The Gale of Becoming

The world fractured, then solidified.

Robin's eyes snapped open—not to the raw, visceral ruin of the museum nor the searing, demonic glow of the Crimson Heart—but to the sterile, harsh fluorescence of the Titans Tower common room.

He lay slumped on the worn couch, a half-empty mug of cold coffee untouched on the glass table beside him. A dull ache pulsed behind his skull, a phantom echo of a battle he could not fully remember. The memory felt like static, a horrifying blank.

"Wha... what happened?" His voice rasped, rough and distant.

Across from him, Starfire blinked rapidly, emerald eyes clouded with confusion. She pushed herself upright, her brows furrowed.

"We... we are here. But how? I recall only... much light. And then... nothing." Her gaze swept the familiar architecture that now felt subtly, unnervingly alien.

Cyborg groaned, pushing up from a sagging beanbag chair, his cybernetic systems whirring with an unusual, discordant strain.

"My internal logs are clean, but my memory banks are blank for the last few minutes. One moment, we faced... something. The next, boom, Tower." He tapped his metallic temple, sensing an impossible gap in his memory. "Did we... retreat? I don't remember ordering it."

Beast Boy sat bolt upright on the floor, rubbing his head. "Man, that was some crazy dream. I was a... I dunno, a rhino-wolverine-bear-thing. Pretty sweet if I could control it." His nervous chuckle was thin, almost forced, dying in the cloying air. He glanced around, his animal instincts prickling at the subtly altered scents in the room.

Miss Martian floated inches above the ground, face pale, gaze distant and troubled. "The psychic backlash... it was immense. I felt... something tearing at my mind. Like a hungry maw. Then... I woke up here." She wrapped her arms around herself, a shiver running through her.

Raven stood by the panoramic window, back turned, her cloak unsettlingly still. A subtle tremor, almost imperceptible, ran through the fabric. "It was not a retreat," she murmured flatly. "It was a trick. He is here."

A cold chill snaked through Robin's chest, bypassing the muggy warmth of the room. He exchanged grim glances with Cyborg.

The museum. Slade. The Heart. The demon. It was not a dream. But how were they back? And why could none of them recall the transition?

The Tower's familiar hum felt off. The air hung thick and too warm, sweltering, with a sour, cloying sweetness—like overripe fruit just starting to rot, mixed with something metallic, something vaguely reminiscent of blood.

Robin's gaze caught the framed team photo on the wall. Their smiles seemed too wide, too predatory, their eyes holding a glint he didn't recognize.

From the vents, the faintest melodic whispering barely brushed his hearing, like an ancient song murmured in a forgotten tongue, just below the threshold of comprehension.

"Something's wrong," Robin muttered, hand instinctively reaching for his utility belt, fingers brushing against his grappling hook.

Starfire's worried glance carried a flicker of possessiveness. Cyborg's eyes, once so warm, now momentarily gleamed with cold, calculating judgment.

The air itself felt heavy, oppressive. Their sanctuary, their fortress, had become a velvet-lined cage.

An invisible force, subtle as a breath, began to pull the Titans apart, not physically, but psychologically. Each of them found themselves drawn to different parts of the Tower, their minds subtly nudged towards the places where their deepest desires, and thus their greatest fears, could be most effectively twisted and exploited.

They didn't know they'd been invited deeper.

***

Robin – The Weight of Control

Robin fled to the Ops Room.

He needed order. He needed a plan. But the maps were wrong. They were too perfect. Each pinging alert already predicted. Every victory mapped—too easily, with chilling efficiency. Victories bought with blood. Cut-off routes, systemic sacrifice plays. The city saved—but at a cost he couldn't justify. A deep, creeping bloodstain bloomed across the pristine digital map, consuming Jump City.

A red X marked Beast Boy. A blinking dot pulsed over Raven's room—with the words "Containment Protocol: Active." Batman's voice echoed over the speakers, cold and disapproving: "You wanted control, Dick. You always did. For that, they will all break. You're just like Slade."

His hands trembled, compulsively wiping an unseen smear from the console, scrubbing obsessively until his own reflection, burdened with an unbearable desire for absolute control, vanished from the glass. Calls from teammates crackled through comms, unheard. A quiet, bitter resentment began to fester within him. Were they even good enough? Did they truly understand the stakes of his burden?

***

Starfire – Love's Suffocating Embrace

Starfire drifted to her quarters, only to step into what felt like Tamaran reborn—lush, vibrant, yet eerily still.

Photos of her family smiled with unnatural rigidity, their eyes devoid of warmth. Robin stood perfect and still at the window, arms open, an image of unwavering devotion. He didn't blink. Didn't breathe. "He loves you, Kory," a voice cooed, sweet as poisoned honey, "You don't need them. Just stay here. Let yourself be adored… endlessly." Warmth rose in her chest, twisting swiftly to dread and possessiveness.

Thoughts of Robin or Raven enjoying close bonds with each other kindled flashes of sharp jealousy, the seed of isolation. They would take him, diminish her unique bond, steal her joy. She reached for Robin, but his skin gave like wax, his unblinking eyes gazing into hers with an emptiness that chilled her to the core. Her laughter, when it came, was too high-pitched, too fragile, brittle as glass.

***

Cyborg – The Cold Embrace of the Machine

Cyborg ran diagnostics in isolation, seeking the comforting logic of his systems. Only to hear something whispering back, resonating through his very circuits. His arm twitched. Then his HUD activated on its own, displaying disturbing data. "Heart rate: Starfire — elevated, unstable. Neural spike detected – Robin, paranoia increasing. Skin conductivity – Raven… cold, unresponsive.

" You see them clearly, Victor. Their weaknesses. Their soft, breakable edges. Flesh will always betray you. True humanity is illusion, Victor. Only through perfect integration can you belong. Your body is a prison; transcend." The screen flickered, his own reflection blurring, his robotic eye spreading, replacing his human features. He was no longer human, but something cleaner, more efficient. He began dissecting their stats one by one, a cold, clinical assessment, telling himself it's just to understand, for safety, but the truth was a growing, chilling detachment. He found himself murmuring, almost involuntarily, criticisms of their "fragile" human limitations.

***

Beast Boy – The Primal Unleashing

He found himself in the common room. It was overgrown with moss. Roots broke the tile.

The panoramic window showed lush, primordial jungle instead of the city skyline. A tiger paused beside the TV and stared.

Its eyes were his own, burning with a primal, untamed hunger. "Garfield," something breathed through the twisting vines, a voice both seductive and guttural, "You're still pretending. Still caged. Let go. Let the beast run unchained. Taste true freedom." He transformed softly — an ape, a wolf, a lion — and it felt blissful, a rush of pure, unadulterated power without restraint.

He saw his reflection in the screen, smiling with fangs, a terrifying, magnificent creature. "They hold you back, predator. Their morals, their rules, their weaknesses. Make them run." His patience with teammates' so-called 'human' hesitations waned, transforming into a dangerous hunger inside, a savage impulse to lash out.

***

Miss Martian — The Terror of Exposure

Her room was cold. Wrong. The walls smooth and red — Martian-built, alien and judging.

She's not green anymore. Her skin was chalk white in the mirror, chillingly pale. Her eyes glowed red for a second too long, a stark, terrifying revelation. "Let them see, M'gann. Truly see. Every thought. Every fear. Let them know your blood, your true heritage. Don't you lust for true acceptance, even if it means destruction?"

Her telepathy surged out of control. She heard Robin's frustration sharpen to suspicion, Starfire's silent judgments slice through her mind, Cyborg's analytical coldness.

Even her loved ones felt cold now, their thoughts twisting into condemnation. She heard them all, every doubt, every stray thought of irritation. But it's... not them. Yet, it felt terrifyingly real. She began to believe it was. She shrunk inward, isolating herself in mounting paranoia, seeing enemies in every shadow.

***

Raven – The Allure of Stillness

Her space was perfect. Clean. Meditative. Too clean.

An unnatural, absolute stillness filled the air. Her chest didn't rise and fall. The pulse in her neck was absent. A spell circle glowed on her floor, but she couldn't read its runes; they shifted and reformed, whispering forbidden knowledge. "This is what you truly want. Stillness. Silence. No highs, no lows. No wounds, no scars. No pain." Trigon's voice, once a torment, now soothed, strangely comforting, promising an eternal end to chaos and pain through absolute control and emptiness. Her hidden hunger for silence blurred lines between submission and empowerment, driving her to emotional exile.

Her books had reordered themselves—all titles in Enochian. One is open to a page titled Sacrifice of Lesser Bonds. She didn't remember opening it. She didn't close it either. Her stoic nature transformed into an unnerving, almost chilling serenity, a terrifying indicator of her internal decay. She felt a powerful urge to push her friends away, viewing their emotions as messy, weak, and contaminating.

***

3. The Chilling Escalation: The Tower's Embrace

The subtle disturbances escalated with every breath the Titans took. What began as faint murmurs from the walls grew into direct, venom-tipped whispers—personalized, intimate, impossible to block out.

"You're almost there."

"Don't fight it."

"You know you want this."

"You could be so much more."

"You've tasted freedom—why pretend anymore?"

Doors slammed shut inches before hands could grasp the handles. Walls tightened as if the Tower were breathing—slow, methodical inhalations, each one drawing the team deeper into its lungs. Hallways bent with impossible angles, looping back to rooms that hadn't existed before.

The very air pulsed with their fears.

Portraits of the Titans now stared with hollow eyes and twisted, lascivious grins. Reflections in glass moved out of sync — smiles lingering a second too long, heads tilting just a few degrees further than they should. Every screen flickered with tainted images from their past: failures, betrayals, desires made manifest.

Robin noticed a heat signature deep inside one of the inner walls—too big, too alive. It moved. Slowly. Watching.

Cyborg's internal processors picked up an anomaly in the Tower's energy core: a low, rhythmic hum. Not mechanical. Not Tower-made. It beat in sync with a pulse. Organic. Hungry. Alive.

Boom... boom... boom...

The Tower had a heartbeat.

Beast Boy growled at Miss Martian for stepping into his space, his eyes wild and unfocused. She reacted instinctively, flinging him backward with a burst of unchecked telekinesis.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped, and then blinked — shaken by her own voice.

Robin stormed into the hallway seconds later, his anger white-hot, mistrust spreading like mold beneath his skin. What if they weren't themselves anymore? What if the demon had already entered through one of them?

Everyone looked different — just slightly. Off-center. Too calm. Too anxious. Too perfect. Too real.

The team fractured.

Fists clenched. Voices rose. Baseless accusations became razor-edged truths.

"Where were you before the lights came back on?"

"You were alone too long."

"I saw your eyes—they changed."

"You're lying."

Fear detonated in whispers. Paranoia sprouted with every sideways glance. Heartbeats accelerated like sirens in their heads. Each believed—just enough—that the others might have already succumbed.

And underneath their screaming thoughts, a quieter, more dangerous one stirred inside each of them:

Maybe I should just give in. Just end this. Let him have it. Let him have—me.

Their emotions cracked like aging stone. Resentment flared. Jealousy whispered. Lust curled its fingers into their thoughts and pulled.

They began to wonder: Were they still a team… or were they the bait?

***

Climax: The Tower Awakens

Raven, the eeriest of them all, remained still amid the chaos. Her serenity was a mask, thinner than paper, stretched over an abyss deeper than the sea. Quiet, composed, but drawn — unshakably — by something calling beneath her feet.

She moved, silent, unblinking, down the central corridor.

At the Tower's heart, she paused.

And then — the lights died.

All of them.

Total black.

Then one by one, glowing red sigils flared to life — burning across walls, furniture, glass. They pulsed in steady rhythm with the Tower's now-audible breath.

A long exhale.

Not of systems.

Not of the building.

Of something within.

The walls rippled — not metaphorically, but physically, like the Tower itself had become muscle and flesh.

The air changed. Became wet.

The floor under Raven's boots throbbed once.

Like a throat. Swallowing.

She reached out psychically to her team—

Nothing.

No voices. No minds. Just darkness and—

One answer.

One voice.

Soft. Seductive. Everywhere at once.

"You're not in the Tower anymore.

You are in me."

The Tower wasn't corrupted.

The Tower wasn't haunted.

The Tower no longer existed.

Raven was inside the demon.

And so were they all.

"Welcome home".

End of chapter.