Prologue

"Look out!" Beast Boy cried, tackling Speedy as a dark blast nearly smashed into the archer.

Speedy let out a growl of irritation and rolled out from under Beast Boy, jumping to his feet and notching an arrow in one smooth motion.

"Wait, you can't shoot her!" Beast Boy protested, grabbing Speedy's arm.

"Are you kidding?" Speedy demanded, trying to shake off the changeling. "Look at her! She's going to destroy the entire city! Unless you want Jump City to be leveled to the ground, followed by, oh, just the entire planet!"

"It's not her fault!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "She's not in control of herself. We have to stop her without hurting her."

"I've got this!" Jinx yelled, running past them. She flung out an arm and a wave of pink energy shot toward a dark figure floating in the sky. A shield came up to protect the figure and the pink energy dissipated into nothing. "Or not," she muttered.

"Allow me to try," a deep voice requested as Thunder stepped onto his flying cloud. He slammed his hands together and a sonic boom rushed towards the figure. The soundwave hit and the figure staggered in the air before righting herself. She turned four red glowing eyes on Thunder and threw a bolt of black energy that sent him crashing to the ground.

Beast Boy let go of Speedy to run towards his fallen comrade and Speedy pulled back his arrow. Before he released it, the voice of a panicked Kid Flash came over the Titans Communicator. "We need help downtown! These magma, volcano, mutant creature things are too much for us to handle. Hotspot and Mas y Menos are down!"

Speedy let go of his arrow to angrily grab his communicator. "We can't keep splitting our resources like this, Nightwing! Either we focus on the magma creatures or we focus on stopping Raven."

"Trigon!" Beast Boy interrupted angrily from the ground next to the prone form of Thunder. "We're fighting Trigon, not Raven!"

"Whatever!" Speedy yelled before returning to his communicator. "Stopping Trigon should stop all the magma creatures running around, so obviously we need to focus all our power on that. I know there will be casualties if we ignore the creatures, but the casualties will keep mounting every moment that Trigon keeps on going!"

Aqualad's voice crackled over the communicator. "How did the Titans stop Trigon two years ago when he first appeared?"

"The Titans didn't," Cyborg's voice said grimly. "Raven did. The rest of us barely put a scratch on Trigon or his minions back then. It was Raven's power that stopped Trigon, but seeing as Trigon has possessed Raven, I don't think she's going to be much help this time."

"What if Jericho tried to possess Raven?" Kole asked excitedly. "That was his idea, not mine, but maybe that would kick Trigon out."

Speedy saw Jinx shake her head as she grabbed her communicator. "You really think some human with the power of possession can knock an interdimensional demon out of a body? The difference in power is way too great."

"But maybe if it weakens Trigon, even just a little bit, Raven can gain enough control to knock Trigon out of her," Kole argued. "We should at least try it."

Speedy shook his head angrily and shoved his communicator back into his pocket. He knew they needed to come up with a plan, but there was no time. Jump City was being destroyed now and if they didn't put a stop to it, the rest of the world would follow.

It was hard to believe that the chaos around them had been down in just a few hours. Buildings on fire, earthquakes tearing the city apart, a boiling ocean yielding up dead fish. Just that morning the Titans East had been talking about a group retreat. Bumblebee wanted them to work on team building and figured a change of scenery would help. Then they received a panicked call from the Titans West calling all Titans to Jump City. Raven's interdimensional demon of a father, who everyone thought had been defeated for good, suddenly appeared inside Raven's body and immediately started working on Domination of the Universe Plan B.

Hesitating a moment, Speedy dropped his sharp arrow and grabbed a freeze arrow instead. Beast Boy was right; Raven was a comrade, not an enemy. He took aim and fired. Raven's (or Trigon's, Speedy was having a hard time keeping all this chaos straight in his head) attention was caught up by Lightning, who kept flying past her and throwing bolts. Trigon blocked each one with Raven's magic, but failed to notice the arrow flying at her/his back. The arrow hit and ice encased her/his back and arms.

With an inhuman shriek, Trigon/Raven burst out of the ice and turned to glare at Speedy. Speedy gulped and turned to run, dodging behind a car. The car lifted and Speedy rolled away, hoping Trigon/Raven didn't plan to drop the car on top of him.

Speedy was saved by Starfire flying towards Trigon/Raven, Jericho in her arms. Jericho's eyes glowed brilliant green as his body turned non-corporeal and leapt into Raven's eyes. The car dropped and Speedy held his breath as he watched. "Come on, come on," he muttered desperately. Red, black, and green energy lashed around Raven's body as all three beings inside fell to the ground.

Raven's back hit the ground and Jericho flew out of her body, landing several feet away. Speedy clenched his fists as he stared at Raven, willing for Raven and Raven alone to rise.

~.~

Nightwing threw another Batarang at the approaching magma monster, but wasn't too optimistic about the results. Only Raven's power seemed to affect the creatures. He looked up at said girl to watch Starfire and Jericho fly towards her. He hoped Kole was right, and that Jericho could weaken Trigon enough for Raven to take control. Raven was strong. If she just got a chance he knew she could fight off Trigon's possession.

He kept one eye on his surroundings and one eye on Raven. When she fell, he ran towards her, then—everything froze. He blinked and looked around in confusion at the gray tones covering everything around him, then jumped back in surprise when Raven appeared in front of him. He took in her two purple eyes and threw his arms around her. "It worked!" He cried, then froze when over Raven's shoulder he saw Raven's form still lying on the ground.

"Huh?" He asked in confusion, pulling back to look at Raven.

"I'm just an astral projection," Raven explained, turning to look at her body. "This is all that I can do." She turned back to stare into Nightwing's eyes, taking one of his hands in her own. "I'm sorry to ask this, but you have to destroy my body."

"No," Nightwing denied, stepping back and pulling his hand away from Raven.

"I won't die," Raven explained quickly, "You won't be killing me. I'll just no longer have a corporeal form."

"Then you might as well be dead!" Nightwing exclaimed.

Raven continued on as though he hadn't spoken. "If you kill my body, Trigon will no longer have a host to possess. No mortal can contain his spirit for more than a few minutes; his energy will burn them up. He'll be weaker without a body. I, on the other hand, will be stronger without one."

Nightwing continued to shake his head. "No, we'll find another way. We're the Teen Titans, we always find another way."

Raven shook her head. "There's no time. If we had known this would happen, or if Trigon possessing my body was a gradual process, I'm sure we could come up with an alternative plan, but if we don't do something now, Trigon will win. He'll use my body to kill my best friends and then he'll take over the universe. We have no choice."

Nightwing's shoulders sank at the same time as Raven's face contorted with effort. "I can't…" She started to say, her astral form flickering. "I can't hold on to the time freeze any longer, Nightwing. You have to stop my heart. I'll take care of the rest. I'm sorry to ask you, but you know you have to do this, Nightwing. The others would fight me on this and refuse. Then we'd all die."

"Raven—" Nightwing began desperately, but the form in front of him disappeared and the eyes of her real body started flickering.

"I'm the leader," Nightwing murmured to himself. "Making the hard decisions will always be my responsibility." Tightly gripping a Batarang, Nightwing ran for Raven's body. He knelt over her and hesitated a moment before plunging the weapon into her chest, closing his eyes and turning his head away so he wouldn't have to see it. Her body jerked once under him before he felt time resume.

"Nightwing?" Beast Boy asked uncertainly. "How did you get…?" He trailed off as he saw the blood flowing from Raven's body and he gasped.

"F-friend Raven?" Starfire trembled. Her voice broke as she fell to her knees, her eyes stuck on Raven.

They all flinched when light burst from Raven's body. Nightwing leaned back to look at the sky as giant, translucent forms of Raven and Trigon took shape above them.

The Titans watched in awe as Raven battled her father, growing stronger and bigger as she overpowered him, finally banishing him back to another realm. Giant Raven closed her eyes and Jump City began to heal. The roiling ocean calmed, split streets sealed together, fires dissipated and the magma creatures faded away.

Raven's form began to fade away too and Starfire cried out, "No! Raven, come back!"

When the form disappeared entirely, Raven's voice entered the minds of the Titans. "I'm sorry for today. I never meant for any of this to happen. I thought our world was safe from Trigon after we stopped the prophecy and defeated him." A pause and Nightwing wondered if Raven had left. "I cannot thank you enough for being my friends, my family. Thank you for allowing me to be what I never thought was possible for me. A hero."

This time, Nightwing felt Raven's consciousness flow away and he stared down at Raven's body in despair. He should have known Trigon wasn't gone for good. He should have planned for something like this. Nightwing continued to berate himself as the cries of his comrades filled his ears.

A/N: So, I'm trying something new. Usually I like to have a fanfiction planned out before writing it, so that I know that I'll finish it. Since I don't have much planned out, this probably won't get finished, but I felt the need to write and wanted to try writing for a new fandom. Let me know what you think!