Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Final Dance of the Fallen Dove ❯ Hell Song ( Chapter 5 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Everybody's got their problems
Everybody says the same things to you
It's just a matter how you solve them
And knowing how to change the things you've been through

I feel I've come to realize
How fast life can be compromised
Step back to see what's going on
I can't believe this happened to you
This happened to you

It's just a problem that I'm faced with am I
Not the only one who hates to stand by
Complications that are first in this line
With all these pictures running through my mind

Knowing endless consequences
I feel so useless in this
Get back, step back, and as for me,
I can't believe.

Part of me, won't agree
Cause I don't know if it's for sure
Suddenly, suddenly
I don't feel so insecure

Part of me, won't agree
Cause I don't know if it's for sure
Suddenly, suddenly
I don't feel so insecure
Anymore

Everybody's got their problems
Everybody says the same things to you
It's just a matter how you solve them
But what else are we supposed to do

Part of me, won't agree
Cause I don't know if it's for sure
Suddenly, suddenly
I don't feel so insecure

Part of me, won't agree
Cause I don't know if it's for sure
Suddenly, suddenly
I don't feel so insecure
Anymore

Why do things that matter the most
Never end up being what we chose
Now that I find no way so bad
I don't think I knew what I had

Why do things that matter the most
Never end up being what we chose
Now that I find no way so bad
I don't think I knew what I had

"Hell Song" - Sum 41

Robin stood in the lobby once again, not long after the grisly scene had played out. He was patched up by then, bandages crisscrossing his chest and wrapped thickly around his arms, turning red around their centers as the blood still slipping from his various wounds was soaked up by them. He was “carefully,” if that word could be applied to his particular method, preparing the floor of the area to be fixed, using a combination of various tools, including several very energetically thrown birdarangs, to separate the broken sections of the floor from the unbroken. After he moved each section, he would then take the time to neatly dispose of the pieces, first breaking them down into smaller, often unnecessarily so, pieces before depositing them in the waste bin he had with him. It was while he was at this work that Starfire came to him, floating silently up behind the boy wonder with considerable trepidation.

“Robin, I . . .” Without missing a beat, Robin moved on to a far section of the wall, which had taken a hit when Anbu deflected Cyborg’s sonic cannon blast, the masonry crushed inward by the impact.

When Starfire followed, the de facto leader simply moved on to the opposite wall and its identical battle scar without even allowing her to speak that time. Still, the alien girl persisted, following him about the vaulted entryway until Robin finally stopped in his tracks and turned to face her, the slightest hint of anger contorting his features into a far less friendly mask than usual.

“No, Starfire, we can’t.” He said without preamble, answering the crimson-haired Tamaranian’s unasked question.

She refused to simply accept that answer, though.

“But Robin, we must go and look for Raven!” She looked plaintively to the place she had seen the dark magus standing, moments before she pulled her Houdini. “You saw her before she disappeared, she looked so afraid and hurt and . . .” The alien looked away, just slightly, disliking having to admit her fears aloud, afraid that doing so might somehow increase their likelihood of becoming reality. “I do not know what she will do in that state.” Robin would have none of it, though, his ire only showing through all the more strongly on his face for her words.

“Oh, I saw her alright.” He moved past Starfire, grabbing her arm in a steely grip in order to drag her along with him. “I saw her try to disembowel Beast Boy on this spot, spilling his blood there.” He jabbed a finger fiercely at the splatters on the floor before where he had brought them, looking directly into the Tamaranian’s emerald on lime green eyes as he did so, making sure she did not look away.

When she said nothing in response to that, he forced her to follow him yet again, this time to the cushioned chair several feet to the side of their previous position. Grimly, he picked up the seat cushion from it, removing a birdarang from his belt with an easy motion that moved flawlessly into one that cut the cushion in two, spilling its blood-soaked contents at Starfire’s feet. The bundle of padding landing with a sickeningly wet sound, a distinctly sanguine sound that could not have been made by water-soaked pads.

“That is Beast Boy’s blood, which drained out of him and into this cushion not-so-slowly after Raven ripped him open and tossed him here.” The poor alien girl looked horrified, transfixed for a moment by the pile of bloody cloth and foam rubber.

Eventually, though, she brought her eyes back to his, and though they were filled with fear and guilt, he could still see it coming.

“But Rob-AH!” Her words were cut off when the boy wonder gave her arm a particularly strong squeeze, painfully strong, before heading off up the stairs that led out of the lobby at just short of a running pace.

It wasn’t long before they reached the Medical Wing, at that speed, and from there Robin took her to the observation hall. Starfire gasped aloud when they reached it.

“Beast Boy . . .” A plethora of machines were all crowded in around the small hero’s bedside, a seemingly endless series of tubes, electrodes, and various other implements attached to and running out of his body at any given place as he lay very still upon the mat. Off the side, Cyborg was hard at work with a number of different control consoles, presumably working to keep the entire system perfectly calibrated and working at maximum efficiency. Looking at Beast Boy himself, his far too pale green skin and the huge bandage covering his pierced side, Starfire could only assume that Cyborg was working so hard because even the slightest drop in the effectiveness of all those machines could mean Beast Boy’s demise.

“If it weren’t for all of Cyborg’s advanced medical tech, Beast Boy would be dead right now from the wound that Raven gave him.” The Tamaranian wrenched herself bodily from the figurative pit of despair that she was quickly falling into, shaking her head vehemently.

“But you do not understand, Robin!”

“Not another word, Starfire!” The sound of Robin’s suddenly raised voice was enough on its own to shock her into silence, much less with the command it carried with it. “We’re not going out to look for Raven now, and even when we do, it won’t be to bring her back.” At that, spoken with an again quiet and even tone, Starfire tilted her head quizzically, confused as to what the boy wonder meant. “When we go out looking for her, it’ll be to take her down, just like any other criminal.” Robin turned his back on Starfire then; short cape flying behind him with a certain severe quality that made it clear the discussion was over.

Defeated and frightened by Robin’s object lesson in the things Anbu had done, Starfire did not try to challenge the team’s leader any further, instead letting her shoulders slump forward in saddened surrender. She made her way in somber silence to Raven’s room, to their room, and moments after arriving, she collapsed in their bed. At least her dove’s scent was there in the bed, even if Raven wasn’t herself. Tears came to her eyes as she clutched at the pillow from Raven’s side of the bed, shifting over just slightly into that space.

Along the morning streets of Jump City walked a girl. Of only average height and indeterminate build and weight, due to her heavy and largely oversized clothing, the girl was almost something of an oddity. A so called "goth," she wore a monochromatic ensemble of clothing made up of a heavy, torn up, black leather jacket that sat on her shoulders, its oversized nature causing it to mostly hide her white tank top, emblazoned with the slogan "kill yourself" in black lettering, even though it was left unbuttoned and open. It matched fairly well; by her standards, at least; with the baggy and similarly damaged cargo pants she wore, which hung low around heavy leather boots that made her steps rather loud and lumbering. Then again, that mattered little when the endless metal clasps of the outfit were constantly clanging against one another in a horrendous cacophony. Her face was covered entirely in make-up, mostly a white face paint that made her skin look impossibly pale, and also contrasted starkly with her black lipstick, heavy black-eyeliner and her dark but still sparkling violet eye shadow. The theme followed, her hands bearing the same white coloration and black polished nails, and in addition she had quite a few rings pierced through her right ear in almost every part imaginable, though the rest of her body and even her other ear did not bear similar ornaments. She had dark brown eyes and hair that was obviously dyed from the same color to a pitch black and that had then been styled into a curious arrangement: short and somewhere between frizzy and spiky, making her look almost like a human dandelion. As the backpack slung over her shoulder attested to, she was on her way to school, one of the many patches stitched onto it giving her name, "Jasmine." She walked along the sidewalk on an instinctive path toward the institution she'd been going to for countless days over the course of her life, her mind elsewhere. She wondered if the unusual shade of eye shadow she'd put on would be enough to get that one cutey, the one with the mohawk, to notice her. She thought about how she'd purposefully avoided doing her math homework the night before, because she hated it. She wondered when her parents were finally just going to get a divorce and stop keeping her up into the night as they screamed at each other. She considered if she should bother to suggest that her group try out another satanic ritual, considering how much money the last had cost, especially getting a hold of that goat. She thought about how much longer she'd have to put up with the foolishness of school, considering how little degrees and formal schooling were starting to mean in the society. She mused that the gunshot she thought she heard probably came from a few blocks away, so she was most likely in no danger. She wondered if Raven and the rest of the Titans would go to investigate it, but doubted that they had the time to check out something as petty as a gunshot. And she thought, as the cold, morning wind began to blow through the streets, 'what would happen if I simply let the wind take me, blowing me wherever it would?' It was during this contemplative state known as adolescence that she passed a certain specific alley in the area of Jump City. It was in disarray, almost more so than even a normal alley should have been, trashcans littered about and overturned as if something had crashed through them. And, slumped off to one side of the alley and a little ways away from the street, there was a dark figure within its confine, presumably the person who had messed up the area. At first glance, she simply assumed it was a sloshed out bum or some junkie passed out from using just a bit too much of their stuff. A second look, though, let Jasmine catch sight of a blood trail leading back to the wrists of the huddled figure. With a cruel smirk, the young girl started to make her way into the alleyway, reaching into her bag to get out her cell phone.

"Jeez, some people can be really stupid, doing this shit in broad daylight." She commented with a hint of venom as she came to stand across from the figure, looking down on it. "Hell, I think I'm just going to call up my friends so they can laugh at you too." She chuckled darkly, raising her black-cased cell phone up so she could look at the keypad. "I mean, honestly, look at what you're dressed up in." She taunted, kicking at the hem of the dark blue cloak draped over the individual's back with her boot. "What are you, some kind of D&D reject killing yourself because your favorite character died?" Jasmine crouched down to get a better look at the face of her victim. "C'mon, how pathetic can you g- . . ." The words froze in the girl's throat then, as she finally did get a better look at her mark, discerning both its gender and identity in an instant.

It was Raven, the Teen Titans Raven.

"Oh . . . oh my god!" Jasmine screamed upon the realization, stumbling back from the dark magus' unconscious form in shock and surprise. As soon as her wits returned to her, she immediately went to work dialing the universal emergency number. "Oh god, oh god, oh god . . ." She murmured over and over again as she dialed and then waited for the call to go through.

"This is 911 emergency services, what is the nature of your emergency?" A calm voice asked once the call finally connected, but Jasmine wasn't in much of a state to be cool and collected at that point.

"I . . . Raven . . . blood . . . oh my god . . ." She said in a confused jumble, her brain filled with too much turmoil to let the words come out as a coherent sentence.

"Miss, please calm down and speak slowly, I can't help you if I can't understand you." The operator replied in true fashion, having been trained on how to deal with such situations.

The school girl took was she was told to heart, and though she continued to look at the bleeding body before her, she managed to calm herself after a few breaths."I- . . . It's Raven, of the Titans, I found her b- . . . bleeding from her wrists in an alley."

"And your location," queried the operator on the other end, taking the whole thing in stride.

"East . . . 76th street." Jasmine murmured, managing to remember the street marker she'd passed earlier.

"Alright, I have a unit dispatched to your location. Please situate yourself where you'll be more easily visible to the rescue personnel." The girl nodded slightly before the phone simply slipped from her grasp.

She did nothing more than stare at Raven's prone form for several moments, then. Finally, though, she noticed that blood was still running from the Titan's wounds, and she knew she had to do something. Jasmine fell to her knees before the violet-haired mage, looking frantically for anything that could be used as bandages and a tourniquet. Her eyes fell to her own tank top after looking over everything else, and when it came down to a question of her clothing or Raven's life, there was no contest. She tore the entire garment into strips in moments, ignoring her then topless status as she went to work first dressing the dark magus' wounds, and then constricting the blood flow to her wrists so that she would lose as little as possible. All the while, Jasmine whispered various phrases to Raven that all had the same meaning.

"Please don't die . . . you can't die . . ." Once that was completed, the girl did her best to gently drag Raven out onto the sidewalk, holding the girl's arms aloft to keep them above her heart.

She scared quite a few pedestrians by doing so, but didn't notice, instead just looking frantically about for any sign of the ambulance she'd called.

"It's going to be okay . . . you're going to be okay . . ." She murmured to Raven as she waited, though the words were actually meant to soothe the girl's own out of control fear, rather than anything of the unconscious mage's.

The ambulance arrived a minute later, paramedics swarming the girl and her heroine, taking the latter from her and quickly packing the injured girl in the back of their vehicle. It was only a moment later that they were off, Jasmine running as fast as she could manage after the car.* * *The ringing of the view screen's call alert had brought Robin to the communications room of the tower. It was not a call he had been expecting, per se, but he had more than a few ideas as to what it could be about, and because of that, he steeled himself for the worst before switching on the screen.

"Titan's Tower here, what's the emergency?" He asked before the video link had even fully established.

When it had, he found himself staring into the face of a rather typical nurse, just around middle-age with a haggard expression and a stare that was more than just a little world weary.

"No emergency," she responded, just before a patient was rushed down the hall behind her with a team of doctors and nurses scrambling over him, "for you guys, at least."

"Then why the call," Robin asked, though one of the possibilities he'd prepared himself for already covered the situation he expected to hear about.

"We've got one of yours here, the cloaked girl." The nurse told him, bringing up a clipboard. "No wounds or injuries beyond the ones that got her in here." Robin raised an eyebrow as he continued to look up at the nurse's image.

He'd dealt with medical professionals before and he knew that they very rarely wasted time beating around the bush, always being so pressed for it in a dangerous place like Jump City.

"And . . . ?" He prodded, also disliking the idea of wasting time dancing around the actual issue.

With a sigh, the nurse dropped the clipboard, no longer trying to hide her face behind it.

"We think she slit her wrists." Robin's jaw squared and he nodded just slightly.

"How is she now?"

"She's in stable condition, a girl found her soon enough that she didn't lose too much blood." She looked down then, presumably to the clipboard she'd dropped just a moment before. "We've got her restrained and under observation now, as a precaution." Robin nodded again.

"I'll be down there as soon as possible to pick her up; you just make sure she doesn't go anywhere." The nurse was silent for a few moments, before finally nodding her agreement.

But, before Robin could cut the link, she spoke again.

"What's going on, kid?" Without any hesitation, the boy wonder simply answered, "Titan's business, m'am." That said, he shut down the link and immediately turned to leave.

As he made his way out into the hallway, though, he caught sight of something odd on the floor just beside the door frame. It was a small length of thin, white thread. It was at that moment that Starfire came floating around a corner down the hall, heading Robin's way. And she was carrying a spool of white thread.

"Robin," she called as she approached, though it was hard to catch due to her still injured throat. "I heard the alert, what is happening?"

"Nothing Star, just another prank call from a bunch of stupid kids." Robin responded without even an instant's hesitation, and he was unsurprised to see anger flare in the Tamaranian's emerald on lime green eyes at his utterly false answer.Neither said anything more for several more moments, until Starfire could no longer take it.

"We must go find Raven!" She declared as loud as she could, which was just a little more than a normal speaking voice.

Robin looked at the girl as if a parent looking upon her foolish, slow to learn child, even taking on the same tone as he spoke.

"Starfire, I've already told you once, we will not be going out looking for Rav- . . ." Starfire cut him off, though, indignation and simple anger coloring her voice.

"Robin, months ago I said that I would take responsibility for Raven's actions, and promised that Anbu would not become a danger." She looked hard into the eyes that she knew lay beneath his mask. "If you are going to treat Raven like a criminal, then I am equally responsible, and must be 'taken down' as well." Robin's face went stony at the alien girl's proclamation, his features unreadable, and he said absolutely nothing in response for a few, long moments.

Finally, he spoke.

"It was Anbu that did those things, not Raven, so you bear no guilt." He spoke almost robotically, and Starfire frowned deeply.

"I cannot let you act as the 'politicians' of your world do, Robin." She said, sounding truly saddened. "You cannot say that when only an hour ago, you were adamant that Raven was just as much at fault for what Anbu did as the monster herself is." Robin didn't flinch, didn't react to Star's perfect counter, at first.Eventually, though, he sighed and gently put a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"I know, it's just that . . ." He looked to be struggling with himself, even biting his own lip. "I just don't want you to blame yourself, especially if Beast Boy doesn't make it." Shock filled Starfire's expression at Robin's words, which was quickly replaced by guilt at the knowledge that Beast Boy's endangered state really was her fault, in large part.

The Tamaranian hung her head in shame, though notably far more so than she would have for the amount she felt, and Robin gently patted her on the back.

"It's alright, Star, everything's going to be okay." He took a gentle hold of the girl's shoulders then, angling her back the way she came. "Why don't you go check on Beast Boy, maybe say 'hello' if he's conscious now?" The boy wonder offered, and Starfire nodded slightly, heading off toward the stairs.

Even as she did so, though, the fire-haired alien had every intention of following Robin's R-Cycle to Raven's location when it left the building. It hurt her deeply to admit it, but Starfire no longer felt that she could trust Robin.

* * *It was darkness all around her. She wasn't scared, though, because the darkness was far too familiar by that point. She'd lived in it forever, so why would she be frightened to be among it again? She had taken a vacation in the light, yes, but that didn't change where she'd come from. Little Raven, always alone in her dark little world, no one else there but her and her endless grief . . . except that she wasn't really alone there. She knew this in an instant; the solemn silence of the place was gone. She looked about frantically, seeking the alien presence in her place, in her safe darkness. It had to be Anbu, come to hurt her and steal her body. She heard a sound and her sword was already in hand as she turned to face it, stabbing out at where its source.

It was Starfire, she'd stabbed Starfire right through the heart, her beautiful eyes going impossibly wide as the alien girl felt the blade slice into her. She tried to say something, but it never came out because then she was dead, slumping against Raven lifelessly. And, past Starfire's form, she could see Anbu simply standing there, smiling like the monster she was.

"I'm so proud of you, 'sis'," Anbu began without approaching, simply standing there and smiling. "You're growing up to be just like me." And, in that moment, Raven felt herself smile the same vicious smile as Anbu.

She couldn't scream, even though she wanted to.* * *And then she was awake, lying strapped to a hospital bed. For the first few moments, Raven was completely disoriented, the harsh florescent lighting blinding her while the sterile, chemical smell of the place overwhelmed her olfactory sense. Then, quite suddenly, she gained a focal point as a voice from somewhere beside her spoke up.

"I never before thought that I would find any superhero, much less you, bleeding to death in an alley." The voice had come from a girl sitting in a chair at the side of the room Raven was in.

It had no tone of mocking or taunting intent, but Raven could not help the bitterness that rose in her own throat.

"Well, things rarely seem to go the way you'd like them to, you know?" She also couldn't seem to help the hostile glare she was pinning the girl with.

Jasmine, her make-up smudged and runny from tears previously shed, shied away from the angry gaze, but still spoke again.

"But superheroes are supposed to be able to do anything, especially when it comes to making things turn out right . . ." She gained a little courage as she spoke the words, actually able to meet Raven's gaze by that point. "So, maybe you dying wasn't the right way for things to go." The dark magus only grew even angrier with the girl's words, though."People always expect us to be perfect!" She growled, struggling against her wrist bonds in an attempt to gesture. "They act like we can't have problems of our own, that we can't ever be weak!" The young goth girl simply watched Raven breathe after her tirade, waiting until the mage had calmed down somewhat before she spoke again.

"But that's why I always looked up to you, Raven." She blushed just a little at the admission, the color showing through the smudges and holes in her face paint. "You were just like me. You had your problems, but you were able to deal, to still have friends, to still be happy."

"Superheroes are just as fallible as anyone else, girl, we make mistakes because we're still peo- . . ." Raven stopped herself mid-sentence, her eyes drawn to her now "clean" hands, even though she couldn't really see them past the leather restraints.

After what she had done, she knew that she didn't qualify as a person; the memory of that smile forming on her face assured her of that. Jasmine watched her for those few moments and she just knew what Raven was thinking.

"Raven, no, you are a person." The dark magus did not even look at her consul before she spoke, her eyes not moving from whatever she perceived on her hands.

"I'm a monster." And though the voice was monotonous, betraying no emotion, the fact that the table beside Raven's bed, and everything atop it as well, was shattered into virtual splinters by telekinetic energy showed that Raven was not anywhere near at peace.

Frightened just a little by the unexpected destruction of the furniture, Jasmine let silence reign for a time, trying to compose herself and come up with a different plan of "attack," as it were. Eventually, she rather unexpectedly scooted her chair closer to Raven, right up to her bedside, in fact. At first, Raven was simply shocked by the gesture, and then she did her best to shy away from the girl, fearing what Anbu might make her do if the girl came within reach. Jasmine didn't seem to notice at all, instead just starting right into her story.

"You know, I used to get beat up a whole lot at school, sometimes every day of the week." She offered openly, catching Raven's attention a little. "That's why I went goth, safety in numbers and all of that stuff." She smiled, just a bit. "Except that once I was in I kind of started to like it, though I can't really get behind most of that piercing stuff, hurts too much." She looked at Raven, seeing that the dark magus was watching her with a visibly perplexed gaze. "I still get beat up sometimes, when I can't stick with the rest of the group, but it's not as bad anymore, now that I belong somewhere." Jasmine finished, showing a bruise on her upper arm almost as if it were a badge of honor.

When Raven didn't really respond at all, the odd girl decided to try again.

"And mom and dad are always fighting, screaming and throwing things at each other cause dad . . ." In large part, Raven stopped hearing the girl at that point, so confused was she by what was happening.

Though it seemed insane, Raven thought that the girl might actually be trying to make her feel better by empathizing, by sharing her own problems. It was a pathetic attempt, considering the scope of Raven's crimes, but it still managed to touch her heart that the girl was trying. It was at that point that Jasmine finished her second story, mentioning that her parents were most likely going to get a divorce, because she didn't believe her father could get over his drinking problem. Raven smiled, just faintly, and spoke, unable to resist her need for company, for someone to talk to so she wouldn't feel all alone in the darkness.

"What is your name, I never got it?" The goth girl smiled widely as she finally got a reaction, especially one so positive.

"Jasmine, Jasmine Stevenson." Raven nodded, almost serenely, quite a feat considering her odd positioning from being strapped down to the bed.

"That's a pretty name; I can understand why you wouldn't change it." The girl smiled and blushed, embarrassed.

"Yeah, a lot of the other people in my group go by different names because they don't like theirs." She looked up just a little, and then hid her face in her hands as she flushed a deeper shade. "I . . . just couldn't, I liked my name too much." Rather suddenly, Jasmine simply held still, as if unexpectedly frightened by something.

"Jasmine?" Raven murmured, concerned by the girl's sudden change in behavior.

"Is . . . would it be okay if I . . . asked you some questions?" The young girl asked her super heroic acquaintance nervously, knowing Raven to be a rather private person who might take offense at such a question.

The dark magus only smiled and would have reached out to gently pat the girl on the head if she hadn't been strapped down.

"Ask anything you like, I don't mind." Jasmine's face lit up at the confirmation, and she didn't hesitate to launch right into her little "interrogation."

"What's it like being a superhero?"

"Well . . . it's very hard most of the time, you have to make a lot of difficult decisions and face impossible odds rather often." She looked down for just a moment, remembering all the terrible battles she and the Titans had faced.

Then she smiled and looked up again.

"It's easier, though, if you have friends to help you fight, to be there when things get tough, so you don't have to carry everything all by yourself." Jasmine nodded, understanding perfectly.

"Belonging somewhere makes everything easier." She added, and though Raven nodded in response she also swallowed against the small something in her throat, realizing that she no longer belonged anywhere.

When Raven said nothing more following that, Jasmine assumed she was done answering and moved on to a question a little closer to her heart.

"Do you remember saving me once?" The violet-eyed mage blinked, not having been expecting that kind of a question, and then she searched her memory as deeply as she could.

Ultimately, though, her search came up blank.

"I'm sorry, but I don't." Jasmine's expression fell, but she quickly covered it with a smile.

"It's alright; I actually looked really different back then. It was when Plasmus attacked that high school football game, after Starfire flew off when everyone laughed at her. You shielded me when Plasmus did the disgusting toxic spit bomb thing." The girl recounted, carefully watching Raven's expression as she did so.

Finally, it dawned on Raven with an almost literal flash of light.

"Wait, you were that cheerleader?!" The dark magus was honestly shocked, staring at the girl before her and comparing that to the somewhat vague image in her memory.

"Yeah, I wasn't really popular; I just had the moves to be a cheerleader and a mom more than willing to bitch at the administration until I got in." Jasmine blushed even as she smiled, but then continued when Raven only stared at her with no response. "I was before I went goth."

"Ah!" Raven gasped as understanding hit her like a sack of potatoes, before both she and Jasmine had a good laugh at the idea of an openly goth cheerleader.Once that subsided, the darkly dressed girl decided to move on again.

"What about the other Titans, what are they like?" The dark magus had been expecting that question, certainly, but she still couldn't help but flinch.

"They . . . they're like family." She began, having a hard time pushing the initial part out, as she knew that probably wouldn't be true anymore. "Beast Boy is . . . just so annoying sometimes that it makes you want to strangle him. But, other times, he's the only one out of us all who can keep on hoping, and even if his jokes are never funny, it's just the thought that helps." Jasmine nodded, thinking of her younger brother as Raven spoke. "Cyborg is our . . . 'go-to-guy,' I guess. He's the one who's always there if you need him, ready to do whatever you need just because he's your friend. Sure, he can be a little childish when he's with Beast Boy, but he at least knows when it's time to get serious." Jasmine smiled happily, thinking of big brother. "Robin . . . Robin's the leader, he's the sure-footed one of us, the one without all the doubt the rest of us carry around, without hesitation. He's the one that can get things done because he never needs to question himself or his motives."

'Dad,' Jasmine though in silence, as she knew her father to be very much like that when he wasn't on the sauce.

Then Raven fell silent, causing the other girl to gently prompt her,

"and Starfire?" Raven swallowed hard, struggling within herself for a few moments before she was finally able to speak.

"Starfire is . . . the kindest, most gentle hearted person I have met in my life. She's intelligent, brave, caring and she . . ." Raven swallowed again, trying to choke down the feelings rising up in her. "She sees through everything, all the cloaks, the airs, the lies, the brave fronts, sees through it all, but doesn't care." The violet-haired mage shook just a little, wishing she could bring her hands up to hide what she knew was coming. "She'll hold you, she'll just hold you without saying anything, and be there when you've got no more strength to go on." They came then, burning tears that seared their way down the mage's cheeks. "She was the light in my darkness, my shooting star to wish on for a better future, for hope when I had none left." And then she just cried, sobbed out her anguish for all that had happened, all that she had lost to a demon she couldn't fight, couldn't beat.

Jasmine said nothing for that time, simply staring down into her lap. Eventually she spoke up, though she did not raise her gaze.

"You know, you had your problems, but you had someone, and even if she was a girl you still had that." As the words came from the girl sitting beside her bed, Raven's tears slowed while confusion spread through her mind. "And . . . and you . . . you were strong and courageous . . . even when everyone else couldn't possibly be . . ." Jasmine was crying too, then, and Raven confusion only grew.

Suddenly, Jasmine looked straight to Raven's, eyes red from the tears she had shed.

"Why, Raven? Why did you do it? Why were you there, bleeding to death in that alley?" She cried out, wanting to know why the woman she idolized, the woman she cared about had been there.

For several, eternal moments, Raven simply stared at Jasmine, fearing what response the girl would have if she told her, that the girl might run away and leave her alone if she did. But the violet-eyed mage saw the pleading look in Jasmine's eyes; saw her simple need to know. So she told her everything, sparing no detail or fact from the telling, no matter how much it wrenched Raven's heart to speak of them. And, at the end of her confession, the school girl did nothing more than hug Raven. She hugged her as tightly as she could manage, and just cried with the magus. After a time, she whispered into the ashen-skinned girl's ear,

"it's not your fault, Raven." She tried to hold the mage even tighter, but the thought was not lost on the distraught hero, despite Jasmine's failure. "None of that is your fault, none of it at all. You're not a monster, and you've got to fight." Unexpectedly, the sound of the door to the room opening reached the ears of both girls, and they simultaneously realized that, after hearing her confession as well, the orderlies had probably decided that Raven was too dangerous to let anyone near. "Starfire needs you, I'm sure of it, and you have to go back to he-AH!" Jasmine cried out as she was roughly pulled away from Raven by two large men. "You're not a monster, you're not!" She nearly screamed as she was forced from the room. Meanwhile, an orderly with a syringe made his way carefully towards Raven, until his large body completely filled her vision.

The room was empty and quite a mess as well. Even just standing in the doorway, Robin could tell there had been a struggle, considering that everything in it was either overturned, damaged, or outright destroyed.

"I'm sorry, sir, we heard what she'd done and tried to separate her from the girl visiting her, but she put up a fight and escaped." Robin sighed and shook his head.

"It's alright, I'll find her again." He assured before turning about to leave, allowing him to look at the nurse he'd been speaking to, the same nurse that had called the Tower earlier.

"Thank god, I don't feel safe with a murderer like that running about." Without another word, the boy wonder headed off, pulling his communicator from his belt as he did so.

He switched it to homing mode, and smiled as he found a signal. His search would be made even easier by the fact that he'd managed to lose Starfire's tail quite a ways back, letting her go off to deal with what might have looked like a mugging to her, but was actually just a prostitute and her John. He'd find Raven and then he'd . . .

"Dammit." Robin muttered under his breath as he stepped out of the hospital, before looking to his communicator again.

Then he was off to find Raven and . . . he didn't know what.