The entity arrived at the planet known as Earth. It knew that the being it had to seek out was here. Its mission was to evaluate it, and then decipher the results. In the end, it would determine whether or not this being was an insurmountable threat to life on the world, or if there was a chance it would redeem itself. The being was known to live on the west coast of the North American continent. The entity zeroed in on it, looking for the place known as Jump City. In the harbor was the target, Titans Tower. The entity awaited its opportunity…
Raven floated in her room, alone as usual, deep into meditation. The events of the past month have had taken its toll on her feelings; her dealings with Slade and the revealing of her destiny to her fellow teammates. And then there was the stressful trip on that space station that disagreed with her senses. It was more agreeable later, though, when she was practically worshipped by those strange beings. She was in a blissful state, a situation that came to an abrupt end by the T-ship's arrival. With a bit of remorse in her heart, she left the beings for her real home, back on Earth in Titans Tower.
Knowing real pleasure now, Raven tried all sorts of relaxation techniques to duplicate the feeling, but none were quite the same. Not even her meditation worked. And it wouldn't be right to ask her friends to wait on her, hand and foot, and to worship her and relax her. She couldn't morally justify it. So, she just relaxed the only way she knew how.
It wasn't really working. She opened her eyes and stood up.
"What's wrong with me?" she said aloud.
No answer was forth coming. She glanced out her window. It was sunset. She could see a faint crescent moon in the sky. That somewhat elevated her feelings. She reveled in darkness. She felt somewhat freer in the dark. And yet, she also felt dread. A dread of things to come. A dread of her true nature, her ultimate destiny.
"I must relax!" she told herself. "I can't let this defeat me!"
She sat down crossed her legs in lotus style and began to recite her usual chant.
"Azarath, metrion, zinthos….azarath, metrion, zinthos…"
She kept this up for half an hour when a strange sensation crossed her mind. It was a feeling that she was no longer alone. She stood up and opened her eyes. What she saw made her gasp! Not even a yard from her was a large, black object. It was rectangular in shape, almost twice her height. She examined the thing, wondering what it was and how it got there. It was completely smooth, and seemed to swallow all light that touched it. It was almost like a work of art to Raven, something she would conjure up. Of course, she could come up with something better than just an ebon block.
Exactly who put the thing there was beyond her. Slade? No, it wasn't his style. He had a flair for the dramatic, and there was nothing dramatic about an inert, black rectangle. Could it be a trick by Mad Mod, or perhaps Mumbo Jumbo? Or maybe a member of the H.I.V.E? For the life of her, Raven couldn't guess who or what sent this thing.
She made her way to her door to get the other Titans, when she sensed something. She turned, and noticed a peculiar change about the black monolith. It wasn't completely black anymore, but peppered with spots of light on it, like someone sprinkled salt on it. She examined it closer and saw that the points of light were….stars?
"My god!" she said aloud. "It's full of stars!"
Indeed, it reminded her of a dark, cloudless night, with thousands of stars in the sky. In the monolith, she swore there had to be a million or more.
Raven barely had time to recover from her awe when she felt some invisible force draw her toward the monolith. She immediately struggled, but the force was too great.
"Let go of me, damn it!" she said aloud.
The monolith didn't respond. Raven gripped the floor as tight as she could. She stopped her 'fall' into the starry void. What surprised her is that nothing else in the room was disturbed, not even the air! There was just a silent tug, pulling on Raven. She was trying to figure out what she could do in the way of using her powers, when she felt her boots fly off her feet. Apparently, whatever force was concentrated only on her. Then, her cloak began to rip and that too was torn off and sucked into the void.
"What now?" she said aloud.
Then Raven felt her leotard and belt begin to loose their integrity. The belt gave way with a metallic 'snap!', while her leotard started to rip apart.
"Don't you dare!" she said.
She had to decide whether or not to risk letting one hand go to hold her leotard together, or to just sacrifice her modesty. The monolith made the decision for her as her costume gave way quicker than she thought. Now she was naked and holding on for dear life!
"What's next?" she wondered.
Raven actually felt that if the monolith didn't relinquish its hold on her, her skin would then be torn off her body. She once saw a horror film that depicted such a thing. Not a pretty picture and certainly not something she wanted to experience. Reluctantly, Raven let go of the carpet and was pulled in to the unknown. As soon as she passed through the gateway, the highly localized gravitational pull had ceased, the stars vanished, and the monolith was inactive once more.
Raven found herself floating in space. She though she was going to die in the vacuum, when she realized she was still breathing.
'Weird!' she thought. She then noticed she was flying rather rapidly toward an endless sea of stars. Whatever was going on, she had no clue. She felt rather chilly and realized she was still naked.
"Damn it!" she said aloud. "I'm probably going to meet some advanced race in my birthday suit!"
She then wondered if it might be the little aliens she met once before that were behind this. If so, just how did they manage such a feat? They didn't seem too advanced. She hoped that if it WAS that race, that they'd have a change of clothes for her.
Raven stared straight ahead. The stars suddenly blacked out! What happened? Did she reach the end of the galaxy? A new view then emerged. Raven squinted her eyes to see what it was. A nebula! A great, colorful nebula lay ahead! 'Why am I here?' Raven wondered. She was lead through the huge cloud, past proto-stars and proto-planets. The trip didn't take long, and she was plunged into darkness again. She next was shown a huge, red star. How big it was, she couldn't tell as there was nothing nearby to compare it to. The star seemed to be getting smaller, either because it was shrinking or she was moving from it. The star became a point of red light eventually. That didn't last; a titanic explosion followed, blinding Raven for a moment! When she could see again, she saw it was a supernova she had witnessed! Whatever force was at work had protected her from the devastation of that awful explosion, that would eventually lead to life somewhere else in the galaxy. Why she was allowed to see it, she didn't know.
Raven's next stop was a surprisingly familiar one; the colorful world of Jupiter! At first, it was a small clouded ball that grew rapidly in size. She didn't see the smaller moons, but did go by the infamous major moons, first seen in the year 1610. Callisto was the fist she passed, a world of craters, rock, and ice; then came Ganymede, a world of various terrains. Europa was next, a smooth billiard ball of a world, coved in ice. Whether or not an ocean was under that ice was not revealed to Raven. She instead continued to Io, a world that was the real-life counterpart of Mordor from 'The Lord of the Rings'. Volcanoes that spewed out molten rock and sulfur many miles high were scattered about this tortured world.
Raven had little time to muse over it as she descended toward Jupiter's cloud tops. She passed in and out of huge thunderstorms and vortexes, down drafts and updrafts and jet streams of various sorts. The noise of the commotion around her reached her ears; it was like a hurricane with the volume turned all the way up! Raven had her ears covered most of the time. She then was introduced to an absolutely titanic storm formation that appeared reddish. It could only be Jupiter's famous storm, the Great Red Spot. She plunged into it, seeing only lightning and hearing only supersonic wind. Above all, it was dark.
Raven was still trying to figure out why she was there when all became silent and pitch black. There was no light, no sound except for Raven's breathing. She began to shudder.
"Am I dead?" she asked aloud.
Her answer came in the form of light; she was now in a bright white room. It was nicely furnished, and exceptionally clean, even by Raven's standards. She was lying on a tiled floor. She slowly got up to avoid a blood rush. She stood in the room, at the foot of a large bed.
"Where the hell am I now?" she wondered.
She looked around and saw a door. She walked to it and saw it lead to a bathroom. Curious, she went inside it. It looked clean and unused. Most of one wall was a mirror. When Raven looked at it, she realized she was still naked. She went back to the bedroom in hopes of finding the remains of her clothes that she lost earlier. No such luck. She then tried to open the drawers. They worked, but nothing was in them.
"Don't tell me I have to spend my entire time here naked?" she said to herself.
She then noticed a closet. She dashed to it and tried the door. It didn't open! Realizing her quest for clothes was futile here, she resumed her explorations of the 'house'. In the bathroom, she found a wash cloth, a towel, and a white robe. She put on the robe, which was rather short on her. The color disagreed with her; normally she has a dark blue robe at Titans Tower. And it was longer than this one. She still felt a little chilly.
She then noticed a second door and opened it. It lead to a combination dining room and kitchen. Curious, Raven walked toward it. The table, like everything else in the house, was white. A single chair was next to it. She examined the contents of the refrigerator. It was a healthy selection of food items, mostly fruits and vegetables. An examination of the cabinets revealed canned soups and vegetables. There was also herbal tea. An electric stove and a dishwasher completed the inventory of appliances.
Raven felt thirsty, found a tall glass, and got some water from the faucet. She sniffed it, ensuring it wasn't poisonous, and downed the glass. It tasted great! Raven had a few more glassfuls of water. After satisfying her thirst, she continued her investigations. There was a living room adjacent to the kitchen, which had a door that lead back to the bedroom. There were no windows or doors. Raven found this rather odd. She went back into the bedroom.
Despite wearing the robe, Raven still felt a need for real clothes. She decided to see what she could do with the blanket on the bed. She tried to summon her powers, but it was to no avail.
"Damn."
She simply sat down, trying to make sense of things.
She was stripped of her powers, her clothes, and her friends. The latter was her biggest loss. Raven started to cry.
"Why the hell am I here? What do you want with me?" she asked.
Nothing. Just silence. Raven paced the room like a caged animal. She went into the living room, walking around the white furniture. She saw a cabinet and opened it, see a television. She had no desire for watching TV at the time, and so closed the doors. There were problems to solve.
Hours later, Raven was still no closer to figuring out her purpose in the white 'house' or who put her there. Was she part of a science experiment of a sort? Was she now some alien child's plaything? That thought unnerved her. Was she there to learn something? Or was it part of an automated system that had been triggered by her powers and she just happened to be caught by it?
Exhausted by her mental efforts, Raven helped herself to a nice warm bath. She didn't feel too bad afterwards, though she still felt a need for companionship. Even an appearance by Beast Boy would be welcome. She wondered what his reaction would be if he was stuck with her, dressed only in a short, white robe.
After drying off, she then lay on the bed, trying to make sense of it all. How long would she be here? A week? A year? A day? Forever? Why was she there at all? What being constructed the house in the first place?
Raven was still pondering these questions when she sensed a presence. She looked and saw…the monolith! She sat up in the bed, shuddering.
"What do you want?" she asked.
No response. Raven repeated her question. The ebon block merely stood there. Raven felt it was pointless to question the inert mass. In fact, everything now seemed pointless. She was somewhere, she didn't know where, amidst the galaxy. Perhaps she was at Jupiter itself, as she saw earlier. And there was nothing she could do about it. Raven felt a feeling of acceptance creep upon her. Standing up, she took off the robe and flung it at the monolith.
Naked once more, she climbed in the bed, let herself relax and fell asleep. The monolith came to life a short while after, but quietly as to not wake Raven. It pulsed with white light, examining the subject before it.
'So this is the one that will end life on Earth,' it pondered. 'Curious.'
Without instrumentation, the monolith probed deeper into Raven's being. She seemed a normal humanoid organism, with a few exceptions, such as the jewel on her head. The monolith knew that it had something to do with her chakra. It was versed in such things.
What to do with the subject was an interesting matter. As part of its programming, it had shown her various sights that it had visited once before to see what the reactions would be. It then observed her in the control environment of a typical household. The being was mostly concerned with her lack of companionship and her purpose of being studied. This seemed odd for such a potentially destructive creature.
Evaluating its options, the monolith reached a conclusion. The subject would be returned to its home. It could very well change its destiny if it had the right influence. There was no need to alter it or destroy it. By her very human nature, Raven was spared from destruction. She was allowed to sleep before being sent back to Titans Tower.
It was next morning when Robin had entered Raven's room to investigate why she didn't come down for breakfast. He was shocked to see a large black object inside. He figured it was either a work of art in progress by Raven, or something more. The monolith then became luminous and dropped Raven on the floor. As mysteriously as it came, the monolith was gone, vanished without a trace.
Robin bent down to see if Raven was alive. She coughed and stood up too quickly. Robin steadied her.
"What happened? Where am I?" she said.
"You're back at Titans Tower," Robin told her. "But as to what happened, you'll have to tell me."
Raven sighed. "I hardly know myself."
Robin shrugged. "Well, we got breakfast going. Let's just say you overslept."
"Good idea." Raven replied.
Robin nodded, and then noticed something out of place about her. He chuckled.
"What?" Raved asked, perplexed. She suddenly realized what it was, and tried to cover herself with her arms.
"Don't tell the others you saw me like this!" she growled.
"Nope, I won't!" Robin replied, hilariously, blushing and walking a bit too slowly for Raven's liking. Longing for justice, Raven used her powers (which had now returned) to envelope Robin's costume. She then tore it off, leaving him naked as well.
"Raven!" he yelled at her.
"Gotcha!" she replied, no longer covering herself.
Robin was in a panic! "If Starfire see us like this, then…!"
"I'll just say my powers got out of hand, that's all!" she said with a smile.
Flustered, Robin stormed out of Raven's room to his own to get a new uniform. He practically slammed her door on his way out.
Giggling, Raven got dressed. It had certainly been an interesting day, no doubt. And a confusing one at that, as well. She finished dressing, and joined the rest of the Titans. 'Nothing like a space odyssey to clear your head.' she thought.