Obvious Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, Justice League Unlimited, or what have you.
Author's Notes: I decided a while back to do some work on a scenario where Raven's plea to the Justice League was accepted, not rejected. In the event the original scenario withered, but this is a second shot at it as a storyline. This will blend aspects of the 2002 animated series, the pre-Flashpoint DCU, some of the New 52 (specifically in terms of design elements of some characters and Raven's powers taking a couple of niftier ones from the New 52 and a plot point for Etrigan that'll be rather nifty), and the original New Teen Titans comics. As with some other AUs it will go through the various seasons of the Teen Titans show in bipartite chapters showing TT and JL adventures. I do not, however, expect that people will see who replaces Raven in the alternate universe Teen Titans coming…
For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For want of a horse a rider was lost.
For want of a rider a battle was lost.
For want of a battle, a kingdom lost.
All for want of a Horseshoe nail.
The Watchtower, circa 2010:
Raven had arrived in the Watchtower hoping beyond hope for aid from the seven defenders of this dimension. The encounter with the cult of Zezhelanzunui* was one that had scarred her literally and convinced her her only hope was to flee Azarath lest the strange and eldritch religion take over the place. Seven great heroes, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Hal Jordan of the Green Lantern Corps, Zatanna Zatara the mystic, and J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. In them lay her hopes, and possibly those of the world itself.
Unknown to Raven, both Superman and Batman had been brought to a crucial decision. In both cases, it was the tangled web of family loyalties and difficulties that had brought them thus. With his cousin not really listening to his mother and father as much as he'd hoped, he'd sent her to Jump City, knowing that Batman's own sidekick had gone there. It was his hopes that Dick and Kara might well make a difference.
While they were the first to detect the appearance of the Gordanians in Earth's space, it had been Raven's arrival that had jolted them from the familiar problems to the more arcane elements of magic. By ill circumstance, as Raven had seen it, she'd first run into Zatanna Zatara, who gazed at her with hostility as Raven was on her knees before her, hands clasped, tears running down her face, seams of magic shaking the room.
"Please help me," Raven begged with a voice that was predictably low given her partially human nature. It was a resonant and an eerie voice, one with a latent sense of divine power and wrath to be unleashed. Zatanna sighed.
"There is something very evil within you."
Raven sunk lower, tears stopping, sighing deeply. It was futile, all of this. Seeing her, Zatanna was struck by something very strange. Not fear of the demonic taint within her soul but curiosity.
"I detect in you the presence of Skath."
Raven's eyes widened in fear. "Please don't hurt me because of my father."
Zatanna's eyes widened. "You're the Gem, aren't you?"
Raven nodded.
"Diana!" Zatanna called. Wonder Woman arrived, hovering in mid-air, enjoying testing her abilities to fly within the confines of the Watchtower.
"Please hand me your lasso."
Nodding, Wonder Woman gave the lasso to Zatanna, who wrapped it around Raven. Raven's eyes widened in turn but then, realizing the power within the ropes a bit of hope gleamed in her eyes.
"The lasso will compel you to tell the truth."
"Are you your father's agent, here to willfully destroy this world?"
That same deep quasi-resonant voice echoed: "No, I am his daughter, fleeing from him and Azarath to save it. I came to you hoping beyond hope for a means to defeat him. All my life I have been hated and feared for the prophecy that the Gem of Skath sows death wherever she walks. I want to do good, to save lives, hoping that if I cannot stop the prophecy that at least in saving these lives some good will have come of a life otherwise wretched and wasted."
Zatanna blinked. She did not expect this. Wonder Woman's eyes were wide, and a sense of pity and even moistness followed, and as she rubbed her eyes Zatanna was relieved to know she wasn't the only one.
"We trust you, Raven. We will do all we can to get the Justice League to help you. You will need all the help and the protection you can get, so if things work out…."
Raven's face was one of hope and relief, hoping that perhaps, just perhaps, she had saved her own world after all.
An hour Later, JLA meeting room:
The members of the Justice League were silent as Raven spoke, saying:
"My mother was Angela Roth of Gotham City. She fled parents who did not love her, and a city that gave her no concern into the arms of a cult led by a man named Sebastian Blood"-at this Zatanna started though nobody else did. "The cult exploited a weak woman's will, as she told me, and led her to a ceremony to summon a force of unrelenting cosmic power."
She sighed. "My father. Trigon. She came to a library beneath Jump City, and he sired me upon the Demon's Hand there. She was taken to the realm of Azarath, a realm of beauty I shall never know. It had bright green skies and architecture that was splendid beyond imagination. Upon my birth its skies turned black and the odor of brimstone echoed. I was taken in after the High Magistrate of Azarath tried to kill me two days from my birth by the quasi-Goddess who ruled the place, Azar, granddaughter of the first Azar to establish the Temple Azarath."
She looked to them quietly, "My teacher taught me many things. Azarath itself taught me others. When she died, on my twelfth year, I was commended to my mother's care, but by then my mother was a stranger and none in Azarath were allowed to show me kindness or love. I was told to repress all that I felt, to conceal it within a rod of iron. So things held, but as Azar died a new cult began to take hold in Azarath, among small enclaves of the population.
A cult revering a blasphemous Goddess, the Undying Flame who would purge the universe of one kind of disorder for something great and dreadful. I tried to avoid them until one day they confronted me, and attempted to scar my back with the name of their Goddess. So I came here, instead, fleeing from their grasp. I was taught my father's coming was inevitable, that I exist purely to be his portal, to bring about the end of all things mortal.
I do not know if it can be stopped, if he can be stopped. If stopping him meant my being executed by your mystic, I would go so far as that. I will never be Trigon's monster."
The League looked at each other. Superman said, "It is a hard life you led." He smiled, "But you're not alone, and you won't be alone. We will give you a home. The Prophecy, Zatanna tells me, is to come to pass in two years. For those two years you shall be protected and mentored by all of us, and we shall bend all our efforts to stopping the Demon lest he rouse himself from slumber."
The League nodded collectively. "So carried. Welcome, Raven daughter of Trigon, to the Justice League of America." Raven's eyes widened and a surge of hope led to a bulb breaking, and the team shared a slightly awkward smile. Quite the challenge they'd taken on for themselves, but they were the Justice League. Nothing could or would stop them.
Jump City, the Same Day:
Dick Grayson, the superhero named Robin, knew that his mentor and father had, together with Silas Stone of S.T.A.R. Labs prepared a possibility for him to step out on his own, away from Bruce. From the Joker, from….all of it. So he'd gone to the complete other side of the continent, to a city that had once been a suburb of San Francisco but had grown rather larger in the wake of the destructive and dramatic battle between the Justice League and the Ocean Master that had wrecked so much of San Francisco.
His plan, in theory, was to start over in a more simple fashion. Then the stars fell and he faced the unexpected presences of Garfield Logan, a former veteran of the Doom Patrol, and Victor Stone, who was expected to meet him. They'd immediately hit it off, just as the alien princess had fallen from the skies, rampaging and shooting eyebeams all over the place, shouting in an alien language. With her had come the strange toad-like species that fired lasers, destroying cars and buildings.
They were able to hold their own, somewhat, but all things considered it wasn't the best start to things. So things had remained, until a sonic boom caught people's attention. The Gordanians and the alien princess alike had been shaken, and a small crater erupted in the city when a woman in a cape, with a skirt and pantyhose-like garments for modesty raised herself from it.
She spoke in Gordanian, "Slaver filth. Let the girl go."
The Gordanians started. "A Kryptonian?"
For Robin, Beast Boy, and Cyborg, they weren't sure what precisely was more surprising. The rampaging orange-skinned alien princess, or the sudden appearance of Supergirl, Superman's cousin, in the city.
The Gordanian that spoke continued, "Your kind is extinct, as I recall."
Supergirl smiled. "Not as long as the House of El draws breath. Now, let her go."
The Gordanian laughed. "A fine joke. She is our property."
Supergirl's eyes began to glow and then she noticed the three other heroes.
"Oh. I know two of you. Who's the green guy?"
Beast Boy preened.
"Garfield Logan, the amazing Beast Boy!"
Supergirl rolled her eyes. "The amazing something, all right."
Robin said, "So, you're going to work with us?"
Supergirl said, "Kal sent me here to learn some needed lessons. If I learn them with new friends and start off by helping this poor girl right here, I'll be glad to."
Robin then nodded. "Basic plan is you get the girl out of the way, we hold them off, and then we kick ass and take names."
Supergirl smiled. "My kind of plan."
The Gordanians snarled as they realized that the talking was over, but before they could start firing, Supergirl had swirled in among them, tossing them aside and grabbing Starfire, flying her out of the way.
Beast Boy transformed into a bear that roared and charged the Gordanians, while Cyborg fired his sonic cannons from both arms, unleashing waves of firepower that kept them busy, Robin's speed and skillful use of corners making the larger and more cumbersome Gordanians never quite able to pin him down.
As Koriand'r of Tamaran struggled in her bonds, the Kryptonian said, "Stop."
Blinking, she spoke in Tamaranean, "You speak this language?"
Supergirl smiled, "Kryptonian scientists taught their kids all kinds of useful things. Languages were one of them." She said, "I can get these off of you. Give me a second." Nodding, Starfire then saw Supergirl's eyes glow as her head vision melted the restraints, and as she soared into the air, Supergirl and Starfire returned to the fight.
Robin was growing tired, not quite as effectively able to dodge the Gordanians, but with the return of Supergirl and Starfire, as well as the more unpredictable chaos of Beast Boy's use of rhinoceros and tiger forms as well as the bear, the battle was brutal and mercilessly lopsided. The Gordanians, despairing of their ability to fight a very angry Tamaranean who was taking tremendous pleasure in avenging her torment, and a Kryptonian who was likewise showing far less mercy and restraint than the Man of Tomorrow, soon beat a hasty and unglamorous retreat.
Smiling as they looked at each other, Starfire then swiftly pulled Dick Grayson into a kiss, as Kara smirked, and then sighed happily. "Oh most glorious of days, I am free of those filth!"
Robin looked to his friends. It had been their first outing as a potential team, and now…."Guys, I know there's a giant tower with a T on it waiting for a superhero team to use it. I was coming here to protect the city but I could use friends I know and we would all be grateful if you would join us."
"Yes, friend, I would be most grateful!" He smiled.
"I'm Robin." Introducing himself to the team, he said, "For lack of anyone else for the job, I volunteer myself for leader."
Supergirl sardonically saluted. "All hail fearless leader!"
Beast Boy said, "I'm Beast Boy. A magnificent animal kingdom crammed into a single individual." The rest of the team quietly just looked at each other and didn't say anything.
Cyborg said, "I'm Victor Stone. I came here to work with Robin, and to test out these prosthetics my dad gave me. You can call me Cyborg."
Starfire said, "I am Koriand'r of Tamaran. Those…..scum….sought to hold me prisoner, but I would love to be with the rest of you as friends. You may call me Starfire."
Supergirl smiled and said, "The symbol of the House of El hardly needs introduction on this world, but I am Kara Zor-El, cousin to Kal-El, the Man of Steel. My cousin and I had….difficulties….because I didn't fit in as neatly into this world as he did. So….if we're going to be a team, we do need a name."
Robin smiled. "If we're going to be in a giant T, why not the Titans?"
Supergirl laughed. "And as long as we're all teenagers, why not the Teen Titans?"
The team nodded, and as they moved into their Tower, a tall man in a black and orange suit monitored two separate screens. At first he'd been intrigued at a means to get revenge on Wayne Enterprises for screwing him out of a contract following the return of that useless playboy, Bruce Wayne, to run the company by taking Robin and remaking him in his image. But then he'd learned of the newest member of the Justice League, and seen someone of still greater potential.
Deathstroke in particular was intrigued by the resemblance of the girl in the Justice League to someone he knew of from his occult studies and bargains with the eldritch nightmare known as Trigon. Trigon had said his Gem had fled the place he'd intended her to remain until he came, and that she would be identifiable by dark purple hair and an unnatural greyish hue to her skin.
Deathstroke relaxed, placing his feet on his desk, and muttered to himself, "Which shall I claim as mine? The God or the Demon?" As he looked at the left screen, he saw on the right the image of Supergirl landing in Jump City and cratering the street, and the supreme ease with which she'd dispatched the Gordanians.
A voice rumbled in his head, the voice of the Eldritch entity with which he'd made his bargain:
The gem is born of Evil's fire, the Gem shall be his portal, he comes to claim, he comes to sire, the end of all things mortal.
To satisfy the demon to which he'd sold his soul, or to gain a God on his side and pit the God against the Demon in hopes of freeing himself? Decisions, decisions…
The Watchtower:
Raven finished setting up her room and placed her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath. Two years to train to destroy her father, to gain the trust and perhaps not just the aid but the family of the Justice League. And perhaps here to gain a fuller understanding and mastery of her powers. This was going to be a new experience.
She looked at her cards she used at times to augment her unpredictable visions of the future. On one of them was a horseshoe nail, and she laughed.
"A horseshoe nail? Really?" She cast it aside calmly, unaware that the Watchtower had been infiltrated by a small camera that revealed all that went on with her to Deathstroke, whose eye narrowed with recognition when he saw a particular book in her room. The Gem on the Justice League? "Trigon will never pay me enough for this if he really understands what this means."