(Disclaimer: I don't own the Titans. It's tragic, really.)
-CHAPTER ONE: EVELYN-
"Eureka!"
Raven's voice echoed through Titans Tower. The other Titans paused briefly to wonder what she was on about, only to be further mystified as the black shape of her astral form sped past them, making a beeline for the living room. And it indeed was a line, in even the strictest geometrical sense—one of the benefits of being able to phase through solid matter.
Once she reached the living room, Raven re-solidified herself next to Robin, who was watching TV on the couch. He jumped, and screamed slightly.
"Robin, I'm just going to do a bit of shopping," Raven said, ignoring his response to her sudden appearance. "If something happens, just go ahead without me."
"Uhhh…sure thing, Raven," Robin said hesitantly. "What exactly are…"
"I'll explain later, but now I've got to go," Raven interrupted him, and turned back into her astral form and flew off towards the city by the most direct route, which happened to take her through the couch, a nearby wall, and Robin himself. Robin gibbered for a moment, but quickly calmed down, adjusted his mask, and went back to watching TV as if nothing had happened.
OOO
Raven returned to the tower about two hours later, heavily laden with various boxes and bags. Not only was she heavily laden, but so too were her powers—nearly a dozen other boxes floated along behind her as she went. There was even something that looked distinctly like some kind of cage, and although it appeared to be empty, it shook and rattled every so often.
"Um, hey, Raven," Beast Boy said. "You working on something?"
"Can't talk now," Raven said, her voice muffled by the pile of items she was carrying, above which only the very top of her head was visible. "I'll explain later."
With that Raven trundled off towards her room, inasmuch as it is possible to trundle whilst levitating, her vast collection of boxes and bags following her like ducklings after their mother. Beast Boy stared at her retreating back and scratched his head.
OOO
"Alright, Raven, what did you…call…us…for…?" Robin said, his voice trailing off as he entered Raven's room. He and the other Titans gawked in amazement at what Raven had done to her room. It was just as dark and gloomy as ever, but the various décor items on pedestals had been moved to the far corner of the room, apparently to make room for some of the masses and masses of weird, or perhaps wyrd, items that were scattered around on her floor. There was no apparent pattern to the placement of the items, but still the Titans knew better than to touch them, and remained standing in a tight cluster just inside the doorway. Raven poked her head out from around what looked like a six-foot-tall jade Buddha statue that had been carefully placed a foot and five-and-three-quarter inches away from the end of her bed, due north-north-east, in accordance with Scranton the Mad's Axioms of Eldritch Placement.
"Oh, good, you're all here," Raven said. "I guess I can start then."
"What the heck is going on, Raven? What is all this stuff?" Robin asked as Raven sat down cross-legged at the edge of a large chalk pentagram that she had carefully drawn in the middle of her floor. She opened up a large leather-bound book (at least, the Titans hoped it was leather), and began hurriedly flipping pages.
"Oh, it's just a spell I happened across earlier today," Raven said absent-mindedly as she flipped through her book. "If I'm right, it should allow me to sever my connection with my father."
"What? Raven, that's incredible!" Robin said.
"Yeah, I know," Raven said with a smug smile.
"Uh…so how does it work?" Beast Boy asked, eyeing what appeared to be some kind of monkey hand that had been placed on one of Raven's shelves.
"It will transfer all my dark emotions into a separate body," Raven said. "Since my father controls me using my dark emotions, getting rid of them should free me from his hold."
"A separate body?" Robin asked.
"Yes. The spell will essentially give my dark emotions a physical form to inhabit. It should be virtually an exact copy of my body, if I understand this correctly," Raven said.
"But then will we not have to defeat this evil doppelganger, Raven?" Starfire said. "She will have all your badness, and if she is a copy of you, will she not have your powers as well?"
"I thought of that, Starfire," Raven said. "What I'll be casting isn't just one spell, it's two bound together as one. The first one gives my dark emotions a body, and the second one removes that body's powers, so we won't have to worry."
"Um, that's great news and all, Rae, but why do you want us here?" Cyborg asked. "Just to tell us?"
"No, no," Raven said. "Like I said, this spell should sever my connection to my father, if I'm right. If I'm wrong, you guys might have to…errr…subdue me."
Needless to say, this last revelation darkened the mood somewhat.
"Well, if you really want to go through with this, Raven, we'll support you," Robin said after a moment. The others nodded in agreement, and Raven gave them a small smile.
"Thank you. I'll begin the spell now," she said, and began reading from the book that still lay open in her lap. The words were in an ancient language, and largely unpronounceable without a decade or so of careful study and practice—some of the syllables even had extra-dimensional harmonics, and Beast Boy had to cover his sensitive ears.
What appeared to be some kind of smoke materialized, hovering several feet above the centre of the pentagram. It began to rotate lazily, but it quickly sped up, drawing out into long strands that formed a loose orb as it went. It also began to give off light—while it was only a faint glow at first, when the 'smoke' reached what seemed to be its top speed it flared into an actinic brilliance that bathed the entire room in a harsh white light, nearly blinding the Titans. All the while, Raven had continued to chant, keeping her eyes closed so that she would be able to fully concentrate. Signs of strain began to show on her face, and her neutral expression transformed into a slight grimace. A faint violet glow, almost invisible against the glare of the rapidly spinning orb of light, formed around her body, and was drawn off into the orb, joining seamlessly with the other magical energies of which it was composed. This process seemed to weaken Raven further, and she began to sag a little, but still she continued her chant with only a slight waver detectable in her voice, as though all the strength of her whole being was directed into it. This was not far off.
Only once the last of her violet aura was pulled away into the orb did Raven stop her chant, collapsing forward to rest on her hands. The Titans were about to run to her side, but their attention was quickly redirected to the bright spinning ball of magical energy as it suddenly shrank in size, seeming to fall in on itself. Its light increased in brilliance as it did so, making its previous intensity seem positively dim by comparison. The light permeated everything in the room—it left no shadows, it allowed no images, there was only the light, blanking out all else. It only lasted an instant before receding back towards its origin, but that instant seemed to last for an infinity. It also did not behave like normal light—it did not simply decrease in intensity, it actually receded, as if the brightness was something in and of itself that was being pulled back. That anything as bourgeois as a photon could be responsible for this light seemed impossible.
As the light receded, the Titans were able to make out a silhouetted figure floating several feet above the centre of the pentagram. The light seemed to be withdrawing inside the figure, as if it was filling it up. After another few seconds, the Titans were able to make out the figure's features. They gasped in shock—it looked like Raven.
The Titans glanced back and forth between their friend, still sitting on the floor at the edge of the pentagram leaning forward onto her hands for support, breathing heavily, and this new doppelganger, bathed in light and floating several feet off the ground.
Then, the second spell began.
It had been laced in with the incantation of the first, so Raven spoke no more strange syllables. It also did not create any fancy lightshows, as the first one had—all in all, it was a much less impressive spectacle. However, as several carefully placed talismans and tokens around the pentagram began to give off something like living darkness, there was a pervasive sense of vague menace about this second spell. This darkness was different from the usual manifestation of Raven's powers—it was pure blackness, blotting out everything behind it, as if it drank in light. Tendrils of this darkness snaked up around the floating doppelganger, binding her, enveloping her, and then, just when it seemed it would cover her entirely, sinking into her, leaving her apparently untouched. The doppelganger awoke with a gasp, dropping to the floor in front of the original Raven, the pentagram mysteriously fading. Sensing that the spell was over, the Titans ran to Raven's side.
"It's done," she said, as Cyborg helped her to her feet. Raven smiled weakly. "It worked."
"Yes, it did, didn't it?"
The Titans turned to see the doppelganger kneeling where the centre of the pentagram had been, surrounded by a dark blue cloak that matched Raven's in every detail. Her head was lowered so that her hood completely hid her face, and she was breathing heavily. She began to laugh.
"I'm free…after all this time…I'm finally free…"
The dark blue of the doppelganger's cloak gradually changed to a deep red. She looked up, and the Titans gasped. Four glowing red eyes glared at them, and her snarl displayed slight fangs.
"Heh heh. That was a mistake, you know. Now that I'm free, I can do whatever I want," she said. "And the first thing on my to do list is killing you idiots!"
The doppelganger leapt to her feet, throwing her hands out in front of her. It took her a few moments to realize that nothing had happened. She stared in shock at her hands, then threw them out again.
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" the doppelganger shouted, but again nothing happened. She stood in shocked silence for a few seconds, and then her face contorted in rage and she launched herself at Raven, who was still leaning against Cyborg for support. Robin and Starfire leapt between them in time to catch the doppelganger, and held her tightly. For all Robin's training, and all Starfire's alien strength, they still had difficulty holding her as she thrashed about in blind rage.
"What did you DO to me, you bitch?" she screamed as she tried desperately to break free from her captors. Raven gave a small smile.
"I removed your powers," she said quietly. "I couldn't have you going around causing trouble, now could I?" At this, the doppelganger calmed.
"That's not fair," she growled, and snorted in disapproval. She glanced at Robin and Starfire, who still held tightly onto her arms. "You dorks can let me go now, you know."
Robin and Starfire looked at each other, and then at Raven, who merely shrugged. They hesitantly let the doppelganger go, fully expecting her to try to attack Raven again, but she only dusted herself off, somewhat theatrically, and glared at them. With four glowing red eyes to glare with, she was quite good at it.
"Uhhhh…I hate to break up all the drama, but what are we going to do with her?" Beast Boy asked.
"Yeah, what are you going to do with me?" the doppelganger asked with a sarcastic smile. Robin sighed and ran a hand over his face.
"Well, killing her is not an option. We obviously can't just let her go, but we can't have her running around freely in the tower, either," he said, and turned to look at Raven. "What do you think we should do with her?"
"I was going to say we should kill her, but if that's not an option…" Raven said with a slight grin. Nobody else was smiling, though, so she continued. "We could always stick her in one of the cells downstairs."
"What? I don't want to have to live in some stupid old cell!" the doppelganger cried. "Besides, I haven't done anything!"
"You haven't done anything yet, you mean," Raven said.
"No, Raven, she's right," Robin said. "We can't imprison her if she hasn't done anything." The doppelganger grinned at Raven, but Robin wasn't finished yet.
"Besides," he said with a nasty grin, "it's not like she can cause too much trouble, what with her powers gone and all." The doppelganger's grin faded, and she glowered at Robin.
"No, we'll put her in one of the guest rooms for now so she'll be comfortable," he continued. "Of course, we'll have to lock her in there at night. Powers or no, there's no telling what she might do once we're all asleep."
"What? Hey!" the doppelganger cried. "That's not fair!"
"Well, seeing as you're the manifestation of Raven's dark side, I think it's more than fair," Robin said. "Be thankful that you aren't stuck in a cell, at least, although if you cause trouble that's where you'll end up, of course."
The doppelganger grumbled a little and kicked half-heartedly at a few of the magical talismans littering Raven's floor, but generally seemed to accept this plan.
"Okay, cool, but now what are we going to call her?" Beast Boy asked—apparently it was his turn to be the (relatively) practical one. "I mean, we're going to be living with her, right? We can't just keep calling her 'Evil Raven' or something."
"Yes! We must decide upon a name for our new…um…companion!" Starfire cried, stumbling a little over whether or not she should call 'Evil Raven' a friend, but recovering admirably.
"Oh, no!" the doppelganger said, backing away from Starfire. "You're going to call me something stupid like 'Fluffy' or something! No way!" Starfire looked deflated for a moment, but then perked up once again as an idea struck her.
"Well, then perhaps you would like to name yourself!" she said, smiling brightly. Raven groaned.
"Oh, this is not going to go well," she muttered. The doppelganger ignored her, and stroked her chin thoughtfully.
"Hmmm…name myself, eh?" she mused out loud. "Well, actually I kind of like Evil Raven, but I can see how that might be a bit awkward. Evil Raven…Evraven…Evilaven…"
All four of the doppelganger's eyes widened as inspiration struck her.
"Evelyn! That works!" she said, and smiled with satisfaction.
"Ooookaay. Evelyn it is then," Robin said. "I guess I'll get your room set up."
Robin, Starfire, and Beast Boy left Raven's room, with the newly-named Evelyn trailing after them. Cyborg stayed for a minute to make sure that Raven was alright, and then he too left. He paused in the doorway and glanced back over his shoulder.
"Well, Rae, I've known you for a while, but I have to say that that was the single weirdest thing I've ever seen you do," he said with a smile. Raven grinned weakly.
"I think it's only going to get weirder," she said.
-END CHAPTER ONE-
Author's Note: Right, so this is really only meant to be partially serious, as might be evident from this chapter by itself. I'm probably going to be changing tones an awful lot, switching from comedy to drama even within individual chapters. I'll try to make it as seamless as possible—that's actually one of the things about the cartoon that I like the most, and I'll do my best to emulate it. With my old story Silly Villainy having been (rightly) taken off the site due to it breaking the 'No Script Format' rule (I guess I missed that when I read the rules after registering), I might be using this story as a bit of a humour dumping ground. This isn't to say that I'll be as completely random as I was in Silly Villainy, nor is it to say that this will just be crap that I'm writing on the fly. I have a definite plan for the dramatic parts, but there will probably be a few purely silly chapters thrown in for good measure.
I'm sure I'm going to get questions about exactly what the nature of this 'Evelyn' is, but hopefully most of them will get answered in the next chapter or two, so be patient.
Oh, and since I haven't seen 'Birthmark' (or any of the episodes after 'Wavelength', actually—yeah, yeah, I'm working on it), I'm not going to really acknowledge the massive, plot-altering stuff that apparently happened there. I'll leave it open, though, in case when I finally do see it I want to incorporate parts of it into this story. I'll mostly just try to avoid committing myself to anything regarding the whole Trigon issue (other than the fact that this whole scheme is to release Raven from his influence—apparently the Titans know about that, which might be a plot hole. Yippee.).
Anyway, next chapter will see Evelyn dissatisfied with her (nonexistent) wardrobe. Starfire, of course, accompanies her to the mall, but what hilarity will ensue when Raven tags along to keep an eye on her evil incarnation? A psychotic, four-eyed Raven clone at the mall? Oh, yes, I think so.