Let it never be said that Raven was the sort of person who didn't know when she was beat. Yes, she was a loner by nature and yes, she prided herself on being able to handle her own business when need be, but still she was no fool. The train didn't need to hit her for her to know it was coming. She always knew when it was time to ask for help and this was most definitely one of those times. The moment she returned from Calebog's she knew exactly what she need to do. She needed to rally the troops, call upon her teammates, her friends, confess to everything that had happened and hope to Azar there was something they could do to help. Unfortunately The Poison inside of her had other plans.

Reappearing in the tower once more, she made a beeline for the common room. It was almost dinner time and everyone would most likely already be there. All for the best, she thought. After all if she was going to humiliate herself she may as well do it all at once and be done with it. She was nearly to the double doors when she came across Robin coming the other way, his head down and buried in the workings of a data pad.

'Perfect,' Raven thought to herself. She'd tell Robin what had happened. He'd tell the others and then they could all work on it together. She was just about ready to call to him when a most unusual feeling overcame her. As he approached, she all at once caught the scent of his hair gel as it wafted gently through the air. The aroma of the product, the one advertised on the front of the bottle as Springtime Meadow, was supposed to be fresh and sweet, something akin to wildflowers; however, the smell that greeted her nostrils at that moment most assuredly was not wild flowers. It was foul and rank. Garbage water came to mind, that kind of foul soup that gathered at the bottom of the barrel and seemed to comprise all the worst characteristics of the rot and refuse that came before it. It was a stale and bitter stench that didn't so much enter the sinus' as invade them like a pack of wild dogs or a bloodthirsty viking horde. It turned her stomach immediately and she was left with no chioce but to turn and run, teleport her way back to her room before the situation got any worse. It was just as Mother May-Eye had said. The Poison had not stopped at her love for Beast Boy. It was now perverting the feelings she had for the rest of her friends as well. The thought was enough to make her cry and as soon as she got back to her room, for several agonizing minutes, that's exactly what she did. Crumbling to a heap on the floor she laid there and did little more than weep into the carpet, letting the tears flow however which way they saw fit. It had been years since she'd felt so alone and even longer since she felt so unloved.

As sad and pathetic as she was in that moment, however, she was not beaten. Not by a long shot. She'd let herself be overwhelmed and had a good cry, but now was the time to pick herself up, dry her cheeks and take action, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

After collecting herself and thinking calmly for a few moments Raven decided to try the most obvious solution to her problem. She asked herself: if she couldn't speak to her friends in person could she message them via her patented Titan communicator? Unfortunately the answer to such a question was no, she could not. For several minutes she sat at the foot of her bed struggling to compose a message sane enough to properly explain her situation, but every attempt ended in exhasperating failure.

Robin, I hate your stupid rat-face.

Starfire, your whiny bimbo voice makes me want to stick carpenter's nails in my ears.

Cyborg, Everytime you shout boo-yah, I want to solder your head to your butt.

On and on it went like that. It was as if The Poison had created a barrier between her brain and her fingers, crippling her ability to communicate. Every message quickly devolved into a toxic sludge of half finished thoughts and ideas, interspersed with expletive laced spurts of hatred and contempt. At the tenth attempt she lost her patience entirely. The communicator became encased in an involountary field of black energy and swiftly exploded into a shower of metal and plastic. It was then she realized, like it or not, she was truly on her own.

Crossing her legs and hovering in the lotus position above her bed, Raven took hold of her meditation mirror, encapsulating it in a thin aura of dark energy. Positioning it a foot or so in front of her face, she took a deep breath. This was it. No turning back, not if she wanted to regain control of her life. She stared deeply into the mirror's reflective surface, far past her nose and eyes and well beyond the gates of her conscious mind, deep into the realm she called her own, the realm called Nevermore. This place was her sanctuary. It was like a second home to her. It was time to take it back.

xxxxxx

The state of Passion's gallery had unsurprisingly not improved since Raven's last visit and in fact it's appearance suggested things had only become more haggard and desperate. The Poison's wrath had now spread beyond the Beast Boy exhibit and to the rest of the gallery. The place looked something akin to a warzone and had an atmosphere eerily similar to the deathly quiet that followed a prolonged firefight. Broken glass and splintered wood littered the cracked and grime covered tile floor and the air was choked with a thick, dusty haze. Not a single exhibit had survived the creature's terrible wrath. Everywhere Raven looked painting's were slashed and torn. Statues lay toppled and smashed. Images of her friends stared up at her almost accusingly, mournfully begging her for an explanation for such cruelty. The salmon colored sludge from the creature's maw coated the walls and fell into great piles on the floor, adding a foul stench reminiscent of rot and decay to the already foul air. The sight was heartbreaking, but unfortunately there was no time for tears.

Raven was certain she'd never been more focused in her life and after all she had to be. If she couldn't somehow find a way to purge this poison from her mind and body what kind of life would be left for her? To be sure this fight was not about survival. If she wanted to survive all she had to do was turn around and leave, disappear to some remote destination far away from everyone and live as a hermit for the rest of her days. Not a chance. She'd been there and done that once already and it was a way of living she never intended to go back to. Not now. Not when she finally knew what it meant to have friends. To have a home. To belong. No, she would find a way to defeat this creature or she would die trying.

Steadying her nerves, Raven carefully navigated her way down the long, sullen hallway, until she reached the entrance to the Beast Boy exhibit. Ever so gently, and with only a moment's hesitation, she placed a hand on the still damaged door and lightly encouraged it open. The room was just as derelict as when she left it and The Poison was no where to be seen. Entering more fully into the room, she scanned for any signs of life. Finding nothing, she was ready to leave when from the edges of her vision she glimpsed movement. Her head turned and her eyes darted. Dark energy coursed through her as she readied herself for battle, but once more she found nothing. She thought she was imagining things when she heard it, a sound as small and delicate as a wind chime, a sort of tink-tink-tinking noise coming from the far corner of the room. Then she saw it. From beneath a torn piece of canvas it came. A minuscule thing, it stood only about three inches high. Small and green and seemingly made of ceramic, the little being stepped bravely out into the light.

It took a moment for Raven to fully realize what she was seeing, but rest assured she did. She remembered spying it on one of the shelves along the back wall of the exhibit during her previous visits to Passion's domain, prior to The Poison's arrival. It was one of Passion's creations, a ceramic figurine of none other than Beast Boy. Complete with green face and purple uniform, it seemed to be the only creation to survive the creature's onslaught. The fact that it was walking around with some kind of life to call it's own meant only one thing. Passion was still alive. Alive and close.

With a big, goofy grin adorning its face, the figurine raised it's delicate, little hand and waved at Raven. Raven somewhat dumbly waved back before realizing the foolishness of her actions and stopping.

"Hey, uh...little guy," said Raven, doing her best to soften her voice. "I could sort of use your help. Do you think you can take me to-"

Raven was unable to finish her request as quite suddenly the figurine took off running, it's tiny ceramic feet making the afore mentioned tinking noise as they tapped against the tile flooring. There was an overturned statue lying in a fragmented heap against the wall and the little guy made a beeline straight for it, quickly disappearing between the pieces.

"Hey wait," called Raven.

Summoning her powers Raven easily levitated and swept away the broken chunks of marble, effectively clearing the corner. Unfortunately she found no figurine hiding underneath like she expected. Getting on her hands and knees she studied the area, looking for any sign of the Beast Boy replica, but finding none. Confused and irritated, she was ready to give up when the tinking sound returned. Halting her movement and listening closely she found the noise to be coming from the wall where the statue previously lay. Studying the damaged wood and plaster more closely revealed to her a small indentation at the bottom where the wall met the floor. Upon further inspection she realized the indentation was not in fact a piece of damage as previously thought, but rather a wooden door, an itsy-bitsy, ceramic figurine sized doorway complete with itty-bitty doorframe and teeny-tiny doorknob. Climbing to her feet, Raven raised a hand to the doorway. Focusing on the entrance, she concentrated and with little to no effort enforced her will upon the domain. The tiny doorway began to grow. Stretching like tafffy, the unassuming portal went from mouse size to human size in the span of about five seconds.

Taking a breath Raven steadied herself. She then reached for the knob and opened the door. Inside she found another hallway, clean the way the gallery used to be, with pristine walls and elegant flooring. Unlike the gallery however, there were no exhibits. The walls were completely blank. For something like 40 feet there was nothing but white until the corridor ended at the foot of another door identical to the first one. Raven quickly covered the length of the corridor, arriving swiftly at the plain, unassuming doorway. Reaching for the knob she opened it. The room it lead to was small and dark, only about 5x5 with the only light source being a naked 40 watt bulb hanging by a cord from the ceiling. The room held only one occupant.

Passion had every bit the appearance of a woman who'd been broken, sitting on the floor, hunched over her knees and leaning one shoulder against the wall. Her violet colored cloak had lost its ebulliant glow and become pale and diluted, lacking any and all vibrancy and hanging in dirty tatters over her shoulders. Her ratty hood was pulled down over her face, shielding her eyes as she hovered over the Beast Boy figurine from before as it sat like a good little boy in the center of her outstretched palm.

"Never disappear like that again," scolded Passion, her voice cracking with sadness as she coddled the diminutive figure, running her fingertips over the little points of hair on the top of its head. "You could have gotten hurt. If I lost you I don't know what I would do."

Raven had to admit, she was somewhat at a loss. She wasn't sure exactly how to start this conversation (if 'conversation' was ever the right word for this sort of thing). Her manifestations were supposed to be extensions of herself, but looking at Passion now Raven simply didn't see a visual representation of one of her core emotions, she saw someone in pain. Someone who was suffering. More and more she was realizing that Passion and all the other manifestations in Nevermore were not soulless abstracts. For all intents and purposes they were living things. They were real. It was a truth she was ashamed to admit she had realized far too late.

"I guess you know why I'm here," said Raven finally as she stepped further into the room.

"He hates me now," answered the emotion, seemingly ignoring her. "This little one was the only one I could save. He hates me now and this little one is all I have left to remember him by."

"I'm sure he doesn't...hate you."

"His eyes. That look in his eyes. He was so sad."

Beast Boy's sad expression flashed in Raven's mind and for a brief moment her green comrade was there in the room with them, appearing from nothingness, emerging from out of one of the room's darkened corners like a ghostly figure and looking every bit as hurt and mournful as she remembered. The sight of it gave Raven serious pause as she struggled to maintain her focus. She closed her eyes and internally recited her mantra. This did the trick as when she opened them again the terrible memory had vanished, leaving Raven alone with her thoughts once more.

"We owe him an explanation," said Raven after a beat. "But nothing has been broken that can't be fixed."

"I just wanted him to see me," answered Passion. "One time. I wanted him to look at me and know that I existed, that I existed for him...and now..." The manifestation seemed to be on the brink of total collapse as she hugged the little ceramic figurine to her cheek. "What did I do wrong? Why didn't you want him to see me?"

Passion's words were heart wrenching and they hit Raven like a wrecking ball. Bowing her head, she slowly crossed the room and took a seat on the floor beside the sorrowful manifestation.

"I'm sorry," said Raven solemnly. "What I did was wrong. I never should have tried to stop you from being you. You have every right to exist, same as everyone. I messed up, but I think we can make things right. We can take out that creature and things can go back to normal. You can create again. Create as much as you want. I won't stop you. You'll be free."

Though Passion's gaze remained down cast, Raven nevertheless detected a glimmer of hope in the manifestation's voice as she quietly echoed the word, "Free," to herself.

"First things first though," said Raven quickly. "That creature needs to be stopped. Do you know where it is now?"

"It's not far," answered Passion after a moment of contemplative silence. "It's never far, but...it's not the same as it was before. It's different now. Stronger. It considers this place it's home. And what it's built is every bit as wicked as..."

"What it's built?"

"A realm. It's built it's own realm."

The fact that the creature had created a realm for itself was not wholy surprising. Ever since Raven had set her meta-physical feet back in Nevermore she could sense a change in the landscape, something beyond The Poison itself. The thing to understand about Nevermore was that its geography lacked any kind of consistency. The locations of the realms as well as the paths leading to them were fluid. There was an ebb and flow to their existence, one that routinely reflected Raven's own mental state. One could not simply navigate Nevermore the way one would a road system with lefts and rights. Traveling between the realms required an acute understanding of one's surroundings, both in the physical and meta-physical sense. Without proper training it would be entirely possible for one to become lost and disappear forever into the never ending expanse of one's own sub-conscious, never to be found again.

The Poison's realm on the other hand was different. As an alien piece of matter, it did not move in harmony with the other realms, but rather stood in defiance against them, disrupting their natural locomotion like a wrench caught in the gears. Raven sensed this the moment she returned. The Poison's presence had become a fixed point in her mind, deeply embedded in her psyche like a railroad spike, cold, hard and unmoving. Not so much a pain, but a pressure, sitting like a stone behind her eyes.

For a moment Raven sat considering this new information.

"If it's bulit it's own realm than finding it won't be difficult," she declared after a beat. "I have a plan to defeat this creature, but I could use your help. I know fighting isn't really your thing, but-"

Passion's posture became tense as she turned more away from Raven and faced the opposite wall.

"No," she answered quickly. "No, no. Too strong. It's too strong." Cuddling the Beast Boy figurine, she hummed a nameless tune to herself and seemed to slink down deeper into her cloak.

The poor manifestation had suffered greatly and Raven could hardly blame her for not being up to the challenge. She would have to do this without her. She turned to make her exit, but stopped just short of leaving the room entirely. Putting her hand on the door frame, she turned and faced the broken emotion once more.

"Do me a favor?" she asked softly. "Take care of that little guy." She bowed her head. "For me."

xxxxxx

The Poison's domain was difficult to describe. It's structure was not that of wood and stone, but rather flesh and bone and teeth. The thing it resembled most was that of a cancerous tumor, sitting smack dab in the middle of Nevermore like a mound of discolored flesh, oozing and pulsing. Jagged chucks of bone rose up from the top of it, reaching for the sky like castle spires. Long, black strands of thick, greasy hair as big around as a man's reach stretched out from the base of it in all directions, covering the surrounding areas like tree roots. The entrance to this den of sickness was a stairway made of oversized teeth leading to a comma shaped passage way that looked nothing less than an open wound. The interior naturally was just as disgusting as the exterior. Resembling something like a mountain cavern, the floors and ceiling appeared to be made from abraded patches of skin. Inconsistently sized pieces haphazardly stitched together with big ugly metal staples and pulled tight over sinew-y flesh. Small tufts of course black hair checkard the uneven floor and more jagged chunks of bone stuck unceremoniously from the ceiling like stalactites.

The main entrance lead to a dense network of catacombs which had the obvious intent to mislead and confuse. Such tricks, however, would not work on Raven. The Poison was close. She could feel it now. Like a canker on the inside of her mouth. She didn't need to see it to know exactly where it was. She could have made the trek through the catacombs blindfolded.

With effortless haste Raven navigated her way through the catacombs, taking lefts and rights with a kind of clairvoyance that made it look as if she'd been down these roads a thousand times before. Finally, after only about a minute's worth of travel, she arrived at the mouth of another cavern. Feeling very much like the center of the structure, the cavern was enormously spacious, far greater than the one in which she entered. The walls stretched tall and imposing, going up, up, up to an ominouslly dark and stalactite filled ceiling. The sight was awe-inspiring, but what really caught Raven's attention was what lay inside.

Covering the floor of the cavern were thousands upon thousands of photographs. From one side of the room to the other they sat in groups ranging in size from neat, six-inch-high stacks to mountainous twenty-foot tall messy piles. Pictures upon pictures upon pictures. Moving to one of the more moderatly sized piles, Raven knelt down and retrieved a handful. Holding them to her face, she began cycling through them. The images that passed before her were confusing at first, but realization as to their meaning was almost instantaneous. Starfire in the midst of singing a tamaranean folk song. Her mother reading a selection of passages from one of several dense azarathean texts. Beast Boy and Cyborg playing videogames. Birthday parties. Christmas mornings. Lazy saturday afternoons. Sunsets. Laughter. Heart to heart talks. Tender moments. They were her memories. Every single photo was a memory. A moment from her past. The fact that they were here meant only one thing. The Poison still wasn't finished. It had corrupted her emotions and now it was setting its sights on her memories.

Studying her fingertips Raven noted that each photo possessed a thin layer of grime. Immediately she realized that if this creature were allowed to continue soon all the love she'd ever had for her friends and family, past, present and future would be gone. Maybe even lost forever.

"No," she hissed to herself. Clenching her fist, a ball of dark energy materialized around her hand. "No more." Her eyes took on an ethereal glow as a great power began coursing through her, and spinning around on her heels she released it in the form of a massive energy blast.

xxxxxx

Ever since she'd entered the cavern, Raven could sense it. Eyes upon her. Watching her every move. Seeing the photographs had genuinely aroused her curiosity, but the particular pile she chose to inspect was completely premeditated. Never losing track of the presense at her back, she deliberately placed herself in a seemingly vulnerable position and waited for the creature to make its move. The timing of it could almost be called serendipitous as her shock at seeing the photos gave her attack an unprecedented boost in intensity. The Poison had gotten the drop on her once before. Such a thing would not happen twice. Screaming like a banshee Raven let loose upon the attacking creature an energy blast that sent it hurdling back first through the air before crashing hard into a low hanging, bone-y stalactite. It then tumbled to the floor, sending massive amounts of photographs fluttering in all directions as it landed.

The creature had taken a decidedly powerful blow, however, it would not be felled so easily. Climbing to its four paws it shook the cobwebs from it's head and let loose with a menacing growl. Raven however was not intimidated.

"Come on," she practically growled back.

Energy snapped and crackled around her as she readied another blast.