Okay, there's a couple things I wanted to change with this, so I did. Anyways, it's not much, just a bit more to the "Below the belt" part. Everything past the periods is from the original, except for what I've changed of course.
Thanks a lot to Tifereth Kantrishakrim (sorry if I misspelled) for reviewing after I had it the first time. It was up for less than 10 minutes and I got an email saying she had reviewed. New record for me, not that it matters. Anyways, thanks.
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Okay, I just have a few things to say. I don't own anything. Wait… I might own some of the stuff. But not the Teen Titans, or the text that part is based on. I'll tell you what it is later, you have to guess (and guess what part I'm talking about). Keep in mind it isn't exact.
Also, this will have a religious theme to it (actually, one of the things it is based off of is Dante's Divine Comedy). If you don't like it, sorry. That's your problem.
So you know (and don't get confused) when I describe Paradise, it will be layed out the same, but will look different to everyone. Example: 1 person sees a pillar of diamond in the middle of a desert, and person 2 sees a cedar tree in the middle of a field. Either way, it is the same "blueprint". So you can more or less imagine it as looking however you want.
Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this. And to anyone who doesn't like my story but thinks it may be a good idea, read Taiba's story "The Sixth Horseman". It kicks ass and is based on Inferno (partly). She is the Oracle. Read and obey. But please read mine first.
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The clouds hung low over the horizon, catching the last feeble rays of crimson light from the setting sun. Waves lapped gently at the rocks, caressing them in a never ending cycle, whispering the secrets that only the ocean now remembered.
As the sun set, a figure walked slowly from the large T-shaped tower on the middle of the small island, heading down to the water's edge. She pulled her blue cloak around her in a vain attempt to black the chill that was sending shivers down her spine.
Silently she stood, listening to the soft sound of water against rock, and feeling a calm strength spread through her soul to the very core of her being.
Just before the sun set, a stiff Autumn breeze grabbed at her purple hair, whisking it silently across her face. As it fell back into place, it tickled her nose gently. She sneezed, sending a black shockwave out from her body and left her standing in a foot-deep crater.
"Please, give me some sort of sign," she murmured, looking out across the water. Her dry voice was filled with intelligence and, at the moment, fear.
As if in answer, the sun slid fully behind the horizon, deepening the skies to a blazing inferno. The thought sent another shiver down her spine.
A moment later, a flash of brilliant green light flared up just where the sun had been. She had heard of this phenomenon before, but had never actually seen it. As the rare scene faded to twilight, she closed her eyes. A single tear slid down her pale cheek when she opened her violet eyes to look at the natural beauty of this world one last time.
The door to the tower slid open to reveal a green teenaged boy, grinning with a fang showing.
"Hey, come on, Raven!" he shouted, "We're goin' for pizza!"
As he ran back inside, she hesitantly turned and walked towards the still-open door. When she reached it, she turned to look out over the water as the first stars of night appeared in the sky.
Several minutes later, the team was jammed inside the T-car. The blue electronics on it gleamed as it sped from the garage.
Raven sat in the back seat, nestled between the green boy and another girl, who had red hair hanging far down her back and was wearing a purple shirt and top. Raven had relinquished her traditional spot, the passenger seat, to the team leader. And now she regreted it.
"Hey Raven," the green boy said, stretching and looking down at his shoes as he thought of a joke, "What'd the leper say to the hooker?"
"Beast Boy," Raven growled between clenched teeth, "what could possibly convince you that I care?"
"Keep the tip!" he yelled, laughing and ignoring her comment, as usual. The other girl giggled (though she obviously didn't understand the humor) and the two boys in the front seat rolled their eyes… that is the driver rolled his human eye as the passenger's eyebrows moved the way they do when you roll your eyes. As they were covered with a mask, it was hard to tell for sure.
"You are a stupid, perverted freak," Raven grunted.
"Aw, come on, Rae," the driver said, grinning, "that one was below the belt. Get it? 'Cause the guys-" a nearby driver honked his horn in frustration as the T-car's passengers opened their eyes wide in surprise at the vulgar word "is below his belt, and you insulted B in an unfair way?" He chuckled for a moment, then fell silent.
"I take back the perverted part, Beast Boy," Raven spoke in a monotone voice tinged slightly by embarresment, "Cyborg's the perverted one."
"Robin," the other girl said in a high pitched voice, "Why does friend Cyborg speak of a male chicken?"
"He uh… wasn't talking about a chicken, Starfire," Robin said, blushing.
"Robin, I do now understand… then what did he mean by the word- ?" Starfire began, her green eyes widened in confusion. Robin interrupted quickly, blushing and half-yelling, "Starfire! I'll uh… I'll tell you uh… later." Beast Boy and Cyborg both laughed at his discomfort.
Finally Cyborg pulled into the pizzeria's parking lot, and they piled out and walked in as he said, "So, we're getting 2 cheese pizzas and a Meat Frenzy one?"
Beast Boy gagged, "As long as I don't have to eat the meat." They ordered, paid, and then walked up the stairs to the wedge-shaped roof and sat at a table. Raven closed the red umbrella so they could see the sky.
The team talked, their words merging together in a meaningless medley of sound. One voice was missing from the jargon, however.
"What's wrong, Raven?" Beast Boy whispered to the girl sitting next to him.
"Nothing… I'm an introvert, remember?"
"If introvert means 'creepy demoness'" he said, smiling at her to show he was joking as he remembered the incident with Malchior, "then you're being even more introverted than normal. You've been quiet all night."
Raven shrugged, looking down at her blue shoes as she murmured, "I'm thinking, that's all."
"No, Rae, it's more than that."
"You're wrong!" she shouted, looking up quickly. Her face was now marked with four eyes, all glowing red; it didn't mar it, though. Her face still had the dignified beauty that Beast Boy knew. The Chianti-bottle candle in the middle of their table exploded, splashing oil everywhere. When the still-burning wick landed back on the table, the entire thing burst into flames.
The other four Titans jumped up in surprise. Raven blinked her eyes, and they slid back to normal just as the waiter came up with the pizzas.
"Not again," he grunted in exasperation as he turned and walked back inside to get a fire extinguisher.
Beast Boy sat on one end of the curved couch, feeling alone. Cyborg sat, stretched comfortably, on the opposite side. Starfire and Robin were sitting near him… Starfire very nearly sitting in Robin's lap.
For not being together, Beast Boy thought, they sure do get comfortable with each other. He wondered briefly when Starfire would force Robin to explain the meaning of the word Cyborg had used earlier… and the "hooker" part of the joke.
That could be an interesting conversation…
It was 10:30 pm, and they had all sat to watch The Lord of the Rings. All except Raven, who had gone to her bedroom. He didn't show it, but Beast Boy was worried about her.
Raven sighed in the dark confines of her room. She set her pen down and reread the note she had just written. Then she put it by her bed.
She glanced over at the clock by the now-overflowing trashcan. It was eleven fifty-seven. Raven started weeping, laying on her bed; the tears soaked into the matress.
She had wanted to spend a little more time with them before… midnight. It was too late; she didn't want them to see her when it happened… she didn't want to put them through that.
The clock began the minute-long chime indicating that it was midnight.. It was time. Slowly, she looked around the room, her icy heart beating so loud that she could hear it.
Faint tendrils of smoke rose from her body and clothes, floating up to the ceiling. Hauntingly the wisps gathered, as though looking down at her, stretched out on the bed. Watching her.
Hunting her.
"Now, my daughter," a cruel, heartless voice called mockingly through the room, coming from everywhere and nowhere, "Come to me."
Raven gasped in pain and surprise as flames burst up on her arms and legs, spreading quickly to encompass her body. A chilling laugh permeated the room.
Her skin blackened, crackling and peeling slowly away from her body. She screamed in agony as her hair and clothes burned away.
The traces of magical dusts and powders on her now nearly-inexistant clothing suddenly reached its combustion point. They exploded, creating an inferno hotter than any ever used in a cremation service. She screamed again, louder, feeling her soul burning as well. It was the scream that only the dammed could utter. The flames from the powders instantly incinerated flesh, blood, and bone, leaving only a pile of fine ashes.
Beast Boy looked around nervously. He thought he had heard a scream. Nobody else moved, though, so he settled back down and watched the movie as best he could.
Raven moaned, no longer able to even scream. She was blind now, unable to see because her eyes had been burned away. She stretched her skeletal arm, vainly trying to crawl over to the door. Inside of her skull, her brain blistered and boiled, sending her into violent seizures. One final scream of unimaginable, pain echoed through her room as her soul was wrenched from her body.
The flames suddenly extinquished, leaving a layer of ashes where she had laid. A small bit of bone from her arm and a chunk of her skull sat in the middle of it.
The clock's musical chine stopped.
12:01 shone through the dark.
Beast Boy finished his soda-pop, looking around the empty living room. The movie had ended and the others had gone to bed. Cyborg did, anyway. You could never know what the "not-couple", Robin and Starfire, were up to.
Stupid frisky Robin, Beast Boy thought bitterly, Why does he get a girlfriend? I bet it's the mask… man, I need one of those. Or a moped. Chicks can't resist mopeds.
As he thought, he had begun walking through the labyrinthian halls of the tower. He hadn't been paying attention, however, and had taken a wrong turn… directly to Raven's room.
He shrugged. He might as well check in on her. And appologize for the joke and the candle incident.
Slowly he approached and softly began rapping at her chamber door. No answer. He hit a little harder, tapping at the door.
She's sleeping or reading, he thought as he continued knocking, That's what's taking her so long to answer. Only that, and nothing more.
After several minutes, he wasn't so sure. Fear had sunk deep, sunk to his very core.
She must be sleeping, that's all. She has to be sleeping. That's what it is, and nothing more.
He couldn't take it anymore. He remembered the screams. He knocked the door down and stepped inside. Darkness there and nothing more.
Suddenly the room brightened. The clouds had split to allow the full moon to shine through. He saw a humanoid figure laying on the bed, and he breathed a sigh of relief at he looked at her. Then he saw a paper laying upon the floor.
"Raven, I'm sorry to bother you," he said, "but I was knocking and uh… my hand got sore."
The acrid smell of the smoke which was produced when Raven did some of her older Magicks hung in the air. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed it before.
"So uh… been doin' some spells?" he asked as he picked up the paper, "If it's ok with you, I'd like to go with you when you go to get more."
Still she did not answer. He wished he knew if she was sleeping or ignoring him, even if she just gave a single snore.
His legs began shaking as he read the paper.
To the Teen Titans, my Friends… my Family:
For the past few years, we've worked and lived together. Though we haven't always had great times, we've held together. For the first time, I feel like I've belonged.
Unfortunately it is time for you to leave. All those times Beast Boy joked about me either destroying the world or saving it… how could he have possibly known he was right?
I am going now. I feel like I'm going down in company… from my friends to my father. I will never forget you. I could never forget you. Goodbye.
To Robin: You've been a great leader. It was an honor to be a part of your team.
To Cyborg: You were the brother I never had. We've argued a bit, but in the end it's always turned out fine. You've always been there, even if it was to just help me burn Beast Boy.
To Starfire: When I came here, I had nothing… no friends, no personality. You changed all of that. You became my sister. Both of us are infinitely different, but we both come from a place other than Earth. Somehow we've found a way through it all. You were, and are, my best friend.
And finally to Beast Boy: Where can I begin? It seems like we've always been shoved together, like after the first battle with Hive. You always were there for me. With my Rage. Malchior. And you protected me from Adonus. But now it's over. You can't save me anymore. You can't come with me to help. Goodbye. Hopefully (and I mean this) Terra comes back. I know you liked her. You and she will be happy together after I'm gone… unless I destroy everything. I've seen it in a vision. Give her my regards.
To all of you, I bid a fond fairwell. And I want you to understand; I don't know what I will do. I don't know how I'll have to save or destroy the universe. But I won't be coming back either way.
My friends, I'm sorry this is so sudden. I love you all and will be watching over you.
Goodbye.
Raven
Beast Boy though he was going to throw up. His heart raced as he raised his eyes slowly to the form on the bed.
The moonlight illuminated the scene, gleaming eerily of the heat-bleached bones. The ashes… the bones… and the dark spot on the bed, the moist area where her tears had landed.
Beast Boy collapsed, curling up into a ball and muttering, "No, no, no!"
How can she be gone?
As the moon sank lower, it reflected off of something near the bed. He reached for it, closing his hand around Raven's mirror.
A feeling of vertigo swept through him, and he was falling through endless blackness…
How long it was that he fell, he never knew. He was in shock. She was gone.
Finally his feet hit solid ground. He looked around, his mind numb; he was in Raven's mind.
But this wasn't exactly Raven's mind. It had been a place where you could always feel intelligence and warmth, as though it were a breeze sweeping across your flesh. In the weeks after he and Cyborg had mistakenly fallen into her mind, he had snuck back in. Whether she knew or cared, he would never know now.
Now it was cold and empty-feeling. There was a sense of evil in the darkness.
He felt like something was watching him, some malevolent phantom. He spun around to find himself staring into four red eyes.
"It has begun," the red-cloaked Ravenite hissed, smirking at him.
"Rage, what've you done to Raven?" Beast Boy demanded of the emotion.
"I haven't done anything… her father has." He glared at her as she said, "You're dear Raven isn't lost yet… but she will be soon. And then she'll burn for eternity."
"Where are the others?"
"They've gone with her… she needs them to fulfill the prophecy. I couldn't go. I'd have been an 'unfair advantage' for evil," Rage growled.
"Take me to her," Beast Boy muttered, looking challengingly into her eyes.
"Oh, I can't do that. The prophecy must be fulfilled," she purred at him tauntingly.
"I don't care about some prophecy!" he shouted, grabbing and shaking the emotion, "Take me to her! Now!"
"I'm going to enjoy watching her burn. Her soul will fall," the emotion said. It's voice was thick with glee.
Beast Boy felt something snap inside of him. His mind seemed to peel away, stripping itself of its humanity… purging itself. Layer by layer, his mind became more instinctive.
More primal.
His mind fully released everything except for his sole meaning in life… his most primal instinct:
Protect Raven.
No matter the cost.
His clothes ripped as his shoulders broadened, his chest expanding. His entire body grew as the Beast broke loose.
With a feral growl he pounced upon the Ravenite, slamming it hard into the ground. It dug its claws into her arms, holding her down. A soft trickle of black blood leaked from the wounds.
"You really want to help her?" it asked. The taunting was gone. The emotion seemed unable to grasp anything outside itself, in this case rage.
He changed back, still holding her down. The blood oozed out onto his hands; it was ice cold.
"Take me to her," he growled, squeezing her arms.
"You'll die," she said, looking confused and wincing slightly from pain.
"I don't care!" he shouted, lifting her and slamming her back to the ground as his own rage broke through for a moment.
She smiled at him. Not a smirk or fake smile, but a genuine smile. For a moment it was like looking at Raven again.
Rage stood as though he was weightless, and he fell to the ground.
"For the record," she said, "I could've done that anytime. Now… follow me if you're ready to die."
And she turned and silently walked down the cold, desolate path.
Utter darkness stretched for eternity, mirroring the darkness of its soul inhabitant. The solitary figure stirred and opened its eyes, looking in blank incomprehension at its endless prison. The claustrophobic openness of it made her feel as though she was suffocating. She inhaled deeply, sucking in all of the nothingness around her; her mind was energized by the air even as her body starved without it.
Vertigo flooded through her body. She didn't know which way was up. Then the answer hit her. In this place, there was no "up".
With a flash, everything came into focus. Raven lay on her back, head looking to her right. Her entire body burned from the after effects of the inferno that had killed her.
She saw a cliff near her, curving around in a perfect circle, falling down. Heat waves gently caressed her bare back, oddly easing the pain from the burns.
Struggling to sit up, she saw a humanoid body standing before her. It's eyes burned with hate as it observed her lithe frame. The dull light gleamed off its red skin, covered only by two pieces of cloth tied about its waist.
"Welcome, my daughter," Trigon hissed, "to thine kingdom."
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Okay, that's all of it. I'm about 1/3 of the way through writing the next chapter. It's taking me a lot longer than I thought it would, mostly because I'm reading Divine Comedy, another book for English class, and doing all kindsa other stuff, especially with The Comic. So it may be a week or so before I get the next chapter up.
If I insulted anyone with the "below the belt" section, sorry. I didn't mean to, it's just a joke. Hmm… anything else? Oh yeah, if you think I'm graphic or something with the burning, sorry. There'll be at least 1 more person who dies like that. I'll give you one guess who it is, and the first 3 don't count. And I am completely aware of what I just typed.
Oh yeah, I kinda like the "secret allusion" thing. There's gonna be one in the next chapter. Sorry, but unless you've listened to a certain type of music, you won't know what it is. I will give you one hint: the singer also sings "Two Pina Coladas" and "Long Neck Bottle". Some of you may know who I'm talking about already. Anyways, it'll probably be an exact quote, and then some extra stuff that is distortions of the song, like I did with this one.
Please review, with ideas, flames, and what the secret allusion was. I'd like to see how many people get it. Tifereth already did. Not surprising, according to her profile-thing the guy is one of her favorite authors.
Now I'll stop rambling. Review. I'll get the next chapter up hopefully next weekend.