I eventually healed up not long after that, but it was still agonizingly slow from my perspective. I returned to work with gusto however, relishing being back in the field.

Things seemed to move preposterously fast after that. Eventually I worked my way through the Titans rogue's gallery in full. Mad Scientists, Apocalyptic Monsters, and Malevolent Villains came and went, the six of us standing against and defeating them every time.

This went on for weeks, then months, and then years passed by. It was the longest I'd ever stayed in one place by a wide margin. I was with the Titans all the way up to their disbandment in fact, and beyond.

Robin moved on the Bludhaven city and donned the mantle of Nightwing, I assume because to work in a city with such a pretentious name, you have to have a name just as pretentious. I don't think Robin ever really trusted me the same way he did everyone else. I don't blame him, he's a good read of a person and I sure as hell wouldn't trust me. I see him every now and then, occasionally dropping by to help him out with something and vice versa. He's a good man and I respect him still.

BeastBoy rejoined the Doom Patrol when Memento was forced out due to injury, and stayed on afterwards at Memento's urging. I came with him for a while, but returned after only a few weeks. Of all the original Titans, I liked him the best. BeastBoy never judged me, not even once, which can't even be said of Starfire, and I deeply appreciated that. I still treat him like a little brother whenever I see him, something that I don't think I'll stop doing.

I haven't seen Cyborg in years. He butted heads with Robin and split just a few months before the official disbandment of the Titans for parts unknown. I hear rumors every now and then from the guys at Titans East that he's working for the Star Labs as a programmer, but I can't say for sure. I miss him deeply, and wish him all the best.

Starfire eventually returned to her home planet to participate in a war with some interplanetary world raiders called the Gordanians. It would be years before I heard from her again, and even then it was only when she came to Earth to help us fight off the Gordanians ourselves. She's now the Tamaranian liaison to Earth, a position she enjoys as it leaves her with plenty of time for entertaining friends. She is a proud, beautiful warrior and I love her like a sister, but nothing more than that.

Raven is the only one I keep in touch with regularly. She swings by a couple of times a month to help me out and keep me appraised of the progress on her home. When the Titans disbanded, she left this reality altogether to rebuild Azeroth, a slow going process that will take decades, if not centuries. I help where I can but it's complex work and involves magics I am unschooled in. She never did tell anyone about what she found in my mind, and for that I am eternally grateful.

And as for myself? I'm still here, in Jump City, keeping the peace and fighting the good fight. The tower is still here, but it does not stand empty. The halls are alive with new faces, youngsters eager to learn and study and fight. I teach them here, how to control their powers and use them for the benefit of themselves and society as a whole. All I ask of them is that they use their gifts responsibly, and that I am entitled to bore them with my old stories whenever I so choose. The Jump City Academy of the New Titans they call it, I simply call it home.

I've never been good at ending things, so I won't. Instead, I shall simply tell you who I am. I am Vidac Gans; third echelon champion of the perfect kill under Clan Gans, born Percival Novack, son of Tracy and David Novack, bestowed with the name Man and then occluded under the Vigilante title of Reaver. I have defied gods and demons, I have slain men and women alike, I have stood against monsters and freaks, and I have died four times. I am a killer, a warrior, a hero, a teacher and a liar, but more than all of that…

I am a Titan

Heya folks, long time no see huh?

If you're reading this, you're probably one of the very few people to have stayed faithful to this story during its several year long deadness, or you forgot to remove it from your alert list. Either way, thanks for reading. I hope that you'll indulge me just a bit more.

I started this story way back in 2004 when I was but a wee lad of seventeen years, and it shows. Looking back on the prose I wrote during my early chapters I can't help but laugh the same way you would upon looking at an embarrassing baby photo of yourself. One thing that amazed me then and still does was the sheer number of different people who enjoyed my work; really enjoyed it. It absolutely floored me that with all of the other works readily available, they chose to read mine. It's a truly flattering feeling to know that someone chose to spend their time reading something I wrote. It's because of that that I'm choosing to supply this sendoff after all this time. Ultimately, I am beholden to my readers.

I can't help but love the sarcastic, conniving asshole that is the character Reaver, and I'll always have a special place for him in my mind. I had, and still have, a great many ideas for arcs with him; Reaver confronting the remnant of his clan, the resurrection of Terra, the healing of Batgirl, Shimmer's return, but that's all they are; ideas. Flights of fancy that would inevitably run into the ground everything that I'd worked towards.

One thing that I adamantly refuse to be is boring, which is what Stained Claws would eventually become if I had continued. I set out on this story with the simple intention to write, and nothing more. I had no ending planned or in sight, just more and more and more of the same stuff. Like I said above, I have no talent for endings, which in my opinion are the most important part of any story. I am ultimately beholden only to my readers, whom I have let down these past many years.

So it is here, at the conclusion of my latest arc, that I end Stained Claws. I like to think it's as good as place as any for an ending, a real ending. I can only hope it gave you the closure it gave me.