"Today's opponents can be your allies tomorrow. And today's allies can be tomorrow's opponents."
~Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

-•-•-•-

"Woah! Raven!" Gar whisper yelled.

"Shh! You're gonna get us caught!" Terra hushed from the opposite end of the tunnel.

Raven was glowing a weird shade of black and her eyes were red. But just her irises. She looked furious and helpless all at once. It sent chills down their spines.

"That is really creepy." Terra states to herself.

"How are we even going to get in there?" Gar asks.

"I have no idea. They're all circled around her. We can't get in this way."

"No duh Terra. Are there any other doors?"

"Yeah there are smartass, at least I think so. They don't take too long to get to. Opening them is just the problem." She replies irritated.

"Hopefully Raven blows that one open then." He whispers to himself as he slinks back the way they came. Terra follows him until they are both completely out of sight from anyone in the room.

Everyone except Raven.

Gar! Where is he going?!

She turned to the doorway and looked longingly through it to Gar turning the corner and out of sight.

"What are you looking at?" Karah questions. "Has anyone been watching the cameras?!"

"Uhh..."

"Ugh!! Make sure she doesn't leave!" Karah stomps off.

Now one would think that that's a stupid idea because Raven is so overpowered at the moment.

But her head is pounding. She can't control what happens.

Good news: The effect from tonic doesn't last forever.

Bad news: she doesn't know how long it will last since it was obviously modified.

She needs to go find Gar, but she also needs to stall do the effect can wear off.

I have to stall. That's the only way I'll get through this. Especially because this is actually starting to become painful. Gofigure. I still can't heal my arm.

"There are two kids sneaking around!" Karah bounds out of what appears to be the security room.

"Gar!" She blurts out. Karah snaps her head to the pained child.

"They're with her! Keep them out at all costs!"

"Not on my watch." She manages to surround herself with her magic. It's a dome and she's in the center of it. She spreads out her arms wide and makes the dark energy blast out in all directions, mowing down all the men to their backs, pushing Karah up against the wall, bursting all the windows, and blowing all the doors to smithereens. "Have fun trying to keep them out." She morphs into the floor.

Ugh...that took so much energy to control... How am I not dead?

"Woah!" The door blows out into bits followed by a wave of black energy.

"You ok Gar?" The bits of the door blew into his face.

"I'm good Terra." He says in between spits. "I guess Raven did half the job. C'mon." They sneak in without thinking and hide behind a cluster of barrels.

Raven comes out of a wall close to them, but she doesn't see them. They don't dare make a noise.

"Look." Terra motions to the security camera right above them.

Just then, the camera explodes. Along with every other camera in the room.

Raven looks just as confused as everyone else.

"You wretched demon! Your friends won't last 5 minutes in here! We don't need the cameras to find them."

"Well that wasn't my fault. It was your stupid tonic." She replies.

What? Tonic?

Raven lets out another bolt of energy and pushes Karah back against the wall.

"So was that." She says nervously. These sporatic spikes in energy were starting to become more frequent and more out of Raven's control by the minute.

"Ok, I have an idea." Gar starts in a whisper. "We need to stall. She said something about tonic and-"

"The effect doesn't last forever." Terra finished.

"Exactly. Especially since whatever was in it must've made that happen," He says motioning to Raven. "was modified for it."

"So we stall?" Terra asks.

"It can't be too long. I think that this just started." Terra nods and they split up.

She crawls past a pole on the ground and a man who is straddling it.

Bad move dude.

She turns her crawling position into a squat and steps on the end of the pole.

"Yeeeaaoiowww!" He screams like a little girl.

"Looks like you don't have the balls for this fight Jackson." She snickers to herself as she hurries off.

"Stop squealing Jackson. Find the kids!" Karah shouts angrily. She looks around for Raven, who, not on her own accord, disappeared just before she turned round. "Grr. And find the demon!" Her plan has kind of backfired on her. Sort of.

Raven is actually scared now. Not scared of them, not of herself, but scared she's going to kill someone again.

Terra made her way over to another cluster of barrels and pushed them over. She quickly ran back over to the first set of barrels she and Gar were at. Gar was in the opposite direction, and because of Terra's distraction, their focus wasn't on him.

"They're inside! Grrr!!" Karah was fuming. For all she knew, Raven wasn't scared, and her rescuers were already inside and destroying things.

Gar was in the security room trying to find Raven on the cams that weren't in the main room.

CAM1...out. CAM6...also out. CAM12...they have 12 cameras in that one room? Why?! Ugh...CAMA7...That's an elevator. CAMA9...a lab...Raven?!

She was back in the lab. She was tearing it up to try and find something, anything, to reverse the effects.

This was not on purpose.

She literally had no control over anything other than where she moves anymore.

Gar makes eye contact with Terra, who is still crouching behind the barrels. He waves for her to come over and she sneaks over without anyone noticing. They don't have forever though.

"What?"

"Do you know where this is?" Gar asks.

"It's the lab. Karah's secret one I think."

"Karah? Is that the woman out there?"

"Stop the questions and let me explain! She only takes Jackson down there and he isn't even allowed in. I was down there, at the door, once. I know how to get there."

"Show me!" He starts to rush out but Terra grabs his arm.

"Hold up! We can't both go! They'll come back to the cameras and see in an instant."

"Then what one if us is supposed to go?"

"If they find me then I'm dead. Double dead. Triple dead. I know they've seen you, but there's less of a chance that they'll kill you. I think that they just wanted you as way not to give me the money."

Gar gritted his teeth at the thought, but she was right. If they found Terra they'd probably kill her. He needed to stay upstairs and keep distracting them.

"Fine. Go and tell her were here. Ask her what happened. Try to get the full story as quickly as possible." Gar replied sombrely. Terra felt bad about taking this away from him, but they had wasted enough time. "Oh an Terra?"

"Yeah?"

"Please be careful. If Raven's out we need you to get us back up and out of these sewers." She sighed.

"Alright."

What'd you think he was gonna say Terra? "I love you"? You're a hopeless romantic. Get over it. 18th Eres more important and lethal things than that right now. She berated herself.

She took the secret passage she knew only Karah took. Good thing she was leaning up against the holographic wall.

The shortcut to 1 minute to get to that lab. And that was if you were walking.

When she got there the door was completely melted on the floor into a puddle of cold stainless steel. Somehow science didn't work in this facility because the steel was cold...

...and still a puddle.

It wasn't long before Terra realized who did that to the door.

Raven was standing in the northwest corner of the room, looking slightly scared. Now she was (at the very least, partiality) scared of herself.

Arms of her magic were flailing around destroying everything. It already looked like she had been in the east half of the lab already.

"Raven?"

"Who is it?! Stay back!!" Raven whipped around and all of the arms stopped and pointed towards Terra. "Oh...its you. Garfield's Ex right?"

"I thought you said you don't remember me?"

"That's all I remember." The arms turn back to destruction. Terra is not a threat to them.

"Gar is upstairs."

"R-really?" Part of her didn't believe it. "I can't go upstairs. I'll hurt somebody again. Badly. Very badly." She turns away.

"We know it's a tonic. When did you take it? What did it look like?" Terra asked.

"It was on that table." Raven pointed to the one the hand was about to crush.

Something clicked in Terra's mind.

The first time she was in there, she was getting the mist spray to knock out Raven and temporarily control her powers. From what she saw (peeked around the door), Karah got it from that table.

She remembers Karah talking about both of them to her.

"The mist is sort of like a prototype for what I'm doing over there. That lasts about 5-6 hours. I'm cutting it down tenfold. I want it to last ten minutes."

"You're rambling again Karah."

"Shut up Jackson!" When Terra was with her, Karah rambled a lot. This gave her a lot of info about stuff she wasn't really supposed to know.

"I took it, AKA she shoved it down my throat about 7 or 8 minutes ago."

"That's good. It should end soon then."

"How would you know?" She was starting to not trust this girl. "Wait...You were the one who kidnapped me!" The hands were ready to rip Terra appart.

"Well, yeah, but..." The hands looked all but unprepared to attack her and rip her to shreds. "Ok look, my life sucks, so does yours. You handled it well, and I didn't. I made a few mistakes that I really wish I hadn't done. All of this is my fault. I'm sorry."

"What?"

"My brother is in a coma and I was jealous of you and Gar. I wanted to make you suffer because I was suffering." Terra poured it all out. "I revealed your secret to him didn't I? I'm sorry about that too. I know I shouldn't be complaining. You're worse off than I am. A lot worse. But you manage it...somehow..." The dark hands were beginning to fade. "Gar said you could help me, so can you please just come with me upstairs? Gar needs you, and once he gets you, I'll leave you be."

Raven was silent. Terra's apology made something click in Raven's mind. Something changed.

"Terra."

"I never-"

"It's ok. I forgive you." She says truthfully. "Thanks." She is sincere with her words.

But she still has the red irises, and an additional devious, mischievous look that put her words into perspective.

"For...what?" Before she can answer her they hear a young male shout from upstairs.

"Gar!!" They say simultaneously. Terra starts to rush out of the lab but Raven grabs her hand at lightning speed with the precision of a sniper with his best, most accurate rifle in his arsenal.

"What are you-" Raven closes her eyes and morphs the two through the ceiling. They appear at the entrance of the hallway Terra took to get to the lab.

Raven was no longer afraid.

"Hide Terra." Terra followed Raven's instructions and hid behind some peculiarly large boxes.

"Well well come out of hiding to save your boyfriend huh?" Karah sneered. She stood proudly next to her little henchmen who held Gar by the arms. He had a black eye. He had been caught.

"Let. Him. Go."

"Or what? You'll kill me? Even the tonic can't do that."

"I'm not afraid of you." She says sharply.

"Arg! Let me go!" Gar squirmed but was unsuccessful in his attempt to free himself.

Seeing Gar like this was...unsettling to her. He couldn't be this weak.

Nevertheless they were at a stalemate.

"Do it." The men start pulling Gar's arms back to an uncomfortable position.

"Ow ow ow! My arms don't bend that way dudes!" Karah held a dagger to his neck. He stopped moving.

"Stop!"

"Ah ah ah." She tsked. "You move, he dies. You don't move, you surrender, he lives." She spoke clearly and deviously. Raven's eyes were like the dagger Karah was holding, slicing back and forth between the two.

She made her decision. But it wasn't hers.

Her red irises started to glow.

Gar knew what was about to happen. He knew it. Could he stop it?

"Raven! Don't do it! Raven!"

No. He couldn't.

The power she had overtook her actions to the fullest extent. Her hand grew a pointed, sleek, dark, menacing spear and she jabbed it into Karah's chest.

Everything. Everyone. All the noises of the sewers. All the technology.

It. All. Stopped.

She pulled her arm back slowly and let Karah's limo, lifeless body land at her feet.

That is when the red drained from her eyes and she realized her error.

Karah's error.

Their error.

Error.

-•-•-•-

Agh! I love my own book! Is that too egotistical?

As of finishing this chapter on Tuesday morning (the 9th for my fellow lazies out there) we have 1K reads! I saw it last night! I'm so happy!

This is now my 4th popular book! Yay!

Thanks so much!

One more chapter of this little thing then back to regular updates.

~Rae