Explanations Are Hard
By Concolor44
A/N: This plot bunny was birthed after reading "Forward Motion" by liron-aria, so if you don't like it … well, I guess it's still my fault anyway. Can't blame her. But in ANY case, you should go read that story. It has no direct bearing on this one, so WHEN you read it isn't important. Just read it. Oh, and read her other Titans story, too: "Strength Lies Therein". Seriously, her work rocks.
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Chapter One: Burying the Hatchet
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. . .
Jeremiah State Park
165km northeast of Jump City
2:00pm
Zatanna stared in poorly-masked surprise at the figure standing before her. "I was almost sure you wouldn't come."
"I was serious about getting past this."
"Apparently."
Shrugging in the direction of a small, domed building, Raven asked, "Is that it?"
The other magic-user nodded, smirking. "It will completely damp any and all demonic spells."
Much to Zatanna's incredulity, Raven walked toward it. "Let's get started then."
"… You really have no objections?"
The shorter woman turned and gazed levelly at the Homo Magus. "You do not trust me. You also do not like me, but that isn't really my problem or my concern. Being liked, I can take or leave, since there are, truthfully, a great MANY people who do not like me. However, the Titans need, from time to time, to work closely with the League. Trust is not negotiable. If one of you has serious trust issues with one of us, it may jeopardize the positive outcomes of our joint missions."
"Huh." Zatanna thought that over. "That's not what I was expecting you to say."
"You may encounter several things today that you were not expecting." She turned and walked to the door of the hemispherical structure. "I assume this is only the top half?"
"… Yes."
"Good. So you've duplicated the Wheel of Intransigence."
That DID shock Zatanna. "You know about that?"
"There is a small version of this in the basement of Titans' Tower."
Zatanna's mouth opened and closed a couple of times.
"Yes. I had Victor install it as a sort of … last resort." She laid a hand on the portal's frame, examining the lustrous polish on the metal. "Is this … a zirconium alloy?"
"How did you … um … maybe."
"Good choice." She sighed. "I've not needed to use our room THAT way, but it has been a source of comfort to know that I could go there if I ever thought I was about to bring harm to my family."
"… Your family?"
"The Titans."
Her mouth drawing into a thin line, the taller woman said, "So the danger IS something you are aware of."
"Aware of?" Raven's lips twitched in one of her almost-smiles. "Aware of. My, my. As much information as the League has amassed on me, and you still don't realize something that basic." She gave her head a small, disbelieving shake. "As I said: you may see many surprising things today." She pulled the portal open and walked in.
Zatanna quickly followed. Raven was looking around at the space, examining the runes and materials the other had used, and finally nodding. "You really did your research. This is nice work."
Still not quite believing that Raven would voluntarily give up access to her magic, Zatanna pulled the doorway shut and cycled the lock. Sending Raven a sidelong glance, she asked, "You ready?"
In answer, the empath sat on the floor in the middle of the room, crossed her legs and closed her eyes. "Ready."
Taking off her hat and making several complex gestures over it, the other magic-user began speaking in a rapid monotone as she went through the ritual, facing in the four cardinal directions in sequence. The runes began lighting up one by one until about half of them were glowing. Then they all flashed white and faded to a steady, light blue luminescence.
Raven visibly sagged.
Zatanna walked over to stand in front of her, arms crossed, examining her closely. "Your aura changed. A lot."
"That's … to be expected." She drew several deep, cleansing breaths and looked up at the taller woman. "Now … whoosh … I beg your pardon, that's a very jarring experience. Now, I also noticed that you placed a truth spell in among the runes."
Successfully repressing a gasp, Zatanna paused before responding, "And you didn't object?"
"Obviously not."
"… Why are you really doing this?"
"I told you. I can't afford to have the League …"
"Yes, yes. I know. You told me that. But here's the thing. When people do something … important, let's say, they will have two reasons for doing so: a good reason, and the real reason."
A grin ghosted its way across Raven's face. "I used that line on Gar not three days ago."
"Gar?"
"Sorry. Beast Boy."
"… Oh. He's named after a fish?"
"It's short for Garfield. That's his first name."
She snorted. "Like the cartoon cat?"
"That comparison gets him exercised like you wouldn't believe."
Zatanna reflected that her, ah, guest had been right about one thing. She was certainly seeing a side of Raven she'd never suspected existed. "You call him Gar? So does he call you Rae?"
"He does now. I used to be a bit sensitive about that."
"Really. What changed?"
"We are dating now."
The Magus practically had to scoop her jaw up off the floor. Finally she offered, "Either the Titans are very good at keeping secrets, or Batman doesn't tell me squat."
Raven merely shrugged. Clearing her throat, she said, "Why don't you go ahead and ask your question?"
"Does this," the other answered, using a hand to wave around at the enclosure, "make you uncomfortable?"
"For select definitions of 'uncomfortable', yes. But in larger terms, it's actually kind of a relief."
"… Um …"
"You know I have a demonic lineage."
"Yes."
"That's why you tossed me out on my ear when I first got to Earth and came to the League for help."
"Well … yes. The first rule of dealing with the Devil, and all."
Raven didn't turn a hair at that comment. "And you had some pretty firmly-set prejudices to begin with."
"… How did you …"
"Information on the Magi isn't that hard to come by if you know where to look. Your grandmother's village was destroyed by a demon. I can't say I wouldn't have acted as you did in your place. Still," and she stared at the floor and shook her head, "so much grief could have been avoided."
"Grief? On whose part?"
A dry chuckle escaped the empath. "Everyone's." Catching Zatanna's eye, she elaborated, "What I was trying to avoid … came true anyway."
"What do you mean? What were you trying to avoid?"
"Apparently the Titans really ARE quite good at keeping secrets."
"To wit? You can't be trying to lie."
"Oh, I'm not. I just find it … amusing that the League would be so short on information, given all the effort they put into keeping tabs on us."
"So fill in the blanks."
"You're relatively up on your demonology, aren't you?"
"I'd like to think so."
"But you couldn't tell who my progenitor was, could you?"
"No. And that irked me."
"Do you know why?"
"I didn't at the time, but now I figure it's probably because he was very powerful."
"Correct. My Sire is Trigon the Terrible."
Then it was Zatanna's turn to sit down … hard. She stared at Raven for several long breaths. "Trigon."
"Yes."
"Dimension-hopping demon lord? Master of the alternate plane some humans call Hell?"
"Correct, but the Plane in question is called the Eighth Circle."
"Right. Circle. And he's … sort of the sum of all evil of an entire world, right?"
"You DO know your demonology."
"How in the hell did …"
Forestalling her questions, Raven gave Zatanna a thumbnail rundown of the events leading up to and following Trigon's invasion of Earth, through to his ultimate defeat and her regression to childhood. "And then after Robin found me and got us both back to Earth, I was restored to my correct age. And here we are."
"And no one remembers this because the world got … remade, so to speak?"
"Yes."
"You must realize how unlikely that story sounds."
"Of course."
"And yet … you can't lie in here."
"Also correct."
The Magus had to take a minute to process everything she'd just learned. At length she nodded to herself. "You were afraid to tell us."
"I was afraid of my shadow. I didn't tell the Titans, either, and they had more of a right to know than anyone else."
"Huh."
They sat in silence for another minute or so before Zatanna said, "Well now I feel like kind of a heel."
"You shouldn't." Raven closed her eyes and leaned back on her elbows. "It was an untenable situation for everyone. And it did work out on a positive note. Eventually."
"No thanks to me."
"Actually, having had some time to think on it, your manic distrust and open contempt worked to spur me on. I mean … it could be that … Okay. I don't know for sure that things would have worked out better if the League had been backing me. I was really only able to do what I did for the Titans because we had grown so … so very close." Turning her violet gaze back to Zatanna, she added, "I don't know that it would have been possible for me to get as … attached to Superman and Wonder Woman and J'onn J'onzz."
"To say nothing of me."
"Yes. To say nothing."
"But … you love the Titans?"
"I do."
"I really wouldn't have thought it possible that you could love anyone. Demons …"
"Demons are incapable of love. That is true. But I am half human. And I have spent my entire conscious life in an effort to control and cage and distance myself from my demonic side."
"Sounds … hard."
"In a word, very."
"Okay, so … so … huh."
"What? You are radiating confusion at almost painful levels."
"How can you sense that? This chamber …"
"Stops demonic magic. My empathy is not demonic in nature."
"… Huh."
"My connection to my soul-self, however, is completely dead right now."
"That's the semi-telekinetic black energy you use?"
"Yes."
"So it IS demonic."
"Yes. After a fashion."
"Hmm. I guess you wouldn't be much use to your team if you excised your demonic half."
"While true, that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it in a second if I could."
Zatanna rose to her feet and began pacing the short distance across the chamber. "So do you consider yourself more human or more demon?"
"I consider myself unique. While it's not uncommon for demons to impregnate human women, it is VERY uncommon for those offspring to live very long. Demons have a … well, a hatred for half-breeds that humans typically find difficult to grasp. The demon sire usually hunts the child down and kills it, and if that doesn't happen, some representative of the dominant local organization that espouses a systematic theology will find out about it and kill it himself. Trigon had a specific end in mind for me, which is why he didn't kill me right away. However, my position as the Gem of Scath meant that I WOULD die when he came through. That was part of the deal. If the monks of Azarath had been able to kill me without fear of bringing on Trigon's advent, I feel sure they would have strangled me at birth. And I wouldn't have held it against them."
"You say that now. But the fact that you never tried to kill yourself …"
"Oh, I certainly thought about it. A lot. But the monks insisted that would only play into Trigon's hands, so I forbore."
"I see."
"So. Have I answered the questions you wanted to ask?"
"Why did you go with Robin? Why not someone else?"
"… Oh. Why did I want him to be a part of the team?"
"Yeah. He's not super-powered."
"True enough. Yet he manages to hold his own against an awfully long list of those who are."
"You didn't know that."
"No. But I wanted him for his leadership ability."
"So you never wanted to be the leader yourself? That seems …"
"I'm not a leader. I'm a big-picture planner. I wanted a team that could successfully oppose Trigon, and that's about as detailed as I get most of the time. When it comes to making good decisions on the fly, in the midst of battle, I do rather poorly."
"Not that I've noticed."
"That's Robin's influence. His tactics and forethought in all our practice sessions pay off handsomely when we fight."
"So it would appear."
Raven gave her an expectant look. "Anything else?"
A tapping foot was the only sound for the length of several breaths. "I guess not. You've been more than forthright with … Oh, wait. Trigon."
"What about him?"
"Is he dead?"
Raven had to smirk at that. "To quote one of my favorite TV shows, 'dead-ish'."
"… What does that mean?"
"It means that when a being is that powerful, there isn't really a feasible method for making sure he doesn't exist anymore."
"So he's not dead."
"Not in the strictest of senses."
"… Meaning?"
"I was able to separate him from his power source. That made him very weak, comparatively speaking. The Titans distracted him and wore him down, and I, ah, got the drop on him, you could say."
"But you didn't kill him?"
"Zatanna … tell me: what happens when a human dies?"
"… Well … In the most basic terms, the soul and the body part ways."
"Correct. And the body, bereft of its motivating spark, decays and eventually disappears. But what happens to the soul?"
"Ahm … That depends on a lot of factors."
"Just so. Now, imagine, if you will, a human whose physical form is nothing more than a construct of solidified mental patterns."
"… Huh. Okay. That's Trigon?"
"Essentially. He had a body because he wanted to have a body. His soul exists as a unitized, functional, fully mobile platform in its own right. And as you know, a soul is a very, very durable thing."
"That … is so."
"So when you ask whether Trigon is dead, you will need to establish the true parameters of your question a lot more rigorously than you would if you ask whether any random, relatively-anonymous human is dead."
"I can see that. Now that we've established his basic durability, let me phrase it this way: Is Trigon able at all to interact with our dimension?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"Not at all."
"Okay, good. Do you know where … where his 'essence' is located?"
"In a very, very small pocket dimension that no one apart from myself knows about."
"And he can't get out?"
"Probably not."
"I'm not comfortable with 'probably'."
"Neither am I. But there is little that I can do about that. He is shorn of his strength. He has no access to additional power sources. The Church of Blood has been disbanded, and Brother Blood killed." She directed half a smirk at the Magus. "And by that, I mean he's sincerely dead."
"That's good to know. When did he die?"
"About … six months ago, give or take."
"Do you know the particulars?"
"I do. But I'd rather you didn't ask me who killed him or how I know. It's not my story to tell."
"I can live with that. But what you said implies that there is some way Trigon could free himself."
"No. Not by himself. But if some outside agency discovered his whereabouts, and was able to craft the right sorts of spells to pierce the dimensional fold, and was able to feed him enough power … he could probably escape."
"That sounds far-fetched."
"I'm hoping it won't happen until after matter ceases to exist in this reality."
Zatanna gave her a blank stare. "How would matter cease to exist?"
"Oh, it will wear out eventually. I'm talking about a span of time some forty or fifty orders of magnitude greater than the universe's current age. You know, ten-to-the-fiftieth years in the future? A long, long time. Technically, given enough time, even a supermassive black hole will evaporate to nothing."
"Yyyyyeah. That's a long time."
"I'm not all that sure his soul would last that long."
"He'd certainly be bored by then, wouldn't he?"
"True."
Zatanna considered the other woman and then said, "I guess that's all, then. You've certainly been forthright."
"Good. Because I want to show YOU something now."
"Oh?"
Raven patted the floor. "Come sit."
With hardly any noticeable hesitation, Zatanna folded herself onto the smooth metal beside the empath. "What do you have in mind?"
Pulling a small object from within her cloak, Raven showed it to the other magic-user. "This is a mirror that I used to use to help me meditate."
"… Okay? I never heard of using a mirror for …"
"It's special."
"Never doubted that for a second."
"This mirror is a conduit into my mind."
After a few moments of blank stare, Zatanna said, "You'll have to explain that one."
"When I was very young I had a great deal of difficulty controlling my powers. I created large swaths of havoc whenever my emotional state got unstable, which was a not-infrequent occurrence. The monks finally hit upon a way to help me with that. They performed a ritual that severed my mind into individual components."
"Brain surgery? On a kid?"
"No, not brain, just mind. It was all psychic."
"Ah."
"This isn't to say it wasn't … traumatic. The Chief Adept performed the ritual several times over a period of months, each time carving away another piece of my soul and embodying it in a sort of avatar."
"That sounds painful."
"Mercifully, my memory of those times is extremely hazy. I think it was so bad that my subconscious blocked it out."
"… Ick."
"Anyway, I would like to show you the result."
"So we can see into your mind via this mirror? That's … actually pretty cool."
"Not just see. We can go there."
Zatanna didn't have an immediate response to that, but finally came up with, "Physically?"
"Yes."
"That's more than a little bizarre, Raven."
"I agree." She held out a hand. "Aren't you curious, though?"
Eyeing the slim, gray hand, Zatanna stated, "This sounds like one of those 'Dealing with the Devil' situations."
"Ah! But the reason I am offering HERE is that there is no demonic magic taking place."
"… That's true enough."
"This system you're using here was first established by the Azaratheans, who are totally pacifistic, as a means of preventing Trigon from using me as his portal. They hoped that this, combined with partitioning my soul, would do the trick."
"But you said that didn't work and he came through anyway!"
"Correct. I couldn't stay in the box my whole life, could I? But this was the best the monks could come up with. And it really does help me maintain control. It just wasn't enough to combat Trigon successfully because he was just THAT strong."
"Guess that sucked for you."
"Zatanna … it has sucked to be me for as long as I've been self-aware."
The taller woman looked away, a slight blush tinging her cheeks.
Raven patted her arm. "Hey, it's not your fault."
"No. But other things are."
"That might be said of everyone."
"… Are you … sure it's safe?"
"It will be as safe as I can make it. I go there every few days, and some of the Titans have been there as well. Skipping over the gory details, we all got out alive."
"But you … okay, let me just say it."
Raven couldn't help a tiny smile. "Say on."
"Do you mean me any harm?"
"No."
"I didn't think so." She met Raven's gaze with a determined one of her own. "Okay. Let's see what you got."
Raven reached for her fingers. "If we're in physical contact, we probably won't be separated when we get there."
"I'd like that."
"Look into the mirror." And she turned it square on to them.
. . .
. . .
