Raven saw her teammates following Robin as they make a turn at the head of the lake. She watches them speed away with a sense of trepidation that her friends intentionally left her with Y/n for the moment as some form of twisted punishment.

Raven turns around and her sight finds Y/n still standing there, watching after the titans as well. The hatred simmered once again when he jerks his attention her way and his hooded eyes hold her gaze.

Raven: "Going to have a gloat? Are you happy now that they're gone?" She whispers, her voice harsh with hostility.

Y/n: "You're acting like some uncontrollable animal the moment your friends just turned their backs," he replies softly, eyeing her with annoyance through his hooded eyes. He turns his heel and walks away.

The taunt regarding her friends rings in Raven's ears as though he had bellowed it. The simmering hatred in Raven's chest was suddenly brought to a boil.

Raven: "Turn around and look at me!" Raven demands, who is practically shaking.

Y/n: "I don't have anything to say to you," said Y/n dismissively, without looking at her.

That arrogant persona enticed the boiling rage to ignite into something white-hot, evaporating the last constraints of self-control. Raven snarlingly let out a growl and her narrowed violet eyes begin to flare smokey white.

Suddenly, Y/n hears a yell, getting louder and louder by the second behind his back...

He stops, staring ahead blankly.

The moment he turns around, it was too late; Raven had already thrown herself onto Y/n, tackling him down. 

A hard clunk indicates that the back of his head collided onto the floor. Raven sat astride on Y/n's chest, raises her arm, her hand clenching into a fist, engulfed with dark energy, and brings it down onto his face.

Y/n grabs her wrist in time and Raven felt his foot push her torso away.

Y/n got up and narrows his eyes as Raven kept her foot planted firmly on the floor as she takes a quick twist before ramming out her right elbow at him. He threw up his forearm and blocks, yet the blow made him reel back a little; Raven sidesteps, but before she could swing out her right leg, Y/n thrusts a kick towards her. It caught Raven off-guard and she staggers back and fell heavily on the floor. She rolls to her side and swings out her leg, targeting his shins, but Y/n blocks once again. His left leg suddenly whips into an arc, but this time Raven was ready for it and blocks the attack.

Raven: "I wonder how your family raised you; wherever they are, I bet they're thrilled their boy was already stepping into the shoes of the great man he would become!" A touch of sarcasm layered her voice as she spat.

Y/n looks rather unfazed and swung his right leg sideways in a circular motion, his instep directed at Raven's head and she blocks once again. Raven saw an opening and pushes her hands into his rib cage, exhaling a loud cry, but Y/n turns the blow aside. Raven quickly moved downward, swinging out her right leg in a spinning motion. Y/n turns the blow aside once again, making Raven loose her balance and fall on her back; she immediately floats backward in order to dodge any incoming attacks and give her space to recover and regain her stance.

Realizing that Y/n had already floored her twice in a short period of time and she had not even delivered one solid strike on him, it only enraged Raven further and fuels her drive to beat him senseless. His posture even shows an unwillingness to fight on fully...or rather not interested. 

From the corner of their eyes, the two saw that a crowd is starting to accumulate, forming a ring around Y/n and Raven but paid no attention to it as Raven charges forward, feet hovering in the air.

Raven strikes out a jab and Y/n's head jerks to the side, his hood falling in the process, followed by a stabbing kick on his shin. Y/n lets out a small grunt of pain.

That barely audible sound of pain is not enough; Raven wanted to hear him scream out in agony...that half a second of pain is incomparable to the rudeness and ego this bastard has.

Raven thrusts a clawing hand towards Y/n's face, amplifying it with her obsidian power. Unlike her punches, these jolts could be killer. Instead of feeling the cartilage of his nose compress against her palm, Raven only struck air; Y/n had bent his head quickly, avoiding the blow. Y/n's fist suddenly rises up and strikes her jaw, making her head jerk upward and before Raven could recover, another blow follows from above, this time forcefully ducking her head. Raven retaliates by swinging her elbow upward, but Y/n caught it in mid-swing and she got the chance to look into his face a little closer.

For the first time, Raven met Y/n's eyes closely; his eyes were dour, indifferent, Raven gave him the most menacing glare she could muster; she wanted to let him know how much she hated him, how much every fiber of her being detested the fact that they are teammates, how much she wanted to beat him and let him feel the pain he had caused. 

Who knows the status of the numerous people whose faces she will never see and names she will never know he tricked. But she bears, good tidings and good news, that vicious cycle will end here!

There were titters, cheers, and jeers from the crowd. But abruptly Raven was frozen as she suddenly sees in her mind, a floor littered with dead bodies of men, not any men, they are men of authority, and one begging for his life as he tries to break free from a deadly grip. 

Raven did not saw that sight before, unless that her empath powers kicked in at the physical contact...with him.

Did he... by any chance—?

Y/n then relinquishes his grip on her elbow and lunges his right foot underneath.

Cocky jerk. Raven thought; he was totally overconfident to think that she couldn't time that attack at such a slow pace. She parried his leg and he staggers, leaving his torso completely unguarded—

Raven's hand engulfed with her dark energy, she grumbles loudly. Her eyes begin to glow hot white and pushed energy into Y/n! That energy threw him across the park; he slams on the giant tree - the same tree he was sitting under - with a painful sound and sprawled at the bottom of it. He sat up and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

The cheers erupt like an auditory volcano. It is all quiet one second and then deafening the next, rising to a crescendo.

Raven advances towards him with shaking clenched fists. She wanted to thrash him more, beat him until his face is so bloodied that he was beyond recognition; in that way no one would recognize him, that no one would think that they are friends. Y/n only stared at her unwaveringly out of those expressionless eyes.

Among the crowd, something smaller and squishier suddenly streaks past Raven; the cute creature leaps onto Y/n's chest and settled himself there, right over his heart. Y/n blinked and slowly looks down at the alien pet.

Y/n: "Get off," he murmured, trying to push Silkie off him.

But Silkie sank his tiny arms into Y/n's jacket and wouldn't budge. The Bumgorf then turns his face towards Raven and looked up at her with those large, light green eyes.

Raven stares down at Y/n and Silkie, her fists clenched so hard that her dark-painted fingernails dug into her palms.

First my friends, now this despicable stole Starfire's pet too, Raven thought furiously.

The seconds lengthened. Neither of them moves. Raven wants to take another step, but it wasn't just that cute Tamaranian pet's gaze stopping her; the pet's action seems to imply that he didn't really deserve such treatment, and deep within, her sub-conscious seems to agree...

Raven: "Why are you the first-rate jerk that suddenly ruined everything?" Raven suddenly blurts out with frustration. What she had said probably did not make any sense at all or if that was what she really wanted to say, but she was too angry to care.

Y/n: "If that's what you feel, then I apologize," Y/n said, standing up and prying Silkie's limbs from his jacket. 

Then his voice dropped to a whisper with a hint of bitterness as he places Silkie gently on the floor, "Everything would be better if I hadn't existed..."

Raven: "What was that?" Her voice remained softly puzzled, her narrowed eyes seem to ease for a second, their lavender depths wide with concern.

Y/n: "I know you're furious that your friends insisted to recruit me," he replied. Raven's frown returns.

Raven: "Get that idea out of that noggin of yours that my friends are always standing up for a jerk like you!" She retorted with controlled anger, her eyes glow hot white before they melt back to normal. "Not when I know that we have a killer in the house!"

The unhooded young man gazes down at the unhooded young woman for a few moments, clearly contemplating. Raven simply glared back at him in response.

Y/n: "I don't deny what I've done; I'm not proud of them. But I had my reasons why I did that," he says in a way as if the words carry a lot of weight. 

Raven: "Keep talking," she demands. "Why do?"

Y/n: "I started that journey to save the world."

Raven stares at him in utmost disbelief; she tried to look for a hint of a bluff or even some sort of sick, twisted humor in his eyes. They still look cold, indifferent yet with purpose.

Raven: "Killing for peace?" She quirks an eyebrow, grimacing at what she has just heard.

Y/n: "It was the only way." 

Raven: "If you want to be all peace-keeping big shot, you should've made yourself into a diplomat and dealt with those idiots who mess around the world, or even better, you can put their sorry butts in jail!"

Y/n: "Are you really that naïve?" said Y/n in a rather belittling manner. "They have money, they have power and they have the influence. Who are the judges who look over their crimes? Are they not merely humans who are also coerced or coaxed by money and power? Tomorrow there'd be a new dictator who would rule, and another one after that. As long as you will never get rid of the root of all evil, then its weeds will still grow. Starting that journey was the only way to draw that being out and give it a tangible form. If you do not get rid of that core then that great, shining dream of peace is just an illusion."

Raven: "Don't talk to me like that!" said Raven. "You're a sick murdering bastard and that's all there is to it!"

The raging fire inside Raven is still burning. She was furious, ready to fly at Y/n, who plainly does not understand things from her perspective, yet her limbs didn't want to strike out. Raven stands in front of him, still seething, yet he still doesn't look deterred at all. Y/n's calm aura seems to manifest itself on Raven's rage, cooling it down as well as neutralizing her desire to brawl.

Y/n: "What I did was to save lives; choosing between two evils, it's better to have ruins than can be rebuilt and lives that had suffered to carry on and live in a much better place than condone the tyranny that torments this world and every existence dissolved into nothingness."

Y/n was making her feel idiotic, and yet there is still a grain of defiance inside Raven.

Raven: "Funny thing how heroic that you cared about the world very much, it's a surprise that you got away with it. You're lucky I didn't send you to another dimension, but that would be a good hideout." She says hotly. "It's better if we keep you like a dog that's tied to a leash!"

Y/n remains silent, undaunted, staring down at Raven. Raven gave him that menacing glare once again; to murder and then justify it...he wasn't only the number one skunk in the world after all but also a raging psychotic bastard as well!

Y/n: "Tell me, did that boy appreciate in the way you meddled in his own affairs even though you saved him from his tormentors?" he finally said.

Raven's eyes widened.

Raven: "H-how did you know?" Asked Raven, scowling; she finally recalled that fight she had intervened and the boy whom she had saved a few days back.

Did he saw her?

Y/n: "You protected that boy even though he wasn't asking for help. The way how you meddled in his affairs wasn't right in his perspective and that boy didn't appreciate it. But it is something you can't turn a blind eye to."

He slowly inches to Raven's face, causing a shiver to run through her and it has her spine vibrating as a small slice of fear hits her.

"It's running in your blood." He says with conviction.

Raven: "What's your point?" said the flustered Raven impatiently; Raven didn't want to address that memory. That boy deserved to be beaten and put some sense into his ungrateful rear after all.

Y/n: "How many lives would be destroyed if you wouldn't meddle? Can you live with that? Are you really that apathetic while you roam untroubled while others are suffering? What do you care if numbers of nameless and faceless people were perturbed in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy?" He said, then added in a rather condescending tone, "and here I was thinking that you're the hero who interjects in order to resolve conflicts. But I don't expect a person like you to understand."

Raven stared at him in utmost disbelief; People almost died when she sacrificed herself and her father took the land whom she had released a few years back!

Raven: "Are you saying I don't care if people get hurt?!" Her anger flared, obvious in her sharpened expression. "I don't kill people, I don't wage murder! That's a big—"

Y/n: "Difference?" Y/n interrupts. He suddenly gave a small mirthless laughter. "What difference does it make? You used violence to save that boy from his tormentors just like what I had done in order to save this world from years of tyrannical rule."

Raven: "Don't lump me in with what you've done!" Raven suddenly snaps and then adds in a thick tone, thrusting a finger at his face. "A person like you, they kill from a sick addiction. A murderer is a tool of evil, an arm extension of devils. Killing is killing! But it's absolutely brilliant, it was good that you messed up lives to save lives!" Raven retorts sarcastically. "No wonder nobody's thought of that before!"

Y/n: "Spare me of your diatribes," he shot back and her spine straightens, a tingling sensation spreading across her ribs. The quietness in his voice seems to have disappeared; it was suddenly loud and strong. "You can accuse me of whatever your judgment states for all I care. But why don't you look at yourself before you judge? Isn't that what you've been doing and what you're still thinking?"

Raven scowled at him once again. What the heck is he talking about?

Seeing the uncertainty on her face, Y/n looked at her with pitying incredulity, bordering on arrogance.

Y/n: "You think I had those robots attack you to weaken you all, soften you up for me?" He said slowly.

She was annoyed at his shrewd comment, making her expression more sterner.

Raven: "It's possible, after all." She said, crossing her arms over her chest. "We know only what you said about those robots. I'm glad you helped destroy them, but I have no reason to assume you're not a bigger problem in disguise yet."

Y/n: "I could care less what your thoughts are." He retorts, Raven's frown intensifies. "I came here to be on my own. I never intended to give you trouble or anyone else. I'll just be here temporarily. If you can't bear my presence, then you can pretend I don't exist." He repeats in a controlled voice, yet it was obvious that his patience was already dwindling. "But why don't you look at your actions first before you judge mine? Regarding those delinquents in this town, do you politely ask them not to commit another misdemeanor?"

Raven: "How can you talk sense into idiots like those?" answers Raven impatiently, waving her hand at the crowd, more specifically at those sick perverts. "They all need a beating!"

Y/n's grim smirk is slow at her answer.

Y/n: "You're a hypocrite," he said in disdain. "You claim I'm a bad guy, and you think my devotion to you is questionable. You used aggression to stop them from causing trouble around the neighborhoods and yet you say that your actions are different from mine? What I've done was just as similar to your 'heroism'—"

Raven: "You're insane! That's the difference!" Raven seethed, her hands balling into fists as every word she vocalizes increased in volume. "You're sick, you're twisted, and you're evil!"

The last word rang out ferociously. Its echo bounces across the park, making the crowd go silent. Silkie backs away from Raven's ankles towards Y/n.

Y/n: "And those are just the words that define this world..." he replies softly, still undaunted by Raven's outburst. "How do you think one can get rid of such leadership? How do you remove corrupt authorities who will not relinquish their ironclad grip on power?

"Global institutions do not want to get their hands stained in blood condemn those actions, nothing more. Condemning hardened felons isn't enough to stop them from committing another atrocity. Numerous governments that spread fear instead of law and order and fake rumors that poison innocent minds...how do you think one can get rid of that?"

Though the reasons he was giving her were a little vague, Raven could see the logic despite its negativism...yet... Raven disregarded all of it; she felt a savage pleasure in rendering Y/n speechless, she wanted to make him see how terrible his wrongdoings were and she wanted to see the guilt and regret etch obviously in that calm face...

Raven: "If you wanted to get rid of the things' messing up this world, you forgot one," growled Raven, thrusting a finger at his face. "Aren't you supposed to be burning in hell?"

Y/n's eyebrow suddenly twitches and he does something very funny. He seized his left arm convulsively with his right hand, as though something had hurt him. It is as if Raven had struck a nerve. Y/n's lips moved as if he were chewing the words he was holding back before he shoots her a glare and Ravens glared back, clearly refusing to be stared down. His gaze suddenly dropped to the grass beneath.

'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.' He said softly, 'And when you gaze long into an abyss... the abyss also gazes into you.'

He seems to say it more to himself rather than to Raven.

Raven: "What?" Raven squawks, thoroughly irritated. "I would appreciate it if you stop talking like that. I don't get it!"

Y/n lets go of his arm, shoots her an annoyed look before turning his heel and walking away. Silkie trots beside him, squealing softly.

Y/n: "When you get the chance when to unearth concealed evil from authority figures then you can tell what is moral or not." He said dismissively as he walks away with Silkie at his ankles, leaving Raven standing alone, confused, in the midst of the crowd.

Raven watches him disappear into the crowd, then was suddenly too aware as she wipes her slightly sweaty face at the surroundings. 

The Titans' faces wore a frown, obviously at the scene that had just ended. Even people across the sidewalk are watching Raven and him with the usual cheers and jeers, but amidst the crowd, a particular person caught Raven's eye. 

An old gent was smirking, and that smirk doesn't deny malice and mischievousness. She didn't want to stare but her eyes kept flicking to the man, so still, so decrepit. Now that she looks closer his attire was discernible from the sea of blurred crowd. It was theatrical but shabby, a trench coat like a magician with a flash of red silk beneath the collar. 

As she leans forward, she locks her gaze dead ahead, but once she does, he was gone— 

Cyborg: "Okay, fellas, show's over. Go back to your pretty little lives—" Cyborg said, waving his gray and two-toned blue arms at the crowd which disbanded with disappointed groans.

Cyborg's voice brings her attention back to her teammates. Starfire and Beastboy shake their heads before continuing on their way along with the other pedestrians who finally realized that the commotion was over.

Robin: "You heard him, keep going. You"—he points at Raven—"We'll talk later."

'Fantastic Raven,' Raven mutters to herself in a mocking sarcastic tone. 'Now you've really impressed them.'