"The Crow: Black Robin"

Chapter 2: "Soaring Through the Darkness"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans and The Crow are not mine. The former is property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The latter is the property of James O'Barr.

Author's note: I know a good number of you reading this are likely to be Crow fans, especially of the first movie. Therefore, you'll probably recognize Robin's line at the end of the first chapter as a quote from that movie. Also, I will be quoting rock songs at the beginning and end of each chapter --- whatever suits the mood.

This story is rated R for a reason, violence and future sexuality being that reason.

"Blood spilled

Heartfelt

Head filled

Play dead.

"Consider yourself now, my friend

Enemy number one

You are bound and gagged

Sacred circle, broken trust.

"Now the plague (Blood spilled) has been cast in your town

(Heartfelt) Acid tongue, venom word

(Head filled) Why bother to lie?

(Play dead) Leave the lamb behind.

"Your mouth full of

Your mouth full of lead and lies

Your mouth full of

Your mouth full of lead and lies.

"Don't walk into fire

You might find that you'll get burned

What a fine dirty face

Guilt at last, is this a lesson that's learned?

"Can you hear (Blood spilled) your own blood in your veins

(Heartfelt) Calling out your demise?

(Head filled) Silence

(Play dead) A word to the wise.

"Your mouth full of

Your mouth full of lead and lies

Your mouth full of

Your mouth full of lead and lies.

"I can't hear you scream

Drowning so it seems

I can't hear you scream

Drowning so it seems your mouth is full of poison.

"One more time.

Say it to my face. . . ."

Kittie - "Mouthful of Poison"

The crow glided through the night, silent and sure. Behind him Robin ran, faster than anyone human had a right to run.

At the space center, Cinderblock was fighting off the guards. Of course, he was just a distraction, given that he was all stone brawn and no brain. Speaking of brains, Jinx was inside the space center using her hex powers to scramble the computers.

The guards fired laser rifles at Cinderblock, but the blasts bounced off his rocky self. His response was to charge at them and everyone got out of the way, save for one very brave (or stupid) guard, who kept firing. Cinderblock's very large stone fist embedded itself in the guard's stomach and sent him flying a good distance back.

"Are you all right?" another guard asked.

The guard that had been recently pummeled by Cinderblock just moaned in pain.

"He's not all right, but at least he's still living," a third guard said.

They saw lights flashing inside the space center.

"This is all one big distraction, isn't it?" a guard surmised.

"Probably, but we can't do anything with that walking rock in our way," another guard replied.

"Time for the big guns," the leader said.

On cue, a large metal cannon was rolled in.

"Fire!" the leader ordered.

The cannon's "mouth" glowed with blue-white light, and then that light streamed out at Cinderblock. The blast struck Cinderblock dead in the chest. Unfortunately, it didn't even crack his skin much less seriously harm him.

Cinderblock charged again, and the guards fired the cannon again. However, the stone strongman charged through the blue-white light and he crushed the cannon. Then he proceeded to throw its remains at the guards, who scattered to avoid it.

Robin raced across the skyline of the city, every fiber of his body afire with dark power. He didn't just see through his eyes, he also saw through the crow's eyes, eyes that saw all the way to the space center. He saw Cinderblock making mincemeat of the guards and Jinx inside wrecking the computers and stealing schematics.

It was a strange thing, seeing through both his eyes and the crow's. He had no words to describe it, but the closest thing he could come up with was a strange sense of duality.

Finally, he had arrived at the space center. The guards had given up trying to fight Cinderblock and were simply trying to get past him. However, the stony brute wouldn't allow it at all.

Robin chuckled darkly. Cinderblock's vote no longer counted.

He leaped across, now-superhuman strength and reflexes carrying him right to the stone Goliath in a painful (for Cinderblock) body slam. He flipped off Cinderblock, but held onto him and --- in a previously assumed impossible move --- flipped him over.

Cinderblock looked up, dull red eyes staring in confusion and rage at Robin. Robin knew what he was thinking: "How could such a puny creature do this to me?"

"Hello, Cinderblock," Robin said. "Long time no see."

As he stared down the stone strongman, memories began to flash in his mind.

Robin was chasing down one of Slade's robots, the chase having led him away from his teammates and to Cinderblock.

Robin and Cinderblock fighting.Robin defeating Cinderblock, but barely.

Slade telling Robin that it was all a ruse to lure him away from the other Titans and that now they were infected with nanoscopic probes that would kill them from the inside unless Robin became his apprentice.

Robin glared at Cinderblock as the memories took hold, his eyes darkening with hate, hate for Cinderblock's master Slade.

Cinderblock got back up and ran at Robin, who simply leaped up and kicked him hard, putting a crack in his rocky face. Robin followed up with a vicious punch, putting another crack in Cinderblock. Cinderblock struck back, with a punch that struck Robin in his white-and-black-painted face with a 6-ton force. However, it did not have the desired effect.

Robin looked back up, and smirked evilly. He felt no pain from Cinderblock's punch, and his jaw was already setting itself back into place.

"My turn," he said, his voice low and sinister. With an inhuman yell, he punched Cinderblock right in his chest with enough force to give him several cracks. The cracks began to extend like spider webs and run deeper than just Cinderblock's surface. Through it all, Cinderblock was just standing there in dumb surprise.

Finally, he just crumbled, the only part of him that was still intact being his head.

Robin stalked toward Cinderblock's remains and glared down coldly at his head. Then he brought his black-booted foot down on Cinderblock's head, breaking it to pieces and then grinding those pieces to dust. He walked through Cinderblock's remains, grinding every single rock fragment to dust. Satisfied, he walked away.

Of course, when he walked away, he didn't exactly see that the dust that was once Cinderblock had settled into the image of a crow.

Robin entered the space center. He smiled chillingly.

"Now to jinx a jinx," he said to himself. He looked through the crow's eyes, seeing the floor where the pink-haired enchantress was. He calmly stalked toward an elevator and pressed the button for up. Within seconds, the elevator had come down and he went inside, the crow resting on his shoulder.

The elevator rose until it reached the floor Jinx was on. Then the door opened and he stepped out. He walked down the hallway, the crow flying ahead, until he found the room that housed the main computer of the space center. He opened it and found Jinx, downloading schematics on various parts.

He had no idea what those parts did, but he was not going to let Jinx get away with whatever she had in mind for them.

"Hello, Jinx," he said, his voice a dark purr.

Jinx whirled and saw Robin. "Who might you be?"

"Don't tell me you don't remember me, Jinx," Robin purred. "Then again, we never did spend that much time together, and I was dressed quite differently then. You remember --- you liked my belt an awful lot."

Jinx stared into Robin's ice-indigo eyes. Then she smirked in realization.

"Someone mended your wings, didn't they, my little songbird," Jinx said.

"The only thing I'll be singing for you is a dirge," Robin replied, his voice now a cold purr.

"I don't know how you got back here, but say goodnight, Robin," Jinx said. Her eyes glowed pink and she fired waves of hex energy at Robin.

Robin leaped out of the way of the blast, the crow flying off his shoulder to a nearby perch. "Try again."

Jinx fired again, not at Robin, but at the computer. Its monitor flickered to life with a terrible message.

"Self-destruct activated. Self-destruct in 3 minutes."

"Not even you should be able to come back from being blown up," Jinx stated.

Robin chuckled sinisterly. "Then we'll burn in hell together." He extended a hand in a beckoning motion.

Jinx came at him, not with hex-blasts but with her own fists. Hand-to-hand fighting may not have been her strong suit, but the H.I.V.E. academy taught all its students that a good super-villain had to be well rounded and that included learning how to fight without the use of powers or gadgets. So, yeah, she figured she'd be able to handle Robin. Unfortunately, there were two things she hadn't accounted for.

First, Robin had been trained by Batman himself, and the Dark Knight was a master of every style of combat known to man. Second, after being resurrected by the crow, Robin's previously incredible agility had increased to superhuman levels. As agile as she was, Jinx could not exactly match that, nor his presently superhuman strength.

Robin blocked her blows, and struck back with fierce attacks of his own.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to hit girls?" Jinx asked mockingly.

Robin didn't bother dignifying that with a response. He simply kicked her in her stomach, sending her flying onto the console of the computer. He looked up at the monitor. There were now two minutes and twelve seconds left.

Jinx got back up, an angry look on her lovely pale features. "That's it! No more Miss Nice Jinx!" She fired devastating waves of hex energy at Robin, but again he dodged. This time, she couldn't see where he'd landed.

She got her answer when something grabbed her and pinned her to a wall. That something turned her around and she came face to face with a pair of lurid violet-blue eyes accented by black makeup.

Jinx smiled, seeing the cold dark fire burn in those eyes. "I always knew you had a little bad in you. You just need someone to share it with."

The monitor was now counting down from one minute and fifty seconds.

Robin just stared coldly at her. "Don't try to seduce me, witch. It won't work. I feel nothing for you, except satisfaction that you'll be dead in less than two minutes."

Jinx chuckled evilly. "Do you really think she'll take you as you are now, a murderous, vengeful zombie? Better to stay with me. I'll be far better for you than she ever could be."

"Not in this lifetime," Robin replied. "Or the next."

Now there was only a little more than a minute left.

"Only a minute left, Robin," Jinx purred, taunting him. "What are you going to do, wait to get blown up with me? You did say we would burn in hell together."

Now there was a little less than a minute.

"I changed my mind," Robin replied, his blackened lips curling into a sadistic smile. He stepped back from her and fired a red X-bolt at her, pinning her to the wall. As her hands had been bound, there was no way she could use her powers. However, one could never be too careful, so he fired two more X-bolts, each one pinning a hand. "You can die by yourself."

Robin turned and walked away, the crow resuming its place on his shoulder.

Jinx struggled fruitlessly in her binds, with only thirty seconds left. However, after nineteen seconds were left, she realized the cold hard truth about her predicament.

There was no way for her to escape. In less than twenty seconds, she would die.

Somehow, a laugh bubbled up from Jinx's throat and out of her mouth.

At least I'll go out in a blaze of glory, was her last thought before the space center exploded, taking Jinx with it.

Meanwhile, the Outsiders had been alerted to the attack on the space center earlier. With Nightwing leading them, they had answered the call.

The Outsiders consisted of six members, much like the Teen Titans did now: Nightwing, the leader; Impulse, the teen speed demon; Argent, the pale-skinned plasma energy manipulator; Secret, the incorporeal spirit warder; Empress, the teleporting "princess" of the team; and Arsenal, a charming rogue of an archer.

Ever since Robin's death, an event that still brought quickly repressed tears to Nightwing's eyes, Slade had become even worse. It was as if something had snapped inside him, driving him to become even more dangerous than before. The attack on the space center was certainly the offshoot of Slade's plans.

Nightwing had seen a lot in his years of fighting crime. However, nothing had quite prepared him for what he was about to see when the Outsiders arrived.

The space center was a hollowed-out shell of its former self.

"Crap," Arsenal said. "If that's what it looks like from out here, I don't wanna see what it looks like from the inside."

Nightwing turned to a guard. "What happened here?"

"Cinderblock went on a rampage," the guard replied. "He never really tried to get inside; it was more like he was simply trying to keep us from going inside."

"Typical," Empress sneered. "That rockhead's too stupid to be anything other than a distraction."

"I don't think Cinderblock could've been responsible for the space center," Argent said. "Please go on."

"Anyway, we did everything we could to hold that guy back, and nothing worked," the guard continued. "Then out of nowhere, this guy dressed in black and painted up like a morbid clown showed up and beat the crap out of him."

"Someone beat up Cinderblock?" Impulse asked. He did a literally super-fast once-over of the site. "Dude. I think I can believe it now."

"What is it, Impulse?" Nightwing asked, walking over to the teen speedster, the other Outsiders following.

"Look," Impulse said in a voice devoid of any levity.

The Outsiders looked --- and saw Cinderblock's remains, which had been ground into dust that had settled into the shape of a crow.

If she could have, the ghostly young woman known as Secret would have shivered. For she knew who --- or what --- could have left such a symbol.

"He has returned," she said, her ethereal voice resonating.

"Who?" Nightwing asked. Then, something made him turn, and when he did, he saw a sight that was completely unfamiliar and yet felt familiar at the same time.

It was a teenage boy, small and lithe, clad in form-fitting black with a black cape hanging off his shoulders. The suit was accented with studded silver bracelets, a studded black leather belt, and buckled black leather boots, not to mention a red X on the chest. That was not the strange thing about him, though. What was strange was that his face was painted dead white with black makeup accenting his eyes and lips. In fact, the way it was applied made it look like someone had slashed his eyes and that he was smiling.

"Nightwing," the boy said. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

The boy's voice was familiar, but chilling in the mocking friendliness that ran through it.

"It is him," Secret said. "He is the revenant, the restless spirit that has returned to this world."

"What's with the makeup, kid?" Arsenal asked. "Playing around in Mommy's makeup kit?"

The boy just graced the young archer with a cold, withering stare.

"And I thought only Batman could stare at you like that," Impulse said.

Nightwing looked more closely at the boy. He didn't understand why, but the boy was so very familiar to him.

Those eyes, he thought. I've seen them before, but never like the way they are now.

Finally, Nightwing realized who he was. But . . . it couldn't be . . . could it?

"Robin?" Nightwing asked.

"So you do remember me, Nightwing," Robin replied.

"Robin?" Empress asked. "The Robin? The kid that replaced you after you left Batman? The kid that Slade bastard killed?"

"The one and only," Robin confirmed.

"I don't think anyone ever told you this, but you're supposed to be dead," Impulse said.

"You must be the Outsiders," Robin said. "Raven told me about you."

"Raven?" Empress asked. "She knows? And she didn't tell us? Wait, do the other Teen Titans know?"

"No," Robin replied. "And I don't intend them to know."

"They'll find out, anyway," Nightwing said.

"Y'know, maybe this hasn't occurred to you guys, but if Cinderblock was just the distraction, then who the hell was in on the real action?" Arsenal asked.

"Jinx," Robin replied. "I'm sure you'll find her charred remains inside the wreckage of the space center, assuming she didn't pull off a last-minute escape, but I highly doubt that."

Nightwing looked at Robin, a look of shock registering on the features of his face that weren't covered by his eye-mask. "Don't tell me you left her to die!"

"She had to," Robin stated simply.

"He is right," Secret said. "His spirit is trapped between this world and the next. He cannot rest in peace until the injustice that left him like this has been rectified."

Impulse ran to the wreckage of the space center in a white-and-red blur and came back in less than three seconds. "I found Jinx, but you don't wanna see. It's not a pretty sight."

"It's too bad," Robin said, his voice a cold, mocking purr. "If things had worked out differently, I think I could have grown to like her."

He walked past the Outsiders and away from the space center, the crow settling on his shoulder. Two down, he thought. Now to work my way up the chain until I take down Slade for good.

Nightwing stared at Robin's retreating back, saddened and frightened at once. Sad for Robin because of how he'd died and his unhappy fate, and frightened because of the cold, vengeful spirit he had become. So different from the bright, cheerful boy he had once known.

"You simply defy, I cannot even look to the sky,

We try it single file, take on me, and it's my denial,

I cannot ever find, something safe, not done on the fly,

I cannot live this way, floor and me will kick the P.A.

"You wanna play with me

I'm really gonna rock your world

You want to comfort me

I'm gonna rock your world.

"You say everything is fine, I cannot compete with the skies,

My sing has crossed the line, come in me,

I fly through the sky, I can not ever find,

You and me will make all the lines,

Oh, if they could see the plague,

No one would want to be me.

"You wanna play with me

I'm really gonna rock your world

You wanna comfort me

I'm gonna rock your world.

"So I fly

Take me

I cannot fly

Most people hate me

To fly away from this pain.

"Please take away

Please take away my P.A."

Korn - "Kick the P.A."

End Notes: If you want to know more about the Outsiders, just check out www.titanstower.com. With the exception of Nightwing and Arsenal, who were founding Titans in the comics, the Outsiders I use in this story come from the Young Justice comic books and earlier incarnations of the comic-book Titans.

So there you have it. Robin's vengeance has begun. Will he reunite with the Teen Titans? How will he take Superboy's presence and position? And how will the other four original Titans, Starfire especially, handle his presence?