Ave. Yet another of my one-shot AU pieces, man I'm in a slow rut. A little dark and a little messy, hopefully a little entertaining. I do not own Teen Titans in any way, shape, or form. That honor belongs to Cartoon Network and I'm not challenging them. I seek no profit from this work and merely hope to avoid being sued… Please enjoy if possible. Onward and downward.
I Will Fear No Darkness
By Wordbearer
The Earth was dying. The oceans were steaming as the crust slowly gave way under a force that made gravity seem feeble. The verdant life that had made the planet unique among its siblings was all but extinguished, the last of the bacteria hunted down by sentient swarms of virus-sized predators. The remains of its orbital defenses fell into the atmosphere, shattered by the fist of an angry god. The moon watched the death of its companion sadly; aware of the uncertain fate that it would suffer when Terra dissolved into the dust from whence they had both come.
The Earth was dying and one living thing gave witness to that death. She watched from the window of a malformed ship, a hulk of a vessel the size and mass of a mountain. The witness was shrouded in a hooded cloak made from darkly glistening leather. The material moved faintly of its own accord as black lightning amped through the frail body of its bearer. She had the hood down, a water fall of purple hair bound in a ponytail going half-way down her back. Her features were fey and delicate, the features of an adolescent just blooming into adulthood. The gray tone of her skin made her seem otherworldly as a cool smile graced her face. Large expressive eyes drank in the sight of the dying planet, their pupils azule as the planet's lost oceans.
Raven's mind was caressed with the cries of a thousand lost souls and the lingering moan of a dying planet. The sensation pleased her daemonic sensitivities. The half-daemon grinned suddenly, her eyes flaring red. Dark energy surged in all directions, barely controlled by the runes carved into the walls.
A silent query prompted Raven in a diffident tone, "Are you ready? The master calls…" She nodded and brushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear. Raven gestured, the metal wall flowing out of the way to form a doorway. As she walked, the floor crackled behind her, absorbing unconscious energy discharges.
Raven walked the halls of the ship, the omnipresent chorus of sibilant spirits falling silent as she passed. The walls were strangely discolored in places, seeming to breath to some irregular rhythm. In other places, it writhed as inhuman spirits tried in vain to force their way through the metal and into the material universe. Glowing motes danced through the air, skirting away from her presence like skittish birds. Raven paused before a sealed door, aware of monstrous, incorporeal guardians that watched her every move.
The dark mystic whispered, "Trigon's daughter comes at her Father's call." The guardians subsided and a pressure lifted from the air. The door opened to reveal an antechamber glowing with infernal runes. A further set of doors lay on the other side of the chamber. A dark mist leaked from between cracks in the corroded barrier, a mist that reminded her of the primary shaping event of her childhood.
Ebony fog played about a small trembling figure, caressing it like eager puppies. Raven lay curled in the fetal position, her chubby four-year old body covered in a loose fitting tunic. Her childish voice chanted a prayer she had learned a few months before, "Azarath Medrion Zinthos. Azarath Medrion Zinthos. Azarath…" It sounded like the temple was being blasted to pieces around her and she could feel the deaths of the people as they were ripped apart by the monsters of the Abyss. She could feel the creatures as well and she was scared out of her mind. What frightened her most was the sense of dreadful kinship that she smelled in their auras. Raven had always been bad. She lost her temper. She broke stuff with her powers. She forgot to meditate. Now the bad things were coming for her.
The bad things had killed Azar; they had killed the godlike, stern center of Raven's universe. Raven was alone in her cell, smelling the sickly sweet mist that slipped under her door. There was a cry, and a pair of thuds. The death cry of the Temple Guardians assigned to her quarters pained her and broke her concentration. Raven panicked and frantically scrambled to the far corner of her cell. Tile shattered under her touch, as ebony energy discharged from her body.
A voice spoke in a language she had never heard, yet understood. The voice was deep and resonating, reverberating with some need deep in her soul. It said, "Continue to slay the Guardians and the Clerics. My prize lies within this chamber." Subhuman snarls answered and the pounding of cloven hooves picked up again. Raven stared over her knees wide-eyed. She caught sight of inhumanly muscular, loping shadows before a black-robed figure shut the door. Miraculously, the noise and confusion stopped.
Raven shivered as she sent her sight up the figure. It was tall but slender. The black robe it wore drank in the light ominously, but gave off the sickly-sweet smell she found so alluring. Raven's breath caught as she looked into its hood. There were four glowing eyes, the shade of candle light and gleaming with a restless cocktail of emotions. The half-daemon knew these eyes and she trembled with fearful awe.
She stared and whispered, "Father…" There was no hatred in her voice, her mind too young to house such a poisonous and long-distilled emotion. The figure pulled back its hood, revealing a thin, scarred face with scarlet skin, long, white hair, and slightly-pointed teeth. Trigon knelt, bringing his face level with Raven's.
She blinked as Trigon spoke, "Daughter. I have been searching for you ever since you were born. You can't understand how much the sight of you warms my spirit." His voice was full of unmasked affection and need, the unfamiliar tones that mark love. This was a new sensation for the young dark mystic and chaos roiled through her brain. The surge of emotions caused an ornate lamp to fall and shatter on the tile, victim to Raven's powers. Raven cringed, expecting Trigon to punish her for this lapse. After a few seconds, she cracked open an eyelid to see the daemonlord gazing at her in confusion.
She whispered, "Are you going to punish me? I was bad."
He asked soothingly, "How were you bad, child?"
Raven recited, "I must keep my emo… emotions in check or dire things will happen." Guilt flooded her and Trigon extended a slender hand to caress her cheek.
The daemonlord spoke, "Dire things? Like that ugly lamp breaking? Tsk, tsk. How is that bad?"
Raven stammered, "It is."
Trigon narrowed his quartet of eyes, "Is itgood to deny your feelings? Is it bad to embrace what you are? Is that what they have been teaching you?" Raven was confused and frightened by the tirade, prompting Trigon to change tactics. "Raven. How did it feel to express those feelings?"
"Bad," she murmured.
"Yes, yes… It is unpleasant to feel guilt and fear, but how did it feel after? How did it feel to not suppress that feeling, let it rip its way free of your being?" The half-daemon's face wrinkled in confusion as she thought, surges of black sparks pumping through her frame.
Trigon waited and she eventually spoke, "I liked it. When I keep them down, they sting and don't go away for hours. I don't like that…"
The daemonlord smiled, "Exactly. Let the feeling free so that it stops hurting and…."
Raven interrupted, "But… Now they'll have to fix it. Like the window and the plates and the statue…" Trigon laid a finger on his daughter's lips to silence her.
He spoke, a trace of dark amusement in his eyes, "I don't think that they'll be fixing anything in the near future. Would you like to go to a place where you can feel all you want and not worry about being 'bad' when you break things?"
The young girl blinked in confusion, "But someone else will have to fix it. I don't want to make people do that. I feel bad doing stuff like that."
Trigon nodded and put his hands on Raven's shoulders, "Don't worry about that. We're going to my home and it takes a lot to break my things."
He smiled thinly as he amended the statement, "At least those things that deserve to be unbroken…" The last remnant of resistance died in Raven's mind, childish need pushing the frail bonds of self-control aside.
She smiled and a pillow exploded, "I would like that." Trigon chuckled triumphantly and swept her up in his arms, putting her head on his shoulder. Raven liked the smell of his robes and the feel of his warm body around her. Trigon called up his power and the pair vanished as Azarath burned in the wake of their departure, a sign of things to come.
Raven brushed aside the cobweb of memories as the outer door sealed behind her, leaving the dark mystic alone in the antechamber. Fiery runes reflected off her cloak. Trigon's 'home' was this space-hulk, a vessel formed from the haphazard fusion of a dozen odd others, the victims who were trapped in the Abyss. The hulk was saturated with trapped souls and visiting daemons. Sparks channeled from her feet into the coruscating spirits, the energy dissipated harmlessly amid hundreds of softly screaming prisoners. Trigon had done so much for her. He had brought her to this place, a place she could feel without destroying everything around her, without having to obey the rigid discipline that the monks of Azarath had tried to force on her. He had taught her to master the depths of her power and trained her mind and body to tolerate any torment.
Raven's face tightened as she considered the door in front of her. Trigon was a being of the deep Abyss and only a place saturated with spiritual energy could house his presence for any length of time. The rite she was here to attend would have to occur in a place filled with such power, a place faintly unreal. The rusted doorway opened and black mist flooded the room, burning her eyes before she called up a shield to deflect the worst of the painfully-rich energy. The mist spoke to her, but she ignored the voices. To listen to the call of the Warp would drive a human insane and she was half-human.
Raven double-checked that her hood was secure before stepping forward into her Father's sanctum-sanctorum, a seemingly barren cavity in the heart of the hulk. To her eyes, the room was drowned in murky smoke, coiling malevolently about the room, impenetrably-thick a yard from her eyes. To her ears, no sound came forth. The room was as silent as a tomb. But that was the physical senses and this room wasn't truly physical anymore. Raven opened her mind's senses and the barren scene exploded into vivid life. The room was enormous, stretching as far as the eye could see. The ground was a faintly glowing lawn that writhed with slow life. The sky raced, unnatural lightning dancing amid the clouds. The translucent ground writhed with the motion of lost souls. The scene was crowded with daemons of all ranks and breeds, from the lowly, yet numerous imps to the towering figures of daemon princes and the unspeakably ancient Many-Angled Ones of the Outer Dark. No two were exactly alike, form being a matter of choice, a whim of the moment. They stared at her, futile hate blazing in their gaze. She was Trigon's daughter and however much they hated her, none would dare touch her. The sheer power coiling about the half-daemon made her mind stagger. She closed her eyes and focused, struggling to get herself under control. She scowled and straightened, her eyes hardening with malice.
She whispered to the hoard, "You can't scare me. I won't feed you that way. If you want to face me, do so openly if you dare." Her aura flared like black fire in sympathetic display with her anger. They turned away as a harsh wind cut through the chamber and the world shifted in reaction to the coming of a greater power.
Raven looked up and saw her father standing above her, an unknowable look gleaming in his quartet of eyes. He wore the form she called The Lord of the Hunt: towering, muscular build with crimson skin, white hair flowing freely over his back, antlers sprouting from his brow, and white garments clinging to his frame in complement to the blazing scepter clutched in his palm.
"Daughter of my will, it is time," Trigon rumbled gravely. She nodded tersely and the daemonlord gestured. Monolithic ribs of stone erupted around the pair and the ground flared with fiery runes beneath Raven's feet. She kept her eyes on her father and knelt as he thumped the ground twice with his staff. The clouds flared in response.
The Host of daemons stilled as Trigon spoke, "I am Trigon the Terrible, Third Born of the Darkness. We are gathered here at this junction of the Abyss and Real Space to celebrate many things. We have feasted on the flesh of a life-bearing world. We have wrung the last drop of vitality from its corpse and left a marker that the weakling children of Real Space will not soon forget. We have broken the keystone of many barriers and opened many doors for daemonkind. We have gathered relics long hidden and brought them together for our use."
The daemons nodded as Trigon paused, "But I have called you here to mark a different occasion, an occasion worthy of note. Sixteen years before this glorious day, a human gave birth to a half-daemon girl. My spawn." Trigon fixed Raven with a glance from the corner of his eyes. "They named her Raven and presumed to cast a prophecy over her future. As if she were a mere mortal bound by the whims of the blind goddess Fate! We skim the paths of Fate and none may predict the future of even the least of us!"
The world trembled in response to his anger, "They said she would begin to destroy Earth by her sixteenth year of life. Then we came to Azarath and reduced it to ash. Many of you were there to partake of the holy harvest and drink of the spiritual wealth they hoarded from us in their futile resistance. I reclaimed what was mine and she was brought back to the embrace of her true kin."
Raven's eyes flickered in brief anger at Trigon's presumption, but she calmed herself when the daemonlord gestured with his staff again. "She has proven an adept student, a merciless slayer, and a true child of my spirit. She has passed the tests of will. She has passed the tests of mastery. She has passed the Trials of Inhumanity in destroying the world of her mother's birth. By most rites of our kind, Raven has proven herself worthy of all she has received."
Trigon's voice dropped ominously, "Some of you have whispered in the Abyss that I am playing favorites, that I coddle the weakness of this 'crossbreed' out of blind loyalty. If any of you feel that she has been sheltered behind my own power, feel free to voice your will here and now." The clouds rumbled and flickers of eldritch lightning arched between sky and ground. Raven raised her azule eyes from the ground, cloak faintly writhing, as the silence stretched out.
The Host rustled faintly as a handful of daemons rose, champions of fell and awesome might among the legions of the Abyss.
Trigon swept his gaze over the figures, "A fraction of what I had expected, the most militant of dissenters. At least some of you have the courage to admit your words before me. What would you do? How far would you go to satisfy your concerns?"
A hulking brute stepped forward, "I speak for all those in the Kindred who possess the will to fight in the name of the Blood God and I judge her weak. She has not fought for ascension from the Pit. She has been given power and not had to earn it piece by piece."
The Host rumbled in agreement as the speaker continued, "When she has fought our kind, it has been in the depths of Real Space where we are most weak and she is most strong. We demand the right to fight her in this place where our Power may meet her Power and the balance may be tested. The weakling will go into the pits and the victor will feed on the essence of the loser." The handful of defiant ones barked agreement.
Trigon nodded, eyes flashing, "So let it be said. We live and prosper by strength and there is no test of strength more fitting than trial by combat…"
The daemonlord turned to face Raven, all four eyes gleaming, "Scion of My Will, do you accept this challenge? Will you defend yourself against his accusations and secure your place in my Host until such time as you are challenged again?" The dark mystic closed her eyes as she rose, her face inscrutable as stone.
Her quiet voice echoed through the otherworldly chamber, "I will face him and prove my worth before you and the Host."
Trigon nodded, oceans of approval blaring from his eyes. He tapped his staff against the ground and the sky flashed in response, "The challenge has been accepted. Which of you will step forward and fight this challenge?"
The defiant daemons made their choice quickly, communicating in swift exchanges of nonhuman thought. A hulking, blood-stained killer stepped forward, his head covered in eyes and a pair of writhing whips hanging from his waist. He wore a kilt woven from skins- human, angelic, animal, and some too alien to tell.
His voice was a subhuman growl, "I, Israefil the Sanguine Emissary, will fight this challenge. I have slain multitudes and her skin will join the others on my kilt. Her spirit will be a succulent feast that I will long savor." The Host nodded in approval at this speech and Trigon glowered at the seriousness of this embryonic rebellion as Raven calmly rose, her cloak twitching in excitement.
He intoned, "So let it be. Enter this circle and none shall interfere in this matter upon pain of Oblivion. So it is spoken…"
Raven echoed the refrain as did the rest of the Host, "So shall it be." Trigon withdrew from the circle and joined the Host as it gathered to watch the imminent fight.
Israefil stomped into the circle of standing stones, the runes glaring brighter as he passed into the rings of sigils. He took up his weapons and snapped the lashes in the air, the lengths of sorcerous leather moaning softly in anticipation. Raven didn't react, sizing up the much larger daemon and smiling thinly at what she saw. She gestured and the dark leather cloak fell away from her shoulders, revealing her lithe, black-clad body, glowing with infernal power. Her purple ponytail bounced gently against her back. She stared into the feral, crimson eyes of Israefil and the grin widened. The daemon paused before growling and stepping forward. He transformed the whips into a blurred wall of lethal, screaming shadows as he pumped his arms frenziedly. Raven stepped forward into the storm, aura engulfing her flesh in black flame, a conflagration of chill fire that left a trail of molten frost in her wake.
The two forces of daemonic might slammed together with the sound of flesh hitting boiling oil. Israefil was the towering heart of a lethal storm. Raven was the frail core of a balefire inferno. The whips screamed through the aura of fire in a constant barrage of blows, Raven blocking the strikes with well-nigh invisible shields of black energy. The black flame flared outward and upward, Israefil's flesh mortifying at the caress of the half-daemon's power as it overcame his endurance at select patches on his frame. At this range, neither foe could remain unscathed. Israefil's whips left bleeding welts along Raven's head and torso. Flame ate away at Israefil's flesh and left frozen sores behind. The Host watched silently as Raven teleported away from him, giving both combatants room to maneuver.
They sniped one another across the small space of the dueling ground. Israefil unleashed sweeping blows of his whips that could decapitate a dozen men at once. Raven returned with torrents of ebon might that rang off the force-field trapping both combatants within the circle. It was a game of dodge, the first hit capable of finishing the fight, neither committing to an all out offensive. Raven gestured and Israefil was flung against the top of the energy barrier, black streamers trailing his form. The daemon hit the ground braced on his left arm, both whips clutched in his right. He swung with one weapon and Raven blocked. The second weapon snaked under her barrier and tangled itself around her ankle. Israefil pulled and Raven hit the ground hard. She was stunned for a half-second, but it was a half-second too long. The preternatural whip stuck her abdomen and opened a gash in her gray skin that bled profusely. Raven grunted with the pain and looked up with white-glowing eyes as Israefil prepared for the deathblow, lashes screaming around to build up for a stone splitting strike.
Raven closed her eyes and screamed, a wall of black energy erupting from her petite frame. Israefil staggered back a step or two at the sheer brute force of the storm buffeting him. A second pair of eyes flashed into being on Raven's forehead, scarlet glaring from the heart of her ebony storm. Israefil was forced back as the storm pounded him again. The dark mystic rose, her flesh knitting as she drove the daemon back another pace. He was on the defensive, all his eyes shut to keep out the chill wind that ate slowly at his form. He lashed out with the whip, but Raven caught it and sent a surge of power up the weapon that convulsed him in agony. The whip came apart under the barrage of power. Raven's long purple hair buffeted around her as she pushed it up a notch and slammed the larger daemon against the barrier.
The searing pain of the impact forced his eyes open and he stared at the source of this assault, eyes bursting under the pressure of the storm. Raven stood crouched at the heart of a hurricane of darkness held back only by the barrier of the dueling ground, four crimson eyes marking a face twisted by rage that made the millennia-old daemon feel small. He released his grip on the remaining whip and went limp as his flesh melted away to reveal his twisted skeleton. Raven sensed the daemon's surrender and recalled the power amping out of her form. She panted as she forced it back under control by degrees. She was shaking and sweat soaked her clothing as she opened her azule pupils again, aware that this fight wasn't over yet. Israefil lay limp on the battered dueling ground, scraps of flesh clinging to his bones and viscera oozing out of his flexible rib cage, still pulsing with unhuman life. She looked at the skull where Israefil looked at her out of ruined eyes and could feel the energies that worked to remold his form.
Raven knelt atop her adversary and drove her fingers into his eye sockets, searching for her prize. She sensed Israefil's essence bubbling beneath her astral senses and smiled grimly behind her curtain of unkempt hair. His jaw moved and gave voice to a silent whisper: Send me to the Pits, half-breed. I will win free and feed on your essence a thousand years hence when I have regained my power and you have grown soft…
Raven whispered to the ruined form, "In a thousand years then… I claim your essence as my prize, Israefil. To the Pits with you." Crack! Hiss… Raven rose from the empty shell and gestured. Her cloak flew up from where it rested to settle on her shoulders and preceded to twitch happily as it absorbed of the new energy pumping through Raven's body. She raised the hood and looked over her father's Host. The Host looked back silently. She turned back to Trigon in time to catch his feral grin of approval. She smiled faintly in return.
So you made it down here. Kudos! What do you think? Good? Bad? Crudely melodramatic? If you see fit, leave a review and tell me what you think. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Have a nice day.