A couple of days rolled by with no weird circumstances happening. We relaxed and rested, though there was a tension in the air. Sonic's fists were always clenched, and whenever we did something on the couch, he sat on the floor and constantly looked at the windows. I felt bad for him. We were cursed on top of everything else.

It turned out that one of the Emeralds was real; we tested it out by having Sonic hold it. I thought it was a stupid idea, but he was the one who thought of it, and he snatched it out of Tails' hands before we could argue about it any more. He shouted with happiness, running in a circle until Raven made a wall in front of him. We all laughed, and even Sonic thought it was funny later. Though he had a giant purple spot on his forehead.

Everyone except Sonic took turns staying up in the living room, ready to move in case an intruder came. He wasn't happy about this, but if someone with an Emerald came flying through the window, he wouldn't be able to do much. It was worth the grumpiness that we had in the mornings. I didn't want to see Sonic 'possessed', as he called it.

We couldn't decide whether or not we should collect the fake Emeralds or leave them be. If we left them, no immediate harm could come to Sonic, and even if Slade collected the rest, it would be hard to bring them together with the ones we had. The cases they were each in did their job at keeping their power inside - for the most part. All of us could notice a change in Sonic. Mostly it was his paranoia, but there were times when he lashed out at us. He always apologized, not listening when we assured him it wasn't his fault.

"Where did you guys find that Emerald?" I asked Raven. I was coming to her from the couch and a puddle magically appeared, making me slip. Somehow I caught myself on a chair and avoided falling. "How far away did you go?"

She put down her book, acting as if she was annoyed. "We found the real one just on the opposite side of the ocean. The other one we found because we got a call from the other Titans' base. They had no idea what it was, so they called Starfire."

"I see. I wonder why I didn't get the call...?"

"I've been thinking about that, too. And there was only one of the Titans there at the base, which makes me think that it wasn't actually a call from them; it was a call from Slade's kid."

"What?" I frowned. "But she was here so fast after you called me."

"Robin, she takes on the abilities of the person she copies," Raven explained. "She turned into me and teleported away. It makes sense."

"Why not just bring the Emerald with her?" I asked. "Why give it to you?"

Raven blinked slowly and picked up her book again. "They are trying to lead us to find them. She brought one with her to attack you guys, and left one with us. Maybe she thought that when our team barged in, it would cause Sonic to lose control again. But she completely forgot about that plan - so she turned into Sonic."

"I guess that makes sense," I told her. I waited a few seconds before asking my next question: "how is Slade's kid?"

"She's alive." Raven replied from behind her book. "Alive and well."

I frowned. "What do you mean? You say that like it's a bad thing."

She put her book down and sighed. "Besides the fact she's trying to control someone with her evil father and take over the world? It is. I don't know who or what she can change into, but I'm not sure that device will keep her for long. I've never seen someone who could completely copy someone's DNA and molecules. It's amazing and bizarre at the same time."

"So you think she could turn into something small enough to crawl out of it?"

Raven smiled. "I know she can."

I looked back at Sonic, who was sitting on the couch and resting his head on his knees. Maybe Slade's kid could give us some answers. "Then we better go and see what we can find out."

Raven nodded and stood up. I followed her up the stairs and into the medical bay, where the kid was being held. I wasn't really in to kidnapping, but this was kind of to help the entire world.

I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it, but it got stuck and I walked straight into it. This stupid hex...

Slade's kid was in a separate room in something like a tube. It was probably extremely claustrophobic in it, and there was only a little extra space in it for her. I stared at her, then turned my head. She really did look almost exactly like Terra - she had the blonde hair, skinny waist, and was pretty tall. The difference was subtlety in her face. Her eyes were a light brown and her features seemed a bit smaller. 

"Wake up," I demanded. After a few seconds, she sighed and opened her eyes. She was definitely glaring at me.

"You tricked me, you piece of trash." Hearing that from someone who looked like Terra made me gasp. She wouldn't have had the tone of hatred like that in her voice.

"You should have known better," I replied. "I need answers, and you're going to give them to me."

She changed into me, but I didn't look surprised. It had happened before. "You already know all the answers, don't you?"

"What kind of lame riddle is that?" I asked. She smiled, then turned into Sonic.

"If you thought about it, you know everything you need to know," she said. "You know the day it will happen, the place it will occur, and the people who will be killed. You know it will happen. There is no stopping it."

She laughed maniacally, but seeing her do that as Sonic made me shudder. It didn't fit his features; it was like a shirt that was too big for someone. Was this what Sonic would turn into?

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, smiling maliciously. "Am I making you uneasy? You don't want to see your friend in such a state? You're afraid that he really will kill people, and it will ruin his personality? Are you scared that you won't be able to even land a punch on this monster? And what about all of you? Are you afraid that you won't win, that you'll be outnumbered even though you have more people on your side? I can't imagine - "

"That's enough!" Raven's expression looked like it could paralyze someone with fear. She looked more angry that I had seen her in a long time, and I was stunned for a few seconds. "You're on the enemy's side. Of course you will try to make us uneasy. But Sonic's stronger than you realize. He'll fight it, and that will help us... defeat him."

"Ah, yes," she said, "but just how are you going to defeat him? A nice punch to the gut? How about a nice, relaxing... death?"

Suddenly, the room turned pitch black. I could only see Raven beside me and Slade's kid in front of me. A chill came through the room, and it made me shiver. I had never seen Raven this mad.

"You're lucky we don't kill you now," Raven said. Her teeth were tightly shut together. "Because we should. You don't deserve to live if you get such happiness from this."

Slade's kid didn't look so confident now, and she had changed back to her normal state. Her eyes were wide and she looked like she had been completely struck with terror. Perhaps Raven was doing something to her that she wasn't doing to me.

"A-aren't you a being of the darkness?" Slade's kid asked, not even bothering to hide her fear. "Shouldn't you be on our side?"

Raven laughed. "Maybe if the bad guys weren't always so stupid I would consider it. I have no reason to side with you. Torture isn't something to laugh about. It's something to gasp at and fear."

"Raven," I said. "Calm down."

She angrily looked at me, and for a second, I thought she would attack me. Instead, she took a deep breath, and the lights slowly came back. "Sorry," she muttered.

"It's fine," I said, "we all get mad once in a while."

I turned and left the room, making sure Raven was following me. I didn't think it was a good idea to let her stay in there with her any longer. Usually she didn't really have any emotion except for being annoyed - if you could even consider that an emotion. She stared at the floor the entire way down the stairs.

"A week or less," Raven said suddenly.

"What?" I blinked. What in the world could she possibly be talking about? Unless...

"With the rate we're getting the fake Emeralds, we'll get one today and every two days from then on. We have a week to stop this."

"What if we can't stop it?" I asked. "I'm not sure people would believe us if we told them an angry hedgehog was going to come and destroy the city."

Raven smiled, "we can always lie."

"Still, what would we say?"

She shrugged. "Something like a freak hurricane is going to be set over the city by Slade. I don't know. You're the one who comes up with the weird ideas."

"You're very reassuring," I told her.

"I didn't mean to lose control like that," Raven said. "Sonic's always so happy, and I don't want to bring sorrow to him. Destroying a personality is like killing the person who holds that personality. And she was right. Sonic would die inside if he killed anyone, good or bad. That's just the person he is. It makes him stronger and weaker at the same time."

I stared at Raven. I had never heard her be so sentimental before. She actually cared for Sonic like a friend, even if she never acted like it. It made me smile, but I didn't want her to see me smile so I turned the other way. "We'll just have to make sure we can separate him from the citizens. Maybe you can teleport him away somewhere else, then bring us all to that place."

"Perhaps," she said.

I sat on the couch watching Beast Boy and Cyborg race along a weird looking track. "It's some new DLC man!" Cyborg said to me, though his eyes were glued to the TV. 

Beast Boy, however, looked at me once the race was done. "Why the long face? Starfire dump you?"

"What?" I said, frowning at Beast Boy. "I-I don't know what in the world you're talking about."

Beast Boy laughed, and Cyborg joined in. I folded my arms and looked to the side, and Sonic was staring at me with his eyes wide. I didn't think I had any particular look on my face, but Sonic looked down and said, "I think... I'll go to bed. Going to need all of my strength, anyway..."

He got up and went up the stairs, his eyes staring off into some sort of space. I buried my face into my hands, feeling like a loser. "I feel so helpless. I wish there was something we could do to help."

"He'll get over himself," Tails replied. "Give him a bit of time to himself and he'll get bored of feeling sorry for himself. He's probably trying to figure out some sort of ridiculous plan to stop all of this madness before it starts."

I stared at the stairs, and without another word I ran up them. But it wasn't to go see Sonic; maybe there was a way to stop everything. I ran to my room and tacked a map up on my wall. It was a map of the surrounding areas - I put markers on the places that we had found the fake Chaos Emeralds at already: Titan Tower, the other Titan base, the shore to the west. There was always the possibility of Slade ringing our doorbell to drop off some of them. And this map would be useless if Slade was making them. They weren't natural, that was for sure. I wondered if they somehow duplicated negatively when Sonic passed through the portal to get here. That made more sense than Slade finding out how to make negative energy.

We hadn't found any of the Emeralds in the city. I decided we needed to scour it again to find another Emerald. The rest would probably be anywhere around the world, and that was a long race to run with Slade on our tails.

I still kept looking at the map. I didn't want to risk falling behind in this race. But Sonic and I couldn't go anywhere yet - unless Raven had found a way to reverse the hex. I hadn't asked her, so I decided to go back downstairs and see if she had.

She blinked as she saw me. "What?"

"I was just wondering... if you had found a way to fix the hex yet." I asked. I didn't have my hopes up.

But she looked as if a light bulb had gone off in her head. "That's right! I completely forgot! I figure it out last night. I had something to ask you, though. With the possibility of Sonic turning on us, wouldn't it be better for us to leave the hex on him? That way, if we must fight him, he has bad luck."

I took a deep breath. Raven had a great point; Tails and Sonic made it sound as if he turned into a god when Sonic got all of these Chaos Emeralds. Sure, we had technically fought one called 'Raven's Dad', but it had been kind of hard. We needed to take every advantage we could get.

Still... I looked into the hallway. I didn't want to betray Sonic like this. He deserved to be his favorite thing ever - free. However, if this hex could possibly stop him from killing someone, it was a risk I needed to take. Sonic would understand. But he wouldn't like it at all.

"Maybe..." I closed my eyes and sighed again. "Maybe we should pretend to take the curse off of him. Maybe if he thinks the curse is lifted, he won't slip on stairs anymore. Then, when he turns, he won't realize anything about the curse, and he won't do as well.. Get it?"

She nodded. "That sounds good to me. Let's do it."