Disclaimer:
I don't own the teen titans or the cover image, which was drawn by Gasigirl on deviantart.
Blackfire finished decelerating and began to drift towards earth. She didn't trust the stealth field generator she had stolen three systems ago to be able to get her past the Watchtower's sensors if she was moving any faster. At this speed, she believed it had a decent chance, and even if it failed it, she would probably be written off a sensor ghost or a small asteroid that would burn up in the atmosphere.
A small grin played across her face, "Flight without the heat signatures of starship engines truly does come in useful."
The thought briefly amused her. Once she had fully understood the advantages her species had, it had almost surprised her that so few Tamaranean's took up smuggling as a career. Then again, few of her people were truly suited to stealth.
"My people." She quickly shied away from the thought, the anger that it and similar thoughts would bring could all to easily shatter her meditative state. Staying in the meditative state was fairly important, in it her thoughts took minutes to proses rather than seconds and at the speed she was moving, it would take quite some time to reach earth. Determined to keep her mind of that particular painful subject, she let her thoughts drift over her recent past and her plans she had made.
She had been in a used bookstore in a space station in the Epsilon Eridani system, pursuing one of her hobbies. She often spent the time between her self-imposed missions by jumping to truly distant star systems, ones that would have almost no contact with the civilizations near Tamaran. She was fairly sure that for six different species, she had been the first alien they had ever encountered. As a result, she suspected she not only knew more languages than any other Tamaranean, she probably held the position by a wide margin.
It was this fact that had led to her hobby, looking through the small sections that most bookstores in space stations had, which contained books in languages the store owner didn't expect anyone to be able to read. While most of them were basically trash paperbacks that sailors a long way from home had pawned off, there were a couple of things she always hoped to come across. The first, and the more common of the two at this point, were travelogues. She always found the perspective of races alien to her, on other races just as alien, absolutely fascinating. Besides travelogues, she also looked for books even she couldn't read. A book in a book in an unknown language and a talk to the proprietor would often lead her to a species she had not yet encountered.
It was while looking through such a section that she had found the book that had started her on her present journey, Evis Delvroc Ciz Tamaran. While she had not been able to understand the language, she had recognized it, the demon tongue. What truly fascinated her was the mention of Tamaran in the title. Centuries ago, Tamaran had been subjected to a demon incursion. With the sacrifice of a staggering number of Tamaranean warriors, a strike team had broken through the demons and destroyed the portal before it could be fully stabilized. Many demons had already crossed over, however, and a good portion of one continent had had little more than ash left on it when the fighting was over. A book written from the demon's perspective would be truly fascinating, it might even provide clues to the fate of several treasures that had vanished during the war.
The only problem was that she didn't know any sorcerers she truly trusted, and it would take total trust to stand in a demon summing circle while a sorcerer summoned a demon. It was then that she remembered Raven, her sister's friend was a half-demon of some sort which meant she would know the demon tongue, and visiting earth would give her the chance to tease her sister a little. With that settled in her mind, she had bought the book and begun her journey to earth.
While she had flown to the edge of the solar influence and jumped to the Sol system, she had thought about what she would do while she was on earth. She vaguely remembered that Raven was responsible for the overnight patrol, she would wait for the opportunity to snag a kiss from the half-demon then try and convince her to keep quiet about her presence for the rest of the night. With her main objective accomplished she would be able to enjoy herself a little bit. She snorted mentally, "Well enjoy myself some more," she corrected, "After all, no plan that requires kissing a cute girl could truly be unpleasant."
A smile had crossed her face as she had imagined what she would do with the rest of the night. First, she would sneak into the tower and drug the boy wonder, she had one sedative that should work on humans with only mild side effects. A moments consideration made her amend that last part, "No truly severe side effects, or at least none my sister will mind." Somehow, she doubted Starfire would have any problem with Robin growing a pair of cat ears.
Once Robin was out for the count, she would slip into her sister's room and put a bowl of Ghorvalik in the air vent. When they were children on Tamaran, the servants had always brought a bowl of Ghorvalik for them when they had come to wake them up. The smell would conjure up happy memories, while she was sure Starfire wouldn't know where the happiness was coming from, she was equally sure her sister would be unable to resist sharing that happiness. After that, it would only be a matter of time before Starfire arrived at Robin's door baring food.
A grin spread from ear to ear as she imagined the expression on her sister's face when the door opened, and she saw Robin asleep and curled around her. She wondered if she would have time to get in a quip or two while her sister was stunned, or whether there would be instant violence. After a moment though she decided it would probably be best to only remove Robin's shirt, and stay fully dressed herself, while angling the blankets to give the impression they were both naked. After all, she didn't want to actually destroy her sister's relationship, and having to fly out of the tower naked wouldn't be any fun either. It was the fact the teasing Starfire this way had repeatedly proved so effective that had prevented her from ever mentioning her actual proclivities to her sister.
As those final thoughts drifted through her head, Blackfire felt herself hit Earth's atmosphere. The sensation snapped her back to full awareness, and she began to aim her decent. She came down in a forest near the outskirts of Jump City and took stock. It was still quite some time before sunset, and she was hungry. A plan for what she would do with the rest of the day formed in her head, and she started to grin once again. Fishing through her extradimensional pack, she finally found a fairly skimpy outfit that would not look out of place on earth. She quickly changed and stuffed the clothes she had been wearing into her pack before flying into the city.
It barely took fifteen minutes of wandering through the alleys of the seediest part of Jump for her plan to reach fruition, two shabbily dressed men stepped out in front of her. The sheer crudity of their words would have shocked her, if it had not been for the fact that, language notwithstanding, she had heard almost the exact same thing countless times before in very similar situations.
"No thank you." She replied politely and felt the satisfaction of a plan falling into place when one of them swore at her and tried to grab her arm. The ensuing fight was an utter disappointment, she was used to thugs who knew their victim might well have an energy weapon of some sort and who had therefore trained enough to disable them before they could use it. These men, on the other hand, hadn't seemed to have any skill whatsoever and the fight had been over within a few seconds. Considering how much joy she took from a good fight, this truly was a disappointment.
She knelt down and started rifling through the first man's pockets. "Useless, useless, useless, ah, keys."
While the keys were useless to her too, she did take a certain pleasure in tossing them down a nearby drain. Finding his wallet, she removed all the cash from it, then picked a few of the plastic cards at random and broke them in half before the tossing the wallet back to the thug. She repeated the proses with the other thug, then began to walk down the alley. Before she had taken five steps, she turned back around and gave both men a sharp kick to the crotch. Feeling fairly certain neither man would be up to bothering any women for quite some time, she began to make her way to a nicer part of the city.
She smiled as she found a restaurant that had tables on the roof. Looking over their menu, she blinked in surprise as she found something that actually sounded edible, a Pizza that came topped with pickles, bananas, and mint frosting. Once she had ordered, she found a seat on the roof and let the evening sunlight begin to recharge her. The pleasure she felt at actually finding good food and a place to take in sunlight only intensified when the server actually set down a bottle of mustard beside the pizza.
Raven wandered through the moonlit streets, while she flew over the rooftops and looked down at the streets some of the time, she walked through them almost as often. She firmly believed that unpredictability was a trait to be cultivated. Her unpredictable movements meant that not only would it be harder for criminals to determine where it would be safe for them to commit crimes, it also made any ambushes next to impossible. She didn't pay much attention to what was going on around her, she rarely did after all, simply feeling around her with her empathy. She tasted the emotions around her, looking for any of the groups of emotions that would mean danger for her, or that a crime was likely being committed. Being able to find crime without actually needing to use her eyes, combined with actually having the best night vision in the team, she supposed it was reasonable that she had ended up with the night patrol.
"Not that I mind this arrangement," she thought to herself, "It allows me to stay out of the tower at night. With Starfire visiting Robin's room before her own almost every night, Cyborg bringing Bumblebee over every chance he gets and Beastboy bringing one girl or another to his room most nights, staying out of the tower at night is definitely the way to go."
"Jealous? If you would just look for someone," Love began in a hopeful tone.
"No." Raven cut her off firmly
"You know it's utterly twisted that you get you happiness from tormenting Love and me." Happy commented
"You should know be able to tell that I don't actually find happiness in depriving you, It's just"
"That you're lonely? That's for certain."
"No Love, It's just"
This time it wasn't one of her Emoticlones that interrupted her thoughts, it was a pair of arms wrapping around her from behind. Her head snapped around, just in time for her lips to meet those of the person who grabbed her.
Blackfire smiled contentedly as she saw Raven walking down the road, while teasing her sister was going to be fun, so was this. Raven had always been her favorite of her sister's little group of overly noble friends. She felt happy and slightly excited as her arms wrapped around the robbed girl from behind. As Raven's head snapped around, she pressed hers forward and down, kissing the sorceress. As their lips met Blackfire felt the magic that would allow her to learn the languages the other woman knew fill her lips and begin to pass into the half-demon. Suddenly magic flooded back into her, she could feel it surging through every particle of her being and soaking into her. She tried to break the kiss but her body seemed to be frozen in place. From the fact Raven didn't break the kiss, despite the horrified look in her eyes, she assumed the other woman was equally paralyzed.
She had no idea how long she stood there, unable to move, but eventually the magic surging through her calmed somewhat. She could tell it was still doing something, but it had calmed enough to allow her to move and speak. She quickly took a couple of steps back then asked in a voice as steady as she could make it.
"What in X'hal's name just happened?"
Raven stared at her, and Blackfire suddenly realized she could actually feel the flatness of the other woman's emotions. In shock, Blackfire focused on this new sense. While the surface of Raven's emotions felt calm, it also felt like further down a literal battle was taking place in the other woman's head.
After a moment of silence, Raven replied in a flat voice. "As I believe you know, I am a half-demon. Once a demon reaches maturity, it can form a mate bond, this is accomplished by sharing a magically infused kiss. When I fully matured, I warned your sister that if she ever kissed me, it would mean she could never be with Robin again. When I deal with other magical creatures, I place wards on my lips so even if a kiss does occur, a mate bonding won't. I thought I had taken enough precautions, it seems I was wrong."
Blackfire breathed deeply. A couple of times when she was looking through the books no one was expected to be able to read, she had come across ones written in English. Curious about what her sister saw in the world she had picked to live on, she had picked them up and read them. There has been a phrase in one of them that had truly resonated with her and her own philosophy, "fear is the mind killer." As she remembered the phrase she took several deep breaths, centering herself, "Ok," she thought hopefully "Raven feels calm, maybe "mate bond" is just a misleading name."
"What actually is a mate bond?" she asked quietly
"It's exactly what the name suggests, a bond a demon forms with its mate. The bond will exist as long as we both are alive." Raven paused for a moment before continuing, and despite the fact that her voice was still flat when she spoke again, Blackfire could feel just a shred of amusement from her and saw one side of her mouth rise ever so slightly, in the barest hint of a smile.
"The first rule of a mate bonding is this, A mate may not injure it's mate or, through inaction, allow it's mate to come to harm. That is the core of the bond. Also, we can't be separated for long periods of time and we will likely both be able to use some of the other's powers and while this probably won't matter to you, when the bond finishes fully stabilizing in a couple of hours, your aura and mine will be identical. By the looks of it, yours is changing far more than mine."
"You said it won't stabilize for a few hours, is there anything we can do before that happens?"
"No."
As that one flat word fell from the sorceress's mouth, Blackfire threw a punch at Raven shoulder. She felt no animosity as she tried to punch the smaller woman, just a desperate hope that she was lying, or maybe just wrong. As soon as her fist started to move, it was as if everything she was started to scream that what she was doing was wrong, that she should never even consider hurting the person standing in front of her. While it took every ounce of will she had to keep her fist moving, she thought for a moment that it was going to work, then her muscles simply froze up, her fist bare inches from the empaths shoulder. Looking down at her immobile arm, she thought the worst part of the whole experiment was that as the first approached her, Raven had felt hope for a brief moment, only to have it vanish again as Blackfire's fist stopped.
"And why do you feel so calm about this?" she asked after a few moments of silence.
"I'm fairly sure I'm in shock at the moment." Raven replied calmly, then her eyes widened, "Wait, did you say feel?"
Just as Blackfire opened her mouth to reply, it felt like a sledgehammer struck her head. Suddenly emotions were flooding into her, hope, joy despair, grief, desperation, boredom, and so many others, and there was so much of all of them. Blackfire screamed as she collapsed to her knees, within moments her scream turned into a moan, and she curled into a fetal ball as emotions continued to bombard her.
She barely registered the sound of footsteps, or the person standing above, but bare moments after the emotional assault had begun, she was swallowed up by something. Thankfully the torrent of emotion was cut off as she was swallowed. Those few seconds had left her utterly drained and wherever she was, it was blessedly silent and seemed to give off a feeling of rightness and safety. Those things combined, and she realized she was starting to fall asleep. As she drifted off, a part of her brain recognized that for most people, the place she now occupied would probably be horribly dark and cold. For someone used to the void of space, however, it was simply relaxingly dim and almost warm.
AN
This story, as well as A Demon's Karma, the first chapter of which I intend to post later today after giving it some final proofreading, will both be steady updated no matter what. If you want them updated more quickly review, follow or favorite so I know I'm not just writing these for myself.