Chapter 1
It was a cold December night in Jump City central park. An old man sat on a park bench while reading his newspaper and throwing bread crumbs to a flock of dark-feathered birds. The man wore a thick, pale trench coat and tilted his large felt hat forward to cover his eyes from view. The street lamp above him cast an eerie light across the walkway, encircling him in an almost impenetrable darkness. The sounds of trepid footsteps were soon accompanied by a thin young boy entering into view.
The newcomer nervously wrung his hands as he approached the man on the park bench. The night birds scattered at his approach which caused the sitting figure to turn his gaze away from his reading material. An annoyed grunt escaped his lips as he changed his posture to greet the frightened young man. His cold eyes locked with the boy's, and non-verbally commanded him to speak.
"Sir," the youth rasped and quickly cleared his throat, "the deed is done… but…" he shuffled his feet and absent-mindedly scratched the wrist on his left arm.
"But what, acolyte?" the stern rebuke from the man on the bench was enough to make the young man flinch, "what have you to say?"
"Sir, the vessel we have chosen for tonight is especially weak. We don't have much time before the body begins to deteriorate." The acolyte swallowed hard. "Is it truly wise to leave him unattended? Without supervision he will likely cause quite a scene…'
The man in the coat continued to stare long and hard at the young man in front of him. The acolyte squirmed under the attention and winced, visibly anticipating a verbal rebuttal. He waited for several moments, but what came was not a yell of admonishment, but instead a cold derisive chuckle.
"But don't you see, young one?" the man's rotten teeth aligned in a crooked smile as he spoke. He brought his newspaper into the light to show the front page to his young follower. An image of the city's famous crime fighters – the Teen Titans – posing triumphantly after a pitched battle centered squarely on the page. He flicked his wrist, slapping the parchment with his two forefingers.
"That is precisely what I want."
A woman's scream echoed through the street behind the warehouse as the concrete walls bent and crumbled before her. A cold burst of wind bellowed from inside the building violently pushing away several wooden crates and piles of stone rubble. An emaciated figure walked out of the newly formed hole in the wall, ragged and clutching his head in pain. He was dressed in an unflattering moth-eaten gown which has been seemingly torn to shreds. Without a shred of modesty, the tattered man limped wearily towards the frightened woman. With a scream of agony, a shockwave of force rocked the foundation of the street around them. Without warning, the metal from the above fire escape buckled and fell, plummeting towards the defenseless citizen.
In a flash, a green and golden blur raced underneath the falling rubble mere instants before it hit the ground. Floating several feet above the air was an orange skinned girl holding the confused, but not ungrateful, woman. The Tameranean flashed a quick smile before placing her rescue safely on the ground.
"We don't want to fight you. Give up before anyone gets hurt." The boy wonder positioned himself menacingly in front of his team. It was clear that the ragged man was outnumbered and outmatched. They had noticed the disturbance while on patrol, and as it stood, the person in front of them was guilty of vandalism and attempted murder. If he gave himself up now, he might find some mercy from the courts.
In response to the Titan's generous offer, the near-naked figure screamed loudly and clutched his head. The tremors from earlier began anew, this time directed solely towards the group of young heroes. The team scrambled quickly, narrowly avoiding the sonic blast.
"I'm guessing that means 'no'." A limber green boy muttered while clutching the side of a mechanical crane. In the blink of an eye, the boy leapt to the ground and took the form of a massive ram and barreled his way towards his perceived enemy. The thin man made no attempt to remove himself from the animal's path. As he got closer, the green ram saw a smile forming on his target's face.
"Beast Boy, watch out!"
Robin's cry came too late. The disheveled man locked eyes with the rampaging green superhero and a dark aura encircled them both. The ram stopped dead in its tracks, a thick dark energy gripping his bright viridian fur. Beast Boy felt an incredible pressure push down on him, and the feeling of his lungs being forcibly torn open by an unwanted burst of wind rocked his body with an indescribable pain. Lacking the air require to scream, the young man futilely gulped for breath, his throat and chest contracting violently in rapid undulating motions.
A blue stream of sonic energy catapulted the offending villain several feet backwards, breaking eye contact. However, the offending dark cloud continued to cling to Beast Boy's skin, denying him even the luxury of changing forms.
"BB! You okay?" Cyborg ran to his best friend's side and impulsively grabbed his shoulders in worry. The continuous aura batted away the robotic man's outstretched grasp and caused him to gasp out in pain and surprise. "I can't get through that stuff!"
Seeping from the concrete beneath them, the opaque silhouette of Raven's soul-self occupied the space between Cyborg and Beast Boy. The young empath's typical stoic countenance was replaced with one of fear and concern. After approaching the malevolent aura she grimaced and yelled to her leader.
"This is dark magic! " Her eyes grew pale and her balled fists cackled with power. "I need some time to dispel the effects."
"Then we'll keep you covered. Cyborg, Starfire, attack!" Robin leapt into action with a barrage of green starbolts plummeting towards the erratic criminal. Cyborg took a brief moment to shoot a quick look of worry towards his friends before rushing forward into battle.
Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Raven concentrated her power on her suffering young teammate. She knew that she didn't have a lot of time to lose, the magic at work here was surprisingly powerful; spells of this magnitude weren't casually tossed around by novice wizards. Who exactly was this mystery foe? Shaking her head to remove all distractions, the grim sorceress extended her soul-self in an attempt to counteract the festering enchantment before her.
Not a moment after she delved deeply into the magical maelstrom did she feel a sharp stinging sensation quiver up her spine. Her eyes shot open and she inhaled quickly as she pushed relentlessly against the arcane ailment's active resistance. Her empathic sense told her of the massive pain Beast Boy was in, and it took everything she had not to collapse to her knees from the exertion. Through the pain, Raven began interweaving the foul magic with her own and began to slowly unravel the unwanted hex.
The weight from Beast Boy's lungs began to lift and he inhaled a much-needed gulp of air. A soft groan escaped his lips as his body continued to spasm and twitch from the ordeal. "R-Raven… help… hurry…" through clenched teeth he uttered a weak cry for help, his consciousness quickly fading away.
"Beast Boy, hold on… I've almost…"
A soul wrenching screech bellowed from the warehouse. A horde of writhing black tendrils tore the building to shreds, and the flying bodies of three teen heroes flew through the air over Raven's head. Emerging from the wreckage, a horrid visage of a man-like creature sprinted after them. The tattered man had several cancerous appendages protruding from the sides and back of his torso. The man-creature slithered with a lumbering gait, his jaw unhinged as once again a tumultuous shriek echoed through him. Leaping with inhuman agility, the writhing creature took to the air and halted himself mid-leap to hover menacingly over Raven. From his eyes, a pair of obsidian rays shot towards the young girl.
In a split decision, Raven was forced to remove her attention from the magic covering Beast Boy in order to defend against the luminous assault. A clash of arcane power lit a spark in the night air, and a powerful flash of light washed over the abandoned industrial district. Thanks to her quick reaction, she had saved herself, but she was staggered momentarily, still reeling from the impact. In that brief moment of weakness, the monster unhinged his jaw, readying himself to unleash another sonic shockwave.
A whistling projectile pierced the flesh of the creature's neck. It grunted in surprise before shifting its eyes to notice a flashing-light on the point of one of Robin's bird-a-rangs. Before it could clutch at the offending object, it exploded, causing the creature's readied scream to bolt towards the sky. Visibly wounded, the levitating villain lost its balance and fell rapidly towards Beast Boy's still immobile form. Before anyone could react, the humanoid monstrosity sunk his now serrated teeth deep into the young boy's shoulder.
No longer accosted by the flying fiend, Raven chanted her mantra and swiftly pushed towards her ailing friend. She telekinetically grappled the latching parasite and forced all of her dark energy into him.
"Get off of him!" An involuntary surge of anger pushed through her soul and amplified her powers. With a pained whimper the inhuman thing shuddered violently before a surge of dark energy poured through his body. In the blink of an eye, the creature burst into a spray of black magic which dissipated quickly into the cold winter air.
Dropping to her knees, Raven struggled to regain control of her raging emotions. The other titans rushed to her side but she quickly brushed them off. "Beast Boy…" was the only reply she could force out. Cyborg brushed away the remnants of black gunk encircling his young green companion and raised his head off the ground.
"Please, friend Beast boy will be… alright?" Starfire's nervous expression accurately communicated the questions on everyone's lips. The team huddled over the crumpled form of their disabled teammate anxiously awaiting a response. Robin reached out to carry his young friend back to the tower when a series of quick sputtering coughs came from the collapsed figure.
"Dude… I feel like I was dragged through a swamp by my hair." He coughed again, and gingerly rubbed his hand over the bite mark on his shoulder. An unflattering yelp escaped his lips as he winced in pain. "Aw man! That dude tried to eat me! Gross!" A warm chuckle of relief came from the huddled teens. Starfire's face lit up in a cheek-spanning smile as she pulled him into a tight embrace.
Raven, whom had just regained her composure, strode towards the remains of their fallen foe. There was no sign of any human corpse following the explosion, and all evidence of the creature was reduced to a viscous black slime which clung to the pavement like a platter of overcooked pancakes. The sorceress closed her eyes in confusion and regret. Did she kill him? She used only a modicum of her power no different than she had used when dealing with other criminals, and yet seeing Beast Boy in such pain triggered something ferocious deep inside of her. She had control… and she had killed a man.
"Raven…?" Robin slinked away from the others as Starfire and Cyborg helped Beast Boy to his feet. The boy wonder silently stood by her side and shot her a look of concern through his mask. "What happened back there?"
Over the years, Robin and Raven had become very close. The two shared a similar, pragmatic outlook on their careers as Superheroes, and while Raven loathed to share personal information with her colleagues, Robin's calm and determined leadership style had caused her to open up to him. In the past, she would have brushed off his question with an excuse, but now, she realized that it was in her best interest, and that of the entire team, for her to share her misgivings.
"… It's just…" She sighed deeply, searching for the words, "I used up more energy than I intended... but, it shouldn't have had enough force to kill him. I lost control, Robin." She dejectedly lowered her head. "A man is dead because of me."
Robin rubbed his chin and slowly shook his head in thought. "I don't think that's true," he absent-mindedly bit at his thumb while his mind recalled the recent events. "He had been acting erratic the entire fight. He was limping and clutching his head in pain. Something else was eating away at him." When Raven turned her head away, she placed his hand on her shoulder. "I watched the whole thing, Raven… I know you didn't use enough force to kill him."
"Then how do you explain the explosion? It's obvious that my magic is what killed him." She looked him in his eyes, her taciturn demeanor cracking slightly under the weight of her guilt.
"No…" Robin crouched down towards the obsidian goop that littered the battlefield and scooped a small sample into a cylindrical glass vial from his belt. "I think he died from… something else."
Looking over the scene, the old man in the trench coat skulked behind an air conditioning unit on a building across the street. He had witnessed the entire conflict, and while his expression had remained blank throughout the fight, now a maniacal grin flashed across his face. He chuckled deeply to himself, a sense of perverse joy bubbling up from the darkest recesses of his soul.
The outcome of the fight and the well-being of the strange ragged man were of no concern to him. The night sky and his surroundings seemed the bleed away to the intensity of his single-minded stare. In his gaze stood the only figure of any importance to him, all other things seemed trite and meaningless.
The green teenager being carried away from the carnage seemed so weak and malleable, and yet, there was a potential in him that only the old man could see. He clutched his stomach in an effort to subdue his excitement. He had waited so long and searched so far for this moment. He had made countless mistakes, and hundreds had paid the price for it. And yet, here, after all these years, a dull-witted boy had held the answer inside of him all along.
"Soon… Soon…" he cackled, wringing his hands in insane anticipation, "The Vessel of the Soul will be complete."