Chapter 6 - Confrontations

Chapter 6: Confrontations

The three had been observing the activities just outside the city, with Starfire doing most of the visual observations from above. As she did the observations, she reported what she saw and heard back to them, in hopes that they could decode the oddities of what she was seeing and hearing.

“What do you see now Star?” Cyborg asked the alien girl through his built in communication feed.

”There is a congregation of very bizarre beings that Slade has brought together,” Starfire reported back. “There appears to be some signs of these being containing strange abilities. Several trees have fallen to destruction from an array of blue electric energy balls that they appear to have produced at will.”

“Anything else?” Cyborg asked her.

“Hey, you guys, I’ve got some news to report to you,” Beast Boy cut the feed of the alien girl’s short before she could reply to Cyborg’s question.

“What’s up, BB?” Cyborg asked him.

“Got some new info on our old friend Slade,” Beast Boy replied. “Rae’s strange visitor filled us in on a bit of it.”

“What did you learn, and who’s the strange visitor?” Robin asked him.

“Some dude claiming to be her guardian angel,” Beast Boy said, shrugging. “I didn’t get what he was talking about exactly, but I did get the info he and his friend did provide.” He hesitated before continuing, using that time to take a deep breath. “We knew Slade was one evil dude, but the guy—Kane said that our nastiest foe is claiming to be the Source of all Evil.”

“WHAT??!!!”

“He’s supposedly teamed up with demons, and is acting as their leader—at least that’s what Kane said anyways,” Beast Boy said, continuing. “There’s some prophecy he’s come across that states that Slade has another chance at world domination, and his method this time is much darker then any time before. He said something about witches being involved in taking him out.”

“Witches?” Cyborg exclaimed. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“I wish I were,” Beast Boy replied, totally lacking any of his usual humor in his reply. “Anyways, the angel dude took Rae with him to research it further.”

“What exactly did the Kane mean by demons?” Starfire asked him. Obviously she had overheard all of the conversation.

“He didn’t really say, why?” Beast Boy asked her.

“I am not completely familiar with the Earth terminology of demons, but what I see below fits well with the description I have come to know,” Starfire replied.

“Have you seen Slade in that crowd yet?” Cyborg asked her.

“Not yet,” Starfire replied. “All that I’ve perceived below me are the horrendous actions of those being referred to as demons. There appears to be no organization to the grouping below. It is as if they are not yet aware of what is going on just of yet.” She observed the surroundings below her before continuing. Her eyes widened. “He is here!” she cried. ”He has seen me, I must—“ the visual connection was cut, and after they heard a scream, the audible connection was cut as well.

“Star!!” came the cry of the boy wonder; the same form of distress evident on his face though the visual connection.

“What happened?” Beast Boy exclaimed.

“I’m not quite sure,” Cyborg said. “I just know the connection’s been cut. Something apparently happened to Star—something bad.”

“I’m going to go investigate, see if Star’s okay,” Robin said.

“Go look for her Rob. And BB?” Cyborg said.

“Yeah?”

“Try to contact Raven, tell her about what happened with Star,” Cyborg told him. “Who knows—she could be next.”

“I’ll do that—and Rob? Good luck finding Star.”

“Thanks,” Robin said before cutting his connection.

“I’ve got my own investigating to do, so I’m gonna cut this short,” Cyborg said. “”Go get in contact with Rae and fill her in.”

“Will do, Cy,” Beast Boy replied before the connection was severed.

“Sure hope she brought that thing with her to the mondo-bizarro library so I can get through to her,” he said aloud, mostly to himself. “What weirdness will be next? There’s already been the strange guardian angel dudes, and then there was there was the whole thing about the baddest archenemy wanting to be the evilest as well.” He sighed deeply. “What has this world come to??”

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She had been in darkness for quite some time. She had been completely disconnected from all her senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell—separated from her conscious mind after she’d slipped into darkness. The last thing she remembered before the darkness had consumed her completely was extreme pain as she had made contact with the Earth after falling from above.

The first thing she was able to sense was the loose-packed dirt underneath her. What followed was a sharp pain that ran throughout her body. After she managed to open her eyes, she winced a few time in reaction to the pain itself.

“I don’t think I have ever seen a flying girl before,” a voice remarked, a voice she didn’t recognize. “Do you think she might be one of the rare instances of a witch that’s capable of flying?”

“The only witch I’ve known of able to fly was Phoebe, and that was a temporary thing,” another voice said. “Plus, this one’s dressed a bit odd, not like any witch I’ve ever known of.”

“Was there a reason why she was to be shot down?” the first asked the other.

“He said she was spying, and therefore needed to be taken out.”

“Who is it that you speak of?” the wounded alien girl demanded, her voice a bit raspy. She managed to get full focus on her surroundings, taking notice of the two conversing about her.

“I see our flying girl has awoken,” the first remarked. He was a rugged fellow, hair in disarray and his garments speaking that he wasn’t of any high status or class in society.

“Do you mean girl—or witch?” the other remarked with a wicked grin. The second was more muscularly built and clean-shaven.

“Witch!” Starfire exclaimed, wincing in pain as a result. “I am no such thing!! I am of Tamaran, known as Starfire.”

”Tamaran?” the first looked to his fellow in confusion. “Do you know what in hell that is?”

“I have no clue,” the other replied, shrugging.

“I happen to know,” a third voice, not of the other two, spoke. She looked up to see who it was that was that had spoke, gasping in surprise and horror at the recognition.

“I see the titans have found interest in my little gathering,” the same one spoke. “I will take any measures possible to prevent it from going further.”

“Slade,” Starfire hissed, voice filled with loathing and her eyes glowing neon green as a result. “What are you up to now?? Why could you not just remain disconnected from us, without another concoction of a scheme to take on world domination?? Why—after what you did to Raven, Robin, and the rest of the city—did you even decide to come back??”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Slade replied. “I’ve learned from the past that revealing my plots only leads to them being foiled, and I am putting every effort into preventing that this time.”

“We will stop you,” Starfire’s voice was filled with more rage then she’d ever used before. It was reaching the point where she was about to loose some starbolts on him.

“You won’t be able to. You’ll be too full of fear to even think up the concept.”

“You do not scare me!!” Starfire shouted back to him. “None of the antics of the past of yours has scared me in the least. Nothing you could do could make me most fearful.” Another wave of intense pain made her wince yet again.

“Not of me, maybe, but I am sure you wouldn’t want to encounter your deepest, darkest fear.” Another stood next to the vile one she’d come to know well as Slade, a figure resembling that of a man garbed all in black. Silver hair shafts came from his scalp with a few inches of length, and a face that spoke of years to it, but she could determine no actual age.

The one beside Slade held up his hand, palm up to his view. He looked into it, appearing to see some form of vision contained in it. Starfire all the while looked to him in confusion.

“Ah,” the man spoke. “You’re afraid to lose one, a particular one you love—get hurt, even—die.” Although his grin was mysterious, it was evidently vicious. ”See him die—right in front of you.” Dead silence followed for a moment. “I have come upon fears more satisfying to watch, but this one shall be satisfying at least.”

“What—“ she stopped when she noticed something in the distance. “Robin?” she squinted to get a better vision of what she was seeing. “Robin!!” she cried out in relief. She made an effort to get up, to go to him, but she found the pain was too intense to get up. She watched where the boy wonder stood, pretty much in dismay, hoping he’d take notice of where she was. Instead, she was taking in a vision she’d hoped she’d never see.

He was being attacked, killed even, and she couldn’t do a thing to save him. All she could do was scream.

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The house was very ordinary, in a very ordinary neighborhood on a very ordinary street. The house had charm, Three generations to be exact. Windows framed in white, stained glass panels just above an ivory white door.

The house was known well as the Halliwell Manor, the home of three sisters—the Charmed Ones.

Piper was the only of the three to still reside there, making it to be her own family’s home. The other two had moved out to live separate destinies.

The house might have appeared very ordinary from the exterior, but the interior was anything but.

While Kane gave his charge a tour of the outer grounds of the manor, Billie waited on the porch for when they would be done. She knew Piper was home, since her car was in the driveway.

“It appears so ordinary from the outside, but the more of it I see—“ Raven spoke. “The more I get the sense that it’s not all that ordinary.”

“Three generations grew up here. Three generations of good magic,” Kane told her. “”Plus, there have been many demons—powerful and otherwise—vanquished on these very grounds. A lot of evil has died here.”

“Are you two ready—or what??” Billie called impatiently from the porch.

“Are you?” Kane asked his charge quietly. She complied with a simple “yes.” In response to Billie, “Yeah, we’re ready!”

Billie knocked while the other two made it to where she was on the porch landing. After several long moments someone finally answered.

“Oh—hey Billie, what brings you around?” the greeter at the opening of the door said.

“Leo told me to stop by and tell you he’d be around sometime later, Piper.” Billie replied.

“Is that all?” Piper asked.

“Uh—no, there’s actually something else,” Billie said. “Actually, introducing somebody else.”

“Who?” Piper asked curiously.

“Once you let me in, I’ll introduce them,” Billie said.

“Come in. Just be quiet, I just put Chris down for his nap,” Piper said, opening the door and showing Billie—and her visitors—in.

Billie entered, heading the same way Piper was. Kane followed, with Raven trailing behind him. Raven was in partial awe as she took in the surroundings.

The furniture looked like relics of the past—very antiqued. A faint stench of singed fabric hung slightly in the air, just able to be sensed slightly. The origins of that singed scent was unknown—but apparently was rather ancient.

Scorch marks made it evident of where the origins were.

“So—who are your friends?” Piper asked Billie after making herself comfortable on a couch in a well-lit room that appeared to be the Manor’s living room.

“Uh—Kane, a whitelighter I met at magic school,” Billie replied.

“As a—date?” Piper asked. “If that’s it, whose she?” She pointed out the girl trailing behind.

“No, no—not a date,” Billie replied. She laughed a bit nervously. “I met him at magic school under different circumstances. I brought him here because he says he needs to speak with you. The girl is his charge. Said her name’s Raven.”


“Raven—like, the bird?” Piper inquired.

“Yeah,” Raven replied, an awkward silence following. “So—you’re a Charmed One? Are you really able to “blow things up”?”

“Yeah, you might say that,” Piper replied. “Although the days of it’s being useful have come to a close. I can blow up things—as you put it, and I also freeze things—temporal stasis. Like this,” Finding a piece of glassware nearby she found no more use for, she tossed it into the air, made a motion with her hands, catching the glassware, suspended in midair. With another motion of her hands the glassware shattered, pieces flying every which way. The shards froze as well. “See what I mean?” She pointed out after the demonstration.

“Does it stay like that permanently, the frozen state of that—I mean?” Raven asked her.

“The effect wears off eventually, or I can make it do so on my own,” Piper replied. “So—what can you…do? Are you a witch, a future whitelighter—what I’m getting at is, what makes you his charge?”

“To tell you the truth, I really don’t know,” Raven admitted. “Kane never really got around to telling me that. I just know he was in several of my dreams lately, and then he shows up, telling me he’s been having dreams of me as well, and then mentioned a prophecy he’s been working on. He explained what he’d found out to me, and I helped with filling in some of the vital pieces. We were actually surprised by the pieces we managed to put together. Well—mostly he was surprised.” She put her full attention to Piper. “The prophecy mentions a triad of good magic beings that will have to face against a force of pure darkness that could become eternal if not stopped. We came to the conclusion that the triad would be—“ she hesitated to finish, but did. “The Charmed Ones, meaning you—and your sisters.”

“What???” Piper exclaimed. “That can’t be?! That can’t be?? We were told that the days of fighting were done—finished!! How can that be??”

“I guess nobody’s chanced upon this particular prophecy in centuries,” Kane said. “I actually came upon it by accident. The Elders didn’t even know about it, and all they know is what I’ve told them of it.”

“Good comes, only to have the bad come in and ruin it,” Piper remarked. “It appears to be just the story of my life.”

”Any way to get in touch with your sisters on this?” Billie asked her.

“What exactly is this darkness the prophecy states we’ll have to deal with anyways?” Piper asked Kane.

“A reincarnate of the Source,” Kane replied.

“With an old enemy of mine playing the role of this incarnate of Evil,” Raven added. “One known as Slade.”

“Who exactly is Sla—“ Piper was interrupted mid sentence. “What was that?”

What Piper was questioning was a peculiar ringing. Raven took notice of it too, and knew immediately what it was.

She took out the culprit—her communicator, and opened it after a moment’s hesitation.

“What?” her tone was a bit irritable when she opened the device.

“Hey Rae.” Beast Boy was on the other end, his voice sounding rather grim. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. Something’s up.”

”What?” Raven wasn’t irritable with her reply, but instead concerned.

“Something happened to Star. We lost contact halfway through a conversation. There was a scream from her end before we lost total contact,” Beast Boy informed her. She took note of the near panic in his voice. “We think something’s happened, something bad.”

“Where was she before the connection was lost?” Raven asked him. “Any way to tell who it was that took her down?”

”She was just above the woods outside the city, not far from where Slade was reported to have been seen,” Beast Boy replied.

“How are the other two taking it, and have they found any trace of her?” Raven asked him.

“Rob’s out searching right now,” Beast Boy replied. “The way she screamed, she sounded so frightened—and in so much pain—“

“Keep me updated. I’ve got a few things of my own to deal with,” Raven replied.

“Sure will, Rae,” Beast Boy said. The connection feed ended and she closed the device. After the fact, she took notice of three others listening in on the conversation as well.

“What was that about?” Piper asked.

“A friend just contacted me to fill me in on some things,” Raven replied.

“Was that the green one? Is something wrong?” Kane asked her.

“One of my friends disappeared while they were investigating Slade’s movement,” Raven replied. “While she was doing that, they just lost—contact. They heard a scream, and then—nothing.”

“Slade’s the one you said is claiming to be the next Source—right?” Piper asked.

“”Yeah,” Raven replied. “What exactly can the Source do? Is he—it—able to make nightmares and realistic visions recreations of one’s deepest fears?”

“That can’t be, that can’t be—“ Piper muttered mostly to herself.

“It can’t be—what?” Billie asked.

“Are those things possibilities of what the Source is capable of?” Raven asked curiously.

“Not the Source, exactly,” Piper replied. “He could do it, but it’s not exactly his style. It sounds more like the workings of another demon—“

“Demons that bring to life nightmares??” Billie exclaimed incredulously.

“Not nightmares exactly,” Piper said. “More like your deepest, darkest fears.” She showed disgust on her face as she continued. “Like Barbas—the demon of fear.”

KKKKKKKKKKK

Kane had rushed her off to another room without any warning, making her exasperated by that very fact. She was so startled by his move she was speechless for several long moments.

“What did you do that for???” Raven said in a rather startled tone when Kane was done leading her out of the room they’d previously been in with Piper and Billie.

“It’s what Piper was saying—about Barbas,” Kane replied.

“What about him?” Raven asked.

“What do you know of true fears—real fears?” Kane asked her.

“I know it well, I’ve dealt with it, and I’ve even conquered it,” Raven told him. “My father was one of my biggest fears, and I managed to conquer and destroy him—and that fear. Why?”

“Well…my father was also my biggest fear,” Kane said. “Was—and still is. What makes up half of who I am—he fully was—and it’s a battle to keep my self from ending up going down the wrong path.”

“What do you have to battle with? You are a guardian angel after all,” Raven said. “Right?”

“I’m only partially a guardian angel—a whitelighter,” Kane told her. His voice was low, his expression grim. “When it comes to my true origins, nobody really knows about them. Nobody would ever accept the truth, or me if they knew. I don’t tend to tell people because of that.”

“Okay,” Raven said simply. “Okay.”

“Maybe I could tell you about it since both you and I are on the same field when it concerns pasts in that respect,” Kane said. “Like you, my father was also demonic—a demon, so to say. For me to encounter the demon of fear…it might bring out that dark side of mine, and it might be good for you to know in advance just incase.” His smile that followed was ironic, matched up with the shocked expression spreading across her face. “I just need to know if you’ll keep it between us. Is that something I can ask you to promise me you’ll do?”

He had taken her hands in his just before he’d spoken the words, and he took note that hers were trembling. She remained silent for several long moments.

“I-I promise,” Raven murmured. ”I promise. I know how it is to have to keep secrets on that level.” Her gaze went upwards towards his. “So—was Artie referring to that when he as referring to you having a dark side? That no others knew about?”

“Yeah.”

“He knows then?” Raven asked.


“Yeah. Just him and my mother—the whitelighter,” Kane replied

“Is your mother…still alive?” Raven asked.

“Yeah, she is still very much alive.” Still holding her hands in his, he made an unconscious gesture and squeezed them lightly. She obviously took notice of it.

“Why did you just do that?” Raven asked him, wide eyed and in a bit of shock. He was taken by surprise a bit with her reaction.

“What?”

“You—just squeezed my hand, and I was wondering…why?” Raven said.

“I’m not sure actually,” Kane admitted. “I guess—in a way, it was kind of—reassuring.” He looked at her, a bit abashed. “It felt comforting somehow, almost—right. If I offended you in some way, or it was unacceptable—“

“It’s not that—unacceptable, I mean. It just—took me off guard, that’s all,” Raven replied.

“Okay, that’s good—I guess,” Kane said, with an awkward silence following. “So…this secret of mine—it doesn’t frighten you…does it?”

“It takes a lot just to frighten me,” Raven gave him a half smile. “What exactly about this demon of fear that Piper mentioned worries you the most?”

“I’m afraid that if I have to come face to face with him, the fears about my past will come back to haunt me in the worst way, and all I’ve tried to keep secret will be revealed to everyone,” Kane said. “And I couldn’t take having to deal with that. When you deal with Barbas, you also deal with those fears buried deep beneath, in the worst possible way. They almost seem real—too real.”

“I guess that would be a good reason to be afraid of dealing with him,” Raven said. “I know what it’s like to have others see a side of you they never expected, I had to deal with that myself—on a level I wish I’d never had to.”

“How’d they take to coming to that realization?” Kane asked her. “It doesn’t sound like it’d be pretty.”

“Surprisingly—even to me—my friends stood by me, never faltering in trying to aid—save—me.” Raven told him. “Even with my destiny unfolding before their eyes—they were still there, supporting me—even through the worst.”

“You’re lucky your friends were so accepting—and supportive,” Kane said. “Where I’m from—it’s not only intolerable, it’s pretty much breaking the rules. If they knew—I’d never really be accepted. “ He smiled faintly. “I’m glad though that you can tolerate it, accept it—and even know what it’s like. It’ll make working with you all that more easy.”

“Yeah,” Raven replied simply.

“What are your friends like anyways?” Kane asked. “I only chanced on meeting one of them—the guy with the pointy ears and green skin.”

“Well, in total, there are five in the group—me included,” Raven said. “The other four—Robin, the group leader, Starfire—the resident alien girl with some very odd tastes in food, Cyborg—half man, half robot, thus why he’s called Cyborg, and Beast Boy—he’s that one you just mentioned with the green skin. He was the one who informed me that Starfire has gone missing. He also said Slade might be the cause of her disappearance. From what Piper was saying about Barbas, and if there’s a possibility that he’s working with Slade—” She trailed momentarily, caught in a string of thought she’d rather not be in. “”If that true, and Star’s out there, with this demon of fear playing upon her fears...she might be brave, but I don’t think even she could stand against fighting her deepest fear, especially if I am right about what it might be.”

“Um…what’s her deepest fear?” Kane asked her.

“To see Robin die right before her,” Raven replied. “And she couldn’t do anything to prevent it.”

CCCCCCCCCCCCC

“Where have you two been?” Piper asked as Kane and his charge reentered the room.

”I just needed a moment to speak to her alone,” Kane said, indicating that he meant Raven. “That’s all.”

“Well, while you two were gone, we got to doing some talking of our own,” Piper said. “I phoned Phoebe and filled her in on the details.”

“What did she say?” Raven asked.

”She said she’d be right over,” Piper replied. “Now if I could only find that other sister of mine—find out where she disappeared off to. If I manage that, I’ll fill Paige in too.”

“Hopefully that’s possible,” Billie said. “Getting in touch with Paige, I mean. I haven’t heard from her in a while, and I’m starting to wonder why that is.”

“She’ll show up—eventually. She usually does when we least expect her to,” Piper said.

“So…what are your friends like, and what is it all that you do?” Billie asked Raven.

“We save people, keep threats we encounter at bay and then rid of them when we can,” Raven replied. “To accomplish this, we have abilities to aid us, each with several unique to that particular team member. In short, we fight evil in order to protect the innocent people from falling victim to their evil plots.”

“Sounds similar to our old job description,” Piper said. “So—what is your unique ability? It’s only fair to know—since I already showed you mine.”

“Well…mainly telekinesis, levitation, teleportation, the ability to form dark energy to use to my disposal,” Raven replied. “Among other things.”

“Sounds interesting,” Piper said.

The sound of the front door opening and slamming shut suddenly echoed through the interior of the manor, followed by footsteps.

“Piper!” a voice that apparently announced the identity of the one who’d just entered called out from the doorway entry. “I came to hear more about what you called about earlier, and I brought Coop with—uh, hi?”

“Hey Phoebe,” Billie greeted.

“These two are the ones I told you about on the phone,” Piper said to her sister. ”The whitelighter, Kane, and his charge, Raven.”

“Is that your natural hair color, or did you dye it?” Phoebe asked curiously of Kane’s charge.

“Natural. I don’t do dye jobs, and I don’t muss with it much either,” Raven replied.

“I didn’t think that was a color that could be natural,” Phoebe said. “So—can you fill me in?””

BBBBBBBBBBB

“Just one more page to figure out the HTML tags to and then upload to the server…” Beast Boy was muttering to himself.

Even though there were many tasks he had to do at that time, using it to spice up and create his online empire was not among them.

His attention was absorbed in that online empire, and not of investigating Starfire’s whereabouts, or even what the hell the Source really was. Instead, he was updating his website. A segment about one of his favorite pastimes, a particular video game, was being added at that time.

A small portion of his screen display had data devoted to the research he was supposed to be doing, although it was almost neglected at that time. From time to time, during breaks he took from his website, he checked out further info on that almost neglected data.

Somehow—by some miracle—he managed to stumble upon a page full of encryption, and—by an even bigger miracle—he managed to get through to view what lay beneath it. Maybe it wasn’t that big of a miracle—after all, he was the one to uncover a certain team mate’s birthday in the files when it was obvious she didn’t want that info found.

The page he’d uncovered validated what the two whitelighters had been talking about earlier.

The content on the site Beast Boy himself found peculiar: topics on witches, whitelighters, demons, warlocks, darklighters, and a various array of other magical oddities. It was sort of fascinating; evil beings capable of throwing fire balls, mortal enemies of the guardian angels that wielded bows and arrows as their weapon of choice, and beings that could create one’s worst nightmares.

“And I thought Trigon’s utopia was bad,” he muttered to himself. His mutterings had been a result of reading a passage on purgatory and hell. He went back to the main menu and scrolled downward.

“What did they say that evil dude’s name was—that’s it,” He stopped scrolling, running the cursor over the link he wanted, and then clicked it. “History of the Source of all Evil,” he read aloud. Most of the screen was filled with a dark background with ivory text contrasting against it. Much of the page was made up of one image—beside the text, that is. He waited while the image took its time to fully load.

The image was a bit blurry, but contained enough detail to make him cringe at the sight of it.

“And I thought Raven could get rather creepy,” he shuddered. “That’s too frightening to even be her at her worst.” He averted his eyes from it, instead looking at other parts of the page instead.

The text description didn’t fare any better on his opinion of the Source of all Evil. It definitely didn’t bring his hopes up any.

“Slade’s sure up to some serious evil—“ his train of thought was cut abruptly. “What the—“ It was a scream—Starfire’s scream.

“Star, Star!!” he tried to make a connection with her, to no avail, just more screaming. “Star? What’s gong on?? Star!!”

“No!! No, NO!!!” she screamed.

Suddenly—silence. The connection had once again gone dead.

“Hey Rob, Cy!!” he tried desperately to make contact with his two friends.

“What’s up, BB?” Cyborg was the first to make a reply, sounding rather irritable.

“I just had a connection with Star.”

“You managed to get in contact with her?? Is she okay?? Where is she??” Robin added himself to the connection just then.

“Not anymore,” Beast Boy replied grimly. “I just lost it. All I got was her screaming “no!” over and over, and I never got a real reply. Believe me, I tried.”

“Did ya manage to pick up her location before the connection went dead?” Cyborg asked him.

“No, the connection was too short,” Beast Boy replied.

“I’m going to keep searching, she’s got to be out there somewhere,” Robin said.

“I was doing some research on those guys and stuff that Rae’s guest—guardian angel dude was talking about. I think I hit the mother lode,” Beast Boy said. “This Source dude makes Raven in a bad mood look like cuddly puppies. He’s one scary dude.”

“You might wanna tell Rae about that, and the brief connection with Star as well,” Cyborg said.

“Yeah, I’m going to do that,” Beast Boy replied. “Besides, there’s nothing else for me to do anyways.”

“Oh?” Cyborg said. “Why’s that?”

Beast Boy grinned sheepishly.

“The server that hosts my website just crashed.”

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“A—cupid?” Raven purely was confused at the fact of what Coop had turned out to be.

“Yeah, I’m a cupid—one of those beings that’s known for bringing two people together down the right path towards true love,” Coop replied. “My last pairing was rather unusual to say the least. They were definitely quite a challenge. Some harsh realities would finally come to them while they were in the land of the Rising Sun—Japan—and they finally found out how they truly felt for one another. Their feelings for each other had been there for quite some time, and they finally allowed it to be brought to light. In all my time of being a cupid, they would have to be my most peculiar case to date. The girl of the two was bizarre—even by magical standards.”

“Japan—bizarre girl??” “Raven exclaimed, giving it a moment to sink in. “Who exactly was this couple you guided down the right path anyways?”

“I can’t remember what his name was, but I think the girl’s name was Star something,” Coop replied.

“Star—as in—Starfire?” Raven exclaimed.

“Yeah, how did you—“ Coop said.

“Starfire is one of my friends,” Raven replied. “So, if Starfire was the girl, the guy must’ve been Robin. You—set them up?” She looked at Coop oddly.

“I said I was a cupid. That’s part of the job description,” Coop replied, shrugging.

“Have either of you heard from Paige lately?” Piper asked her sister and Coop.

“She said something about checking in with a charge outside the city—Some last minute thing the Elders told her to check in with I guess,” Phoebe replied.

“I wonder why she forgot to mention that to me,” Piper muttered to herself. “We can probably make due without her for now. She’s bound to show up when she is needed.”

“So—where do we begin?” Phoebe asked.

No chance was given to answer Phoebe’s question, as another sound alerted their attention instead.

“What the—“ Phoebe blurted.

“It’s her walkie-talkie thing,” Piper told her sister, indicating that she meant Raven.

“It’s called a communicator,” Raven informed her. She irritably took out the device and opened it. “What is it now?”

“I wanted to fill you in on something,” Beast Boy replied.

“Like—“

“I had a brief connection with Star. She was screaming “no!” repeatedly before it went silent from her end again. From the tone she used—it sounded like she was terrified,“ Beast Boy replied.

“Did you manage to find out where she is?” Raven asked him.

“Nah, the connection was cut too soon,” Beast Boy replied. “I did manage to come upon some info on that Source dude the angel dude mentioned. The dude is really creepy. Actually, Slade fits the role fairly well.”

“Is there anything I’m supposed to do?” Raven asked him.

“If you get the chance, look for Star. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything,” Beast Boy said.

“Any chance you know why Star was screaming?” Raven asked.

“Nope, not a clue,” Beast Boy said. “All I know was she kept screaming “no!” over and over in pure terror.”

“Did it sound like it her screams were done in fear?” Piper spoke up.

“Yeah,” Beast Boy replied. “Who are—is—she?”

“I could say the same for you,” Piper said.

“I’ll tell you later, there are more pressing issues at hand right now,” Raven told him.

“Screaming in fear—“ Phoebe said thoughtfully. “Sounds like Barbas at work to me. It looks like your friend got her first encounter with the demon of fear. I thought we got rid of him—“

“Demon of what??” Beast Boy exclaimed.

“Fear,” Kane said. “He brings your worst fears to reality, and uses them against you.”

“Rae would have fun with that dude,” Beast Boy muttered to himself. “Anything I should inform Rob or Cy on this dude?”

“Make sure they’re ready to face their worst fears,” Phoebe noted helpfully. “Barbas feeds off of others fears if they let them get to them.”

“Will do,” Beast Boy said. To Raven, before he cut the connection, “Take care of yourself Rae. Don’t get yourself hurt—or killed.”

“I won’t,” Raven replied, after which she put away the device.

“Rob, Star—Cy?” Phoebe said.

“The names of my friends—Star, Starfire—Rob, Robin—Cy, Cyborg,” Raven told her.

“The two I matched—are in trouble?” Coop said.

“Starfire is at least,” Raven replied. “I’m not sure if Robin is just yet.”

“Besides this whole prophetic thing we’ve got to deal with, it looks like innocents are needing to be saved,” Phoebe said. She looked to Kane. “Hey—you’re a whitelighter. Is there any chance you could track down Paige for us so we can talk to her?”

“I’m not so sure I could do it, I’m not that great at tracking other whitelighters,” Kane admitted. “But a friend of mine might be able to.”

“Who would that be?” Piper asked him.

“Another whitelighter,” Kane replied. “A friend of mine—Artie.”

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