Disclaimer: Teen Titans isn't mine

The inspiration for this one? I'm generally not very tempered, and someone was flaming me - my muse did the rest. So because this story is far from pleasant, it merits a -

Warning: This fic is going to be extremely disturbing by most normal standards. There will be vivid descriptions of violence, blood and gore, explicit scenes, and whatever else my muse may dictate to me. Do not read if you are uncomfortable with violence, horror, psychological trauma, sex, or anything of the sort.

Also keep in mind that I do not endorse actually doing anything depicted in the story. In fact, you probably should not do anything I depict in this story (related to violent things).

"Speech"

Thoughts

This world is chaos.

There are those who choose to ignore it. And there are those who embrace it for its truth.

People believe that things happen for reasons. Being steeped in lies, in ignorant folly.

Some things... no... everything is chaos. Nothing happens for a reason. Things just are. They happen, and there is no reason for it.

In this world, there is no right or wrong. Every decision, every action just happens. And that is that.

All is chaos.

A shadowy figure slipping in the oblivious void of night - death crackling about her as she moved - noiseless, invisible - but bearing with her the perturbed aura of something utterly demonic.

Lurking in the gloom.

Moody, deathly quiet.

Still, but tensed, waiting to lash out at whatever might come in reach.

But there was nothing.

She moved on, shifting from one patch of unending darkness to another, cloaked in shadows, nothing but a faint whisper of wind. An incorporeal form, wavering... she seemed unable to settle on a particular shape, a mere mass of chaotic energy, shifting perfectly with the flow of crepuscular black about her. Though perhaps, just maybe, where her face should have been, there were two... no, four... faint eyes, gleaming with a faint sanguine hue.

Or perhaps they were just an illusion - the blackness closed in about her, an obscuring shroud, and nothing could be made out save for that eerie aura surrounding her.

She blew about, guided by the wind, until at last the darkness was broken by the faint glimmer of light... raw fury welled up within her and suddenly the darkness of her form began to swirl violently, storming edgily toward the offending invasion of light into the domain of the void.

Squinting, she turned her senses in the direction of the hated glow and found a large collection of metallic constructions, most of them radiating the detested light. Especially the gigantic 'T', rising out of the bay - she gave off a dark growl, rage boiling within her again, but then it faded, suddenly replaced with a low purr. This time, the four eyes - the four crimson eyes - were readily visible, glinting with bloodlust, as she began to descend the hill, her dark, chaotic form still invisible as she passed into the light.

All is chaos.

Her nose wrinkled as she passed through the dim lights of the darkened city, an odd feeling of filth pervading her senses. Yes. Something utterly grotesque, a diseased tumor sapping the life from the earth beneath her, rotting at its flesh. She grimaced, growling slightly, and extended her senses.

One of the doors a nearby alley burst open and out of it flew the naked body of a woman. She landed hard on the ground, bleeding and crying, and not a moment later, a man emerged out, holding a baseball bat in his hands.

The chaotic aura about the shadowy figure continued churning about her slowly, seemingly unperturbed, as the man swung the bat down, hard, then again and again, each time eliciting a scream - until one last swing produced an odd choking noise and a sickening crunch, then silence.

Another alley, a man jumped out from the darkness toward a young child, tackling him to the ground. He grinned, and drew a knife, staring the kid down.

The shadows swirled about, still flowing placidly, as the blade swung down, not once, but twice - three times, ten - and silence.

A man crossed the street, holding a bag of groceries, running a hand through his greying hair. And then a motorcycle darted out of nowhere, slammed into him, and a two lean figures hopped off, grabbing what they could, patting him down for keys and wallet, then got back on the bike and ran over his body again, disappearing into the darkness.

Silence.

All is chaos.

Shifting slightly, the darkness began to whirl around her more rapidly.

Up high above the streets, in a run down apartment building, a man, beating his young daughter, beer bottle in hand, pummeling her mercilessly into the floor, ignoring her pleas for mercy, ignoring the blood staining his hands, the protests of her small bones with each strike...

Suddenly the darkness was everywhere, blocking out everything save for the two people and two pairs of crimson eyes in the corner.

Step aside, mortal...

The man turned toward her, unfazed, the glaze in his eyes marking his drunken state.

"Nobody - *hic - tells me - *hic - what to do..."

He threw the bottle straight at her, but it flew through the shadows and shattered. She gave off a low, rasping chuckle.

This girl is mine.

The shadows rushed in and the man screamed, his eyes rolling back in his head, veins bulging up, almost looking as if they would pop straight out of his skin. His arms and legs bent of their own accord and his screams intensified as they moved around, resting at impossible angles for several moments, then were forced to turn again, until all of the tendons and muscles around his joints were shredded.

The crimson eyes glinted wickedly and she let him fall. And turned her gaze.

The girl whimpered and began to cry, but stopped as the shadowy figure's soft voice sounded.

"Shhh... shh... it's going to be okay."

The sanguine drew close to her and she stared up, still frightfully, but uncertain whether this foreboding figure would actually harm her. Reaching out with a tiny arm, the girl made contact with soft, smooth skin, and realized that whoever - whatever it was - was right in front of her.

Everything is going to be fine. You're safe now... a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth opened and the shadows closed in.

All is chaos.

"I don't like the look of this..." Cyborg muttered as he walked up the stairs of the old apartment building, looking at the plaster peeling off the walls.

"Yeah, dude, what gives? People die all the time. It's not our business-"

"Beast Boy," Robin grumbled, glaring at him.

"Yeah, B, we're trying to be serious," Terra frowned at him, though she snuck him a small smile once Robin looked away.

Starfire followed silently in the back, looking up at the flickering lights on the ceiling, then back up to the other Titans as she realized that they were moving on without her.

Robin sighed. "I just don't know how this all happened. I thought when we beat the Brotherhood of Evil two years ago, we'd see an end to all of these problems. But if anything, the crime rate has only gone up since then."

"Dude, we can't save everyone."

"But we must at least try. Is that not right?" Starfire paused, looking at their masked leader. "Robin? Friend Robin?"

He shook his head. "Whatever the reason, that's not what we're doing here. If this was just an ordinary murder, we'd have the police handle this. Even if they can't do anything right," he muttered under his breath and cleared his throat. "But that's not the issue. Supposedly, I've been told, they found a man surrounded by a bunch of tiny bones around him this morning. He was surrounded by blood, but it wasn't his own."

"And the bones?" Cyborg grimaced.

"He was living with his daughter. She was four years old."

The other Titans paled, but Robin shook his head again. "He was in a catatonic state when they found him. It's unlikely that he was the one who did anything. The second strange thing is that the rest of the body could not be found. There was no sign of anyone leaving or entering the room by force, and forensic analysis of the blood placed the time of death at approximately 4:00 AM."

"So, he killed her, and ate her?" Terra's eyes were wide.

"Unlikely. I said he was unresponsive when they found him. Apparently he had experienced some extreme psychological trauma, or something to that effect. He had no physical damage done to his body."

"Maybe the guy was just crazy," Beast Boy offered.

"Let's hope that that's the case," Robin muttered, then continued the rest of the way up the stairs and nodded at the police officer standing beside the yellow tape, moving to duck under it.

The man stopped him. "Um, it might be better if you don't look..."

Robin frowned. "Nonsense. It's my - our - job."

The police officer shook his head sadly. "You're only kids..."

"I'm twenty," Robin grumbled, moving past the caution tape. "And besides, like I said, it's my job." He turned. "Cyborg, you come with me. The rest of you can stay out here if you don't want to see."

They stared at each other as the half-robotic man joined their masked leader and decided that it might be better to just stay put.

Robin opened the door to the room and paled slightly, but set his mouth in a hard, straight line, forcing back the bile rising from his stomach, trying to detach himself completely from the scene in front of him and analyze it objectively. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and opened them again, scanning the room carefully.

The first thing he noted was that the floor and part of the walls were stained with dried blood. His brows furrowed. The average adult human has about 5 liters of blood. A child, depending on how big she was, probably had less than 2 liters. Whoever did this was a messy eater... He shook his head, trying not to remember Terra's comment, and turned his attention away. He looked toward the bed, which seemed relatively ordinary, though a careful analysis of it later might prove otherwise.

Then toward the part of the floor which was not splattered with the dark, almost brownish color - probably where the man had been found - and scattered all about, as the police report had said - many small bones, clearly human, those of a child. They seemed unnaturally clean for being from someone so recently murdered - and then the thought crossed his mind that maybe Terra had been right after all.

He looked at Cyborg, who also seemed to be struggling not to throw up. "An animal could have done this," the dark skinned man suggested.

"I don't think so. The blood is spread all across the floor, almost evenly. No animal would have done that. And another thing. Did you notice?"

Cyborg shook his head and watched carefully as Robin pointed toward the bones scattered across the floor. And then his human eye widened, mechanical one flashing with red light.

"It looks like some sort of symbol."

Robin nodded. "Whoever did this did it to send a message," he turned back toward the room, staring at the bones, scattered into a roughly S-shaped symbol, with two dots, one in the upper right side and another in the lower left.

"Nothing I've ever seen before. Take a picture of it." He paused and stood aside. "Think we'll need to run some forensics on anything else?"

"If you trust the data the police gave us, then no."

Robin put a hand to his chin and grimaced after a moment, then walked into the room, stepping carefully so not to disturb the crime scene too much. There was a closet on his right side - the first thing he noted - and he moved to check that, opening it cautiously. Inside, the girl's bloodstained skull hung from a chain, almost like some sort of toy, and he fought down his roiling innards, holding up a flashlight and scanning the place carefully. Nothing of importance.

Then carefully toward the bed, he let the light shine on it first, wondering if he could see through the sheets without having to disturb them, but then finding nothing, he shifted everything about slowly, finding nothing again.

And then toward the single window on the other side of the room - he tried opening it, but it was rusted shut, refusing to budge.

Back across the room and he knelt down, looking at the floor carefully.

"This is blood," he said slowly. "There were no footprints leading out, and the window could not be opened."

"So whoever did this sprayed the room with blood afterwards? That seems unlikely."

"Or," Robin muttered, "we have a metahuman on our hands."

He turned back toward the rest of the Titans, who were all quiet, looking at him solemnly. "It's been a long time since we've actually had to fight someone with real powers. Usually the problem is figuring out who it is or what their plan is. Not the fight itself..."

"We can take 'im!" Beast Boy said fiercely, but then drew back as everyone glared at him. "Um... or maybe not."

"Are you sure?"

"Evidence matches up. A weird symbol, no sign of entry or exit, apparently eating a little girl... hell, maybe it's not a metahuman at all, but a demon or something completely weird..."

"Let's go back to the Tower and see if we can figure out what this symbol is," Cyborg walked past him, looking at the dark expression on his face.

Robin ignored him, and the robotic man sighed, leaning in close. "Dude. No need to obsess about it here. We'll figure out who this guy is and we'll put him behind bars. Don't worry."

"I'm thinking."

"Then think when we get back. I don't know about you, but I really need to get to a toilet. And looks like you do too."

Robin looked up and noted that Cyborg looked a little green and figured he must've looked the same. He smiled a little and nodded, holding a hand to his stomach. Even if they were heroes and had seen things like that before, it still was never a pleasant sight.

She yawned and stretched, arching her back, then opened her eyes as the shadows closed in around her. The darkness rules again... she smiled faintly, looking out at the fading sun, only a tiny sliver of colored light still glowing on the horizon.

Gliding slightly above the ground, she phased through a brick wall and found herself in another room in the abandoned building, a room filled with barrels and crates of what seemed to be aged wine and beer.

A pale hand reached out and she lifted the top off of one of the barrels, peering inside - she decided she did not like the smell - and instead opted to inspect one of the wine bottles, slicing off the top and sniffing at it.

Apparently it was acceptable - for she downed the whole thing in a matter of seconds - and phased out of the room, back out into the open night. She sniffed at the air, giving off a purr of contentment, and drifted about, savoring the gloomy void about her.

In this part of the city, there was no light at all. It had long been abandoned by the government and reform groups - the sheer amount of vandalism and the unimaginably high crime rate had seen to that.

At first sight, it might have seemed abandoned, but she sensed that there were people - many people - in most of the darkened buildings. Evidently, they had just gotten used to the absence of light.

As the night progressed, more of them emerged and passed by her, the invisible mass of shadows drifting about in the equally dark gloom, and some of them even turned to look directly at her, nervousness rising off in waves, but seeing nothing, continued on their ways. She felt content enough to let them pass by, uninhibited, though there was an odd, prickling sensation in the back of her mind - she growled slightly, knowing that their discomfort was reflecting itself on her.

Odd then, that she could eat a child and feel its pain while being eaten with apparently no side effects, but she felt irritated by a small sense of uneasiness from the people here. Perhaps her empathic powers were situational. Crimson flared in the back of her mind as she sensed an odd feeling of pain in her ribs and back - someone must have been beaten somewhere - but she still remained motionless, though the crepuscular aura about her swirled a little more rapidly.

She began moving again, restlessly, irate, agitated, phasing through the wall of a building and up the stairs, not caring where she was going, then stopped in front of a door, behind which she could hear a pair of voices shouting at each other.

Anger billowed out, fueling her own, and her crimson eyes darkened. She stepped through the wall, observing the scene quietly, blackness storming around her in a terrifying spiral. But the two people - a man and a woman, probably his girlfriend - did not seem to notice and continued yelling at each other. She pushed him back and he struck her across the face, hard, then kicked her in the ribs. And pulled out a gun.

Suddenly, the shadowed figure felt an extremely uncomfortable feeling run through her, almost like a burning in her chest, forcing her pulse to quicken. She gave off an audible growl, realizing that it was the woman's fear affecting her, and rushed forward, anger exploding out.

The man had no chance. In an instant, he was ripped to shreds and the woman screamed, the terror emanating from her only magnified by the gruesome act. The shadowed figure growled again, turning her attention to the screaming person and tore her apart as well, darkness slicing into her body again and again, not stopping until she was completely mangled, utterly unrecognizable.

The door flew open and the shadowed figure wheeled about sharply, turning her tendrils of black energy on the first thing she could find, and a splatter of blood splashed the doorway as another human body was ripped in half. She glided over to it, examining the body carefully, then tore out a chunk of smooth flesh, mouth watering.

She could sense more people approach, and suddenly she felt her mind explode with raw fury - was it too much to ask to be able to have a snack in peace?

The first person who even came close to the door was utterly disintegrated. She felt indulgent enough to leave the other bodies at least partially intact - but then again, what did it matter to her? She shrugged and let the darkness fade, sniffing at the air, gliding over the heap of flesh and bone to the body of a young boy in the corner.

Child meat was always the most tender.

Robin staggered back into the common room, holding his stomach, barely managing to keep his face still. The rest of the Titans jumped up immediately and Cyborg rushed to go get him a bucket, placing it in front of him.

He hurled into it several times, coughing and sputtering, then moved it aside, walking over to the sink and splashing water on his face.

Beast Boy stared at him wide-eyed. "Dude. You okay?"

"Robin-"

"Was it bad?"

"You should have let me go with you-"

"Did this guy really kill 30 people?"

"Guys!" He shouted over them, then sat, taking a few deep breaths. "Guys," he said a little more calmly. "I'm going to go over the details with you. Just... give me a moment."

The rest of them nodded and Starfire flew over to him, putting an arm around his shoulder and looked at him reassuringly. He smiled back after a moment, then looked at them all seriously.

"Nothing for certain, but judging by the number of bodies, it's either someone very skilled with a knife, or it's a metahuman."

"Or Slade and his robots."

"Slade doesn't use blades. Besides, he wouldn't leave such a mess," Robin shuddered, trying to clear the images from his mind. "It looked almost like whoever it was got caught up in a fit of anger and just decided to kill them all without caring about cleaning up afterwards."

"Did you see that symbol again?"

Robin nodded. "Our killer carved a woman's body into that shape."

All of them paled. "Sounds serious..."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Excuse me, Sherlock's over there-"

"Beast Boy, Terra! This is serious!"

They both held up their hands guiltily, and looked back at Robin worriedly as his gaze dropped again.

"Well, whatever it is, it leaves no trace behind. The police couldn't figure out how it killed all those people."

"What do you mean? It just slashed them all to death, right?"

"But with what?"

"A knife. Or... a sword..."

"If the item in question can't be found, there would be no evidence left behind anyway," Cyborg muttered. "The only option you could possibly have is to find something that the killer might have left as a clue. Carelessly, if what you suggested about it being angry is true."

"It was a mass of bodies covered in blood. Identifying something personal was impossible. No hairs, no fingerprints, nothing. And no eyewitnesses. Obviously..."

"Anyone see anything unusual last night?"

"I spoke with some people. They said that they felt something off, but nobody saw anything. Besides, Vandal's Lane is so dark at night that you can't really see anything anyway."

"Well if it's a metahuman, like you're saying, then they'd probably leave an energy signature behind when they killed all those people," Terra said slowly. "You once said something about me leaving one behind when I use my powers..."

"It was a dead end," Robin held up a instrument in his hand that resembled a radiation detector. "Not all metas leave energy behind. Kyd Wykkyd was an example. All we have to go by is that symbol. Did you have any luck finding it?"

Cyborg shook his head. "It's not in any of our databases or any of the League's either."

Robin sighed. "At this rate, we're just going to have to wait for the next attack to happen before we can do anything..."

"But-"

"Robin, we cannot just-"

The masked hero stood angrily, holding his hands up in frustration. "Then what would you guys do? I have no idea what this thing is, what it wants, or what it's going to do next!"

"None of us do. Nobody's blaming you."

He sat back down, teeth gritted. "I know that."

"Maybe... we need some help?"

"And who'd be able to help us?"

"Well, Batman..."

Robin ran a hand through his hair, looking up at the ceiling. Beast Boy persisted.

"I thought you two were okay now."

Robin glanced at him. "We are. But believe me, Batman wouldn't be able to figure anything out from just this either. It takes more than two strikes to establish a pattern when dealing with a new villain."

"But it doesn't hurt to ask..."

"He's right, you know. It's not a big deal. You don't have to worry about bruising your ego-"

"It's not about my ego at all," Robin hissed. "People's lives are at stake here. How could I worry about my ego with something like this happening?"

"Then-"

"I'll see if I can get him to come here and look at it," Robin muttered, then got up and left the room.

Night. She stretched again, purring, arching her back, and let the familiar shadow surround her. Rising, she phased through several walls until she was inside a bathroom, which she had just recently found out had running water, after observing the humans for a while.

She pulled out a package of white powder, baking soda, and scrubbed her razor sharp teeth with it - she had long since learned that doing that prevented the blood from eating away at her enamel.

She splashed some water on her face and phased outside again, wandering aimlessly about as she usually did; normally, it was in search of a suitable meal, but tonight she did not feel particularly hungry, and so she merely let the cold wind blow against her body, soothing, calming.

It began to rain, just slightly. She looked up wonderingly - after all, she had never seen water fall from the sky before - and found that she rather liked it - enough to even ignore the faint sensations of fear and disquiet simmering at the edges of her mind.

The city - or the whole human world, she supposed - was a decidedly unpleasant place. No matter where she went, all she could feel were those awful emotions of either terror, or raw anger, or utter depravity emanating from people - oh the things that did to one's psyche.

Her eyes glinted. Though, by their standards, she was already insane, so what did that matter? Of course, being terrified or angry was still unpleasant...

She paused as she saw a familiar structure and had to look twice to make sure that her senses were not deceiving her.

Yes, it was all too familiar. Perhaps it was not as large as it had been where she had come from, nor was it laced with any sort of sorcery, but the barred windows, she recognized them. A prison.

Instantly she was angry, but curious - the only thing that prevented her from eradicating the construct from existence at that moment.

She slipped inside, noting that it seemed to be empty. Well, no guards at least.

Some of the cells still had people in them, glassy eyed, mindless people who looked up as they sensed something stir outside of their doors - which they didn't seem to realize were open - but other than that, there was nothing left inside their wasted bodies at all. Soulless...

There were many corpses, rotting corpses whose stench she rather disliked. She set them ablaze and decided that the smell of burning flesh was much better.

Vaguely, she wondered whether the same thing might have happened to her, but the thought was pushed from her mind quickly - she was free now, after all, and all of that was behind her. But of course, it had left her with an intense dislike of prisons.

She blinked a few times as a new sensation tingled at the edge of her mind - not the fear, not the fury that she had gotten used to. No this one was something else... ah yes... it was misery. Sheer misery, of the pathetic type, but also of the type that evoked pity.

Maybe these people were not as soulless as she had thought.

Curiously, the crimson eyes were a little softer as a pale hand extended and their bodies were reduced to dust.

Perhaps this world is not so different from Hell after all.

Yes. There was anger still boiling there, she could understand that feeling, and it only served to irritate her more. The fear, the terror, an odd sense of discomfort, one that she was not used to nor did she ever feel - the sources of those were eliminated too. But the torment that these people had to endure, with no hope of escape?

Wrong. The fact that there was hope to escape, but a terrible, false hope at that. The fate that laid outside of those prison doors, in the rest of the city, was no better than the one that they had within. To rot in a cell, or to die by mugging. It was no wonder, then, that they did not even bother leaving, even when the doors were open.

That only served to infuriate her more as well.

A loud explosion and half the prison was blown apart. She knew that the human police would not take long to get here, but she honestly could not care less. They could fire all of their shiny weapons at her and it would not even tickle.

She looked down and saw that there was another passage underground, leading to the lower levels of the prison. She glided down the dark hallways slowly, almost lazily, eyes scanning the empty rows of prison cells around her. From what she could sense, all was a void once more. It was completely abandoned here - not even the roaches bothered coming, for they probably knew that there was nothing as well. She turned to leave, nothingness was boring, after all, but then there was a faint cry that accompanied the sound of what seemed like a pair of fists banging on a barrier.

The crimson eyes darkened.

She moved down another level, then another, and now she could feel another aura brush up against her own, another living aura, not those stagnant, lifeless ones of those soulless people above, but the aura of one still suffering, and suffering greatly at that.

Down one last floor, and she squinted toward what seemed to be a large cylinder of blue light - within it, the source of the other packet of emotions.

She approached it, touching it with her hand, feeling the smooth energy give way slightly as she pressed it, but then repelling her if she tried to force her way through. Yes, a barrier. Another prison.

Another prison.

The crimson eyes flared and suddenly fire burst from the ground in a massive torrent, blowing apart the barrier completely and revealing the silhouette of another girl in the dust.

They stared at each other for several long moments, crimson eyes meeting pink ones, and then she noticed that the girl's long, pink hair was dulled and she was emaciated to the point of death.

A pale hand rose up, charged with darkness, and suddenly the pink eyes were filled with that awful fear, that terrible sense of fright that only now could she seem to understand, only now did she know what terror was, and instantly the darkness dissipated.

Her low, slightly gravelly voice sounded. "What's your name?"

The gaze of the pink eyed girl never left her own. "Jinx. Yours?"

The darkness faded from around her, leaving a surprisingly small, short girl, with shoulder length violet hair and only a single pair of striking violet eyes to match.

"Raven."