out. His last thought was; Ispoke too soon. “Raven, your guest decided to take a nap in thehallway,” said Cyborg as he walked in the living room, carrying the unconsciousboy. “I don’t know how he got that far though. And he washed too!”“I gave him a revitalizing potion, he should haveknown that it wouldn’t last forever.” Raven said as she made room on the couchto lay him down on. Once Cyborg gently placed him on the couch. It was thenthat Starfire and Beastboy decided to walk into the room.“So then I said…Who is that?” said Beast boy,switching topic mid-sentence. Starfire laughed anyways, not noticing thatBeastboy had not finished the joke, and that it, obviously, was not funny.“Apparently he is one of Raven’s old buddies,” saidCyborg once Starfire had calmed down. “He looks like another Robin clone to me,” saidBeast boy. Raven then realized why she had come to accept Robin so quickly; hewas a lot like him. They could even be twins, except for one thing; Robinprobably would never have helped Raven cause chaos in Azarath on a regularbasis. Suddenly an eye shot open, quickly followed by theother. A loud rumbling echoed aroundthe room, and both eyes closed as their owner flinched. “Here, you sound hungry,” said Raven, referring tothe grumble the boy’s stomach had made earlier. At first nothing came, but thena perfect, juicy, shinny, red apple landed on the young boy’s chest. He ran upto Raven and hugged her so tight that it was humanly impossible to breathe. Thefour remaining Titans clearly thought that this guy was crazy, and expected himto fall down unconscious at any time. They were especially surprised when Ravendidn’t do anything after he hugged her, if it had been anyone else, they wouldhave been kicked to the other side of the world by now. Instead she simply said“Just eat it, everyone knows you have it.”“Oh…. Okay!” said the boy as he sat on the couch andstarted eating the fruit. “Nice freak show you have here, is this themysterious unconscious one I’ve heard of?” said a girl with neon pink hair anda black, knee-length dress as she walked in the room. “Who are you? And I’m not a freak, I just haven’tseen any solid food for about three weeks.”“Really, how did you do that?” said a redhead boydressed in yellow and red spandex. “I don’t know, not being able find any, I guess. Andlot of feeding on my power... not exactly the most fun option.” The boy said,shrugging. “What’s his name?” asked the pink haired girl toRaven, as he and the redhead kept an animated conversation about not being ableto find food for long periods of time. “His name is Tokala…” answered Raven.“It means enemy in Algonquin!” said Tokala,enlarging everyone’s brain with that little fun fact. A little green man stood up and proclaimed, in abusiness-like manner, “Welcome to our humble abode, Tokala. We are the TeenTitans, I am Beastboy, a shape shifter whose’s abilities are beyond compare.There is also Robin, a simple human trained in the way of …umm… some sort ofmartial art, and who possesses great skill when it come to fighting. He is theone that is currently lending you those, O so stylish, clothes. The girl in thepurple is Starfire, and she is an alien princess with amazing powers, and theobject of Robin’s not so secret crush…Ow! That hurt Robin! …The metal man isCyborg, he’s … well, a cyborg. The girl with the freaky colored hair that isglaring viciously at me is Jinx. I don’t quite know how her powers work, butthey do stuff. She used to be on the villains’ side but for some reason sheswitched, and now she’s Raven’s best friend. The guy you were talking to is KidFlash, Flash for short. He just goes really fast, and stalks Jinx for aliving.”“Interesting, I always thought Raven would end up onthe villans’ side.” said Tokala as if all his hopes had been crushed. Ravenlooked momentarily scared, but the emotion was wiped off her face in an instant. “Oh well, got any more apples?!?!”“They are in the fridge… take as many as you like.”said Raven impassively as she pointed to the mini-fridge that held thecollection of the team’s random favorite foods. Tokala ran to the fridge andgrabbed the bag of apples, and swung it over his shoulder after taking one out. While chewing on a piece of the apple, hemumbled out, “Carrot-Top, Green-Boy, come with me. You guys are going to helpme get real clothes.”“He’s kinda creepy,” said Jinx to Raven as theywatched everyone leave. “You get used to it, you’re tolerating Flash aren’tyou?” said Raven as she walked to the now apple free fridge. “We seem to attract weirdoes,” said Jinx as shepicked up the book raven had left on the coffee table. “You can’t say we’re exactly normal, plus it wouldbe boring if everyone was sane.” Raven said closing the door to themini-fridge. … Raven woke up drenched in coldsweat and panting. She couldn’t remember what her dream was about but itcouldn’t have been good. Shaking bad thoughts from her head she walked off totake a shower, grabbing a new outfit on the way. Once refreshed, she walked outinto the common room of the tower. Her senses swept the area to check were allthe people were. Cyborg was still recharging, Starfire and Robin were sleepingin their respective rooms. Beast boy was down by Terra’s statue, probablyasleep.“You couldn’t sleep either?” askedan all to familiar voice.“What are you doing out here?”asked Raven when she saw Tokala laying on the floor near the window, sketch padand pencil in hand. “According to rumors I was asleepfor 4 days, it’s hard to sleep again after that. You?” he said as he wasputting the final touches in one of the skyscrapers you could see in thedistance.“Nightmare, nothing much… what areyou drawing?” She asked as she lay onthe floor next to him. It was a wellrenowned fact that she needed contact with people when she woke up unwillingly.“Boring scenery, you don’t have tolook at it like it’s a puzzle. Its justscenery.” Tokala said as Raven cocked her head to get a better look of thesketch.“Phew, no trick in this one!”exclaimed Raven as she rolled onto her back. When Tokala looked down she smiledfaintly before closing her eyes and falling asleep. “Aw, come on. Now I have to carry you to the couch.”Muttered Tokala as he gently picked up Raven and placed on the couch as if shewas made of glass. He had always loved to look at Raven while she slept. Herimpassable façade of neutrality disappeared and a scared and fragile childappeared before his eyes. She instinctively raised her knuckle to face, furtheramplifying her child-like appearance. Tokala discarded the previous sketch ashe started another drawing. A while later people across thetower started to wake up. As usual thefirst to come in the common room was Robin. He walked in the room like everyday, when he saw Tokala he waved over.“Hey, what are you doing up thisearly?” Robin asked as he walked over to the central computer and released thenighttime security system. When he turned around he saw Raven sleeping on thecouch, and a flashback of when she had returned to child form came to his mind.“How long has she been here?” Asked Robin still shocked that Raven couldlook so frail. “Since About eleven yesterday, shewas up long enough to tell me that she had a nightmare.” Tokala said finallylooking up from his drawing.“That makes sense, she practicallydidn’t sleep while she was treating you. I was actually scared that she wouldhurt herself.” Robin said, worry resounding in his voice. “When she does something, shedoesn’t care if she gets hurt as long as it’s done.” Tokala said rememberingthe time when she had gone grocery shopping for her mother. People had thrownthings at her the entire time, but she came back with everything on the list, plusa couple good-sized bruises. “How are you two related?” askedRobin, wanting to know more about this intruder. “We were neighbors back onAzarath, we’ve been friends since I was born.” Tokala said casually as hereturned to drawing.“How old are you?” asked Robin,turning this chat into an interrogation.“Four hours younger than her,”said Tokala knowing that Robin needed to know more about him to accept him. Totell the truth he would do the exact same thing if Raven didn’t trust thesepeople so much, over-protective nature and all.“Who were your parents, Raven saidyou were a hanyou too.” Robin asked, hoping that Tokala’s father was not benton taking over the world as well. “My mother was a Native Americandescendent, my father the demon turned god of death. And don’t worry, my fatheris nowhere near as powerful as hers.” Tokala said without raising his head fromhis sketchpad.“How did you come to know Raven?”asked Robin, running out of questions that he thought he could pull off. Tokala momentarily hesitated; looking like he really didn’t wantto answer and making Robin regret asking the question. After a few secondsTokala said, “After my mother killed herself screaming that I was a monster, Iwas momentarily adopted by Raven’s mother. Then the deaf old lady next doorvolunteered to take care of me part of the time. She became my officialadoptive mother.” Beast boy and Cyborg then waltzedin, arguing over the origin of waffles, and making the most possible noise.“They do not come from Asia!” shouted Cyborg, “but the waffle irons are allmade in China, why not the waffles?” said Beastboy. “They come from Belgium, idiots,”said Raven as she sat up on the couch, the fleece quilt tumbling off of her. “Ha I told you that they didn’tcome from the South!!! I was so right!” shouted Beastboy to Cyborg, obliviousto the fact that he was wrong as well.“What exactly are waffles?” askedTokala, unsure of what they were talking about. “They are dough fried in a mold,people on this planet seem to be unable to stop eating them.” Said Ravengetting up and turning on the teapot. “Oh, you people eat fried foods inthe morning?” asked Tokala looking slightly shocked. Suddenly Raven appeared next tohim, placing a cup of tea in his hands. She bent down and whispered softly inhis ear, “No lectures this early, and I’m sure they do enough exercise to workoff the fat.” Tokala smiled into his cup and drank a bit of it. It tasteddisgusting but it was probably some sort of restoration potion. Raven took acup as well and walked out of the room, probably to collapse in her room. “What did she say?” askedBeastboy, very intrigued by the sudden exchange. “Nothing, just about not lecturingthe public about the dangers of fried foods.” Tokala said shrugging and takinganother gulp of the foul liquid. “Where’s Rae?” asked Jinx as shewalked into the common room. Robin and Cyborg were playing videogames andStarfire was cheering them on blindly. Beastboy was having an animatedconversation about the newest models of mopeds with Flash. “I’ll check,” said Tokala as he looked up from hissketchpad, which was now full of random drawings that he had doodled as thewhim came over him. He seemed to space out for a couple seconds but he cameback quickly. “She’s in her room. I think she passed out again.

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