OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I own neither The Avengers nor Teen Titans. They, along with any other material that isn't original, belong to Marvel and DC comics respectively.
Review(s):
Guest — Thanks.
Lord-of-Change — I'm glad that you think so (hopefully the rewrite lives up to the old version). As for the french bit, I don't really want to change it, but I'll add a translated bit down at the bottom. Retrospectively, I should've done that in the first place. It likely won't happen again though... or, if it does, it'll be smaller and less important.
~ooo~
It was snowing in Blüdhaven, winter having come down little more than a month ago. The snow followed soon after with the suddenness of a thunderclap, blanketing the city in the freezing sheets of white. The denizens, rich and poor alike, held in the frosty clutch of the crystallised dihydrogen monoxide.
It wasn't terrible though, as a fair number had gathered in the parks and streets, despite the city's disreputable nature, and were enjoying the seasonal weather and festive connotations it had: a legion of snowmen scattered in amongst the streets and squares, likely the works of some errant children.
All of this, as lovely as it was, was lost on a certain young girl who was standing in her flat's bathroom, shakily clutching a small and thin plastic object. In spite of the bright, flickering neon bulb, obvious signs of sleep deprivation and general haggard appearance, she was quite pretty. Her sable hair and pale skin complimenting one another nicely.
The girl in question was Angela Roth, who'd taken up her given name again after a serious and unfortunate event. The item of interest: a pregnancy test. Specifically, a positive one.
Angela's hands trembled, the worthless piece of plastic dropping to the cold tiled floor with a tinny clatter.
Shakily, she sat herself down on the toilet seat, nervously running her hands through her hair.
No. This couldn't be possible. It couldn't be! There was no way that... that thing—. She retched, haphazardly lurching to the sink and vomiting at the sheer revulsion.
No. NO! It couldn't be true. It was a false positive, that's what it was. That's it. The damned test was just faulty and the next one would put her fears to rest.
Throwing the sink cabinet open, she snatched the half empty box and tore out the remaining test. Alas, it was for naught. The infernal thing had smashed her hopes with a single glance.
She was wrong.
She'd been violated, tainted, by that monster. That disgusting, revolting creature. The poor girl couldn't take the thought of the memory and, again, began to retch up the contents of her stomach into the sink, even after her belly had emptied she continued to dry heave in panic. This went on for quite some time as, without emotional support to help her through, her ordeal was made all the worse.
However, once she had calmed herself down a little, no matter how fractionally, she curled up in the bath and hugged her knees close to her chest, her mind mercilessly, near sadistically, the event over and over in gruesome detail. Only several minutes after she'd rooted herself into the tub did her brain finally catch up, bringing with it the realisation of the full gravitas of the situation.
She was Pregnant.
Pregnant with a child sired by Satan.
Her flight to Blüdhaven had been an attempt to escape the fanatical cultists and the memories they came with, and That! It was all in vain though, no longer could she— no, she'd merely thought she had fled the Demon's legacy. She never had and nothing but dying would release her from the horror and the responsibility.
...Nothing but dying...
Swiftly the once passing thought had taken root in her mind, and soon she was convinced that her only escape from her pursuers and tormentor was, metaphorically, the "easy way out". Of course, it made so much sense now! They would and could never follow her there; never find her, never catch her.
"No", argued the logical half of her mind reasoning that such drastic measures weren't necessary, that an abortion was a viable option. This train of thought was nigh instantly quelled by the rapidly strengthening conviction that death was the only way out.
Taking a shaky breath, Angela pulled herself up, out of the bathtub and stumbled toward the cabinet, her limbs moving in a clumsy manner, almost as a puppet. She had not spared a moment to think on her unconscious musings, or of the repercussions of such actions and was purely acting on instinct.
Opening the small cabinet, she found herself faced with nothing outstanding: a toothbrush, toothpaste, assorted cleaning products, the like. She began rummaging the the shelves of miscellaneous beauty items. No, no, no! Where was it? Reaching her wits end, Angela began tearing things off the shelves as she searched for the object of her desire.
There! Hiding behind the shampoo and cotton buds. Finding her quarry, she pulled out the small canister of painkillers and tore of its lid. Not missing a beat, Angela stuffed the pellets into her mouth, making for a bitter taste and, twisting the tap to pour water down her throat, flushed the pills down with it.
Closing the cabinet and tightening the sink, Angela looked up into the mirror, her tired violet eyes staring back at her. Suddenly, she started having trouble breathing, her throat having tightened all of a sudden. 'What have I done?' Angela cursed herself, wretchedly gasping for breath, each one becoming more laboured than the last as her throat began to constrict.
Panicking, Angela scrambled about for a phone before she remembered she couldn't afford one. Had she been able to, Angela would've roared in frustration, but with the combination of her suddenly dry mouth, tightening wind pipe and the sheer terror that gripped her, all Angela could do was whimper pitiably, frantically stumbling toward the door of her apartment to look for help. 'Oh god, I don't want to die!' What had she been thinking! She didn't want to die! She felt scared, more scared than she even had been. Why oh how had she ever convinced herself to do this?!
Weakly forcing her door open, Angela threw herself out of her flat and down the stairs of the complex, rushing out of the building, searching, nay, praying for someone, anyone to save her.
Looking about, she found the street utterly deserted aside from a grinning, hatted snowman. Desperate, Angela felt her arms slowly go numb and, bringing them up, she saw her hands shaking uncontrollably. By this point, Angela was utterly terrified and started beating her stomach, trying to purge the pills from her belly. Realising that would never work, she reached her fingers down her throat and irritated the back of her throat.
Immediately, she felt bile rise and puked up the watery contents of her belly before collapsing to her knees in exhaustion. Darkness flickering at the edges of her vision, Angela fought to stay awake in fear of never waking again. Unfortunately for her, no matter how hard she seemed to try, no amount of effort seemed to keep the darkness at bay at it slowly took over her vision.
She was dully aware of her torso hitting the hard snow-covered concrete of the pavement, but soon she lost all feeling and was borne into unconsciousness.
~ÒōÓ~
In the countryside of Latveria, a small camp of Roma were gathered around a large fire in the night, basking in the shelter from the biting cold and enjoying one another's company. Men, women and children alike all conversing amicably. This however, was not meant to last as a small child rushed up to one of the men and tried to pull him away from the fire and his companions. The man, presumably the small boy's father, wasn't having any of that though.
"Django, what have I told you about wandering away from the camp?" He scolded the newly identified Django.
The boy persisted though, tugging at the elder's sleeve and saying, "Please papa, there's someone lying in the mud over there."
The boy's father froze and the idle chatter stopped. "What was that Chikni?" The man asked, completely serious at the implications of his son's words.
Nervously, and less sure of himself, Django reaffirmed his words and said, "There's a person lying in the mud over there." He punctuated his response by pointing into the shrubbery and long grass he'd just emerged from.
"Were you with anyone else? Did you recognise the person?" Django's father, Vano, interrogated, but the only answer he received was a shake of his son's head. "Manfri, come with me?" Vano asked, though it sounded more like an order, a younger man, motioning for him to follow as he cautiously made his way to the location that Django had pointed out.
Manfri, hesitantly getting up, followed the middle-aged man reluctantly.
Reaching their destination, they began searching for the alleged person that Django had spied here.
"If this is a joke, Django is going to get a serious beating." Vano muttered under his breath, the wind cutting through him like a dagger. Thankfully for Django, it wasn't a petty prank as Manfri's voice came from somewhere to the man's left.
"Vano, over here!" The youth called, beckoning for Vano to come over.
Rushing through the long grass and upon reaching Manfri, Vano was faced with the prone form of a young girl. Black hair, pale skin and outrageously inappropriate clothing for the biting cold. 'How the hell did she get out here dressed like this?'
"Come on, help me pick her up." Vano said, grabbing one of the girl's arms and slinging it over his shoulder as a support.
"But she's gaje," Manfri exclaimed nervously, stepping back unsurely. "She'll bring bad luck."
"I can see that," stated Vano in irritation, rolling his eyes. "But would you rather leave her to freeze to death?"
Manfri looked as if he was about to say yes, but Vano sent him a thunderous look, his moustache bristling angrily. Relenting, Manfri hooked the unconscious girl's only free arm over his shoulder. With that, the two made their way back to the camp and the warmth.
As they stepped into the light, the other Roma reacted to the prone girl's form. Mainly shock, the other most prominent being curiosity, after all, what was a girl so young doing in a place that this, so badly dressed no less? It bred suspicion amongst the others.
"Vano, what are you doing?" Asked one of the more outspoken men.
"What does it look like Manuel?" Vano grunted rhetorically. "We couldn't just leave the poor girl, gaje or not."
"Who'll look after her then as she recovers? And what if she tries to double cross us?" Another asked, a woman this time.
"Sabina and I will see to her recovery and send her on her way afterwards." Vano assured, though he saw the aforementioned Sabina glare at him in the corner of his eye. 'I'll be paying for this later.' He thought to himself.
"Sabina, please help me with this girl." He pleaded with his wife. Glaring at her husband, Sabina got up and stormed up to the two and took Manfri's place thus relieving the young man of his load.
"You're too kind for your own good Vano." The less than pleased Sabina muttered under her breath for her spouse to hear as they entered their caravan.
Moving some things off their bed, they gently laid the pale girls down on the soft mattress, covering her frozen body with plenty of blanketing. "Do you know where the smelling salts are Vano?" Sabina asked absentmindedly, tending to the unconscious foreigner.
"I think I left them over here somewhere." He responded, rummaging around in the loose wooden draws and cupboards for the item of his wife's desire.
"Aha!" He exclaimed upon finding the minerals, passing a small glass vial full of a browny substance. Sabina, taking the bottle, opened it and held the rim over the frail girl's nose for a few seconds.
The effects were near instantaneous, the girl spluttering like some ancient engine and jerking away from the bottle, which Sabina corked, and coughed weakly. Opening her heavy eyelids, Vano and Sabina were greeted by a pair of violet eyes that seemed unimaginably tired. Turning round and quickly, ushering her husband from the caravan, saying that he should give the girl some breathing room to recover as she shut the door behind him.
Turning back to the seemingly exhausted girl, she gently asked, switching into Latverian. "What is you name child?", pulling up a seat next to the bed and placing a wet towel on her forehead.
The girl furrowed her brow and uttered something incomprehensible weakly. Sabina frowned; a foreigner? Here? The language was of course English, but she had no idea how to decipher the girl's words. No one in the camp spoke English either, so perhaps the gaje spoke another language.
"Est-ce que tu parles français?" She asked, the words a little clumsy in her mouth as she hadn't spoken French in so long.
The girl's eyes flashed with recognition and answered hoarsely, "Je ne peux pas parler très bien," pausing to cough painfully before resuming. "mais je vais essayer mon plus dur."
"Ç'est tout ce que je peux demander." Sabina assured the young girl, the words coming a little smoother with rehearsal. "Donc quel est ton nom?"
"C'est Angela, Angela Roth." She answered quietly.
"Mais qu'est-ce que tu faisais ici? Vous êtes très mal équipé pour être dehors dans ce froid."
The black haired girl seemed to freeze like a deer caught in headlights. "Je ... j'ai essayé." She faltered, as if she was ashamed of what she was trying to say, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Sensing the obvious emotional turmoil, Sabina pulled the girl into a warm embrace, which the girl reciprocated gratefully, sobbing into Sabina's shoulder.
"Je me sens impur." She wailed into the elder woman's shoulder hoarsely. This immediately got Sabina's attention as she realised the implications of what the violet eyed girl was saying.
"Qu'est-ce qui vous a été fait?" Questioned Sabina, breaking away from the embrace, her tone utterly serious.
The girl hugged herself and muttered to herself in English, trying to calm her hysteria.
"Cette ... chose, m'a laissé avec un enfant." She uttered tonelessly, her face going blank and eyes losing whatever light they had held.
Sabina's eyes widened. This poor, poor girl had been raped. Not only that, but she carried the spawn of whatever Abhorrent creature that had done this to her. She couldn't imagine what this girl was going through. Gaje or not, she couldn't stand by and kick her away after what she had been through. She needed help and care to get her through this ordeal, not indifference. She would have to talk to the others if she was going to convince the others to let her stay.
"Un moment." She assured the girl, quickly exiting the caravan and shutting the door before Angela could object. Immediately she was greeted with the sight of Vano arguing with some of the others, obviously over the girl.
"—You of all people know that gaje cannot be trusted! When will you learn your lesson?" One of the men exclaimed, not noticing that Sabina had left the trailer. "I say we send her to the nearest town—."
"Enough!" Sabina bellowed, clearly having heard all she needed of the conversation. "I've managed to communicate with the girl, she isn't here to rob us."
"And how would you know that?" The man snapped back waspishly. "She's likely lying to you."
"Shut up Pablo you intolerable oaf!" Sabina yelled back in fury, the man taken aback by the sheer ferocity of her response. Taking a second to ease her temper, Sabina started talking again, "The poor girl's been raped. She told me that she was carrying her rapist's child."
Silence. No one dared utter a word. Sabina, positively boiling, snapped before Pablo even opened his mouth to respond, "And don't you even dare to insinuate that she is lying." She hissed at him. "We can't just kick her away after she's warmer; she needs help. What sort of people would we be if we tossed a poor girl like that to the side in her time of need? We'd be just as bad as the gaje." She sighed, running her hand through her hair. "I may not have your support and this may not end well for me, or for any of us, but I cannot let this girl alone."
"Wait," Muttered Pablo, realisation dawning on him. "So she was out here in the cold because she wanted to..." He trailed off, his statement hanging in the air with all the subtlety of an anvil.
'Because she wanted to die.' Was the collective realisation of the camp.
"I suspect that is the reason, yes." Sabina's uttered sadly.
~o0o~
Sitting on a cliff overlooking the capital of Latveria, Doomstadt, was castle Doom, Victor Von Doom's personal residence. As every, the aforementioned genius was tinkering away within his laboratory—though some would dare call it a dungeon—pouring over an ingenious creation of his.
It was because of this, and his status, that he was nowhere near the front gate when a visitor, quite literally, came knocking. After all, answering the door was the business of servants, not the mighty; and Doom was mighty.
Standing on the doorstep of the vast fortress was however, a diminutive man, hunched over with age and garbed in a worn, brown cassock, a hood obscuring his features.
Reaching up to the expansive wooden door, the nameless man beat the solid oak, the sound of his rapping reverberating through the castle's hall.
Thankfully for the man, he did not have long to wait as one of the good doctor's "Doombots", specifically D-419, which had been charged with the duties of the doorman, answered in the stead of the country's monarch. The monk however, did not know this and greeted the automaton as he would the country's ruler, clutching a large tome to his chest.
"I am honoured that you would see fit to associate with once such as myself," The aged monk spoke reverently, bowing in homage to his "monarch". "I come with a message from my order that may garner your interest."
The mechanical humanoid stared down impassively at the grovelling man before taking on Doom's facade. "Should these be the ramblings of a senile old fool, I will be most displeased."
"Oh no my lord, we wouldn't dare to infringe upon you without reason. No, the seers of our order have been gifted with vision." The monk said, straightening himself up. "They have been visited by a spirit, one that proclaims the dawn of a great travesty! Its words, and any information our scribes could gather on the matter, lie in this grimoire." Opening the leather-bound, the monk rifled through the pages before finding what he sought: "Here, 'The Gem was 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'."
"What do you mean?" The Doombot interrogated the man, its programming only a mimicry of the mind of Doom, crossing its arms and staring down at the man dispassionately. "You said that you had answers fool, not mere riddles."
"But they are answers my liege, the passage describes the coming of the apocalypse. A child born of The Great Evil shall herald the coming of The Lord of madness." The monk elaborated quickly. "This child, a cambion in nature, would be the proverbial key to stopping this evil too. One with influence over the child, with the correct guidance, could hold dominion over the immaterial realm. My words alone are not enough though, which is the reason I bring this tome with me: it is for you."
Cupping its chip with a hand, the Doombot went over what the man had said carefully. If this man was telling the truth, and if Doom could find this child, the doctor could become more powerful than any man. If the man was wrong, then he would be in the same position as before with no loss. All in all, bringing this information to the master would be a necessity.
Taking the offered grimoire, the automaton paused. "And none but your order know of this prophecy?" It questioned.
"None my lord." The elderly man affirmed.
Thinking it over, created came to the conclusion of what to do. "You have done well my faithful servant. Let it be known that you and your order will be appropriately rewarded for your loyalty, for Doom, above all, is a reasonable man."
Closing the massive oak door on the monk, the Doombot transmitted a communique to its master below.
++Information brought to light by Order of the Martyred, request permission to bring forward++
The message sent, the command came quickly: ++Bring the intelligence and return to your post++
Spurred on, the robot made it's way through the illustrious hallways and down into the state-of-the-art laboratory Doom had constructed below the castle. Here the architecture went from grandiose and bright, to gothic and dark, as the research and development labs were inside the old catacombs the castle was built upon.
Reaching a lead door, D-419 transmitted a chain of numbers to a receiver in the wall and the door soundlessly swung open to reveal the technological wonders inside. Stepping in, D-419 held the tome that the old monk had bequeathed it to his creator.
The doctor, graciously took it and silently banished the Doombot, who'd sent a recording of the conversation it had had with the geriatric ahead of arrival. Von Doom, flicking through the grimoire with measured deliberation. There was mention of a fall... but what kind? Surely not literally. As descriptive as the Order's work was, the amount of information that was provided, aside from the prophesy, was quite sparse.
Sighing in frustration, Doom strode over to a magical circle at the far side of the dark stone laboratory and stood before the array, chanting in a language that was foul to the ear. This in turn made the array glow with a sickly green colour before it gave an almighty flash, revealing a twisted form of what may have once been human, with a multitude of eyes, some of which were moving independently from the body altogether, a blackened paper-like skin that seemed to rustle with every move and mouthless face, its limbs disproportionate in size to its torso.
"Heed me spirit," Doom exclaimed mightily over the cracked of static electricity. "I have questions that you may answer!"
"Answers it says." The creature whispered to itself in a voice that resonated weirdly in the cavernous stone room, many of its eyes turning to face itself. "Answers indeed... but at what cost might they ask? We daren't asks us, no."
"You shall obey me!" Doom roared in fury at the nattering beast.
Rousing from its conversation with itself, the creature stared at Doom curiously before asking, "What does it needs, we asks ourselves."
"I have information regarding a 'Gem born of fire's evil'. Where is it?"
"Trigon's spawn?" The paper thing hummed to itself in mild surprise. "Whence does't thine knowledge arrive?"
"That is irrelevant." Doom snapped imperiously. "I shall have answers from you!"
"Does it?" The thing uttered, it's papery "face", crinkling into a warped grin. "We fell through the Abyss. She fell upon here. It wasn't deliberate in action. Actions borne of despair? Yes..."
The vile thing paused, it's unnatural grin spreading further, tearing open its skin, revealing an uncountable number of needle-like teeth in its eerie grin. "Chaos without intervention. Order? Yes. No? 'I shall be free with the coming', will you? I think not... We think not. 'Architect of change' indeed."
Flickering out of focus, the sirit reached out and scratched a single rune into the floor with a spindly digit and waggwagging it before finally flickering out of existence, the stench of sulphur permeating from the array.
Doom was not pleased. He hadn't finished interrogating the wretched creature.
Furious, he pushed his frustration down. Now was not the time for anger, he had to be calm, the "answers" the spirit had given him would require a clear mind to solve.
Pacing, he pondered on the abomination's words. "Trigon's spawn", "We fell through the Abyss", "She fell upon here"?
Kneeling down, Doom analysed the sigil that the immaterial spawn had scrawled into the stone. It was an 'S' shaped symbol, one vaguely familiar to him...
The grimoire, the recording of the monk, the spirit's words and the rune would take time to decipher. No matter, nothing was impossible for Doom and time was something he had in abundance.
Translation:
Est-ce que tu parles français? — Do you speak french?
Je ne peux pas parler très bien, mais je vais essayer mon plus dur. — I can not speak very well, but I will try my hardest.
Ç'est tout ce que je peux demander. Donc quel est ton nom? — That's all I can ask. So what is your name?
C'est Angela, Angela Roth. — It's Angela, Angela Roth.
Mais qu'est-ce que tu faisais ici? Vous êtes très mal équipé pour être dehors dans ce froid. — But what were you doing here? You are very ill equipped to be outside in this cold.
Je ... j'ai essayé. Je me sens impur. — I ... I tried. I feel unclean.
Qu'est-ce qui vous a été fait? — What has been done to you?
Cette ... chose, m'a laissé avec un enfant. — This ... thing, left me with a child.
~öÔö~
A/N: Hi there! It's me! again! A rewrite will soon be coming for chapter 2. I kinda regret not making Angela's part bigger in the story, so the second rewrite will likely be better than the original. Sorry if the french is shit, I don't speak french and google isn't reknown for it's accuracy.
Don't have much to say so, I'll leave it here.
Have a good one.