As Trigon rose from the depths of his domain, the weird glow of dark energy flooded out through the open portal. Rage stretched out her arms and cried out in ecstasy as it washed over her and she absorbed it.

The surge in power made her able to reverse the damage done by the poison and begin to heal herself. Within moments she was strong enough to stand.

"Come, Father!" Rage cried as she outstretched her hand. "Come into this world!"

"Raven, no!" Arella pleaded.

Then there was the sound of the flapping of huge wings. Malchior had returned. He may have not needed the wings to fly but he was using everything he had now, in his haste to get back and deal with this dangerous new situation.

The black dragon flew into the cube with his scales clean and glistening and still trailing smoke from his time inside the volcano. He was fully revived and his strength was at its maximum. He saw his worst fears realized with the open portal into Trigon's realm and the demon lord himself rising to pass through it.

But he still had the element of surprise, and Malchior struck first. He shot a quick bolt of purple lightning at Rage, which knocked her to the ground. Then he turned his attention to his real opponent.

He unleashed a blast of fire from his mouth, encased in the purple and black aura of his particular brand of magic. The blast came straight down on Trigon, who was quite unprepared for this attack or this enemy. Trigon emitted a deafening scream of rage as he was knocked back and fell all the way to the ground.

A group of Trigon's soldiers dodged the blast from Malchior and attempted to swarm him. Malchior was able to block their attacks and, one by one, he snuffed out their fire. This revealed a charred skeleton which quickly turned to dust.

Beast Boy turned into a peregrine falcon and flew up into the darkness. He climbed higher and higher to get above Malchior but still remain unseen.

Arella helped Raven back to her feet, but she was still Rage. With a hiss she slapped Arella back.

Trigon was flying upward toward the portal again with grim determination. He unleashed his own bolts of black lightning at Malchior, who had to use all his power to shield himself. Soon Malchior was desperately blasting all his power in a fire stream at Trigon, who was directing his own torrent of dark energy up at Malchior. The point where the two streams met was a blinding, white hot fireball.

It was a stalemate for a while, then Trigon slowly began overpowering Malchior and rising up toward the portal. His huge hands and arms came though, then his head as he pushed Malchior back.

"Azarath is mine!" he growled triumphantly.

Beast Boy was high above Malchior now, and he dove at the full speed of the fastest bird on earth. He was moving at over two hundred miles an hour when he was about to hit him. Then he instantaneously became a blue whale.

The tremendous impact sent Malchior hurtling downward and knocked him into Trigon. Both went flying down through the portal. Beast Boy narrowly avoided going down with them, but he morphed into a sparrow and changed direction.

"Close it, Raven!" he shouted, as he momentarily became human again in mid air, then returned to bird form to stop falling.

Rage stood and outstretched her arms. "Father!" she cried.

Trigon recovered from the blow more quickly than Malchior, and Trigon shoved him out of the way and began flying toward the portal again as fast as he could.

Beast Boy landed on the floor in human form and ran to Raven. "Raven, you've got to close it! Please!"

Arella grabbed one of her hands and clutched it in both of hers. "Please, Raven."

Trigon was streaking upward and was almost to it when the portal vanished and the floor became solid again. There was no crash, only silence.

Arella and Beast Boy both embraced Raven. When they looked at her face, Rage was gone and she was Raven again. All three hugged for a while longer, and then Raven became self conscious at all these tender emotions being openly displayed. In her characteristic way, she sighed and rolled her eyes.

.

.

.

Later, they were gathered in the temple outside of the cube. The cube had repaired itself, and it looked just as pristine as when Beast Boy had first seen it. The damage to the temple from the fight between Charand'r and Beast Boy was being repaired by a team of monks and craftsmen.

Arella had left to prepare a feast, but Raven and Beast Boy were standing there with a recovered Locrian, as well as Samendra and the rest of the council members and elders. Vasantha was standing in the background, as was young Jerichana, who was smiling and not wearing her hood.

Locrian's eyes were no longer the bright blue that they had been when Malchior had possessed him. He looked much older and more weary, but perhaps wiser from the experience.

"We are forever indebted to you for all you've done," Locrian said, and all the elders nodded in agreement.

"Um, no problem, dude," Beast Boy said after an awkward silence. Raven just gave a tiny smile.

"Why don't you stay with us a while?" Locrian offered. "Now that Azarath is restored, we can offer you peace and tranquility before you return home."

"You can lean our ways of mental insight and focus," Samendra added.

"I would like to be more focused sometimes," Beast Boy admitted.

"Meditation can help you find inner peace, as well as develop self discipline," Vasantha said.

"Maybe I could stand to learn a little more self discipline," he said, with a glance at Raven, who nodded.

"Are we can teach you to be free of your troublesome sexual desires," another elder added.

"I'm outta here!" They watched in stunned silence as he marched out of the temple without a single look back.

All eyes turned to Raven, who shrugged and then made a little smile as she followed him out.

Charand'r was standing just outside the door, rubbing a bruise his head and being assisted by a couple young monks.

"Dude … No hard feelings, huh?" Beast Boy remarked as he walked past.

Charand'r didn't answer. He just sort of scowled at Beast Boy, who was so much shorter than he was, but yet had beaten him. Beast Boy shrugged and kept walking out into the plaza. Steam rose from the ground as the sun evaporated water from the previous rainstorm.

Raven caught up to him and they saw Azar's tomb was regenerating. He understood what she had meant by perpetually living wood as the dome resealed itself. Soon it was complete and looked like it had never been damaged.

.

.

.

They arrived back at Raven's house and stepped through the door which had been shattered by Charand'r and his axe. Raven let out a depressed sigh at the damage to her house, but used her powers to partially reassemble it and make it able to close.

"I'm sure they'll replace it," he assured her.

"I hope so."

"Let's stay one more night," he suggested.

"I'd like to ... But doesn't the team need us? We've been gone a long time…"

"No, they're not too short handed. Argent is there. I'm sure they don't even miss us."

Raven smiled, then after a moment she added, "But can she make corny jokes and act immature?"

"Maybe." He smiled. "Can she stay in her room and not have any fun?"

"Hey! I have fun." Her mock anger soon turned into a smile. "Haven't I proven that to you?"

"I suppose you have," he admitted.

"And you want to stay another night..."

He stepped in and put his hands on her shoulders. "And pick up where we left off?"

"Maybe," she said as they moved closer and their mouths met in a little kiss. Soon one kiss became several and then small kisses became bigger and more passionate ones.

"What would your mother say?" he teased.

"What Arella – I mean, my mother – doesn't know won't hurt her. We're not going to do anything that would cause her a great deal of worry, right?"

"Right," he agreed – after a brief pause. She rolled her eyes, but then they sat down on Raven's wooden sofa and went back to kissing.

"I meant what I said before … I do love you, Raven."

Now it was Raven's turn to pause. She hugged him. She kissed his cheek. She ran her tongue over the contours of his ear and then whispered, "I love you, too."

They didn't speak again for a long time, but communicated their affection in other ways.

Finally Beast Boy remarked, "Are we going to tell the others about this adventure?"

"Maybe some of it," she replied as she kissed his neck. "But what happens in Azarath ... stays in Azarath."

THE END

Yay, it's finished! I hope you liked it.