Azarath
-A Teen Titans FanFiction-
Chapter One: Agatha
"Are you happy your Mother was raped to have you?" an older monk yelled on a street corner. An older monk that should have known better. Asking a question like that to an already troubled girl is just asking for trouble.
"NO!" the troubled girl yelled, her figure scaling up above the nearby 4-story household, rising above everyone on the cobblestone street.
That girl's name was Raven, Arella's daughter. The community treated her with massive disrespect, only to try to punish her when the outcome… her reactions… should have seemed obvious. In a nearby Monastery, an Elder Monk and his fellow Monks rushed out, and the Elder Monk shouted, "Who be causing a scene outside my Holy lair?"
They all turned once they saw the towering shadow, and knew it was her. "O', the Demon Seed. I should have known 'twas you. Come, come, thee towering one, come back down to us so we may make judgment of thee."
Raven, realizing the scene she was making, like the good girl the monk society tried to make her, and the one her Mother knew she was deep inside… turned back to her regular size, the rage within her from the unthinkable question asked finally subsiding. The Elder Monk and his fellow Monks took no regret in taking her young body captive, and quickly pouring salt into her eyes and casting a spell to make her weak. Immobile. They then grabbed her and took her by force into the Monastery. Many crowds gathered outside as the young daughter began to scream for help, as the Elder Monk screamed out, "Oh thee who beseeches me to do thy will… I request you give me the power… to put this young demon to rest… may her judgment be swift!"
"Ohhhh, somebody help meeee…" she whined in agony, the heavy salt burning her eyes. Raven's mother's longtime friend, Agatha, took a peek and saw it was her close friend's daughter daughter, and moved quickly to warn Arella of the Monks attempting to judge her daughter for what she is… which was not her fault so it should not be judged of her. Agatha knew this very well.
As all the monks held her down with overloading strength, the Elder Monk grabbed a short-head spear… intending to stab young Raven through the heart… as if to purge her of evil like the Ancient Societies would do an evil witch.
After being informed of this 'decimation of Will', as she would furthermore call it, Arella rushed to the Monastery. Not only for the sake of her daughter, but the sake of the fool who called himself one of the Elder Monks. A fool, because, if you feed the beast, the beast shall bite your hand, and it is you who has wronged, not the beast. This Arella had told them all along, yet they refused to listen.
As she reached the Monastery, it was already too late. Raven had reached enough energy to move her arm with much force, taking the spear-head and surging it into the right eye of one man holding her down. The reaction from the Monks was costly, literally. They backed up and broke the front bench after tumbling over it, a gold-plated yet fragile bench for those closest to the Monastery Headmaster.
Arella, in defense of her daughter, stood between the monks and her, and shouted her phrase.
"You have brought this upon yourselves! Feed the beast, shall the beast not bite your hand, and you are a lucky man!" she scolded them, as the 'Elder' Monk scoffed at her remarks.
"The girl is not a beast, she is a sin! You of all should know that." He scoffed, as Arella's pose only grew more protective.
"She is half of the sin of the Prime Beast himself, but that is not her fault. For it is mine, so stab me in the heart if you must!" she shouted, motioning them to come forth with a blade.
"No? The blame is more of mine than of hers!" she shouted once more, as Agatha, a very respected Monk, publicly came with her opinion of her friend's daughter for the first time in her very long life.
"She has been very troubled by her heritage, Dear Elder… but I know the good within her is battling evil as we speak… not only is she Dear Arella's daughter… she is ours as well… for only half her soul rests in Sin, but half rests with us. By doing what you did you have only fed the half that rests in Sin." Agatha balanced, skillfully not leaning towards either side but still coming to Arella's defense. The 'Elder' was surprised at such a high-ranking Monk in the community saying such things, written all over his face, as he mustered a response.
"You, Agatha, you do not see the evil that lies within this girl?" The Elder Monk responded, waving his hands in a ridiculous motion.
"Your ways has only helped awaken that evil, Daniel. O' you may say that your are judging her, but your judgment is uncareful. It would have been more appropriate if you were dealing with a Demon in size. But, for you are dealing with a young girl with a partially demonic spirit…" Agatha continued, "So it is you that has wronged, which is why that man lay dead with the blade in his eye."
Behind Arella, came the whisper of her daughter, and she turned to see her daughter's eyes still red and watery from the salt.
"Why did you care? All you ever did was scolded me…" she whispered, her tone softened and the innocence that only her mother and Agatha had seen come to the surface.
"I'm your Mother, Dear… I love you and I will always, no matter what these fools say." Arella insisted, taking a look at her eyes and dabbing them with her own cloak.
"They may say tomorrow that what you did was that you killed a man… but they were going to kill you. It was a defensive act, and you have no regrets, and neither do I." Arella told her with a smile, and Raven smiled with a little sparkle in her eye. They quickly went home as Agatha did her usual stare-down with the Elder Monk and his couple of Monk friends, as she watched them walk behind her, and made sure to scold the Monk once they were out of sight and safely on their way home.
Agatha stepping up to their defense kept them from being harassed again… and she even met with the Azarath Counsel to discuss Arella's daughter, Raven, and what happened at the Monastery… an event Arella felt the need to conceal from her daughter. The event of the Azarath Counsel, the leaders of the entire vicinity of Azarath, discussing her… Arella would rather her not know of.
The Azarath Counsel, one of them being Agatha, decided, that because of the acts of that day, that her daughter was to be treated like any other girl in Azarath. She was not to be harassed, judged by any other than her Mother, and taken for just another good soul. The order was serious, as a new law was made… just for her daughter. A Law that stated that no one other than I could judge Raven, and that she was to be treated like any other young Azarath girl.
But one day, after Re-Elections, the Council that had swore to protect Raven was overwhelmed by a majority of votes from the villages of Azarath that she should be exorcised and killed.
… Before then, however, had begun the process. The 1 month leading up to this event was pre-meditated.
And the entire time after the decision was made, Raven's mother had fought tirelessly to keep her daughter from being executed in a sinister way.
Because Arella herself cast the spell keeping Trigon and other demons away, and the public was reassured that a very large source of magical power would keep the spell from breaking. Arella was given the honors of casting the spell due to what Trigon did to her.
But as she closed the book on that fateful day, only her, Agatha, and a few other now-deceased Elder Council members knew the condition.
Raven had to be on Azarath for it to survive.
Azarath. Population: 103,149.
Add in the surrounding villages, holding more than 31,000 people, and then you get around 134,000 people.
The population was a monk-and-monastery type of society. But, on one corner of Azarath sat one village known as the 'Anti-Seed' village. A section of Azarath, population merely 31, that broke off from the main city after the Council decided to protect Raven.
They had been running hate campaigns against 'The Demon Seed'.
Of course, one may think, "What's so bad about being called something? It's like being called an idiot or a slut. You just have to get over it and go on."
But think of it this way. Instead of Azarath being the society, imagine New York City sitting there. Take the Monk society and replace it with Manhattan. Take the strange towering buildings of Azarath and make them the skyscrapers of a bustling American city. Then put yourself there. Now, you're one in the millions of people in New York. But you're part Incan, even though you can't help it. Now, New York discriminates against anyone that's Incan, and you're literally the only Incan in the entire population. News media, comedy shows, TV shows, all paint you as just an unwanted race in their city. Then it spreads to other cities. Then throughout all of America, you're considered an outsider. There's no other countries you can move to. So the entire population of America, 300 million people, hate you because you're part Incan.
Then you have why Raven being labeled a 'Demon Seed' is so hard to cope with.
But several years before Raven was even conceived, events were already occurring that would add to it…
"You mustn't tell anyone of this, Agatha!" a man's voice yelled, in a dark robe, as the woman he was yelling to, Agatha Gya, was running down white marble stairs below him.
"All I hath spoken for thee hath been a lie, I will not rest before the entire Council hears of your shameful mishaps!" she shouted, her young 25 year old voice ringing around the open halls.
"Do not expect to make it that far, my Dear. We will not allow you to ruin our efforts to protect the purity of our civilization!" the man shouted back.
Agatha stopped cold halfway down the steps, and paused.
"Jeremiah," she began, and turned back around towards him, "Your 'efforts' to protect purity from the Demons of beyond have left us open to another kind of impurity…"
After she was done with that, the man Jeremiah stared at her with a confused look.
"Explain yourself to me, Agatha. I dislike unnecessary riddles," he began, his tone calming.
"The impurity of civil dishonesty. Any particular kind of system fails when any one part of it is based upon dishonesty," Agatha explained.
"What do you believe is worse, the rightful lies to the public to protect them from the demons, or the infiltration of Demon nature into our society?" he asked her very seriously.
"Both are equally worse, Jeremiah. There must be a way to keep out the demons without using dishonesty." She answered, causing the man to shake his head.
"Even if we did take the time to find out if there would be such a way, do you understand the risk behind it? Even if it takes only a moment of this day to find a way, that one moment is a time our society is vulnerable. And if I do this… your credibility will be taking the fall," he explained, looking into Agatha's eyes with a very serious stare, "You do understand what this means for you?"
Agatha nodded solemnly.
"And in the case demons do get into our society, we know the approach they are planning to take…" the man began… but as years passed, and Agatha went in front of the Council to argue that same case, Jeremiah, part of the council, would be continuing that same sentence then in the hearing, "- They will try to force our own women into carrying and having their offspring. If this does happen, you are fully accountable for those offspring's mishaps. You do understand this now, Agatha?"
As Agatha stood on the ground floor of the Council's Palace, she nodded.
"Yes," she simply replied, her heart actually pounding, but her face showing no hint of that what-so-ever.
As civilians around the entire vicinity watched in awe and expectancy, and other peaceful protests went on outside around the blocks, protesting Agatha's proposal to find a new way to keep Demons out of Azarath's population… the Council ruled.
7 of them, including Jeremiah, voted No.
3 of them voted Yes.
Which meant that the proposal was denied.
As Agatha closed her eyes bitterly and the protesters cheered upon hearing the news, suddenly, the very head Council member spoke, causing Agatha to look up as the voice echoed.
The Head Monk himself, who did not actually state his arrival, stepped up to his place in the Council, formerly sitting down nearby, out of sight.
"Very good, Agatha. I admire thee courage to stand before us today… Now even though thee has been voted against by the Council itself… I have decided that I, William Y.V. Scots, approve of this newfound plan rivaling our current handling of the demonic protection barrier. A warning to all of our civilians living here… the magical seal protecting demons will be inactive for quite a while… I suggest you all meditate and keep Anti-Demon spells around, just in the case of intrusion," the Monk announced, as Jeremiah and other members that voted against it stared at him in shock and disbelief at his decision, before he finally said, smacking his mallet to the marble table in front of him, "Dismissed."
As the Monk left, and the hall was filled with both agreement and disappointment, Agatha looked around, and the Council members began to whisper to each other. Out of the corner of her eye, as 2 other monks escorted her out, she could see Jeremiah, above her, still at his seat, staring at her as she left.
But as Azarath struggled to find another way to keep demons out, and more and more protestors came to boot, the council decided to reverse the decision and go back to the older ways of keeping out Demons.
Unknown to them, the infiltration had already begun, with the arrival of Agatha's neice. The daughter of her sister Isabella Gya, and her sister's husband, Roland Roth.
That daughter, age 16… being transferred from a society called 'Earth' after a heinous crime was done to her that her and her father Roland vowed to keep concealed… had a name that would become infamous throughout Azarath, for good and bad reasons alike.
And that name was… Arella Roth.
Author's Notes:
This idea had been spinning in my head for quite a while, and I finally got the time to write it ALL down on paper (I already had the first few paragraphs of this written down somewhere else). I really thought in the Season Four Finale (The End) that Azarath wasn't expanded enough... and I also thought most of the old retro Teen Titans comic book's renditions of Azarath were a little too soap-opera-ish. (Like the entire comic basically was.)
Oh, and Agatha isn't really in either of the original DC Comics storylines (As far as I know of.) I just thought it would be a little odd for Raven to be allowed to stay in a Monk-place like Azarath without a family friend respected in the community helping them out a little :P
Review please! : D