Transcendence
By: vandiver49
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters associated with Teen Titans, DC Comics does. I'm just borrowing them for a moment. Please don't sue; people in the Navy don't make that much money to begin with.
---
In the middle of the Titan's gym, two teammates prepared to square off.
"No powers right?" Questioned the team's masked leader.
"Only if you lose the belt." Deadpanned the resident sorceress.
Nonplussed, he reached for the clasp of his utility belt. It fell silently to the ground. "Cloak."
"Why?"
"Because it can be used as a weapon."
"Only to you." She complied nonetheless, reaching for her broach. "Don't forget your…"
She looked up to see his cape already in hand.
"Any more requests?" He smirked.
"Boots." She replied.
He quirked a brow in response, stepping out of the steel-toes shoes.
With the tables equally leveled, both combatants fall into a defensive postures.
She steadily eyes her opponent as he advances. Watching as he slowly circles, the lenses of his mask sliding up and down her frame. Suddenly, he charges, launching a flurry of kicks and punches at her.
She recoils instinctively, for hand-to-hand combat is hardly her forte. That inexperience being the impetus for the current training session. Amidst the barrage, she maintains composure, deftly evading his every strike. An opening flashes into view as she sidesteps a forearm. She sends him flying with a kick to the back of the neck, briefly wishing he could see the look on his face.
The joy is short lived as the Boy Wonder recovers with acrobatic ease. "Is the all you got?"
A dark thought bubbles up inside her. "You're welcome to more."
She teases him because it strengthens her resolve, imperative as she closes the distance between them. She quickly delivers a small combination, but her strikes hit nothing but air.
Her adversary had evaded her by somersaulting overhead, something she realized when his hands grabbed her shoulders. Regret pooled inside her, for she knew what was coming next.
'Damn.'
His momentum helps to flip her through air, problematic given her earlier agreement. She lands with a thud on her back, wincing momentarily in pain. When she opens her eyes, she finds herself looking up into the mask of the teen vigilante who's straddled her hips.
She struggles briefly against her captor before realizing he's also pinned her arms above her. She redoubles her efforts but stills in shock as he bends down to nibble at the nape of her neck. Against her volition, she begins to indulge in the sensations; his hot breath tickling at her skin, the comforting weight of his body atop hers, the unmistakable feel of him swelling against her.
Words struggle past her lips. "What are you doing?"
The reply is whispered subtly in her ear before he captures her lips with his. "Helping myself to more…"
---
The piercing sound of shattering glass causes Raven to awake with a start, bolting upright in her bed. Breathless, she recites her mantra in an attempt to still her racing heart.
With a thought, she sparks to life several candles which bathe her room in a soft halo of light. She observes the fragments of porcelain, shards of glass and torn pages of books that are littered across her floor, a testament to the veracity of her latest dream. Minutes pass before her body begins to respond to her calming efforts, her flustered mind on the other hand, would probably require a stronger remedy.
"I need some tea."
Raven dressed and silently made her way to the kitchen, placing her kettle on the stove. As she waited for the water to boil, she turned towards the windows and gazed out at the city she and her teammates so ardently protected.
The sky was pitch this evening… or morning she revised after glancing at the stove's digital display. Yet an amber glow from streetlights and skyscrapers illuminated the night. It looked, for lack of a better term, peaceful.
As she continued to stare out into the darkness, a new set of lights caught her attention. She telekinetically removed the teapot from the eye, while her gaze followed the hi-beams of the T-Car. She watched as it raced across the bridge of Titan's Island towards the city, destination unknown.
'But not for long.' Raven thought as an ebony portal appeared beneath her feet.
---
Barring an emergency, most of the Titan's slept peaceable during the midnight hours, save one. For Cyborg sleep, along with a host of other normal bodily functions, was no longer necessary. The one requirement he did have, the charging of his power cells, proved to be an infrequent occurrence.
Cyborg would instead spend a majority of nights in the garage, striving to bring his mechanical fantasies to life. Security upgrades, the R-Cycle, T-Car and T-Ship were all byproducts of his 'insomnia.' His journey tonight was no different.
He drove through the streets of his adopted home, nodding his head in unison with the heavy base of the stereo.
"…We was young, and we was dumb but we had heart; In the dark when we survived through the bad parts…"
Cyborg continued to listen to Tupac wax rhapsodically about life in the 'hood, when his sensors alerted him to the arrival of an unexpected guest.
Warning. Space-time Distortion Detected. Signature Correlates To…
He hardly needed his internal computer to finish its analysis to know that the dark tendrils of energy to his left would coalesce into the resident demoness. The only response he made to her arrival was turning the volume down on the radio.
"Cyborg."
"Raven." He replied. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"Couldn't sleep." It was a small equivocation.
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Not really." She answered as the car came to rest at the stoplight. "Where are you off to?"
"Just trying to pick up a project I've put off for far too long."
"Care to elaborate?" Raven countered.
The light changed before he answered. "Are you volunteering to help?"
"Depends." She shrugged, but her curiosity was piqued. She waited for the conversation to continue, but Cyborg chose to respond by pushing a random button on the dash. Moments later, an open thermos emerged from the glove box, filling the cabin with its chamomile scent.
Raven reached for the obvious bribe, inhaling its refreshing aroma. She looked up at the cybernetic teen and the besmirched expression that adorned his face before taking a sip. It tasted as good as it smelled.
"Sure, why not."
---
Had Raven known they were going on a subterranean adventure through an underground parking garage, the city's subway system and now a service tunnel, she might have reconsidered.
"Are we there yet?" She chided, following behind Cyborg as one of his shoulder mounted flashlights lit the way.
"Yeah Rae, we're close." He tossed back. "It used to be a lot easier to get here but so much has changed since we've been gone."
Though unseen, Raven nodded in agreement. So much urban renewal had transpired in their absence that Robin had made familiarization with the landscape a top priority. Many of the quaint storefront shops that were the city's hallmark had been razed in the name of progress.
"And here we are." Cyborg announced, snapping Raven from her reverie. So caught up in introspection was Raven that she failed to notice the access tunnel had opened into a cavernous expanse of granite. One she immediately recognized as the final home of familiar statue.
"Terra."